-Caveat Lector-
Reuters: "There is an unexpectedly large drop in domestic stockpiles of
oil in the U.S., the world's largest consumer -- just at a time when global
producers have decided to end the oil GLUT by dumping a percentage of world
supplies."
"Without some basis in international law, which is still lacking," the
French foreign minister said, "turning the Adriatic into the Persian Gulf is
not a good idea.''
"The UN is the only body empowered to authorise a naval blockade.
"So NATO is considering ways to BYPASS the Security Council, where
Russia would be likely to VETO such a blockade."
Yugoslav War Hits Russian Oil Transit Plans, Paper Says
Moscow, April 13 (Bloomberg) -- The military conflict in Yugoslavia is
hampering a project to integrate the Druzhba and Adria oil pipelines for
pumping Russian oil to the Mediterranean, The Moscow Times reported, citing
Dmitry Savelyev, president of Russia's government-owned oil pipeline network
RAO Transneft. Savelyev said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
bombing of Yugoslavia, and Russia's strong opposition, makes potential
partners ``cautious toward the proposals of Transneft because it is a Russian
company.'' The project would allow Russia to pump crude oil to the Adriatic
port of Omisalj, the paper said.
Transneft plans to construct a $500 million pipeline and new oil terminal
near St. Petersburg to reduce its dependence on oil transit through
neighboring countries, including Ukraine and Latvia.
ANALYSIS-Russia, Iran in new energy initiative
By Dmitry Zhdannikov
MOSCOW, April 23 (Reuters) - Russian Fuel and Energy Minister Sergei
Generalov effectively launched a new initiative this week for Russia and Iran
to cooperate on a series of energy projects in the Caspian basin.
But analysts doubted many of the grandiose projects he talked about following
a recent vist to Tehran would come to fruition and said his comments were
aimed at securing contracts for Russian firms and countering U.S. influence
in the Caspian.
``During my visit to Iran last week we reached agreement on mutual political
support in the energy sector as a counter-balance to existing Trans-Caspian
projects,'' Generalov told Reuters earlier this week.
His comments came as Jan Kalicki, a top U.S. adviser on energy in the former
Soviet Union, was in the Azeri capital, Baku, for the opening of a
Western-financed oil pipeline from Baku to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea
coast.
The U.S. has lobbied hard for oil and gas pipelines from Azerbaijan to the
Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, and from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to
Turkey.
It has lobbied equally hard against the transit of energy resources across
Iran, even though Iranian routes would be shorter and cheaper to build, and,
by taking oil to the Gulf, would leave it well-placed for delivery to key
Asian markets.
Generalov said his talks in Iran had focused on transport routes for
hydrocarbons, ``considering that carrying energy supplies to world markets
from the Caspian can be done most effectively through Russia and Iran.''
Russia's delegation included representatives of gas monopoly Gazprom, oil
firms LUKoil LKOH.RTS and YUKOS YUKO.RTS and construction firm Stroitransgaz.
Generalov, who met Energy Minister Bijan Zanganeh and Vice President Hassan
Habibi among others, said top priority was given to building an oil pipeline
to carry Turkmen and Kazakh oil across Iran to the Gulf.
Russia is also considering participating in building a gas pipeline from
Iran's huge offshore South Pars gas field, with eight trillion cubic metres
of reserves, to Tehran and Turkey.
Analysts say Generalov's ambitious plans would be extremely hard to implement
but were important in the wider battle for influence in the Caspian, in which
Russia, Iran, Turkey and the U.S. are all key players with diametrically
opposed interests.
``At the same time Russia is trying to help Iran, trying to prise Caspian
states away from the grip of America, and trying to secure its existing
projects and interests in the region,'' said Vladimir Nosov, oil analyst at
Fleming UCB.
Analyst Ivan Mazalov of Troika Dialog said Generalov was boosting Russia's
own interests by merely appearing to support projects in Iran.
Nosov said that by pledging support to Iranian projects in which Russia had
no real interest, Generalov was deliberately muddying the waters of Caspian
diplomacy to increase the chances of other projects which Russia wanted to
succeed.
``Supporting a gas line from Iran to Turkey or an oil line from Kazakhstan to
Iran could bring more confusion to the energy situation in the Caspian and so
help the success of the Blue Stream project,'' he said.
Blue Stream is a proposed gas pipeline running from Russia to Turkey under
the Black Sea. Russia wants this to go ahead, and any initiatives which foil
rival projects to deliver gas from other countries to Turkey can only benefit
Blue Stream.
Blue Stream is the brainchild of Gazprom, a partner in Iran's South Pars with
French Total and Malaysian Petronas.
Support for an Iranian gas line to Turkey, on top of Blue Stream, could kill
off once and for all the Turkmen dream of building its own line under the
Caspian to Turkey, a plan which has not really got off the drawing board
despite massive hype.
