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Does the Russian Pipeline project, slated to deliver oil to China, remain a source of controversy--or is it simply dead? According to some statements from the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, and also from environmental organizations and various press reports, it is, at the very least, almost dead. Despite this general view, some Chinese officials and oil executives believe that there is still room for hope, given the lack of a definitive official statement from either government. The Chinese media has continued to tout the pipeline project, although insiders in both Russia and China have remained silent on the issue....

<p>BABA GURGUR, Iraq — With security guards now deployed along Iraq's export pipeline to the Mediterranean, crude from one of the country's biggest oil fields could start flowing to overseas markets "in a matter of days," a senior Iraqi oil official said.</p>

Iraq is unlikely to resume crude exports along it's vital northern oil pipeline to Turkey until late summer due to sabotage that has battered the country's economy, oil industry officials said Sunday. Iraqi officials had hoped security along the pipeline would improve enough to allow shipments from the giant Kirkuk oilfields to restart this spring. But sabotage has not abated. The pipeline opened for a few days last year but was closed by another sabotage attack. "We expect to have the pipeline running by late summer," one official told Reuters. "The attacks are steady and security is still a problem....

Alaska, Jan. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company and MEHC Alaska Gas Transmission Company today filed an application with the State of Alaska Department of Revenue for approval under the Alaska Stranded Gas Development Act for authority to negotiate tax and financial terms with the State of Alaska to facilitate the transportation of stranded Alaskan natural gas. The proposed 745-mile, $6.3 billion pipeline extends from the North Slope area near Prudhoe Bay southward to the Alaska-Yukon border near Beaver Creek. MAGTC is seeking an affirmative determination that the proposed Alaska pipeline is a "qualified project" and MAGTC and its...

TBILISI - US troops in Georgia will remain there forever, said US Ambassador to Georgia Richard Miles, Channel One reported. According to Mr. Miles, the presence of American troops is necessary to provide security for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline project. At the same time, Mr. Miles expressed regret that Russia created obstacles to an American presence in Georgia. However, this contradicts the statement made by the newly-elected Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. Mr. Saakashvili said at a press conference on January 12 that Georgia would not allow the United States to build military bases in Georgia. Perhaps, Georgia’s policy change was...

There are suspicions that the increase in attacks on Iraqi oil facilities is the work of fuel smuggling gangs. The current spate of attacks are directed at refineries and pipelines that supply them. These refineries supply oil products for Iraqi consumption. The less fuel there is in Iraq, the more the gangsters can charge for their smuggled stuff. Criminal gangs have grown enormously since Saddam's government fell. Most of their crimes are committed against Iraqi civilians, although the recent increase in police on duty had made the streets somewhat safer. But this just forces the gangs to look for new...

Pipelines and an oil storage depot in three different parts of Iraq have been set on fire after insurgents' attacks. Large amounts of petrol were lost after what officials said to be "sabotages". Iraq's Ministry of Oil announced that attackers fired grenades at a pipeline south of capital Baghdad, and news agency reported on the other attacks.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saboteurs have set an oil pipeline in northern Iraq on fire as a new U.S.-led force was deployed to protect the area's infrastructure, witnesses said Monday. Residents of Burjwari, a village near the Baiji refinery, said a bomb was placed overnight along a northern pipeline section carrying oil. Reuters television footage showed the pipeline on fire. "We were preparing to break the (Ramadan) fast when we heard an explosion. This was the work of the resistance. We think the pipeline carried liquefied petroleum gas, but we are not sure," Qassem Mohammad said. Iraq's northern oil infrastructure...

KIRKUK, Iraq, Nov 7 (AFP) - An explosion caused a large fire on a pipeline near Iraq's northern oil centre of Kirkuk Friday, an oil company official told AFP. The blast ripped through a pipeline linking Kirkuk with the al-Debs oilfields, further north, at 7:00 pm (1600 GMT), said Jumaa Ahmed, head of the fire department at the state-owned Northern Oil Company (NOC). "The explosion was caused by an explosive charge that started a large fire on the pipeline," he said. "Our crews could not get close to the site because of the large fires and the huge smoke, but...

BAGHDAD (Dow Jones)--Iraq (news - web sites)'s Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum said Wednesday that Iraq would resume oil exports via a pipeline to Turkey very soon. "We have a technical problem that we working on and, hopefully, in a very short time we will be able to operate that pipeline," the minister told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview. The pipeline has been plagued by sabotage since the war ended. It reopened briefly in mid-August only to shut down after a couple of days after saboteurs detonated explosives under the pipe. The pipeline was again reopened Oct. 18 but...

