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 […]
A key factor in current gas policy is the fight for the European gas market, which is becoming increasingly politicized. It is very evident that this market requires substantial re-structuring, linked to the consequences of American sanctions policy and changes in the system of gas transport routes, even if not all the transport options announced […]
German politicians’ faint hopes that the administration of new US president Joe Biden would replace wrath with favour have been dashed by an icy Transatlantic reality. Washington continues to take an intransigent stance and threaten European participants in the project with sanctions. But Berlin is still trying to withstand the pressure and save face, by […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
