Energy / Natural Gas

• Natural Gas Analysis for the Week of December 5, 2011

  Forecasts of colder temperatures helped give natural gas futures a boost last week. Although supply remains high, increased demand for product led to a decrease in supply last week. On Thursday the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration reported in its weekly report that natural gas in storage tanks fell by 1 billion cubic feet to 3.851 trillion cubic feet for the week ended November 25. This was the third consecutive drawdown which means the market could see a normal seasonal spike in prices. January Natural Gas futures were unpinned by the report since traders were looking for an increase of…

• Mexico - Rising Natural Gas Superstate?

  Americans looking south of the Rio Grande tend to forget, if they ever knew, that Mexico is, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, now America’s second largest source of imports. Of the United States’ total crude oil imports averaging 9,033 thousand barrels per day (tbpd), Mexico is the second largest source of imports, at 1,319 tbpd, exceeded only by Canada with 2,666 tbpd. But now, Mexico’s future seems even brighter. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven, Mexico’s significant untapped natural gas reserves, if properly developed, could eventually provide Mexico with energy independence. On 29 November…

• Is Mozambique the Next African Energy Superpower?

  Portugal’s African colonies were starved of investment for centuries, but now Mozambique seems to be a rising African energy producer. Both Italian and U.S. companies recently announced the discovery of massive natural gas fields off Mozambique, which could dramatically alter the Mozambiquean economy. U.S.-based energy giant Anadarko Petroleum announced earlier this week that its natural gas reserves in its Mozambican reserve bloc fields could be three times larger than earlier estimated, comprising up to 30 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. Italian oil and gas company Eni SpA two weeks ago also announced that it has discovered large amounts…

• Turkmenistan: China Export Deal Undercuts Gazprom's Leverage

  China is challenging Russia as Turkmenistan’s main buyer of natural gas. Ashgabat’s shift could put the Kremlin in a precarious position. During a state visit to China on November 23, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov said he signed an agreement with Chinese President Hu Jintao to beef up an existing gas accord by exporting 65 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year to China “in the near future.” This new projected volume would total over half of the 2010 gas consumption of China, the largest energy consumer in the world and a market that Russia, the world’s most resource-rich nation, has long…

• China to Embrace Fracking In an Effort to Ramp up Energy Production

  China is leaving no shale deposit unturned in its effort to develop indigenous energy resources. On 24 November China’s Ministry of Land and Resources geological exploration department head Peng Qiming said during a press conference that China’s combined oil and natural gas output, 280 million tons in 2010, is projected to rise to 360 million tons of oil equivalent by 2015, a 23 percent increase in four years and will rise to 450 million tons by 2030, a 62 percent increase over 2010 production, impressive rises in production by any yardstick. And Beijing authorities in their drive are embracing a controversial natural…

• Belarus Loses Out on Gazprom Nord Stream Bypass

  Technology and investment are further isolating Belarus, whose dolorous geographical position betwixt the Russian Federation and its European natural gas markets to the West once upon a time seemed to guarantee Minsk transit revenues. Now, a subsea pipeline laid under the Baltic stands ready to render the Belarus pipeline network inherited from the USSR largely irrelevant. Bummer. Even worse for the Belarusian government, quite aside from the loss of its revenue stream from transit fees, the opening of the subsea Baltic Nord Stream by the Russian natural gas state-owned behemoth Gazprom is threatening to reduce the transit of gas through…

• Natural Gas Analysis for the Week of November 28, 2011

  After nudging barely lower than the previous week’s low, January Natural Gas rallied sharply higher off this level, forming an outside move on the weekly chart and a closing price reversal bottom.  This pattern suggests that a temporary bottom may have been formed.  It does not indicate a change in trend is taking place, but usually indicates the start of a 2 to 3 week rally equal to at least 50% of the last move down. Although technically oversold for some time, last week’s reversal bottom was triggered by a combination of a smaller-than-expected build in U.S. gas inventories and…

• Green Eyed Gazprom Attacks Turkmenistan's Natural Gas Resources

  In the European Union, the Russian Federation state-owned natural gas behemoth Gazprom is regarded as a slightly sinister covert agent for Russian foreign policy, steadily addicting the EU to more and more imports of Russian natural gas through a brilliant, long-term strategy. In reality however, the picture is much more complex, and Gazprom’s image is far more tarnished in Central Asia, whose exports Gazprom needs in order to sustain its level of European exports.  At times it seems as if Gazprom is going out of its way to antagonize its Central Asian suppliers, most recently when on 11 October the British…

• Compressed Natural Gas - A Realistic Alternative to Gasoline?

  When considering a direction in clean energy, five basic requirements must be satisfied in order to ensure a low-risk and a rapid return on investment. These criteria include: • Environmentally Clean or Cleaner• Commercially Available,• Domestic Resource Base,• Positive and Immediate Impact on Domestic Economy• Affordability While there is a vast array of technologies that claim to support these goals, few technologies can actually meet these requirements, today. Claims for commercially viable alternative energy solutions are in the distant future. For the most part, they are constrained by perception, economic, regulatory, technical, reliability and durability issues. Outside of government investments…

• Belarus Tightens Energy Ties with Venezuela Following 20 Years of Gazprom Bullying

  In 1961, the USSR’s placement of ballistic missiles in Cuba ignited a missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict. Fifty years later, the last four years have seen a Latin American nation coming to the aid of a former Soviet republic. How times have changed. On 16 November private news agency Belaruskaia Informatsyinaia Kampania BELAPAN, a counterpoint to the official Belaruskaia Telegrafnae Agenstva reported from the capital Minsk that since the beginning of 2011, 11 tankers laden with crude oil from Venezuela have arrived in neighboring oil port Muuga, with each of them delivering roughly…