Energy privitisation continues in Ukraine

Whilst the government struggles to identify and package up parts of the infamous behemoth called Naftogaz for privatisation as recommended by the EBRD, it seems to be having little difficulty in deciding on other parts of the energy infrastructure to be privatised. This week a law passed (with 243 votes in favour) to privatise the […]

LNG Terminal - Yushni creeps closer to becoming a reality

Every now and again I mention LNG and Yushni in the same post and have been doing so since 2010 when I first put my money on Yushni being the eventual location of any LNG terminal for Ukraine. It seems my prediction was right and that a feasibility study has just been completed for locating […]

Assassination attempts, Chechnya, Odessa the EU and oil prices

Well it seems that attempted assassinations of Russians and Chechens in London are making the news over in Blighty. Not so long ago I wrote about the attempted assassination of German Gorbuntsov at Canary Wharf and now it seems MI5 are struggling to remove a Chechen of extremely dubious and nefarious background from London, who they […]

Gas disputes and reduced supply again – Russia v Ukraine 2012 (and the EU)

For once Ukraine maybe well served by having the current hard-nosed power vertical of the Party of Regions in power. Why? In the past week, Italy, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have all noticed large drops in the supply of gas from Russia. Needless to say these drops have occurred […]

Ukraine to resume Carbon Credit trading

It seems the powers that be have decided to reenter the Carbon Credit trading market after a 2 year absence following a complaint from Japan about breaches to the Kyoto Protocol and the funds it paid for AAU’s from Ukraine apparently not going into strictly environmental budgets as per contracts here. Yes of course Ms […]

Back to gas - again

Remember this post I wrote from a few days ago? This reads rather well now and something of a prophesy: “If Russia was to turn off the taps, the EU, which has done all it can to stay outside this contractual squabble would then be sucked in. The options for the EU would be to […]

Ukrainian 2012 Budget already unrealistic?

There is a possibility that the Ukrainian budget will not be met already. The reason as always is gas and Russia. It is already acknowledged by the government themselves that the budget is ambitious when it comes to the budget cutting. Now the authorities state that they will cope in 2012 and cite the budget […]

Gas and currency devaluation - Ukraine 2012

It seems to be going horribly wrong for Ukraine regarding gas supplies from Russia. Russia and Turkey have reached agreement over the South Stream pipeline traveling through Turkish waters, a matter that was the only thing preventing its going ahead. With Nord Stream on line already, pumping Russian gas directly to Germany and bypassing Ukraine, […]

Seeing out 2011 - Top 5 most read posts of the year

As seems to be en vogue, I will see out 2011 with a list of the top 5 most read posts of the year from Odessablog. Counting down from five to the most read at number one, at number five we have a tale of a standard day in the most elite and nefarious business […]

Gas……again!

Now, if you are contractually tied to a fairly awful gas deal and cannot (as yet) renegotiate it but are none the less dependent on said gas, what do you do? Use less gas obviously! Mind you, when you have signed an agreement that guarantees a minimum quantity each year or face paying a fine […]