Latest Energy News Archive
The much talked about 'Gas OPEC'
appears to have the International
Energy Agency's backing, with the
deputy head of the organisation
William Ramsay claiming that a
structure based on the current OPEC
cartel is feasible, but not in the short
term. A grouping of the major gas
exporting countries could be forged in
the next ten years.
Energywatch are warning
households that they could face
rising energy costs of anything up to 25% this Summer.
Centrica who own British Gas in the
UK, are attempting to form a
partnership with German utility giant
RWE and EDF Energy to buy British
Energy. However, RWE have already
tabled a bid of their own to gain
control of the UK's largest nuclear
power generator.
EU gas supplies are expected to
boosted by strengthened ties with
Turkmenistan. Significant trade
opportunities are expected to be
offered to the Central Asian state in exchange for increased flows of gas,
along with the construction of a
Trans-Caspian gas pipeline.
Energy giants Centrica, Gaz De
France and First Oil are forming a
partnership to convert a depleted gas
field 20 miles off the coast of Barrow
into a gas storage facility. It's thought
the site could have a capacity of 20
billion cubic feet, equivalent to 12
days peak demand.
From tomorrow, the UK's second largest energy supplier Scottish & Southern Energy will be raising it's prices to domestic customers. Electricity will be increasing by 14.2% and gas by 15.8% representing the respective movements in the wholesale markets.
The British government are inviting offers to bid for it's 35.2% stake in British Energy Group. Many of Europe's leading energy giants are thought to have been invited to make offers in a deal that could earn the government an estimated £2bn. Despite last week's budget focusing it's attention on environmental issues, the government gave the green light to new coal fired power stations, causing great concern to green campaigners. The government insist that this does not compromise Britain's aim of generating 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
World oil giants are turning their
attention away from major oil
projects and onto natural gas. Access
to oil reserves is becoming
increasingly difficult as state-owned
companies seize the bulk of the
world's oil fields, forcing oil groups to
look elsewhere for growth.
Eon have drawn up plans to divest
large proportions of it's supply chain
business in Germany, freeing up
generation and transmission
networks to competition. This represents a huge leap forward in the
European Commission's goal of
unbundling Europe's energy markets.
Gas prices are becoming far more wide reaching than simply affecting the cost of consumers and businesses, they are now being seen as one of the major contributors to the UK's high inflation rate according to the Office for National Statistics.
RWE, the German energy company which owns NPower in the UK is to buy a 50% stake in Excelerate Energy LLC. Excelerate operate the GasPort LNG terminal on Teesside, and the company have ambitions to increase the fleet of four vessels it currently has to nine by 2010, taking advantage of the demand for LNG.
The health of the global economy
continues to dominate the news with
the £3.7bn loss by Societe Generale
being one of the more newsworthy
items in a period in which the price of
oil ably reflected the ups-and-downs
of the financial markets and
subsequently both gas and power
prices.
The EC released its new energy and
climate change package which
involve limiting Phase 3 carbon
allowances and for the EC to take
control of setting an EU wide sector level allocation.
As expected the Government announced their backing for a new generation of privately funded nuclear power stations highlighting both the security of supply and low carbon benefits of such a programme. In other news British Energy announced that it will keep four reactors offline until "at least" July. Elsewhere British Gas became the third supplier this winter to increase its gas and electricity prices whilst a recent report highlighted that the UK has some of the best wave resource in the world and could generate up to 10% of total demand from wave and tidal energy.
The government could be set to earn
a considerable windfall by auctioning
7% of the emissions credits from the
second phase EU Emissions Trading
Scheme's National Allocation Plan,
with large industrial users expected to
bear the brunt of the cost.
The UN Climate Change Convention
concluded last week, with the "Bali
roadmap" setting out the
commitments which need to be
agreed by the 2009 UN summit if
"dangerous climate change" is to be
avoided. The aviation industry were among the worst culprits.
British Energy are expected to
announce next year that they will be
investing in new nuclear generation
capacity with help from a partner. It is
thought that a consortium of major
energy users are looking to invest in
nuclear power to avoid exposure to
future fossil fuel price increases.
The first pipeline between Europe and Asia was inaugurated on Sunday. The 300km Turkey-Greece Interconnector has the capacity to bring 11.5bcm of natural gas from Azerbaijan, and it is hoped it will reduce the EU's dependence on Russia.
