Energy Importer News

The United States is projected to become a net energy exporter over the next decade due to rising natural gas exports and falling petroleum product imports, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Thursday. While the United States has been a net energy importer since 1953, declining energy imports and growing exports that started over the past year will allow that trend to switch by 2026, the EIA said. In late 2015, the U.S. government lifted a decades-old ban on U.S. crude exports, while natural gas exports from the Lower 48 began in 2016. "The U.S.

Egypt has issued a five-year tender to lease a second liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal, the head of the state gas board told Reuters on Monday, seeking to tackle an energy crisis. Egypt was once an energy exporter but declining oil and gas production and increasing consumption has forced the government to divert energy supplies to the domestic market, turning the country into a net energy importer. "We launched yesterday a tender to lease a second LNG import terminal for a period of five years. We have sent it to eight international companies and we expect to get a reply within a week," Khaled Abdel Badie said in a telephone interview. The floating regasification and import terminal, which converts super-cooled LNG into gas, would be Egypt's second.

More than $30 billion will be invested initially in Mozambique's natural gas sector to build capacity to produce 20 million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG), with the first exports due to start in 2018, the national oil company said. The investments will be made to develop the northern ports of Pemba and Palma, where a giant logistics base and LNG production plants are planned that will use gas produced from offshore fields in the Rovuma Basin being developed by U.S. oil major Anadarko Petroleum Corp and Italy's Eni. Mozambique, which still bears the scars of a 1975-1992 civil war, is hoping revenues from its large gas deposits and its fledgling coal mining industry will help it emerge from years of poverty and dependence on foreign donors.

"China is our reliable friend," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday in an interview ahead of a conference in Shanghai. Most evaluations of the bilateral relationship begin by reciting the historical border disputes, rift between Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev, opening to China by Richard Nixon, and the perennial problem of reaching an agreement on gas pricing. But these are all essentially backward looking and ignore the growing community of interests between the two countries. The case for a closer bilateral relationship on energy, trade, security and diplomatic issues is compelling. In the energy sphere, the two countries are an almost perfect match: the world's largest net energy exporter and its second-largest net energy importer (2011) with a long land border.

According to Bloomberg, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, may purchase tankers from Brazilian shipyards to export ethanol as the company moves to quadruple foreign sales of the biofuel. The ships would expand a plan to build 42 vessels for Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras's fleet of tankers as increased oil, gas and fuels production transforms Brazil from an energy importer into an energy exporter, said Sergio Machado, head of Transpetro, the company's transportation unit. Machado expects the first such ethanol tanker, which would likely be a 75,000 metric-ton, Panamax-class fuel tanker treated to resist the biofuel's corrosive effect on steel, to be built by 2011.

The Finland-based AC drives manufacturer Vacon strengthens its global presence by opening a subsidiary in Chennai on the southeast coast of India. The grand office opening will be celebrated on January 24, 2007 with invitees representing the company, customers and cooperation partners. With a subsidiary in one of India's largest commercial and industrial centers, Vacon will further improve its service in the growing markets of the Asia-Pacific region. Vacon operates on its own or through partners in 100 countries. Taking more foothold in India follows closely Vacon's strategy of increasing its global presence. Despite its large annual energy production, India is a net energy importer. Overall, India's need for power is growing at a prodigious rate.