Gas Supply Deal News

Russian gas company Novatek has signed heads of agreement with Glencore for the long-term supply of LNG from the Arctic LNG 2 project.The agreement, signed Wednesday at Saint-Petersburg International Economic Forum, established the key commercial terms for the long-term supply of more than of 0.5 million tons of LNG per year from the Arctic LNG 2 project. The LNG will be delivered to a number of locations in East Asia, Novatek said.Leonid Mikhelson, NOVATEK's Chairman of the Management…

South Korea stepped up a push on Friday to encourage its oil and gas companies to invest in U.S. shale gas projects, amid expectations that more opportunities will arise under a Trump administration. Asia's fourth-largest economy is the world's second-largest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after Japan, importing about 30 million tonnes a year through state-run Korea Gas Corp (KOGAS). In a meeting with the heads of Korean gas companies, energy minister Joo Hyung-hwan stressed the need to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the gas sector, with the first Korean imports of U.S. shale gas due to start next year, according to the ministry statement.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will attend a summit of European and Asian leaders on a trip starting next week that will also include a visit to Germany and the signing of energy and high-speed rail deals with Russia, the government and state media said. Li's Oct. 9-16 swing through the continent is the second this year, and culminates in the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in the Italian city of Milan, the foreign ministry said in a statement. It comes as the former British colony of Hong Kong has been rocked by pro-democracy demonstrations, and also as the European Union steps up sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine. In response to the crisis, Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned to China.

Russia and the world's top energy user China may jointly develop six floating nuclear power plants (NPPs), Russia's nuclear export body said on Tuesday, a further joint energy project since the signing of a $400 billion gas supply deal. Rusatom Overseas, the export branch of state nuclear reactor monopoly Rosatom, said it signed a memorandum of understanding with China on the development of floating NPPs from 2019. "Floating NPPs can provide a reliable power supply not only to remote settlements but also to large industrial facilities such as oil platforms," Rusatom Overseas Chief Executive Dzhomart Aliev said in a statement. Hit by European and U.S. sanctions in response to the crisis in Ukraine, Russia is eager to diversify its economy away from the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday dismissed talk of a new Cold War over the crisis in Ukraine and denied trying to rebuild the Soviet Union after reclaiming Crimea. In an interview with Reuters and other international news agencies in a grandiose palace outside St Petersburg, Putin blamed the violence and political instability in Ukraine on the West and warned that sanctions would rebound on the United States and the European Union. The crisis has plunged East-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War ended in 1991. But making a new pledge to work with whoever is elected president in Ukraine on Sunday, Putin called for dialogue with the West and hoped the European Union and the United States were ready for compromise.

Russian stock indexes continued to rally on Tuesday, boosted by expectations that Russia will not intervene in Ukraine's political crisis while shrugging off negative news on the progress of gas talks between Russia and China. The latter, however, hit Russia's leading gas producer Gazprom, which fell 1.8 percent, bucking the generally positive market trend. The rouble-denominated MICEX index was up 0.8 percent by the close at 1,425.6 points, while the dollar-based RTS index had risen 0.7 percent to 1,298.6 points.