The UK government are pushing for the inclusion of international flights landing within the EU to be subject to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. However, the US are strongly opposed to the idea of airlines having to purchase credits to cover their emissions.
The UK has now joined the race for oil in Antarctica. Earlier this year Russia laid claim to a portion of the enormous oil and gas fields under the Antarctic. Now the British government plans to tap an area of 385,000 square miles off the coast of Antarctica.
The chairman of Ofgem, Sir John
Mogg has identified the need for an
independent industry regulator if the
new legislation being rolled out by the
European Commission is to be truly
effective in ensuring that the new
Independent System Operators work
to promote competition.
WinGas has signed supply
agreements which will provide the UK
with 20bln kWh of natural gas this
year. WinGas are joint owned by
Gazprom and BASF.
The European Commission plans to increase transparency on all trading of electricity and gas. The EC wants details of all trades to be recorded in the hope that speculation, which is blamed for driving up energy prices and increasing volatility, is reduced. A high-voltage interconnector is to be built allowing electricity to be transmitted between the UK and Ireland. The 240 km link under the Irish Sea, will have the capacity to transmit up to 650 MW of electricity.
The EU energy commissioner Andris
Piebalgs has announced plans to
reform European energy markets.
New laws are to be introduced to
liberalise continental electricity
markets by forcing large energy
companies to relinquish control of the
distribution networks.
According to Aberdeen University
professors Alex Kamp and Linda
Stephen the North Sea has the
capability to produce oil and gas
beyond 2040 should oil prices be
sufficiently high enough to sustain
investment.
National Grid announced on Thursday
that the amount of electricity it was
able to export to France would be cut
by half to 1,000MWs to repair a fault
on the UK-French interconnector. The
UK grid operator said the UK's ability
to import along the interconnector
remained unaffected.
Energywatch has accused large
energy companies of not passing on
reductions in wholesale energy
market prices to domestic customers,
as there is no rivalry within the
domestic market.
Iran and Turkmenistan are to supply 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe via Turkey. After Russia, Iran have the largest gas reserves in the world, which will provide Europe with far better diversity of supply. The agreement between Turkey and Iran will guarantee a new market for Iran to exploit it's vast reserves. German conglomerate Siemens have successfully installed a 90MW offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay. It is due to be operational before the end of the year.
New EU legislation came into effect yesterday designed to liberalise markets throughout the rest Europe, and to promote competition within countries, particularly those where large incumbents dominate the market. The directives include the option for all customers to choose who supplies their electricity and gas. It is also designed to allow the unbundling of transmission and distribution networks paving the way for investment in and access to these networks by other companies.
Not long after reopening it's Hunterston B nuclear reactor, British Energy have had to close down the facility for maintenance work to damaged pipes. Hunterston B has a capacity of 485MW.
Fresh talk of a bid for Centrica or Scottish and Southern Energy by Gazprom surfaced last week. However, deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev has denied the reports.
According to the Times, Britain's
power generators have made an
estimated £2 billion as a result of the
National Allocation Plan's issue of
carbon credits. Any profits are kept by
the generators whilst the cost of extra
credits to cover emissions are
transferred directly to the customer.
National Grid and Dutch system
operator, Tennet, have agreed to
construct a 1,000 MW
interconnector between the UK and
Dutch electricity networks. The
project will cost £409m, and will be
completed by 2010.
BIU, the first accredited carbon neutral UK utility consultancy
BIU goes carbon Neutral are the first credited carbon neutral UK utility consultancy. As the impact of carbon emissions into the atmosphere grows and as scientists become increasingly convinced that carbon dioxide levels are directly attributing to the increase in global atmospheric temperatures ( Global warming), BIU has invested and become the first credited carbon neutral UK utility consultancy.
Read More...
A new Independent Planning Commission is being proposed in a white paper with the aim of reducing red tape, which has caused delays to many major construction projects in the UK. Many believe the proposal is designed to remove the power of groups opposed to major projects, such as gas storage facilities. This would be good news for the UK's gas storage position, which is considerably lower than most other countries in Europe, and which contributed greatly to the volatility experienced in winter 2005/06.
