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Venezuela plans talks with Panama next week on a proposal to pump oil through a Panamanian pipeline to the Pacific in order to cut shipping costs to China, the Venezuelan foreign minister said Wednesday. Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez denied that new agreements signed last week to sell Venezuelan oil to China are part of any strategy to decrease oil exports to the United States, the No. 1 buyer of Venezuelan crude. He said Venezuela has no intent to "sacrifice the North American population" but rather expects to "increase that flow of energy." The pipeline across Panama is being considered as...

China's West-East natural gas pipeline begins commercial operations today, according to officials involved in the project. Petrochina, the state-owned oil giant, which operates the pipeline, said yesterday it had signed agreements with 12 new customers, bringing the total number of downstream gas customers for its cross-country pipeline to 40. China's 4,000km pipeline is an ambitious undertaking to transfer natural gas from the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang province to China's eastern cities, including Shanghai. Su Shulin, a senior official with the company, said he expected the pipeline to break even this year and record a profit next year. He predicted the...

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia gave political support on Tuesday to a $1.2 billion private trans-Balkan oil pipeline that will allow Russian and Caspian crude to avoid congested Turkish waters, officials said. Representatives from the three small Balkan states signed a declaration giving the green light to the U.S.-registered Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corp., AMBO, to launch the 912-kilometer pipeline between Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas and Vlore, on Albania's Adriatic coast. "This is one of the most important infrastructure projects for regional, EU, and Euro-Atlantic integration for the western Balkans," Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano told...

CONFIDENTIAL: Top 3 companies lay out terms they want state to meet. Gov. Frank Murkowski on Thursday announced the three major North Slope oil producers submitted a proposal to the state laying out terms they want the state to meet before they commit to building an Alaska natural gas pipeline. Speaking at an Anchorage news conference on creating more Alaska jobs, the governor held up a binder of about an inch and a half thick and emblazoned with the logos of BP, Conoco Phillips and Exxon Mobil. The title on the cover said: "Alaska Gas Pipeline Project: Comprehensive Proposal to...

TBILISI, December 12 (RIA Novosti's Marina Kvaratskhelia) - Protesting people stopped the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan on Georgian territory. On Thursday morning residents of the village of Krtsanisi of Georgia's Gardabansky district blocked the road which the building company uses to bring the necessary equipment to the construction site. The residents of Krtsanisi are protesting against the actions of the British Petroleum company and the Petrofak contractor. During the construction of the pipeline the building company liquidated the irrigation system used by 44 families. BP representatives promised to build a new system but failed to fulfill this promise. The protesters...

The president of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association says Alaska needs $30 billion in new investment in the next 10 years to keep North Slope oil production flat until a natural gas pipeline starts up. This is in addition to the $20 billion to $30 billion North Slope producers will have to spend from 2005 through 2015 to run the existing fields and the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Without the $30 billion in new investment, state Department of Revenue projections show, North Slope production could drop from its current level of about 1 million barrels of oil per day...

ANCHORAGE--The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday heard from would-be operators and shippers on accessing a proposed natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope. The commission, meeting in Anchorage for the first time, plans to adopt by Feb. 10 an open-season rule--the process through which gas shippers can buy rights to use the 3,500-mile pipeline. The pipeline has been an unrealized idea of the state and energy industry for decades. The passage of the federal Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act in October moved it a step closer to reality. The pipeline, estimated to cost $20 billion, would take about 10...

BEIJING: State oil giant Sinopec Group has signed a $70 billion oil field development and liquefied natural gas agreement with Iran, China's biggest energy deal with the No. 2 OPEC producer, an Iranian official said Friday. The preliminary deal may yield political benefits far sooner than commercial ones as Iran courts China's favor on the UN Security Council, where Beijing holds a potential veto over any action against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Under a memorandum of understanding signed Thursday, China's second-largest oil firm, Sinopec Group, will buy 250 million tons of LNG over 30 years from Iran and develop...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is continuing his China visit amid growing frustration by his hosts over failure to agree to a contentious new pipeline. Mr Putin is in the ancient city of Xian after Beijing talks with Chinese leaders including President Hu Jintao. The two heads of state signed several agreements on Thursday, including a demarcation of borders which resolves 40 years of bilateral disputes. But there was no pipeline deal, which China needs to improve energy supplies. China and Japan have been pursuing rival plans to build pipelines to exploit oil from Siberia. China-Japan rivalry The Russia-China Business Council,...

WASHINGTON--Former Gov. Tony Knowles says new incentives to build a natural gas line aren't what the industry needs. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says they are. With congressional passage of the gas incentives last week, the opposing opinions have become an important debating point in the race for Alaska's open U.S. Senate seat. Knowles argues that Murkowski failed to deliver an essential piece of the package. Murkowski says Knowles is wrong and the incentives that did make it through should be more than enough to get the line to the next stage. The company that in many ways spawned this debate, and...

