European lawmakers this week said they had indications that Kiev was ready to take a closer look at updating its gas transit system. A substantial portion of the Russian natural gas bound for Europe runs through the Soviet-era pipeline system in Ukraine. Contractual, and perhaps political, problems between Kiev and Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom have sparked something of a pipeline war in Europe, however. With two major pipeline proposals sitting on the desk of those with a controlling interest in one of the largest natural gas fields in…

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Britain and Argentina have been feuding over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands for 180 years, and 1982 fought a brief but vicious war over them.Much has changed in the past three decades – Argentina has increasingly lined up fellow Latin American nations to support their claim to Las Malvinas, and in the past two years, intrepid British oil exploration companies have surveyed Falkland waters and found promising signs of hydrocarbon deposits.Now, an outside player has decided to take the plunge on what might be there under the stormy…

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Azerbaijan has been expanding its international energy aspirations further afield over the past several years, gaining assets in Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Georgia, and offering to build installations in Libya, but it wasn’t until it entered the Israeli market that anyone took much interest in these developments, with Iran particularly on edge. Last fall, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company SOCAR bought a 5 percent stake in Israel’s main oil field Med Ashdod, working alongside Israel’s…

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With natural gas prices at such low levels many people are attracted to focussing on natural gas to supply the majority of US energy, believing that the domestically produced product will protect them from global oil price fluctuations, and ensure energy security in the future. However focussing on one source of energy unbalances the US energy sector and puts the economy at risk in the long term.Energy policies must take a long term view and promote fuel diversity rather than choose a favourite energy technology to support. An energy strategy that…

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One of the most feared words in every oilman’s lexicon is “nationalization.” On 16 April Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner did exactly that with the energy firm Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF), introducing legislation for the partial renationalization of the firm, under which the state would purchase a 51 percent share, with the national government controlling 51 percent of this package and ten provincial governments receiving the remaining 49 percent. Ten days later the Argentinean Senate approved…

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