Europe wants to double volumes of gas coming from Azerbaijan
The first meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council discussed the issue of increasing the volumes of Azerbaijani gas supplies to Europe, the European Commission's Vice President in charge of Energy Union Maros Sefcovic said.
"Technologically, the project is capable of delivering 10 billion cubic meters of gas, but this figure can be increased to 20 billion cubic meters. The Shah Deniz field has great potential," said Sefcovic.
S&P affirms long-term credit rating on SOCAR
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services revised its outlook on the Republic of Azerbaijan's national oil company, State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), to negative from stable. At the same time, the agency affirmed 'BB+' long-term corporate credit rating on SOCAR.
The rating actions on SOCAR follow the Azerbaijan outlook revision, and they reflect S&P view of SOCAR as a government-related entity (GRE) and the consequent high likelihood that S&P would downgrade the company if S&P downgraded the sovereign.
Kazakhstan to cut oil export duty
Kazakhstan will reduce the oil export customs duty from $80 to $60 per one metric ton, the Kazakh national economy minister, Yerbolat Dossayev said. "The export customs duty on oil will be reduced along with the budget," he said. "The reduction, according to calculations, will be down to $60 per one metric ton as soon as the parliament adopts the budget."
Earlier, Kazakhstan's energy minister, Vladimir Shkolnik, was quoted as saying that the government will optimize taxes for mining enterprises until the end of the first quarter of 2015.
The cost of the oil production on average amounts to $50 per barrel in Kazakhstan.
LUKOIL signs contract with Hyundai Engineering to build gas processing plant in Uzbekistan
Russian LUKOIL and the contracting consortium led by Hyundai Engineering (South Korea) signed a contract for the supply of equipment and construction of the Kandym gas processing plant in Uzbekistan, LUKOIL said. The contract was signed in Tashkent.
The message said that the gas processing plant with capacity of 8.1 billion cubic meters of gas a year will allow to process natural gas containing hydrogen sulfide from Kandym group of fields in order to obtain purified natural gas, stable gas condensate, as well as ball sulfur and granulated sulfur.
The Feasibility Study (FS) of the project and working documentation for the construction will be elaborated by Hyundai Engineering.