Energy in Western Europe

  • US LNG exports make European market more competitive

    ALBANIA, 2017/08/27 The European gas market is becoming additional and additional competitive and US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are part of this landscape, Francis Perrin, energy expert, chairman of Energy Strategies and Policies (France) told Trend. “Energy is always a strategic business. Economic aspects are very significant of course, particularly the price of LNG, but nations as well take into account strategic issues. For some Central and Eastern European nations one of the key priorities of their energy policies is the diversification of their supplies, in particular gas imports, in order to reduce their dependence on Russia,” said the expert.

  • EU Gives Tanzania U.S.$200 Million to Develop Energy Sector

    EUROPEAN UNION, 2017/06/06 The European Union, through the Energy for Increase and Sustainable Development programme, has given Tanzania €180 million ($200 million) to develop its energy sector. The bloc, working with the German Development Bank (KfW) and the French Agency for Improvment(AFD), is funding a €42 million ($47 million) electrification project in northwestern Tanzania, covering the Kagera, Geita and Kigoma Regions.

  • Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive officer of EDF

    CHINA, 2016/09/04 China does not pose a security threat and the planned UK nuclear power plant project at Hinkley Point, in which China has a 33 % stake, should go ahead as any minute at this time as possible, Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive officer of EDF said. National-controlled EDF is the major contractor for the planned reactor in the southwest county of Somerset, with China's CGN providing an estimated 6 billion pounds of the 18 billion pound project. Writing in today's Sunday Telegraph Rivaz said: "We know and trust our Chinese partners. The control systems at Hinkley Point C will be isolated from major systems and the Internet."

  • EU sees Caspian region as part of its core energy objective

    EUROPEAN UNION, 2015/11/22 The European Commission sees the connecting the EU energy market to the Caspian region, Central Asia and Eastern Mediterranean as one of the core objectives. EC's Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič in its speech at the National of the Energy Union press conference stressed a need to speed up work on infrastructure projects. He as well said that the European Commission’s second PCI (Project of Common Interests) inventory is additional focused (reduced from 248 to 195 projects) and much better aligned to the core objectives of the Energy Union, such as:

  • EU talks of its energy partnership with Africa

    EUROPEAN UNION, 2015/07/19 SOME of the new favourite buzzwords to come out of the UN development summit in Ethiopia are “blending”, in terms of the type of finance for development coming from private and public funds, and “partners”.  This was particularly evident at a side event on the Africa-EU partnership (AEEP) where the highly-animated Roberto Ridolfi, the European Commission’s Director for Sustainable Growth and Development, was keen to shed the use of the word “donor”, insisting instead that Western states be instead referred to as partners.  He explained that this is because it cannot be denied that all states have their own “political, economic and commercial” interests too. When looking at the financing of development in relation to Africa’s energy sector, it is evident that all players were keen to get a slice of Africa’s energy action. Though the debate was centered on the EU-Africa partnership, the US’s new “Power Africa” group was also in strong attendance with their Chief of Staff, Melanie Vant, sitting on the panel.

  • European Union sees supplies of natural gas from Turkmenistan by 2019

    EUROPEAN UNION, 2015/05/04 The European Union, keen to lessen its dependence on Russia for energy supplies, expects to start receiving natural gas from Turkmenistan by 2019, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said in an interview. Russia currently supplies around a third of Europe’s gas needs, but Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its involvement in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine has added urgency to the EU’s search for gas from alternative sources. “We have good mutual considerate. For Turkmenistan it is very significant to diversify its export options, while for the EU it is very significant to diversify its imports,” Sefcovic told Reuters in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat. “Europe expects supplies of Turkmen gas to begin by 2019,” he said, speaking in Russian. Turkmenistan, a Central Asian country with the world’s fourth-major reserves of natural gas, is keen to diversify exports of the fuel away from Russia which will cut its imports to 4 billion cubic metres this year from 11 bcm in 2014.

  • A hasty approach to joint purchases of natural gas would probably not bring desired results

    EUROPEAN UNION, 2015/02/18 The completed few months have shown the world in which we live is additional dynamic and the challenges we face are additional complex and demanding than we had imagined. EU energy policy is an area which perfectly illustrates this complexity - it is challenged from both outside the EU and from within. We see a military conflict in our Eastern neighbourhood which may seriously compromise our energy security. We must as well take part in world climate change mitigation efforts. Equally, there are challenges from within the EU, such as growing request, massive build-up of intermittent resources and inadequate legal and physical energy market infrastructure.

  • Kosovo is facing an energy crisis

    KOSOVO, 2014/11/19 Guri Shkodra, a spokesperson for the energy supply company, KEDS, said Kosovo is facing an energy crisis this winter as a result of June's incident in the Kosovo A power plant. "Imports have increased a lot while production has fallen significantly," he said. "The price of imported energy is as well two to three times higher than the energy produced in Kosovo's own power plants," Shkodra told Balkan Insight. The explosion at the Kosova A power plant in June killed two persons, injured others and caused extensive damage. The Energy Regulatory Office again decided to increase the energy price by 5 % following the blast in order to offset the additional import of energy needed next the damage caused by the explosion.

  • European Investment Bank grants Tunisia loan for energy production

    EUROPEAN UNION, 2014/03/08 The European Investment Bank (EIB) on Tuesday granted Tunisia a loan, worth 150 million Euros, for the Tunisian Oil Company (ETAP) to half explore natural gas and petroleum deposits in the southern part of the country, Mohamed Akrout, ETAP's CEO, said. The loan is for the realization of an energy project, costing between US$ 800 million and US$ 850 million, and driven in equal shares by ETAP and the Austrian company, OMV, he said. The project, which will be operational in 2016, will create about 1,500 jobs in the construction phase and 100 jobs during the operational phase.

  • A delegation of additional than 100 French companies arrived in Tehran

    IRAN, 2014/02/07 French gas firm Gaz de France, has announced its readiness to work with Iran, the Tasnim News agency reported The company made the announcement during the visit of a French business delegation to Iran on Tuesday. The cooperation will be apart from that of Total and Technip in this field. A delegation of additional than 100 French companies arrived in Tehran on Monday in the biggest demonstration of western business interest in Iran for additional than a decade, Financial Times reported.
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