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 ...

Monsanto Company (MON) has signed a long-term supply contract with Air Products (APD), the leading global hydrogen provider. According to the contract, Air Products will build a new world-scale hydrogen production plant to be located at Monsanto's Luling, Louisiana, Roundup facility. The new hydrogen plant is scheduled to be on-stream in Jan 2012.  Air Products will build a steam methane reformer (SMR) producing over 100 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of hydrogen. The SMR will be connected to Air Products' East Gulf Coast pipeline network, which supplies refineries with hydrogen needed to make cleaner burning transportation fuels, in addition to meeting the hydrogen needs of the local petrochemical industry. In addition, the facility will produce additional hydrogen via a clean-up of a hydrogen-rich off-gas feed coming from Monsanto. Monsanto will use steam from Air Products' SMR process to benefit its Roundup production plant. ...

Yesterday, Acergy (ACGY) said it won a contract worth about $110 million from Total (TOT) E&P Angola and BP Angola (Block 18) B.V. The deal involves the installation of over 70 kilometers of 24-inch pipeline from Block 2, together with related jumpers, PLET and tie-ins to the near-shore/onshore pipeline in water depths up to 40 meters.

While the engineering work will begin immediately, offshore installation is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2010. The company will use Acergy Hawk and Acergy Legend for construction support and rigid pipelay asset Acergy Polaris for this contract.

The contract reflects Acergy’s strong presence in Angola. In 2008, the company won a $250 million deal from Angola LNG Ltd. for the development of a pipeline network. Eralier in 2007, it had successfully completed the Greater Plutonio project in deepwater offshore Angola.

We believe that Acergy remains well positioned to

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Every once in a while, it looks as though the Russian anti-trust authorities appear as though they are a normal, independent institution tasked with protecting the integrity of markets from monopolistic practices of business.  On the other hand, this a country whose state-owned energy giant Gazprom has a monopoly over the country's gas transit network written into law.  Today's news was one of those funny moments:Russian anti-trust authorities on Tuesday ordered the state-controlled gas giant Gazprom to allow independent gas producers access to the pipeline network it monopolises or face legal action.In a rare move by a Russian state body against the powerful energy company, the anti-trust agency threatened to "open inquiries into the violation of anti-monopoly legislation if it receives information to that effect from independent companies."I wonder who could ...

While most assets tied to US economic recovery have soared in recent weeks on increased optimism fuelled by better incoming data, US natural gas remains firmly in the doldrums at sub $4, down from nearly $14 last Summer. Yet it has the potential to soar over the next 12-18 mths on even a muted rebound in industrial activity given the collapse in drilling rig numbers to under 800, a level not seen since 2003, as shown in the chart below. Oil supplies 40% of total US energy consumption, with coal and gas supplying 25% each (although coal supplies 50% of electricity generation). By 2020, more than 33% of the country’s electricity could be generated through burning natural gas. The reasons are simple: power plants that burn natural gas cost less and are far easier to build than nuclear power plants, are greener that coal and oil and don’t have the …

Today the Wall Street Journal is running an interesting piece about a summit to be held on Friday including all the potential participants of the Nabucco pipeline project, breathing fresh live into the embattled EU energy transit project.  Though still quite far from becoming a reality, it seems as though Gazprom's total dominance over Central Asia ain't what it used to be.

According to Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in England, a sudden collapse in demand and prices for natural gas as a result of the downturn is changing at least part of that equation.

On April 9, an explosion on the pipeline connecting Turkmenistan to Russia prompted an angry response from Turkmen leaders, who also floated the idea of the need to diversify export routes. The explosion, which the Turkmen government blamed on Russian gas monopoly

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The Gas Prices Rollercoaster: Why Energy & Infrastructure Are Inextricably Combined

by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist, Investment U Friday, January 16, 2008: Issue #917

President-elect Obama takes office in less than a week’s time. While many will be watching closely to see how he handles the ongoing financial crisis, I’ll be equally interested to see how he handles a far more ominous one: our ongoing energy and infrastructure crisis.

Regular readers know I believe energy and infrastructure are inextricably combined. We need cheap energy to fuel sustained economic growth. And we need infrastructure in place to move and dispense the energy from its source to its destination. Today I’m going to give you a perfect example of how the two are intertwined, and how one can play off the other to create a positive benefit for all.

In the face of gas prices that are less than half of what they were only a

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