Editor's note: Following is a transcript from Thursday's roundtable discussion involving Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and a group of Lee Enterprises editors and executives who met for about 45 minutes in Davenport. Quad-City Times Publisher Michael Phelps: My question is on the draft vs. the all-volunteer armed forces. Those fighting and dying and shedding blood and limbs in the war now are largely are not coming from families of congressmen, corporate executives or academics, rather from those motivated by patriotism, along with work, health card and education benefits. Would the best test of the nation's resolve...

No need to top off the tank -- that advice Thursday from pipeline operator Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMP), after a train derailment in Southern California Wednesday night shut down a pipeline that brings fuel into Phoenix. Heavy rain Wednesday night forced a train to derail near Fontana, Calif., forcing the closure of a nearby gas pipeline. Kinder Morgan is cautioning Valley motorists against panic buying while the pipeline is shut down. Kinder Morgan spokesman Jay Thorne said there is more than a week's supply of local gasoline, and a two-to-three-day supply of diesel as long as consumers don't rush out...

I turned on local news midway through a report about a possible leak in the pipeline. It was stated that the governor was monitoring the situation and that Phoenix had a "several day" supply of gas. Anyone hear about this?

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China from October 14 to 16. At a press conference held Sunday, Russian Ambassador to China Igor Rogachev said that Russia has decided to strengthen cooperation with China on large-scale projects to raise the level of economic coordination. He also revealed that the long brewing plan of Russia-China oil pipeline would be unveiled in a few months. Facing close questions from the press, Rogachev answered cleverly that why not wait for another few months for the final result since we have been waiting for ten years? According to agreements reached between high-ranking officials of...

Original Title: Pipeline construction begins in the Karaganda district Last week they began work on an oil pipeline to China. The pipe starts near the village of Atasu in the Zhanarkinskiy region and will end in the PRC at Alashan'kou station, a few kilometers past the border. A month ago 'Noviy Vestnik' wrote about a joint project of these governments, but back then the discussion only dealt with intentions. Now the first kilometer sign of the future main is up - there are another 961 to go - and the first joint has been welded. The pipeline is being built...

CHINA'S huge appetite for oil to power industry and its electricity generation is a commodity-market tectonic shift whose outcome and strategic implications are unclear. What is clear is that China is in a great hurry to close deals on long-term supply, including that of gas. There is also the trickier corollary to consider: Pipeline construction across international borders to reduce dependence on ocean supply routes that Beijing calculates can only get less secure. China is the second largest oil consumer after the United States, accounting for 40 per cent of the global increase in consumption since 2000. For a random...

BEIJING (AFX) - Construction of the second phase of a 3,000 km crude oil pipeline linking Kazakhstan and China starts today, the China Business Times reported, citing Bai Lingjie, a senior diplomat at the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan. The 1,200 km section of the pipeline from Atasu in Kazakhstan to the Xinjiang region in western China will connect with the existing 450 km pipeline from Atyrau on the coast of the Caspian Sea to Kenkiyak in 2006 after completion. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and its Kazakhstan counterpart will each hold a 50 pct stake in the joint venture company...

NEW CANEY - In what appears to be a case of criminal mischief, a punctured pipeline exploded before dawn Sunday, causing the evacuation of 250 people but no injuries or significant damage to nearby homes. Residents near the pipeline said they were awakened around 4:45 a.m. by two explosions — a small one, then a large one — that sounded like thunder or a train or tornado. The sky turned bright orange, they said. "My windows shook and there was a whooshing sound like a train, so I thought a tornado might be coming," Joe Pachuca said of the explosion,...

NEWS RELEASEHEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND7115 South Boundary BoulevardMacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 September 25, 2004Release Number: 04-09-76 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SECURITY TEAM FINDS IED ALONG MAJOR OIL PIPELINE TIKRIT, Iraq — A private security company responsible for pipeline security discovered an improvised explosive device along a major oil pipeline west of Balad Sept. 24. The security patrol contacted the 1st Infantry Division, and an explosive ordnance disposal team was sent to the site. The EOD team was able to remove the device and destroy it without harming the oil pipeline. The flow...

Focus: Iraq Iraq's Oil Sector One Year After Liberation Terror's Big Prize The coordinated suicide attack on oil terminals off the coast of the southern Iraqi city of Basra is another sign that terrorists have singled out oil as their biggest prize. A crude threat An average of one to two sabotage attacks a week against Iraq's oil pipelines has crippled the country's oil industry, hindering its ability to export crude. Minding Its Business Saudi Arabia, which has demonstrated its willingness to use its vast oil reserves as a foreign policy tool, has not acted to aid U.S. efforts to...