Alice

Popular

Southern gas corridor may end up as a bunker

One of the most ambitious European energy projects, the $45 billion Southern Gas Corridor may be about to breathe its last, in spite of the ongoing effort to revive it. It has been beset by a disease that has been developing as quickly as a particularly pernicious tumor. While in spring, there was still hope […]

How will the Germans keep warm when plutonium and coal have gone?

The point of no return has been reached: on January 25, a government-appointed commission reached an agreement to shut down all of Germany’s coal-fired power plants by 2038 at the latest. Since 2011, Germany has also been heading towards the denuclearization of its energy sector, which should be completed in 2022. This strong push towards greener energy sets an example for other countries, […]

Romanian Gas Export: A Disaster on Hold

After almost a year of suspense, the future of Romanian gas exports remains highly uncertain. Restrictive legislation adopted by the previous government in 2018 remains in force, while new steps to ease gas exports are proving incongruent with it. The Neptun Deep Standstill Perhaps most revealing is the lack of development in the Neptun Deep […]

Recent Posts

Russia gets serious with China

The world’s biggest gas consumer and supplier, Сhina and Russia respectively, are establishing stronger energy ties. The 3,000km-long Power of Siberia pipeline is just one of their latest joint projects. With anti-Russian sanctions adopted by the US Senate on 27 July and signed by Donald Trump on 2 August, it is likely that Russia will […]

Alternative Energy in Europe: Delusive Hope

Energy consumption is linked direct to economic activity. According to Eurostat the most significant drop in European energy consumption – 5.8% – occurred in 2009 and is attributed by the agency “to a lower level of economic activity as a result of the global financial and economic crisis”, although in general the consumption of energy continues to grow […]

Winter night panoramic oil pumpjack.

Russian oil industry: beyond sanctions

In the early stages of global economic turmoil, the Russian oil and gas industry misjudged the true scale of coming trouble on hydrocarbon markets. The turmoil appears to have been regarded as a classic over-production crisis and generally seen as a healthy shakeup for the system, which would help deflate the dangerously expanding bubble of […]

Turkish stream to benefit consumers

Talk in Europe about the steady growth of alternative energy and the potentially vanishing demand for Russian natural gas would appear to derive more from political than from economic considerations. The desire to make Vladimir Putin suffer for his aggressive stance on Ukraine and Syria by stopping energy imports from Siberia – effectively an indirect […]

Nuclear power plant

Westinghouse bankruptcy: A blow below the American belt

 There are no miracles: survival is for the fittest. Nowhere is this truer than in the global energy market. Toshiba has finally published its third quarter results for 2016, revealing record losses in the history of the Japanese giant of 552.4 billion yen ($4.97 billion dollars at the current exchange rate), or 15 percent up […]

Photo of technical equipment at a gas-compressor station near Kyiv, part of the main pipeline between Russia and Europe

Gastoeurope: Ukraine on the edge

Since Ukraine stopped buying Russian natural gas in November 2015, it has been importing the fuel under sales contracts with suppliers in Germany, Austria, and Luxemburg. With Moscow and Kiev entrenched in a bitter drawn-out conflict, relations between Ukraine’s Naftogaz and Russia’s Gazprom have degenerated into a state of permanent litigation. The global energy community […]

Welding works on gas pipeline

No South Stream Problems for Nord Stream 2

According to its letter of March 28 to the governments of Denmark and Sweden, the European Commission will not block the construction of Nord Stream 2 (NS2). The Commission’s spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen has stated that Nord Stream 2 (NS2) is not subject to the rules of the EU Third Energy Package. Nevertheless, the European Commission […]

Blue and green: energy harmony

When oil prices collapsed in 2014, many experts predicted bleak scenarios for renewable energy: cheap oil would make pushing on with expensive and less efficient wind farms and solar cells economically questionable. Other fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal, which were also becoming cheaper, would compete more strongly against renewables, it was thought. […]

Crude Price Status Quo Expected to Linger till 2018

The subject of conventional hydrocarbons, with a focus on crude oil prices, has been generating wild theories both in the expert community and the media. Although some of the speculation has been orchestrated, the main reason for this chaotic forecasting is that it is no longer possible to rely on the traditional system of trend […]

Southern gas corridor may end up as a bunker

One of the most ambitious European energy projects, the $45 billion Southern Gas Corridor may be about to breathe its last, in spite of the ongoing effort to revive it. It has been beset by a disease that has been developing as quickly as a particularly pernicious tumor. While in spring, there was still hope […]

Energy of the future: nuclear versus wind

There was a time when everybody laughed at Nicola Tesla with his electrical motor because nobody could believe in energy without oil. But even back then, the great inventor knew that hydrocarbons would not be around forever. In 50 years’ time, the world may have used up its last drops of oil. This is a […]