According to ITAR-TASS, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has commented that Russia does not object to selling energy resources using domestic currencies.  How done is the Russia-China gas deal? wonders the the FT.  Gazprom will buy 500 million cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan next year.  The Times has a piece on the 'take-and-pay' system which is now causing friction between suppliers and buyers.  Norway's Aladdin has signed a five-year contract to provide gas from a field in the Komi republic to a Gapzrom subsidiary.  ConocoPhillips is apparently 'non-committal' on a possible sale of its 20% stake in Lukoil.  Serbia expects as much as $13.4 billion to be invested in modernizing its energy sector by 2015, and is working with Gazprom.  Iraq has given a consortium led by Eni the right to develop its ...

Two interesting pieces of news coincide today from the sordid world of Russian energy politics.  First, permissions to build the 403-meter "Gazscraper" tower in St. Petersburg were muscled through local government by Valentina Matvienko over the protests of preservationists, while hours later news came down that Italian firms Eni and Enel had finalized the sale of $1.6 billion worth of former Yukos assets back to Gazprom, which it had originally acquired in a controversial rigged auction. Back when the auctions of Yukos assets were taking place (which was illegal in the first place under Russian bankruptcy law, which calls for non-core assets to be sold first), it was alleged that the ...

Yesterday I saw this note on FT Lex which essentially argued for the Italian energy company Eni to be split up into two separate companies in order to maximize value.  Today they are running another piece about the activist investor group Knight Vinke, who are eager to see the same thing happen - they even cite the energy security issue as one reason for Eni to be broken in half.  In the past, the lurching energy dinosaurs of Europe have fought off any attempts at unbundling from the European Commission by pointing to the conveniently threatening spectre of Gazprom, arguing that they've got to stay big in order to negotiate with such a monster.  The rub is that a split ...

Axial Vector Energy Corp. is a global solutions provider that owns, develops, invests in and licenses revolutionary technologies in areas such as energy. In the energy area, the company has entered into a joint venture with Petrosonics LLC called PETRO-AVEC. The joint venture is owned 60% by Petrosonics and 40% by Axial Vector Energy.

The company’s PETRO-AVEC joint venture was setup to develop, finance and market Petrosonics’ sulfur removal technology which can be used in refineries around the world. The process removes sulfur from all types of crude oil fractions through sonic energy, oxidation and the removal of all of the oxidized sulfur through hydrotreatment.

The PETRO-AVEC joint venture was recently awarded a patent for its sulfur removal technology in two additional countries. The two countries are both oil producing countries – Mexico and Egypt. In both cases, the patent awarded was for

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Sometimes Russia's state-run energy business seems to operate under the George Costanza strategy of "do the opposite" - if it makes good sense according to market logic, do something else.  Before the economic crisis, Gazprom figured among the top six largest energy companies in the world, but has since fallen to 11th by market capitalization.  Analysts in the banking sector are worried about reinvestment in production, while other experts think that the dwindling profits and rising debt are likely to sharpen energy politics between Russia and Europe as  the company could seek to renegotiate contracts.  Despite all these signs that spending should be tightened, Gazprom's ongoing expansion acquisitions are increasing the company's bloat, with the latest target being Sibir Energy.It is a ...

Sberbank has lent Gazprom $3 billion to buy back a stake in its oil division from Italian company Eni.  Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko says that a deal will soon be reached between Moscow and Sofia over the much-disputed South Stream pipeline, in anticipation of Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev's visit to Moscow.   An energy conference has recommended that European governments inject the Nabucco pipeline with cash and contracts if Europe is to reduce dependence on Russian gas.  Turkmen President, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, has called for resistance to 'the preordained geography of pipeline routes'.  A senior U.S. diplomat has said that the pipeline blast in Turkmenistan highlighted the need for diversification of export routes.  The US Envoy for Eurasian Energy has said that Iran could profit more from its energy reserves if it were to improve diplomatic ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona"The Kazakh government is ready to step in,'' Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Karim Masimov said this morning in a telephone interview with Bloomberg "The Kazakh banking system with the support of the government and central bank will fulfill all obligations to international investors.....We have our own specific plan to survive without any external support....I don't think we need support from the International Monetary Fund or overseas.'' Well that is good news, so at least we know that one of the CIS and CEE economies won't be looking to the IMF for bail-out support in this crisis which is presently growing by the day. So Kazakstan, that country which is reputedly host to reserves of approximately 95% of the elements in the periodic table, with a population of around 15 million housed on a surface area greater than the whole of Western Europe, is going to be able to look after itself. But hang on a minute, just where is Kazakhstan, and just what have they been getting up to over there, and why the hell should I take Karim Masimov's word for it, when just about all the other Iceland Look-alike show contestants seem to be saying the same? After all, didn't those extermely bright and able young people over at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto say in a report only last week that, along with Latvia, the country's $100 billion oil-led economy is among the most vulnerable to the present global credit crisis and the skid-row economic trajectories that go with it simply because of its excessive reliance on short-term foreign borrowing. And isn't it the case that the cost of protecting Kazakhstan government debt against default has more than doubled this month - to over 1,000 basis points (or 10%), the level for borrowers that investors term ``distressed,'' according to CMA Datavision credit-default swap prices. Only Ukraine, which as we know is already seeking IMF support, is classified as being a bigger risk among European emerging-market governments. Surely all those highly dedicated, bright, and extremely able young people who are doing all that trading know what they are about, don't they?