Global Energy Advisory August 26th 2016

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict

• Gazprom is likely to start turning its attention more to the East after the Polish anti-trust authorities slammed the door in the Russian giant’s face regarding its Nord Stream-2 project. Poland threatened its Western European partners, among them Shell and Germany’s Wintershall, along with Austria’s OMV, who all have major presence in the central European country, that if they go forward as a consortium with Gazprom to build Nord Stream, this would increase Gazprom’s influence over the local energy market unduly. The partners are not giving up and will seek ways to participate in the project separately, they said. Meanwhile, Turkish Stream is back on the table after Turkey’s president Erdogan apologized to Moscow for the downing of a Russian plane last year and the two countries are getting close again. Iran is another natural partner for sanction-hit Russia. Europe, however, remains a key market for Gazprom and any about-turn on its part will take considerable time. Until then, it will likely continue to supply a third of the European Union’s gas via existing pipelines, until alternatives such as the Trans-Adriatic pipeline, or TAP, are built.

• The recent jump of crude oil prices will soon be over, according to analysts, as the market gets used to the fact that the September OPEC meeting in Algeria is highly unlikely to result in an agreement to cap production. What’s…