Winter is upon us, and the last couple of days have seen rumors rumbling about the possibility of another gas interruption - due to payment problems at Ukraine's end.  It is alleged that Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko alerted Vladimir Putin to the fact that President Viktor Yushchenko was impeding 'the normal partnership between the Central Bank, which had the gold reserves at disposal, and the government', thus jeopardizing payment.The good news for those in Europe looking forward to a toasty winter is that analysts are suggesting that this talk is more hot air fueled by political rivalry between Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko (who will race each other ,along with Victor Yanukovych, to the post of ...

We are less than a week away from the 1st anniversary of the Russian invasion of Georgia, and the accusations are flying.  The Georgians say that Russia is attempting to seize more land, sending troops into the nearby village of Kveshi, outside of South Ossetia.  The Russians have responded to reports of mortar fire, talking in no uncertain terms about their intentions to use force if the "provocations" continue.  Meanwhile, although Joe Biden reassured that Georgia would not be sacrificed in the name of reset diplomacy, Washington also declined to provide Tbilisi with requested "defensive" weaponry - perhaps the result of a negotiation with the Kremlin during the July summit (see what Zbig Brzezinski said about ...

Right up there with swine achieving flight and hell freezing over, the probability that European bureaucrats would succeed in building the Nabucco natural gas pipeline was, at least up until a year ago, firmly placed in the realm of impossibility.How things change.  Though nothing is yet guaranteed, on Monday officials from the five transit countries signed a formal agreement in Ankara, Turkey to proceed with the project, injecting fresh optimism into the initiative which could shatter Gazprom's supply monopoly."It's one of those steps that moves Nabucco out of the possible column and into the probable column," one energy analyst told CNN.  "My own guess is roughly by the end of the year, it will be pretty clear that Nabucco will be built."...

The European Commission's Gas Co-ordination Group has warned Europe to brace itself for a potential gas disruption, and suggests that EU countries need to prepare themselves more actively for the possibility.  The turnaround in Europe's attitude towards nuclear power, stoked by a desire to diversify away from Russian energy supplies, is the subject of an article in the FT.  The Economist suggests that the Ukraine-Russia gas war, rather than emphasizing Europe's dependence on Russian gas, has simply made it a far less attractive prospect.  Hungary's Mol may lose the license that its Russian joint venture owns to an oil and gas deposit in western Siberia.   In Russia the State Council Presidium has assembled to discuss energy efficiency.  Gazprom is looking for deals in Africa and the Caspian Sea area, where it feels it needs to be 'strategically ...

A friend of mine sharply rebuked me the other day for not writing enough on my blog.  While I can assure you all I haven't exactly been napping in the recliner, I will do my best to start picking up the slack while still juggling my legal workload (which lately consists several sharp knives, a hot potato, a bowling ball, and a nuclear warhead - let's hope I don't drop anything).  To begin with, why not revisit one of my favorite subjects:  the murky machinations of Gazprom-related business in Hungary, where the goulash state corporatism and Russia's most cheerful barracks live on despite the ravages of the economic crisis.  Although much of this story is background for the initiated, ...

The Russian government looks set to raise oil duty by 39% on July 1.  Oil firm Lukoil has announced that VEB has bought up a stake in the company, though it has not specified when this transaction took place nor how big the stake is.   TNK-BP has announced that the two candidates proposed for the position of CEO have been appointed executive vice presidents.  Following the suspension of gas supplies during January's 'gas war', Europe's imports of LNG from Russia fell by 35%.  Apparently Total is hoping to develop more projects in Russia with Gazprom.  Bloomberg reports that Spain is attempting to build up reserves of gas that could reduce European dependence on Russian imports, but their plans are hindered by a lack of pipelines.  TNK-BP will hire a large number of foreign staff from ...

'In principle we can come to the conclusion that we are on the verge of a crisis'.  Could a row about stockpiling lead to a new gas war between Russia and Ukraine?  Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will meet his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Timoshenko to elucidate the situation regarding Ukraine's payments for Russian gas.  President Medvedev apparently has 'doubts about Ukraine's ability to pay', and is recommending that the EU help the state to get a syndicated loan.  One of the founders of Gazprom has said that to maintain Ukraine's pipeline system, which was one of the first in the USSR, requires yearly investment of $1.5-2 billion.  Gazprom has paid Ukraine in advance for all of its gas transit for 2009.  TNK-BP saw first-quarter earnings drop 58% after crude prices declined.  Have relations between Russia and ...

There's a piece today in the Financial Times about some modest signs that commodity demand may be picking up to help the Ukrainian economy get itself out of the gutter - though the rough times appear to be far from over.  What caught my eye on this article were two interesting facts - that the second gas war between Gazprom and Ukraine caused industrial production to fall by 16% month on month as Kiev diverted its remaining supply to heating people's houses (talk about the energy weapon!).  The other detail was the fact that the IMF was delaying in its delivery of the second tranche of its $16.4 billion loan because of the unending political squabbling between the camps of President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.  Needless to say, they've really got to get their act together, but it ...