Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago sign offshore natural gas deal

Caracas: Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago have signed a deal to develop three gas fields that span their maritime border and contain reserves totaling nearly 12 trillion cubic feet.

“We’ve signed the accords for (the Loran-Manatee bloc, the largest of the three), and today we signed (the accord governing) how we’re going to operate those fields,” Venezuela’s Rafael Ramirez, who heads state-owned oil giant PDVSA, said Wednesday.

Natural gas basins could turn the Mediterranean into a “sea of prosperity”

Natural gas basins could turn the Mediterranean into a “sea of prosperity,” but there is a risk that politics may hamper economic progress, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

“The biggest problem in the eastern Mediterranean is not the existence of reserves, it is the potential that politics may supersede the economy,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, told daily Hürriyet.

“If this settles down, I believe eastern Mediterranean gas will raise the prosperity of regional countries and could become an important alternative to Russian gas,” he said.

Cyprus signs LNG deal with US-Israeli partnership

As was predicted in a previous post, is being done. A ‘United States of Europe’ is slowly but surely being formed.

Cyprus inked a deal with a US-Israeli partnership on Wednesday to build a liquefied natural gas plant on the island to exploit untapped energy riches.

A memorandum of understanding was signed between Cyprus and a partnership comprising US-based Noble Energy International and Israeli companies Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration to build a LNG facility at Vassiliko near the southern resort town of Limassol.

“The signing … represents the next milestone on the road map for the exploitation of gas reserves in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone,” said Cyprus Energy and Commerce Minister George Lakkotrypis at the official ceremony.

Japan becomes first nation to extract ‘frozen gas’ from seabed

Japan has successfully extracted natural gas from frozen methane hydrate deposits under the sea, in the first example of production of the gas offshore, officials said on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed what it said was gas flaming from a pipe at the project in the Pacific Ocean 80 kilometres (50 miles) off the coast of central Japan. The breakthrough could be a step toward eventual commercial production, though the costs of extracting gas from the seabed are much higher than for other forms of production.

UK warns Argentina regarding the Falklands

Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman Steve Field said it was “very sad that Argentina continues with their approach of confrontation, not cooperation.”

Argentina has become increasingly assertive over its claims to the islands that it calls the Malvinas, as well as the British-held South Georgia and South Sandwich islands. At stake are not only the islands, but also rich fishing grounds and potential undersea gas and oil reserves in the surrounding seas.

Cameron insists London will not enter negotiations on the sovereignty of the islands. He has said the people of the Falklands must decide their own future and claims Argentina has taken a colonialist approach to the islands’ residents.

Full article: UK warns Argentina regarding the Falklands (AP)

Post-Nabucco Era in Caspian Pipeline Business and Politics

Azerbaijan holds the main cards as gas producer country, with cash reserves to build a pipeline that Europe seems unable to finance, and coherent planning that eludes Europeans outside the European Commission. Thanks to Azerbaijan, moreover, Turkey can finally advance toward its goal of becoming a transit county for Caspian and Mideastern gas to Europe. Other transit projects, on which Turkey had based that hope, never came close to implementation via Turkey (Russian Blue Stream Two, Iranian gas, Nabucco, Arab Gas Pipeline from Syria) while gas projects in northern Iraq or offshore Cyprus look unrealistic for the foreseeable future. Thus far, it is mainly Azerbaijan that has enabled Turkey to become a transit country for oil (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline) and is now poised to make Turkey into a major transit country for gas. Ankara could jeopardize that prospect, however, in case it reverts to its former ambitions to become a “hub” country, rather than a transit country.

Caspian gas politics and the investment decisions are clearly moving into a post-Nabucco era. Among the five rival solutions (TAGP, SEEP, Nabucco, ITGI, TAP), the Azerbaijan-led TAGP holds an unmatched combination of comparative advantages (see “Trans-Anatolia Gas Project and its rivals in Comparative Perspective,” EDM, February 2).  Baku’s decision to proceed with TAGP in partnership with Turkey has cut the decade-old Gordian knot of Caspian pipeline projects.

Full article: Post-Nabucco Era in Caspian Pipeline Business and Politics (The Jamestown Foundation)