OAO Gazprom will hold talks with ConocoPhillips and BP Plc on a planned pipeline linking Alaska to the continental US, as Russia’s natural-gas exporter strives to become a global energy company.
“We’re very pleased that Conoco supported the idea of discussing this project together with us,” Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said in an interview at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Saturday.
ConocoPhillips and BP, which hold leases to gas reserves in Alaska, are competing with TransCanada to build a pipeline to the continental US. Moscow-based Gazprom, operator of the world’s largest gas pipeline network, also plans to talk with TransCanada about joining the rival project, Medvedev said earlier on Saturday.
Gazprom, which wants to enter the North American market with shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG), agreed to supply the proposed Rabaska terminal in Quebec last month. Gazprom plans to make Russia’s first shipments of LNG to world markets from its Sakhalin-2 project in the Pacific Ocean next year.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller met with his Conoco counterpart James Mulva in St Petersburg on Saturday. Miller talked with BP CEO Tony Hayward in Moscow on Thursday. Miller told the St Petersburg forum on Saturday that Gazprom had approached Conoco and BP on joining their Alaska pipeline.
“We don’t just want to participate; we want to bring value,” Medvedev said about joint development of an Alaska pipeline.
Either project will cost “dozens of billions of dollars,” he said.
Gazprom, the world’s largest gas producer, has decades of experience in building high-pressure gas pipelines in environmental conditions similar to Alaska’s.
“As a principle, we’d like to participate in all parts of the value chain, including transportation and potentially upstream,” Medvedev said about the company’s ambitions in North America.
Conoco holds 20 percent of OAO Lukoil, Russia’s largest independent oil company.
BP agreed last year with Gazprom to form a global venture with at least US$3 billion in assets. Medvedev said a “menu of potential assets” are under discussion from which it’s “not easy to choose the most delicious” items they will establish projects. BP’s Russian venture still hasn’t completed a deal to sell its Kovykta field in Siberia to Gazprom amid a shareholder dispute with TNK-BP’s Russian billionaire owners.
The Alaska pipeline, which may start operating in 2017, would ship 127 million cubic meters of gas a day over 2,700km. This would allow production of an estimated 990 billion cubic meters of gas from the state’s North Slope.
Calgary-based TransCanada owns Canada’s largest gas pipeline system.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS