Politics & Regulation

Vladimir Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine continues to roil global energy markets with particularly profound implications for the European gas sector.

Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), has warned Europe to prepare immediately for Russia to turn off all gas exports to the region this coming winter. He called on the Europeans to reduce demand and keep nuclear power plants open.

Turkey has laid the first pipes for the undersea pipeline network to transport onshore natural gas from the Black Sea to help slash the country’s dependence on energy imports. The pipelaying exercise which took place, which took place on Monday, June 13, via a video link, was witnessed by The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

After months of deliberation and delays Lebanon will sign a final agreement to import yearly 650 million cubic meters of natural gas from Egypt to its energy poor country on 21 June 2022.  

Mention of the project was first made in these pages on 9 October 2021.

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air has compiled a detailed dataset of pipeline and seaborne trade in Russian fossil fuels during the first 100 days of Putin's War of Aggression in Ukraine. It has found that exports of fossil based fuels soared to 93 billion euros in toto.  

Record-breaking gas prices and market volatility are the new norm.  Russian gas is increasingly being shunned and the EU has declared that it envisions a future without the Kremlin's primary bread-winner:  natural gas.

Indigenous Australians are filing a lawsuit to stop Santos, Ltd., an Australian oil and gas exploration and production company, from developing the $3.6 billion Barossa gas project off the coast of northern Australia.  The traditional landowners said they were not consulted about the drilling activities.

Nigerian state oil firm Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has received a green light from the Nigerian government to go forward with the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the construction of a 5660-km gas pipeline via Morocco to Europe.

The first five months of this year witnessed Gazprom delivering substantially less gas to foreign destinations than in the previous year.  27.6 percent or 23.2 billion cubic meters of gas, to be precise.

At the same time, Gazprom transported more gas than previously to China through the Power of Siberia pipeline.  The concern did not mention any numbers.

"This is totally not acceptable," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said. “This is a kind of blackmailing from Putin. We continue to support Ukraine, and we distance ourselves from the crimes that Putin and Russia commit.”

Britain's gas grid will, from 2023, start accepting a blend of up to 20% hydrogen as part of the UK's effort to decarbonize its infrastructure.

Ukraine has begun to leverage its considerable moral capital by taking aim at the remaining sources of revenue for Russian President Vladimir Putin's military transgressions against its erstwhile ally.  The current target of Ukrainian wrath is none other than Nord Stream 1, the remaining jewel of Russian pipeline infrastructure.

Poland has terminated its agreement with Russia on the Yamal gas pipeline to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, the Polish Climate Minister Anna Moskwa posted on Twitter on Monday, May 23, 2022.

The Iranian Minister for Petroleum, Javad Owji, has agreed to revive a long-stalled undersea gas pipeline project to Oman, the official Iranian news agency IRNA report reported on Saturday, May 21, 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine continues to roil gas pipeline operations throughout Europe.  Late last week, Finland's state-owned energy group Gasum was informed by  Russia's Gazprom Export that natural gas supplies from Russia to Finland would be cut on Saturday at 04.00 GMT.