Category: Energy

The EU gas crisis that wasn’t

February 2, 2012 4:25 pm by Joshua Chaffin

When word filtered out on Tuesday that Russia’s Gazprom would be capping its gas shipments to the European Union, a shiver went through an unusually frigid Brussels.

After two major supply cuts in the last ten years – the most recent in 2009 – European policymakers have become conditioned to believe that any interruption in Russian gas may be the beginning of another full-blown crisis instigated by the Kremlin.

Gazprom said it was going to have to limit European sales in order to serve the needs of domestic consumers struggling through a cold winter. Fears appeared to subside a bit, though, when the company promised to try to make up the difference over the coming days.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the incident is how quickly it has become a non-event. The reason, according to EU officials, is that the continent learned the lessons from the last gas crisis and has worked to make itself far less vulnerable to future Russian shocks.

Continue reading: “The EU gas crisis that wasn’t”

Posted in Energy, EU, EU Commission | Permalink

A Russian charm offensive in the pipeline wars

May 27, 2011 3:23 pm by Joshua Chaffin

In the corridors of Brussels’ elegant Stanhope Hotel on Wednesday afternoon, the well-turned-out movers-and-shakers of the European energy world were marvelling at the sizeable budget and high-profile guest list for the event they were attending.

Soon to share a dais were Günther Oettinger, the European energy commissioner; his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shmatko; Alexei Miller, the chairman of Russia’s Gazprom; and Paolo Scaroni, the chief executive of Italy’s Eni. The ballroom was appointed with flat-screen video monitors and rows of chairs with corporate gift boxes.

The event was a sort of a Brussels coming-out party (and charm offensive) for South Stream, a Gazprom-backed pipeline project that aims to carry Russian and Caspian gas under the Black Sea to Bulgaria, where it would then fork off to Italy and Austria. South Stream’s backers, which include Eni, and now BASF, are due to decide next year whether or not to push ahead with the €15.5bn investment necessary to complete the sprawling project.

Continue reading: “A Russian charm offensive in the pipeline wars”

Tags: Gazprom, Nabucco
Posted in Energy, EU | Permalink

A nuclear CEO’s view of Fukushima

April 11, 2011 4:58 pm by Joshua Chaffin

Is it possible that people are overreacting to the crisis at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear facility? That is certainly the belief of Aris Candris, chief executive of Westinghouse Electric, one of the world’s largest suppliers of nuclear reactors.

During a visit to a corporate retreat on the outskirts of Brussels, Candris took time to give the Brussels Blog his view of the crisis, one that is sure to inflame the nuclear industry’s many critics, particularly in continental Europe.

While Candris understands the hysteria caused by the accident, he predicts that its impact on public health will ultimately be quite small, with most people living in the evacuation zone around the plant exposed to no more radiation than a typical x-ray.

“We’ve done a piss-poor job of communicating with the general public,” he told the Brussels Blog. “It’s unfortunate that we have a shared heritage with the bomb, which scares the hell out of people.”

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Tags: Japan
Posted in Energy, Environment | Permalink

EU summit: Leaked draft conclusions

March 24, 2011 11:39 am by Peter Spiegel

As we’ve been reporting for the last couple of days, many of the fiscal measures that we once thought had been agreed for the two-day summit are unravelling, thanks in part to Finland’s objections to finalising an increase in the eurozone’s €440bn bail-out fund and Germany’s sudden objection to the structure of the €500bn fund that will replace it in 2013.

Some, though not all, of those differences are reflected in a draft version of the summit conclusions which we’ve happened to get our hands on, and we thought we’d offer Brussels blog readers a preview of what the EU heads of government will read when they get to the summit this afternoon.

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Tags: EFSF, EU summit, Japan, Libya, nuclear
Posted in Economic governance, Energy, EU, Trade | Permalink

Commissioner Oettinger’s loose lips

March 16, 2011 4:37 pm by Joshua Chaffin

Beleaguered Japanese officials are already grappling with a humanitarian crisis wrought by a biblical earthquake and tsunami, and the prospect of apocalyptic meltdowns at a pair of stricken nuclear reactors. Add to their list of woes one European commissioner.

That would be Gunther Oettinger, the energy commissioner, whose ill-judged remarks about the crisis on Wednesday have helped to make a bad situation worse.

