Neft I Kapital - Oil & Capital
Selected features from ...

September 2006

Politics - Yanukovich's limit. How much will the price of gas rise for Ukraine in 2007?
The rise of the Viktor Yanukovich government to power in Ukraine has put the Russian authorities in a dilemma ...

Projects - The future of Sakhalin-2 in question
The flood of criticism leveled at Sakhalin Energy, the operator of the Sakhalin-2 project (Shell 55%, Mitsui 25%, Mitsubishi 20%), has done its job ...

Transport - Druzhba fades into the background
The accident that affected the Unecha-Polotsk section of the Druzhba- trunk oil pipeline in the Surazh district, Bryansk region on July 29 once again worsened relations between Moscow and oil importers ...

Petrochemicals - Lukoil develops additives production
Russia produces some 2.6 million tonnes of lubricants per year, but not enough additives for them ...

Abroad - Stick and carrot
Kazakhstan, which aims to be producing 150 million tpy of oil and nearly 80 bcm gas by 2015, intends to shift the emphasis from exporting raw hydrocarbons to exporting value-added products ...

August 2006

Politics - Choose or lose? Kremlin infighting poses difficult tasks for private investors
The old rivalry between Gazprom and Rosneft continues. Sergei Bogdanchikov's Rosneft won the latest round - the battle for Udmurtneft ...

Laws - Never-ending work on the Russian Environmental Code
Most existing environmental protection legislation was adopted more than 10 years ago and no longer meets the requirements of the day ...

Regions - A Matter of Principle. TNK-BP is not about to abandon the Bolshekhetsky project
The latest auction for mineral rights in the Taimyr Autonomous District in Moscow on July 4 produced winners of licenses to two adjacent properties - West Suzunsky and North Charsky ...

Transport - Companies from Tatarstan to build chemicals export terminals by four seas
Modernization and the construction of new capacity brings the prospect of production growth by Tatarstan's biggest petrochemicals enterprises Nizhnekamskneftekhim and Kazanorgsintez ...

Abroad - Unlucky first time. Gazprom has so far been unable to bring Transdniestria's gas assets under its control
Gazprom raised gas prices for Moldova to $160 per thousand cubic meters on July 1. This indicates that talks between Moldova's government and the Russian gas monopoly ...

July 2006

Politics - Our Tools. Russia perfects its main geopolitical weapon - oil and gas
While on the eve of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg the Russian authorities gave a broad representation of their understanding of the problem of energy security ...

Politics - Udmurtneft and the Battle of the Giants
An agreement between Rosneft and China's Sinopec to buy Udmurtneft was a significant event for the Russian oil market ...

Projects - Marathon quits, the marathon-runners come back
The U.S. company PetroNeft, which was set up by Denis Francis and David Sanders, former top managers from Marathon Oil bought the Tomsk company OOO Stimul-T at the end of last year ...

Petrochemicals - Kazanorgsintez starts replacing imports
Large Russian polyethylene producer Kazanorgsintez (Tatarstan) is to complete an upgrade of its ethylene and low-pressure polyethylene production units by the end of the year ...

Abroad - The Last Straw. Gazprom ups gas prices for Lithuania ahead of time
Two years ago Gazprom became a shareholder in the Lithuanian gas transport company Lietuvos Dujos, and since then it has been doing well ...

June 2006

Politics - Gosprom: Dreams won't come true. Russia is letting an excellent chance for economic growth slip away
Of all the functions that the state can have in the economy, state entrepreneurship is the least effective and most dangerous for the prospects of economic growth ...

Politics - A lone governor put under arrest.
The arrest of Alexei Barinov, governor of the Nenets Autonomous District, is one of the latest sensations ...

Projects - The fruits of intensification
Shell's Salym project is one of the most dynamic projects in the Russian oil industry ...

Projects - Marathon quits again
Marathon Oil Corporation pulled out of the Sakhalin-2 project in 2000 ...

Regions - A good buy for Urals Energy
Britain's Urals Energy has announced the acquisition of LLC Dulisma, which holds the license to the Dulisma field in the Irkutsk region, for $148 million ...

Caspian - Swedes on the Kalmykia shelf
Sweden's Lundin Petroleum plans in June to complete the takeover of Canada's Valkyries Petroleum, whose upstream assets are located solely in Russia ...

Sakhalin - First well at the Veninsky block
Exploration at the Veninsky block on the Sakhalin shelf intensified after China's Sinopec joined Rosneft in the project in the summer of 2005 ...

May 2006

Politics - Gas pressure, or Russia's New Energy Policy, for which the West is unprepared
We wrote as recently as the last issue that all the signs are that Russian hydrocarbon supplies to Europe will decrease in the foreseeable future, and that this will be used to strengthen the positions of Russian companies ...

Politics - Countdown for Yukos
The Yukos Oil Company is in its last months. It will be bankrupted very soon, and its assets look like being handed to Rosneft, as happened with Yukos' main subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz ...

Legislation - Resources Ministry forms geological information market
Russia continues to legislate for economic forms of transferring mineral rights and governing relations between the state and the mineral developer ...

