October 19th, 2006:

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
October 18, 2006 4:26 p.m.

Crude-oil futures fell below $58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after U.S. crude stockpiles rose and speculation increased that OPEC wouldn’t reach consensus on a production cut. Here is Wednesday’s roundup of oil and energy news:

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OPEC’S DILEMMA: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries faces a double challenge when it meets Thursday night in Qatar in its latest effort to bolster sagging oil prices. Members must hammer out a tricky agreement about how to share the pain of any cut in crude-oil output that they announce at the meeting. At the same time, they must smooth over internal divisions that could threaten the cartel’s longer-term credibility as a price enforcer over the world’s oil markets. read more

The Russian environmental agency added the oil unit of Gazprom to the list of companies that it monitors. The agency, and its parent, the Ministry of Natural Resources, said that no large oil group will be spared inspections. Analysts said that the move may be an attempt to disguise targeting of the Sakhalin 2 oil and gas project, led by Royal Dutch Shell. The ministry will begin its inspection of Gazprom on November 21.

(“I spotted a seal breathing-hole and saw stirrings. I waited motionlessly”
PHOTOGRAPHER BAARD NAESS)

October 19, 2006

An Arctic seal coming up for air: runner-up in the animal portraits category of the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. An exhibition of the winning entries opens on Saturday at the Natural History Museum in London

By Russell Hotten, Industry Editor (Filed: 19/10/2006)

The offices of the Russian government agency that cracked down on Royal Dutch Shell’s Sakhalin-2 development have been raided by criminal investigators. Members of the Interior Ministry’s organised crime department went unannounced to RosPrirodNadzor (RPN), the environment watchdog, yesterday and removed documents.

Russian officials said the raid was unrelated to the agency’s investigations into foreign firms operating at Sakhalin. But the news sparked speculation that it was part of the power-politics being played by Moscow over the Sakhalin venture. read more

October 19, 2006] 

The Workers: The alarm clocks sound early and the Corrib gas terminal workers rise in the dark, knowing there will be no “good morning” in Bellanaboy, north Mayo. As they congregate near the chapel in Bangor, several reinforced Garda vehicles and a bus full of gardaI are waiting for them on a bend several miles north of Carrowmore lake.

Travelling in a convoy of jeeps, some of them shield their faces, others wear fixed grey expressions of determination as they pass the group of more than 100 men and women picketing the terminal site in protest. read more

Gazprom has warned that Russian courts may favour national companies, and that foreign investors might face corruption and “political resistance” to the execution of judgments awarded to them by international arbitration, the Russian energy giant said in an investment memorandum. This is a formality, but a very prejudicial one to national justice, say experts.

In its memo on the issue of Eurobonds, worth $15 billion, Gazprom spoke a well-known truism, confirms MDM-Bank analyst Mikhail Galkin. read more

The Presnensky District Court in Moscow has refused to consider a lawsuit filed by the Federal Service for the Oversight of Natural Resources against the Natural Resources Ministry to enforce the annulment of a 2003 environmental review for the Sakhalin II project.

The Natural Resources Ministry, which has promised to decide the project’s future October 25, is therefore firmly in control.

Dmitry Kolosov, head of the service’s legal department, said the court has turned down the lawsuit because it believes the agency had no right to file it. read more

RUSSIA: October 19, 2006

MOSCOW – Russia’s environmental agency has added gas monopoly Gazprom’s oil unit to the list of companies to be checked for ecological and technical compliance, the watchdog said on Wednesday.

The agency and its parent, the ministry of natural resources, have said no big oil firm in Russia will be spared from inspections, a move analysts said may be designed to disguise specific targeting of the Royal Dutch Shell-led Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project.
“Gazprom Neft is currently not fulfilling licensing agreements in the following areas: exploration drilling, exploration seismology, oil and gas production,” the agency, RosPrirodNadzor, said in a statement. read more

By IGOR TOMBERG
UPI Outside View Commentator

MOSCOW, Oct. 18 (UPI) — Speaking on Russia Today TV channel Oct. 9, the head of the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom Alexei Miller said his company would develop the Shtokman gas deposit without foreign partners, and would remain its sole user and owner.

The company’s priority will be to supply gas via the Nord Stream (the new title for the North European Gas Pipeline) to Europe rather than deliver liquefied natural gas to the United States. In the past, Gazprom planned to develop the deposit on the terms of the Production Sharing Agreement, and give 49 percent of its shares to foreign companies. The short list, announced in September 2005, included the Norwegian Statoil and Hydro, U.S. ConocoPhillips and Chevron, and the French Total. read more