But Generalov himself admitted that there was a long way to go before the
projects he supported could get started.
He pointed out that neither Russia nor Iran was in a position to finance an
oil line from the Caspian across Iran.
Analysts speculate that one motive in supporting Iran may be to put pressure
on the U.S. to soften its opposition to investment in Iran by showing the
importance Russia attaches to developing the energy sector there.
More Greek oil due in Montenegro soon - port agent
By Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON, April 21 (Reuters) - Yugoslavia is expecting to receive another
shipment of fuel aboard a Greek-owned vessel into the Adriatic port of Bar in
Montenegro in the next few days, a port agent there said on Tuesday.
The general manager of Jugo Agent said that a tanker from a Greek refinery
carrying 2,500 tonnes of gasoline was due to arrive by the end of the week.
He also said that a cargo of diesel or fuel oil was expected soon, travelling
aboard a French-owned ship. He said that the latter shipment, from a French
or Italian refinery, was still subject to confirmation.
``We expect one small tanker from Greece the day after tomorrow from Agioi
Theodoroi. The French-owned ship is coming from Italy or France,'' said Jugo
Agent's Mike Krstic.
The shipments were revealed just as diplomats said the European Union had
endorsed a plan to stop oil product deliveries to Yugoslavia in an effort to
sever supplies to Serbia's military.
Greece, France and Italy all are EU member states.
Currently there are no international sanctions in place which prohibit the
sale of oil to Yugoslavia. Economic sanctions covering fuel imports were
lifted in 1995 following the signing of the Dayton peace treaty which ended
the war in Bosnia.
U.S. oil company Texaco Inc on Tuesday said it had delivered 65,000 barrels
of gasoline from a British refinery to Yugoslavia on April 17, weeks after
the start of NATO's air war against the Balkan state began.
While the shipment was not illegal, the revelation came as an embarrassment
for New-York based Texaco as the U.S. and Britain have been leading NATO's
effort to get other countries to voluntarily cut off the supply of fuel to
Yugoslavia.
Texaco refined the oil at its Pembroke refinery in Wales but said it would
not make any further deliveries during hostilities.
Krstic of Jugo Agent said that no other oil shipments had been scheduled to
Bar but that the port remained fully operational.
He said that as far as he knew the fuel was for local consumption in the
republic of Montenegro and was unlikely to reach Serbia.
``It's been over seven months that our border has been closed to Serbia and
they have their own company responsible for importing cargoes like this,'' he
said.
Landlocked Serbia relies on its junior partner in the Yugoslav federation,
Montenegro, for access to the sea.
Montenegro forms part of Yugoslavia but has been spared the worst of the
bombing, with NATO anxious to avoid undermining the republic's reformist
government.
Serbia's prime delivery routes for the oil it needs to run military vehicles
were cut off early in NATO's campaign. Belgrade had relied on oil piped
through Croatia and Hungary and carried by barge up the river Danube from the
Black Sea.
Serbia's two refineries were shut by NATO bombs, several fuel depots have
been destroyed and railway routes from refineries in other parts of
Yugoslavia closed.
French tests waters for Balkan block on Yugoslav oil
PARIS, April 20 (Reuters) - A French envoy has just toured central Europe and
the Balkans to see whether Belgrade's neighbours would be ready to stop oil
supplies to Yugoslavia, French diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.
The request, which President Jacques Chirac wants to put to a meeting of
countries neighbouring Yugoslavia during this week's NATO summit in
Washington, is intended to overcome legal hurdles in imposing an oil embargo
on Belgrade.
Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told the daily Le Figaro the NATO allies
agreed an oil embargo was needed to dry up fuel supplies still reaching
Yugoslavia despite NATO's air strikes, but they needed to think further in
order to justify it.
``Turning the Adriatic into the Persian Gulf is not necessarily a good idea''
without a solid legal basis, he said in a reference to U.N. trade sanctions
against Iraq.
``There is no disagreement on the objectives. The objective is logical,''
Vedrine said.
``But it would require a solid legal justification. And that doesn't exist.
We need to keep thinking,'' he said.
French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret said the United
Nations Security Council was the only body empowered to authorise the use of
force for a naval blockade.
Force would be needed to stop and search ships heading for Montenegro which
makes up Yugoslavia with Serbia.
Diplomatic sources saw three possible ways to skirt the Security Council --
where Russia would be likely to veto a blockade of its Yugoslav ally.
The likeliest possibility would be for the European Union to ask Yugoslavia's
neighbours, who hope to join the European Union in the future, to stop oil
supplies to Belgrade.
They said that since a blockade is an act of war, another possibility would
be to declare war on Yugoslavia.
A third possible solution being studied by legal experts would be to give a
more extensive interpretation to existing U.N. sanctions against Yugoslavia.