The run-up to the IPO - Rosneft donor on rations. Where does Sakhalinmorneftegaz's profit go?
Sakhalinmorneftegaz only produces 2.5% of Rosneft's and a mere 0.4% of Russia's oil, and its island-based fields are gradually ageing, yet its significance for the company is high enough ...

Projects - Success at West Medvezhye: no foreign company has ever been in direct control of such vast gas reserves in Russia
The AIM-quoted Victoria Oil & Gas plc at the start of 2006 announced the results of a drilling report obtained from a discovery well at its wholly owned West Medvezhye field in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District ...

Azerbaijan - The Baku gas hub. Can Azerbaijan become a major transit center for Caspian gas to Europe?
Europe, concerned by Gazprom's increasing monopolism, has started to step up the search for new routes and suppliers of natural gas in 2006 ...

April 2006

Politics - Get in line! Gazprom boosts competition between Russian gas importers
The understandings reached during President Putin's visit to China in March to supply up to 90 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year to China ...

Regions - Interview with Alexei Barinov, Governor, Nenets Autonomous District

Transportation - The Road to the Heavenly Empire: China admits Rosneft to domestic market, oil deliveries can now grow
Russia shipped 7.6 million tonnes of the 10 million-11 million tonnes of oil to China by rail agreed at the beginning of 2005 ...

Gas - Selecting a location for an LNG plant on the Yamal
It is estimated that both modes of transport - the Yamal-Europe pipeline system and LNG tanker shipments - will be used when fields on the Yamal Peninsula and its adjacent shelf ...

Refining - Major construction. Refining complex unfolds in Nizhnekamsk
Directors at CJSC Nizhnekamsk Oil Refinery in February approved a master plan to build a set of oil refineries and petrochemical complexes in Nizhnekamsk costing $3.2 billion ...

March 2006

Politics - The Russian-Georgian gas gambit
Relations between Russia and Georgia have been transformed in the last two months, from relations of constructive dialog into unyielding confrontation, and the subject of gas has played a considerable role in that process ...

Vertical - Rosneft's consolidation postponed
The plans unveiled last summer to privatize Rosneft, involving the consolidation of the oil company's 12 main subsidiaries and an initial public offering (IPO), have undergone major changes ...

Resources - Rosneft does battle with Sibneft, TNK-BP at auctions
Auctions on February 9 for four subsurface resource sections adjacent to the Vankor group of fields in the Krasnoyarsk territory and Tamyr autonomous district netted $263 million for the federal budget ...

Resources - Lukoil adds to its Caspian portfolio
Lukoil has had much success in the last ten years in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea ...

Project - Lukoil, ConocoPhillips tap North Pechora oil
Lukoil and ConocoPhillips plan to start developing the South Khylchuyus field - the first field under their joint Northern Territories project ...

Petrochemicals - Clusters in Tatarstan
Tatarstan will lead efforts to develop new petrochemicals industry technologies and encourage production of value-added petrochemical goods following a federal initiative ...

January/February 2006

Politics - On national treasure and middlemen. Afterword to the Russian-Ukrainian gas standoff.
There is nothing radically new about the formation of the joint venture between RosUkrEnergo and Ukraine's Naftogaz, as yet another intermediary lines up to trade gas from Turkmenistan and Russia in Ukraine rather than Gazprom itself ...

Projects - Production-sharing agreements
Olga Rybak, Deputy Director of the Russian Industry and Energy Ministry's Industry and Energy Investment and Innovation Policy Department, discusses the status of existing production-sharing agreements (PSA) and the prospects for signing new ones in an interview with O&C ...

Vertikal - More changes at Sibir Energy
Shalva Chigirinsky, the main shareholder in Britain's Sibir Energy, has decided to sell half of his shares in the company to members of the Mercury Group, owned by Russian tobacco magnate Igor Kesayev ...

Regions - Going East
Gazprom won a license to explore and develop the Taimbinsky section in the Evenkia Autonomous District in December ...

Transport - Wanted: Russian oil to fill the Kazakhstan-China pipeline
Kazakhstan has started to fill the Atasu-Alashankou pipeline, which was officially launched in the middle of December ...

December 2005

Politics - Blue Stream's geopolitical course
Three years after commercial supplies began, the Blue Stream gas pipeline was "ceremonially launched" ...

Upstream - Salym Big Oil
Salym Petroleum Development (SPD, was established in 1996 on a 50:50 basis by Shell Salym Development B.V. and Evikhon, now a subsidiary of Sibir Energy plc), which is developing three fields in the Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District ...

Gas - Wintershall gets minimal independence in Achimgaz joint venture
The Achimgaz joint venture between Gazprom and Wintershall AG launched its project to develop the Achimov deposits of the Urengoi gas condensate field in the summer of 2005 ...

Regions - French landing in Yamal
ZAO Evrotek, a company set up with the involvement of the French Oil and Gas Suppliers Council, will be producing gas at the Kamennomysskoye field ...

Downstream - Russian-American gasoline blend
Lukoil went into business in the United States in 2000 when it bought Getty Petroleum Marketing, which controls a network of filling stations and oil depots in the Northeast ...

To view archived features from 2004 and 2005, please click here.