British Energy are expecting to restart the two nuclear plants at Hunterston B and Hinkley Point B following their closure at the end of 2006 over safety concerns. A timely boost to electricity capacity for the air conditioning season.
British Gas have announced a drop in profits in the first quarter of 2007 as a result of the falling energy prices, from £578m to £432m. This is in stark contrast to the figures published by large energy companies last year, which had posted huge profits owing to high wholesale gas and oil prices.
Expectations are that Europe's second largest
oil company, BP Plc, will report
tomorrow a drop in first quarter
profits and a fall in production for the
seventh consecutive period. Shares
in London-based BP have fallen 20
percent in the last year, lagging
behind Exxon Mobil Corp.'s 24 percent
gain and a 6.4 percent increase in the
FTSE 100 Index. The Bank of
England is hoping that falling gas and
electricity bills will bring inflation in
the coming months to back below 3%.
Gazprom have acquired a 9% stake in the BBL pipeline which links the UK to the Netherlands. The move is seen as a step towards the Russian gas giant acquiring it's targeted 20% capture of the UK gas market. It currently has around 1%.
A rise in green house gas emissions in 2006 has been attributed to the high price of gas. This has been compounded by the collapse in the emissions market which made it far more attractive to use the more carbon intensive coal as a source of generation fuel.
Eon's hopes of building a £40 million wind farm in Scotland could be dealt a huge blow as a substantial number of objections prompted Midlothian Council and Scottish National Heritage to undertake a study to assess the impact of the project on the local area.
RWE Npower have announced plans to build a new 1600MW 'clean' coal fired power station , at a cost of £1 billion. It is claimed that the plant will reduce carbon emissions by 22% per unit of electricity generated.
The global market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to double between 2005 and 2010 according to Price Waterhouse Coopers. It is anticipated that LNG will be contributing around 40% of the growth in global gas supply over the same period.
Norway's Statoil set a new gas sales record to the UK market with 73 million cubic metres on Thursday 1st March, via the Langeled and Vesterled pipelines. This represents approximately 20% of demand for a day in March.
£13m of government grants are to be issued for several wave power farms in Scottish waters. Scottish Power have announced they are to build a 3MW wave farm that is due to operational in 2008.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, has called for a radical overhaul of the EU's energy policy, highlighting the need for greater competition through the unbundling of large energy groups and a stronger emphasis on renewable energy sources.
Falling manufacturing costs have
been attributed to the dropping
energy prices according to The Office
for National Statistics. Month-onmonth
output prices rose by 0.3 per
cent in January compared to the 0.4
per cent increase experienced over
the corresponding point last year.
Eon have announced a new product
for electricity and gas that will all
households in Germany to switch
suppliers for the first time. This is a
huge step in liberalising the German
energy markets.
Centrica have announced that it’s gas prices to residential customers will increase 12.4% in September. This increase in prices are in response to the high wholesale prices over Q2 of this year.
EDF are the latest company to announce increased profits due to the high prices and increased demand for energy. Profits rose 5.17bn euros in the first half of 2006.
The results of the G8 this week may have a big impact as well, especially if the EU can guarantee from Russia, from whom it imports 25% of its gas.
The UK Energy Review was published on 11th July with widely predicted promise of a nuclear power program and pressure on increased proportions of renewable generation sources to 20% by 2020.
With the government’s energy review imminent, the previously inextricable link between electricity and gas, could become decoupled as the need to reduce the UK’s generation dependence on gas adds more fuel to the government’s argument for more nuclear power stations.
The gas contracts between Russia and Ukraine are beginning to show cracks. Recent talks have broken down, which could have ramifications for the supply of gas to the rest of Europe.
The creation of the Franco-British Nuclear Forum has signaled the clearest indication yet of the UK’s intent to introduce a new generation of nuclear power.
Gazprom have finally entered the UK utility industry, by buying Penine Natural Gas. BP have announced that production of gas at the In Amenas project in Algeria has commenced. Production will grow to 9bn cubic meters of gas per year, a level which is 8.5% of the UK’s total production in 2005.
Energy prices were at the top of discussions at the G8 meeting. There is concern over the “high and volatile energy prices” and the impact this is having on the global economy. Leaders are calling for greater transparency of markets and more diverse sources of energy.
Gazprom have stated their desire to enter the UK utilities markets, with Centrica a likely target.
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