Mark Iden

Open Grid Europe (OGE), GRTgaz Deutschland and Solar Turbines have partnered to successfully test fuel gas containing up to 25 percent hydrogen on a low emissions Titan 130 SoLoNox gas turbine driving a gas compressor. These gas turbines are usually powered by natural gas taken from the pipeline system.

3000 pipes, originally intended to be used to transport Russian gas as part of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline system, have been lying in limbo for over a year in the German port of Mukran in Ruegen on the Baltic Sea.

Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the 878-km long pipeline transporting natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe, has joined the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP), the flagship oil and gas reporting and mitigation program of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

In wake of the port of Ceyhan sustaining earthquake damage last week, Kazakhstan's state energy company Kazmunaigaz has postponed the start of oil exports from the giant Tengiz oilfield via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline after BP Azerbaijan declared force majeure on loadings from Ceyhan.

Iran has signed a $900 million deal with Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company (IOEC) to develop the first phase of its Kish offshore gas field in the pristine waters of the Persian Gulf.  This was announced by Iranian state television over the weekend.

The gas field holds an estimated 1.5 trillion cubic meters of gas.

In the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine and wider political tensions with the West, pipeline natural gas exports to Europe by energy giant Gazprom have declined by nearly 30 percent this past January from December, hitting a new monthly all-time low.

While predicting the end of a war is a dubious exercise, there are nonetheless rumblings in the United States and in Europe about a winding down of Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine and that closure may occur this year.

Stating boldly that "Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine is incompatible with our values and has destroyed cooperation between Russia and Europe," CEO Mario Mehren of Wintershall Dea announced on Tuesday of this week the complete withdrawal of the company's business in Russia, causing a $8 billion loss at parent company BASF in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

Last weld completed. All pipes are in the ground.  And the first German floating terminal for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) has officially been commissioned for service in the coastal city of Wilhelmshaven along the North Sea shore.

Against a backdrop of dynamic and far-reaching changes presently taking place in a global energy market (which itself is in the throes of transition to a hydrogen infrastructure as well as the decarbonization of national economies), gas transmission systems operators (TSOs) in six Baltic states are collaborating to make the European Hydrogen Backbone (EHB) a reality.