Serbia feels pinch of restricted oil flows
By Peter Lardner
LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) - Two major arteries of oil supply to Yugoslavia
have run dry after suppliers in Hungary and Croatia ceased deliveries since
NATO's bombing campaign, pipeline operators and oil suppliers said on Friday.
Croatian firm Janaf Jadranski Nafta, which operates the Adria pipeline
supplying Serbian refineries from Croatia's Adriatic coast, had not
transported oil to Yugoslavia since NATO air raids began, a company official
told Reuters.
Moltrade Mineralimpex Trading of Hungary, traditionally a key supplier of
mainly Russian Urals oil to Yugoslavia via the Druzhba pipeline, said it had
last supplied crude along the line earlier in March.
"We fulfilled all our obligations without any problems in March and up until
now we have received no further requests," a trader with Hungary's
Mineralimpex said.
Yugoslavia sent a request to Russian President Boris Yeltsin for his help in
securing supplies of fuel.
Itar-Tass news agency quoted Russian MP Nikolai Ryzhkov as saying during a
visit to Belgrade that the request for fuel had been sent to Yeltsin by
Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.
He was quoted as saying that the fuel was needed for the spring harvest.
Yugoslavia's fuel depots and refineries have been key targets for NATO's
attacks as the Western alliance tries to cripple the country's military. The
strikes by pilots with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have hit
Serbia's only two refineries, the 107,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in
Pancevo and the 60,000 bpd facility in Novi Sad.
Sources familiar with the facilities said that while refining equipment at
the plants may still be intact, the adjacent power stations providing
electricity for the refineries have been disabled.
A spokeswoman at Serbia's Pancevo refinery near Belgrade said she was unable
to speak about the plant's operations.
"We are not allowed to talk about it," she told Reuters by telephone.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Wald told reporters on Wednesday that Serbia's
energy infrastructure had sustained heavy damage.
He said attacks against Danube River bridges, rail lines and other
infrastructure has also made it difficult for the Serbs to move their
remaining fuel to military and police units.
More than 60 vessels are stranded on the Danube in southern Hungary due to
the destruction of bridges in northern Yugoslavia, Hungarian shipping
officials said on Thursday.
Oil analysts say that the disruption of barge traffic on the Danube would
impede Serbia's ability to secure oil products from neighbouring countries.
"When you have eliminated barge deliveries, the amount you can move (into
Serbia) gets progressively less," said Colin Birch of Purvin and Gertz,
referring to road transport of oil products.
Yugoslavia has an estimated 100 or so fuel storage facilities, including some
for civilian use.
The country produces just 20,000 bpd of its own crude oil, and even for
normal use during peacetime needs to import another 60,000 bpd
A cash squeeze had seen crude oil supply deals with China and Libya fall
through over the past year.
Serbia's national state-run oil monopoly Naftna Industrija Srbije NIS ran up
debts to its foreign suppliers of around $200 million for crude and $220
million for natural gas deliveries.
London, April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil could open little changed from a
16-month high amid concern that supplies from Venezuela, a key supplier to
U.S. refiners and the world's No. 5 producer, could be limited by a pipeline
explosion.
Crude oil for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange is expected
to open 5 cents lower from $17.92 a barrel, after surging 2.5 percent
yesterday to its highest closing price since Dec. 26, 1997. Brent crude oil
for June delivery declined 7 cents to $15.82 a barrel in afternoon trading on
the International Petroleum Exchange in London.
Venezuela may have to reduce oil production by 10 percent, or about 278,000
barrels a day, for 15 days after the blast crippled part of its pipeline
network. Still, output could be increased elsewhere in the country to
compensate.
`The Venezuelan situation could take some supply from the market, but I'm
betting on a significant fall (in prices) soon,'' said Chris Allan head of
futures trading at BP Amoco Plc. ``I think you will find in the end they will
make up the shortfall.''
New York oil prices jumped more than 2 percent yesterday after the explosion
broke, and could gain again later today if the South American country is
stymied in its attempts to sustain normal exports, traders said.
The chance that Venezuelan supplies in to the U.S. could fall coincides with
an unexpectedly large drop in domestic stockpiles in the U.S., the world's
largest energy consumer, as a new plan by global producers to erode surplus
supplies takes hold.
Venezuela agreed to idle 125,000 barrels a day of production as its
contribution along with other world producers to end an oil glut and prop up
prices.
Those measures have in part caused oil prices to rebound from a 12-year low
of $10.35 a barrel late last year, because world producers have intensified
their efforts to wipe out an oil glut by shaving the equivalent of 2.7
percent off world supplies.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, is
searching for ways to re-route the oil or increase production at other
fields, a spokeswoman said.
``It's not a small amount of oil -- over four million barrels when you count
it over two weeks,'' said Peter Gignoux, head of crude oil brokerage at
Salomon Smith Barney. ``Still, they may find a way to get around it.''
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