LNG

Tohoku Electric Power, the utility based in northeast Japan, said it signed a contract to import LNG from the BP-led Tangguh project in Indonesia.

Linklaters, the international law firm, said it advised Spain’s Repsol and Canadian company Irving Oil in the just completed US$1.1 billion financing round for the planned Canaport LNG project on the East Coast of Canada.

Qatar Gas Transport Co. (Nakilat), the state-controlled liquefied natural gas carrier company, said it plans to raise up to $4.3 billion from various sources to fund the building of 16 LNG carriers.

A round-up of latest events, company statements, industry reports and people in the news

By Philip R. Weems

This article is the first in a three-part series on the evolution of LNG sales contracts. In this issue the author highlights the emergence of take-or-pay and price review clauses

During the more than 40-year history of the LNG industry, customs and practices have developed with regard to documenting long-term LNG sales (“SPAs”).

Susanna Hannula, Oskar Levander, and Tuomas Sipilä, Wärtsilä Corp. Finland

Marine Technology, Ship Power, Wärtsilä Corporation
The shipping business is facing new challenges as environmental concerns focus on carrier and tanker emissions.

Since onshore industries have been able to cut certain emissions, the share of pollutants contributed by ships and aircraft has grown proportionally to become a significant part of the total.

The shipping industry, therefore, needs to look at new ways of reducing the environmental impact from ships.

By John McKay

Investment bankers in Europe have tipped Russia’s Gazprom, Norway’s Statoil, France’s Total, and BP and BG Group of the UK as the best medium-term buys for stock market investors in the energy sector, citing their liquefied natural gas activities as a positive sign.

Shares in Gazprom, which is the premium pick of most brokers, have surged to records in the New Year as the Russian natural gas monopoly and future LNG heavy-hitter has forecast a 10 percent rise in annual profits to more than $6 billion.

Quoddy Bay LNG’s father-and-son team Don and Brian Smith explain the latest progress in their LNG venture with the Passamaquoddy tribe

When members of the Passamaquoddy Native American tribe on Pleasant Point in the US state of Maine, together with area businessmen, contacted Smith Cogeneration of Oklahoma in the spring of 2004, Chief Executive Don Smith said he knew right away the region would be an excellent location for an LNG terminal.

By Gordon Jackson

Offshore LNG terminals have been under consideration since the early 1990s, first for export and more recently for import.

Tangible progress is now being made with Excelerate Energy’s US Gulf Gateway project working well and its planned Northeast Gateway off the coast of Massachusetts moving forward in the permitting process.

Ernst Knolle is Chief Executive Officer of Knolle Magnetrans, based in San Francisco, California.
In the face of increased need for more energy and fuel efficiency, it is disturbing to see extreme waste in many oil fields around the world where “stranded” wellhead natural gas is flared or re-injected.

This kind occurs in north Alaska at a rate of more than twice that of China’s total natural gas consumption, according to official US statistics.