Stephen Fidler at the Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece running today about the annual winter pipeline politics (though the sensible agreement yesterday in Yalta may diminish a lot of fears).  There are some interesting facts and numbers in the piece - for example the estimate that Gazprom's contract prices are sitting around $10 per million BTU, while LNG can be had on the spot market for $4 per million BTU.  In a refreshing change of pace, we see Fidler point more of the blame at the national champions E.ON and ENI if by chance Eastern European households go cold this winter.  From a business perspective, a supply cut-off would really hurt Gazprom and benefit the state-corporate avarice of Western Europe (who have the ability to import from alternative sources).Either way, things are looking bad for everybody ...

China Marine Food Group Ltd., a China based processor and distributor of seafood products, today announced revenue and net income guidance figures for the year 2010, showing anticipated increases in revenue and net income.

The company is now forecasting 2010 revenues of greater than $80.0 million, based on current sales from China Marine’s existing distribution network of 19 master distributors in seven provinces throughout China. The forecast anticipates strong performances from the sales territories of Jiangsu and Shanghai, plus continued growth in Guangdong and the Sichuan area, including the cities of Chengdu and Chongqing. China Marine also plans to launch a number of new products, as well as add new sales territories to their network, and secure product placements at additional retail food chains with the company’s Mingxiang® brand seafood snack foods.

In addition, higher sales, together with stable margins and improved efficiencies due to production line capacity increases, are expected to

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Russia's EU ambassador says his country aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 25% through to 2020. Ukraine's President, Viktor Yushchenko, has written an open letter to Dmitry Medvedev, asking him to change the terms of agreement on gas supplies.  The move 'appeared designed to embarrass his political rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko', says Reuters, alhough things will likely be tense enough ahead of Tymoshenko's meeting with Vladimir Putin today, as she has already announced that the transit price of Russian natural gas through Ukrainian territory will be doubled as of January next year.  Tymoshenko says the meeting's agenda does not include gas issues.  RusAl is pulling out of the construction side of the Boguchanskaya hydroelectric plant, its joint project with RusHydro, although says it will not withdraw funding. The venture has already been the focus of disputes ...

In spite of recent measures taken to avoid more EU gas disruptions this winter, and a new Russia-EU partnership set to be discussed in detail at this week's Stockholm summit, Slovakia's Prime Minister can't see Kiev being able to pay its gas bills.  A $300 million EBRD loan to Naftogaz, intended to help it manage the import and storage of gas from Russia, has just been delayed after the Ukrainian company failed to implement key reforms.  Gazprom chief, Alexander Medvedev, says the company's 2009 profits are forecasted at around $42.5 billion - and that's in spite of end-of-year export cuts of 10%.  He has also challenged reports that supply will outstrip demand until 2015, forecasting the end of the surplus for either 2011 or 2012, depending on your source.  Speaking as chair of a petrochemicals conference ...

You've got to respect Global Witness ... for a watchdog NGO, they bring a lot of creativity and innovation to their cause (see this past campaign for another example).  GW has also done a tremendous job in the past unearthing all the corruption surrounding RosUkrEnergo, a subject which has come up again and again (let's just say the corruption scandal reaches pretty high).  Today they published another hot report to remind the European Commission how they've got it all wrong in selling out human rights and democracy to the brutal dictatorship in Turkmenistan in exchange for eventual access to natural gas ... including a collaboration with the political cartoonist David Rees.Click here ...

FDA Approves NeurogesX's Qutenza After the market closed on November 16, 2009, NeurogesX (NGSX) announced that the U.S. FDA had approved Qutenza (capsaicin patch) for the management of neuropathic pain due to postherpetic neuralgia (PHN).  We expect management to spend the next several months preparing for the launch by facilitating reimbursement procedure, establishing distribution channels, hiring and training the specialty sales force, and conducting the manufacturing for commercial supply. Key to our bullish sales forecast for the drug will be establishing a permanent reimbursement code for both the product and application, as Qutenza requires administration by a physician or healthcare professional. Qutenza is a cutaneous (skin) patch designed to treat peripheral neuropathic pain conditions. The Qutenza patch provides a pure high concentration (8%) of a synthetic capsaicin, known as trans­-capsaicin, directly to the site of pain via a rapid-delivery cutaneous delivery system designed to provide ...

Russia's Energy Minister and the EU Energy Commissioner have signed a memorandum establishing an early warning mechanism to anticipate potential gas cuts and allow time to find solutions to problems before deliveries are physically affected.  But the memorandum may be useless, suggests one analyst, as the decision to cut supplies lies with Gazprom, which has already criticized the European Union for not doing enough to head off another gas crisis this winter.  Russia may participate in the reconstruction of Ukraine's pipeline network, but Yulia Tymoshenko insists that the system will not be privatized.  Iran is not pleased with 'dishonest' Russia, after the latter said that 'technical reasons' were behind its announcement that the Bushehr nuclear plant would not be ready by the end of the year as planned.  The IAEA is continuing to press ...

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Michael Lerner and Ethan Hill (GOOD.is): The new Nostradamus, October 1, 2009. Can a fringe branch of mathematics forecast the future? A special adviser to the CIA, Fortune 500 companies, and the US Department of Defense certainly thinks so.

• Paul Lim (The New York Times): 10 years later, a much less expensive Dow 10,000, November 14, 2009. Investors may take some comfort now that the Dow Jones industrial average is back above 10,000 after slipping to around 9,700 at the end of October. But the return to 10,000 also serves as a bitter reminder that stocks have gone virtually nowhere, on balance, for more than a decade. Look a bit

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Intel Corp (INTC) has agreed to pay Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) $1.25 billion to settle long-standing disputes between the two chipmakers. This immediately takes care of the AMD lawsuit that was slated to come up for trial in roughly five months time.  Intel agreed to a set of business practices, including non-payment of financial incentives to companies that favored Intel chips over AMD and training of sales staff accordingly. We believe there are grey areas here, since Intel has in any case repeatedly denied such foul play.  The more significant outcome is the company’s release of AMD from the provisions of the x86 deal entered into in 1995. At that time, AMD had acquired the right to manufacture chips based on the x86 architecture. However, the Globalfoundries spinoff raised the issue of a fresh license, which Intel said was necessary and AMD said was not. ...

AstraZeneca’s (AZN) third quarter earnings came in at $1.68 per American Depositary Shares (ADS), well above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.36 and $1.32 reported in the year-ago period. Revenues increased 10% at constant exchange rates (CER) to $8.2 billion compared to the same period last year. The primary reasons for the increase in revenues were strong US sales of Toprol-XL benefiting from generic withdrawal, US sales of its H1N1 vaccine and robust growth in emerging markets. AstraZeneca recorded strong sales across all geographies. Sales in North America, Emerging Markets and Established Markets increased (at CER) by 13%, 15% and 4%, respectively. The company expects double-digit revenue growth in Emerging Markets for the full year. Among the product categories, apart from gastrointestinal and oncology, which recorded sales decline of 1% and 10% respectively, all other segments increased their revenues. AstraZeneca recorded more than 26% of ...