TPT March 2010

G lobal M arketplace

But the online business daily realdeal.hu , also Hungarian, noted Mr Bayer’s stated intention to begin talks in Kazakhstan about the Western-backed pipeline, which is to stretch from Eastern Turkey through Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to Austria. Kazakhstan has, he said – despite a declared interest in developing its hydrocarbons industry – shown the least interest in Nabucco of any state in Central Asia. This is not the first time that the Nabucco venture has been placed at the starting line, only to be forestalled by difficulties over routes, participants, and financing. The $11.6bn project to harvest 31 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year from the Caspian Sea is now scheduled for commissioning in 2014. › As reported by the Russian information agency RIA Novosti [26 December], Azerbaijan is doubling the amount of natural gas it supplies to Russia. “Azerbaijan has a potential to increase gas supplies,” Rovnag Abdullayev, the president of the state energy firm SOCAR, told journalists in Baku. “We will supply Russia with one billion cubic metres of gas in 2010.” A contract signed on 14 October 2009 called for SOCAR to pump 500 million cubic metres of gas annually to Russia’s gas giant Gazprom beginning 1 January 2010, with provision for a subsequent increase. The immediate step-up from that level has to raise concern in Europe, which sees Azerbaijan as a potential contributor to the Nabucco pipeline that will circumvent Russia and thus reduce European dependence on Russian energy supplies. › Another long-delayed natural gas pipeline, in Western Canada, moved closer to final approval with the 1 January announcement that it had been endorsed by a Canadian government review panel. The $15.4bn Mackenzie Valley project, involving Royal Dutch Shell and the American companies ConocoPhillips and Exxon, would connect gas fields in the Arctic with the rest of Canada and potentially with the US. The proposed 750-mile pipeline had drawn opposition from community and environmental groups concerned about greenhouse emissions if the gas is used to upgrade oil sands into usable fuels. Greenhouse emissions from the heating of oil sands are substantially higher than from conventional oil and gas production. But the review panel, after five years of study, concluded that the project “would deliver valuable and lasting overall benefits and avoid significant adverse environmental impacts.”

Gas industry experts say operations at Mackenzie Valley could start as early as 2014. The question now becomes one of economic feasibility, given the current low level of gas prices and the uncertainty of support from the government at Ottawa. The project could also be overtaken by the 2,140-mile Alaska Highway pipeline, a $20bn undertaking moving – likewise slowly – through the preliminaries. Automotive › Daimler AG chief Dieter Zetsche has said that the company was thinking of selling one or more of its new Mercedes-Benz compacts in the US. The A- and B-Class lineup set for introduction in Europe in late 2011 could be offered in the US as an element of a broader strategy for strengthening the Stuttgart-based company’s small-car presence in North America. The smaller Mercedes models

would go up against such European rivals as the Audi A3 and the BMW 1 Series. According to Automotive News , the decisionwill bemade soon on the possible shift of some German production of the C-Class sedan to a Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama.

Daimler AG chief Dieter Zetsche

› The government of China has helped to increase domestic auto sales with tax cuts and subsidies for purchasers of cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars. Most of that aid has gone to Chinese makers of smaller cars, but foreign producers have benefited, as well. This year, both sets of car makers will be seeking to attract first-time buyers in smaller Chinese cities as incomes rise in areas of the country inland of the prosperous east coast. Like other global auto makers, Detroit’s General Motors is looking to China’s fast-growing market to drive sales as demand in the US and elsewhere remains slack. GM’s hopes for China were amply fulfilled last year as sales there by the company and its local partners rose 67%, to a record 1.8 million vehicles. December sales of GM cars in China soared 96.6% from a year earlier to a new monthly high of 189,793 vehicles. Dorothy Fabian , Features Editor (USA)

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