This August President Trump signed a new package of sanctions against Russia, which had been approved by both houses of the US Congress. There had been no doubt that Trump would sign the document making the sanctions mandatory, otherwise accusations of his connections with Russia would escalate. One of the most important components of the […]
Oil and Gas
Last year, not too long ago, some independent experts called the construction of the Baltic Pipe trunk gas pipeline (TGP) from Norway to Poland via Denmark a very ambitious project for the North Europe region. Precisely a year ago potential participants in the project started another round of the Baltic Pipeline discussions, the third in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The “ready” button has been pushed on the German island of Rugen. The pipes for laying down the North Stream 2 gas pipeline have been unloaded on the coast, the contract has been signed with Wasco Coatings Europe BV for their ballast coating, storage and logistics, and the first phase of construction is even underway.