Continue reading: “Commissioner Oettinger’s loose lips”

Tags: Angela Merkel, earthquake, Gunther Oettinger, Herman Van Rompuy, Japan
Posted in Energy, EU Commission, Foreign policy | Permalink

EU energy summit: The view from Moscow

February 4, 2011 12:03 pm by Joshua Chaffin

As European leaders gather in Brussels for a summit meeting nominally dedicated – for the first time – to energy policy, one uninvited guest is looking on with some dismay: Russia.

High on the agenda is energy security. Which is a polite way of saying that European leaders are discussing how the bloc can break its dependency on Russian gas. In some parts of the EU – notably among the new member states of central and eastern Europe – that policy goal has become an obsession.

“We are totally dependent,” said one Lithuanian diplomat. “Whatever Gazprom says, we pay.”

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Tags: EU summit, Russia, Russian gas
Posted in Energy, EU, EU Commission | Permalink

EU summit: Egypt added to the agenda

February 3, 2011 10:20 am by Peter Spiegel

Friday’s summit of European heads of government has long been signposted as one of European Council president Herman Van Rompuy’s new interim conclaves to deal with a policy issue of crucial importance to Europe, in this case energy security.

But as many diplomats predicted, energy is increasingly getting drowned out by other, more pressing demands.

First, José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, called on the summit to be used to hash out an overhaul of the eurozone’s €440bn sovereign debt bail-out fund so it’s able to more flexibly deal with bond market assaults on struggling “peripheral” economies.

Although that won’t happen, Van Rompuy has agreed to turn over the summit’s traditional working lunch to the eurozone crisis, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has decided to use the opportunity to float a new plan for greater coordination in economic and fiscal policies among eurozone countries.

Now, it seems, the afternoon is being taken over by yet another crisis: Egypt.

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Tags: energy security, EU summit, Herman Van Rompuy
Posted in Energy, EU, Foreign policy | Permalink

EU report speaks of critical shortages of 14 raw materials

June 18, 2010 10:32 am by Tony Barber

It was buried amid the excitement of the European Union’s summit in Brussels, but I’d like to draw your attention to a revealing report published on Thursday on the subject of European access to strategic raw materials. Prepared under the supervision of the European Commission, the report names 14 critical materials that Europe risks not having enough of in the future – with potentially far-reaching implications for Europe’s economic development, not to mention its defence and security.

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Tags: China, EU economic policy, EU trade policy, rare earths, raw materials, Russia, United States
Posted in Economic growth, Energy, EU, Trade | Permalink

Barriers to raising EU’s climate change target grow higher

May 26, 2010 11:34 am by Tony Barber

A wall of resistance from European Union governments and industry stands in the way of the efforts of Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s climate action commissioner, to secure a pledge from the 27-nation bloc to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by even more than it is already committed to doing.

Hedegaard contends that the EU can afford to set itself higher targets, because Europe’s recent recession – the worst in its history – reduced economic activity and so slashed the cost of meeting the goals set in 2008. The EU’s basic target is a 20 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels. Hedegaard would like to raise the target to 30 per cent, thereby maintaining Europe’s self-image as the frontrunner in world efforts to tackle climate change.

Continue reading: “Barriers to raising EU’s climate change target grow higher”

Tags: climate change, Connie Hedegaard, Copenhagen summit, Environment, European economic recovery
Posted in Energy, Environment, EU Commission | Permalink

Carbon dioxide emissions fall: unintended gift from economic crisis

April 2, 2010 12:52 pm by Joshua Chaffin

If you’ve been breathing a bit easier of late, there may be a reason: carbon dioxide emissions covered by the European Union’s cap-and-trade system fell a remarkable 11 per cent last year, according to preliminary data released by the European Commission. That is the biggest one-year fall since the emissions trading system began five years ago.

Unfortunately, the drop was not owing to the sort of forward-looking, green technology investments so frequently touted by Commission president José Manuel Barroso. Instead it was an unintended gift from the worst economic crisis since the Depression, which has slowed industrial activity. In weight loss terms, this is a bit like shedding 5 kilos through the accident of a stomach flu as opposed to the sustained virtue of diet and exercise.

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Posted in Energy, Environment | Permalink