INTERNATIONAL OIL & GAS
10/29 11:28 Baltic Ministers Sign Energy Cooperation Deal
RIGA, Oct 29 - The Baltic states' economy ministries signed a wide-ranging cooperation agreement on Thursday aimed at integrating and liberalising the three small energy markets and attracting more investment to them.
The deal aims at eventually creating a common Baltic energy market but will focus at first on exchange of information between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as they prepare to join the European Union (EU), Estonian Economy Minister Jaak Leimann told Reuters after the signing.
"It's like a first step for establishing this common energy market, let's hope in the near future. I think we should start (creating a market) next year and realise this step-by-step," Leimann said, adding that this could take a matter of years.
He said the deal would also provide a framework for cooperation on entering the so-called Baltic Ring -- a project which plans to eventually link the power systems of the Baltic states with Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany and Scandinavia.
"This is strategically very important for us," Leimann said.
He said closer cooperation among the Baltic states and with other European countries would help competitiveness and attract financing to their sectors.
"We are too small...to attract cheap loans from world financial markets we have to be of optimal size and concentration," he said.
The Baltic states have a total electricity production capacity of around 25 terawatt hours (TwH) per year from a variety of sources, namely nuclear, hydropower, combined heat and power and conversion plants.
Estonia is the only one of the three that has been invited to join EU entry talks, but Lithuania and Latvia hope to be upgraded at the EU's December Vienna summit when the bloc plans to reevaluate candidate countries' readiness.
10/29 10:11 FOCUS-Nigeria Oil Closures In Day 24, No End Seen
LAGOS, Oct 29 - The shut in of about a third of Nigeria's oil output by armed ethnic Ijaw youths demanding amenities and more access to power entered its 24th day on Thursday with oil company officials unsure when it will end.
Protesters holding about 20 oil facilities belonging to Royal/Dutch Shell <RD.AS> <SHEL.L> and U.S-based Chevron Corp <CHV.N> stopped the flow of about 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Nigeria's production of some two million bpd.
"The situation remains the same as far as I know," a Shell spokesman told Reuters in Lagos.
"The facilities are still shut and I don't know when they're likely to be back," a Chevron official also said.
The protests are part of an upsurge in violence in Nigeria's main oil-producing southeast Niger Delta, where impoverished ethnic minorities accuse oil companies and the government of depriving them of the oil wealth pumped from their land.
Over the past week clashes erupted in the oil town of Warri between ethnic Ijaws and Itsekiris over the location of a local council headquarters, the same dispute linked by the Ijaws to the forced closure of the oil installations.
Leaders of the two groups early in the week agreed a truce at a peace meeting brokered by the local military governor, but their call on the youths to vacate the occupied facilities and free the blocked waterways have so far not been heeded.
The government so far remains apparently discouraged from taking military action against the protesters by the maze of creeks in the area and the oil companies' fear of bad publicity since the 1995 hanging of Ogoni minority rights activists who campaigned against Shell.
Governors in charge of nine states in the 70 sq km Niger Delta region met in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt on Wednesday and said the government was concerned about the plight of the region and committed to its development. "The forum notes the strategic importance of the oil producing areas in the country," a communique on the meeting made available to Reuters on Thursday said.
It said the government wanted to end the turmoil in the region and to ensure "good relationship between the oil companies and the communities" by providing amenities and employment to raise living standards in the Delta.
To end numerous boundary disputes that have often caused violent clashes among communities in the area, the meeting resolved that surveys should be conducted in the Delta to enable the National Boundary Commission resolve conflicting claims.
Oil exports provide more than 90 percent of the foreign exchange earnings of Africa's biggest oil producer and most populous country of 108 million people.
Today In The Energy Markets - October 30th
ANKARA - U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson meets Turkish Energy Minister Cumhur Ersumer to discuss Caspian oil 0800 GMT.
CALGARY - Canadian Energy Research Institute seminar on survey of Canadian natural gas deliverability, production, reserves and investment. Viking Room, Calgary Petroleum Club 1430 GMT.
LONDON - Strategic Briefing on : Analysing the progress of European Liberalisation in the gas sector to follow the UK Gas Market conference. Briefing to be held at the Mayfair Conference Centre.
CAPE TOWN - Sixth International Energy Conference (Second day).
LONDON - Conference on derivatives modelling and analysis. The Cafe Royal (Final day).
LONDON - Trade, Investment and the Environment conference organised by the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House (Final day).
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