Ukraine, Libya agree to resume energy projects
Ukraine and Libya secured an agreement to resume oil and gas exploration and production activities in Libya, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said.
"We have agreed that we will resume the exploration and production of oil and gas" in Libya, Yushchenko said in Tripoli Tuesday following his two-day official visit.
A working group will be set up to make proposals for resuming this work, he said.
"What counts most is that we have received the political go-ahead to revert to the projects that were planned five years ago and have not been implemented," Yushchenko said.
The Ukrainian national energy provider Naftogaz Ukrainy has failed to join the implementation of these projects "through bureaucrats' fault," he said.
Khabarovsk territory, SUEK ink deal
Khabarovsk Territory Gov. Viktor Ishayev and Vladimir Rashevsky, head of the Siberian Coal Energy Company, or SUEK, secured Tuesday an agreement on social and economic cooperation.
Commenting on the agreement, Rashevsky emphasized that the document "records plans for a rise in coal production in the territory, plans of investments, higher wages for coal workers and orchestration of activities of the company and territorial authorities."
"The Khabarovsk Territory is a special region for the SUEK," he said.
Company enterprises in the territory will hit the record level of production this year. The company completes construction of a bulk coal terminal in the Vanino port with an annual capacity of 10.5 million tons.
"Around $255 million have been already Invested in the project, but the final volume of investments will stand at $340 million," Rashevsky said.
He noted the carrying capacity of the railway to the Vanino port is the bottleneck, but this problem is being tackled jointly with the Russian Railways Company and will be settled with the construction of the Kuznetsovsk tunnel and reconstruction of other projects of transport infrastructure.
Nord Stream drops plans for service platform in Swedish waters
Nord Stream AG, the joint venture between Gazprom, E.ON and BASF to build a gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany across the Baltic Sea, no longer needs to build a service platform off Gotland in Sweden's exclusive economic zone, Nord Stream said in a statement.
Initial plans called for building a compressor station on Gotland, a facility whose operation would have been subject to Swedish taxation. Plans for the compressor station were later dropped in favor of building only an offshore service platform, which was needed because the pipeline inspection gauges ("pigs") available at the time could not be operated on a stretch of pipeline more than 800 kilometers long.
But the supplier has now confirmed it can deliver pigs capable of operating along Nord Stream's entire 746-mile length.
"Other pipeline projects, such as Franpipe and Langeled, show that long-distance pigging is feasible for long high-pressure, large-diameter pipes," the statement says.
Nord Stream said ever since submitting a conditional application to build the service platform in Swedish waters last December, it has continued to seek ways to get by without it.
"In view of the debate and concerns in Sweden regarding the platform, Nord Stream is pleased that technological advances obviate the need for a platform at the mid-point of the planned pipeline route," the statement says.
Nord Stream will link Russia's Baltic coast near Vyborg to Germany's Baltic coast near Greifswald. The pipeline is to be commissioned in 2010. Capacity in the first phase will amount to 27.5 billion cubic meters a year, doubling to 55 bcm a year when a second line is added in the second phase.
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Closing oil prices, Apr. 9, 3 p.m. London
Brent crude oil: $106.66
West Texas Intermediate crude oil: $109.05
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