O n Oct. 15, Ilham Aliyev, businessman, playboy and novice politician, received a nice gift from his father — the country of Azerbaijan. Heydar Aliyev had ruled Azerbaijan almost continuously for 34 years, first as an agent of the Soviet Politburo and then as an autocrat in his own right. When he became too ill to continue, he anointed his son to run for president in his place. Ilham Aliyev ran a rigged campaign, using all the powers of the state, and then celebrated his victory by arresting most of the opposition. To conclude this nasty exercise in dynasty building,...

China’s Energy Challenged by the Pipeline Routes Dispute Li dingxin, Economic Reference (Jingji cankao bao) August 12, 2003   In less than one and a half months, Japan has rushed to dispatch its Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and the Director General of its Agency of Natural Resources and Energy to Russia to discuss cooperative actions on energy projects. Japanese officials have promised billions of dollars for developing an eastern Siberian oil field and investing in social and economic projects in the Russian Far East, as they have done in past sensitive situations. For all this, Japan has one thing...

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2003. Putin Keeps China, Japan Guessing By Dmitry Zhdannikov Reuters BANGKOK, Thailand -- President Vladimir Putin kept the leaders of China and Japan guessing about the destination of Russia's first oil pipeline to Asia after meeting them on the sidelines of an Asian-Pacific summit. Putin used the meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday to say Russia was primarily interested in investment in its eastern Siberian regions, a senior Kremlin official said. "Putin said the pipeline issue is very complex and is closely linked to the economic development...

Baghdad, Iraq-AP -- A pipeline north of Baghdad that carries crude oil and natural gas has been damaged by an explosion. An Iraqi official says it appears sabotage was behind the blast. The blast happened last night near a town about 125 miles north of the Iraqi capital. The pipeline was carrying oil and gas to refineries in Baghdad. Sabotage of pipelines and other infrastructure has become a major problem for the U-S-run coalition and its Iraqi partners as they try to revive the country's petroleum industry.

From correspondents in Tikrit October 21, 2003 AN inactive pipeline was set ablaze overnight near Baiji in northern Iraq, site of the country's largest oil refinery, a US military spokesperson said. "There was a fire at 3pm (local time). The cause was unknown," said Major Jocelyn Aberle of the Fourth Infantry Division based in Tikrit. north of Baghdad, and Aberle said the fire was burning on residual fuel. Haj Ali Janebi, a 65-year-old taxi-driver, said he spotted armed Saddam Hussein loyalists in the area at the time of the blast. The pipelines in the region around Saddam's hometown of Tikrit...

<p>Efforts to resume vital oil exports from northern Iraq -- halted for weeks by sabotage -- stumbled once more Saturday when the main pipeline to Turkey sprang a leak, Turkish officials said.</p> <p>Elsewhere, U.S. troops and Iraqi police arrested 11 people, three of them women, who were suspected of links to attacks against U.S. soldiers, witnesses said. The arrests came after the deadliest day for American soldiers in a month.</p>

From correspondents in Baghdad October 16, 2003 AN explosion damaged an oil pipeline in northwest Iraq today, causing a fire and further hampering Iraq's oil export capabilities, an Oil Ministry official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the explosion ripped open part of the main pipeline running from the northern oil fields to the Doura oil refinery and the Mussayab power plant. "This means the shortage in the supply from the strategic pipeline will be compensated by supply from the southern fields until the pipeline is repaired," he said. He said damage was yet to be assessed,...

Upping the ante in its race with China to secure Russian energy supplies, Tokyo has offered Moscow a $7 billion financial package to build an oil pipeline to the Pacific instead of a rival project to northeast China, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. Quoting an unidentified Japanese energy official, the FT said Tokyo is offering $5 billion to support construction of the 3,800-kilometer pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific port of Nakhodka and another $2 billion to help develop Siberian oil fields and provide low-interest loans. A Japanese Foreign Ministry official in charge of Russian affairs, however, denied that...

<p>Your car could be running on gasoline made from Iraqi oil.</p> <p>ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips both imported Iraqi crude to California in August, according to a filing Tuesday by the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy.</p>

An explosion ripped open an Iraqi oil pipeline today in the latest act of sabotage to hit the industry. “There was an explosion, sabotage,” said Ghazi al-Talibani, a worker for the North Oil Company, which operates the pipeline and huge oil fields around Kirkuk. The pipeline that was attacked carried oil from Zab to Kirkuk. The blast occurred at 7pm on Friday, and the fire was only extinguished at 8.30am today, said firefighter Ismail Hassan. He said flames were 40 metres high. Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator for Iraq, has said the country is losing seven million dollars a...