Analytics // Transportation

Holding oil and gas resources without transportation system means nothing. The strategic importance of the Balkans, from the point of view of logistics, is so that this region can become a stumbling block on the way of both the Russian natural gas and the gas from Central Asia.

Russia’s foreign partners should expect essential expansion of Russian fleet soon, and, consequently, an increase of export supplies, according to Braemar Seascope group’s experts. The global demand for oil and petroleum products is on its ever-high level now, and it keeps growing.

Green cars -- if that adjective can be applied to any car -- are going to have a huge advantage in the global automobile market, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a respected, Washington-based environmental research organization.

By the year 2012, Russian government and company forecasts indicate that Russian oil output will increase...

Construction of oil pipeline will begin in spring (by the end of the first quarter of 2003) and will be finished by the end of 2004. The next round of Azeri-Kazakhstan negotiations under the project of the oil pipeline Baku - Tbilisi-Jejhan will be held in February in Kazakhstan.

1240-kilometer trans-Black sea gas pipeline Russia - Turkey known as the "the Blue stream" project, is put into operation. The gas pipeline has started operation on the eve of December 29. Its capacity is designed for annual delivery to Turkey of 16 billion cubic meters of Russian gas.

Joint Russian ? Greek - Bulgarian negotiations concerning the matter of construction of an oil pipeline Burgas - Alexandropolis were conducted with breaks, since 1994, and realization of this project according to the preliminary estimations will cost $500-700 million.

Russia and China are on the verge of signing a major oil deal that will nearly double trade exchanges between the two sides by 2005, Beijing's new ambassador to Moscow said on Thursday. The deal between the Russian oil major Yukos, the national pipeline monopoly Transneft and a Chinese energy concern is likely be signed during a visit to Moscow by Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji that begins next week, ambassador Zhang Deguang said.

Russia's Finance Ministry and gas giant Gazprom are in consultations with the Chinese authorities on using some Chinese debt to Russia to finance a gas pipeline, Gazprom said on Monday. ``Chinese debt to Russia, including for armaments' supplies, could be used to finance the project,'' Bogdan Budzulyak, a Gazprom management committee member, told reporters.

The European Commission on Monday hailed the construction of a 300km oil pipeline in Ukraine as a crucial step in reducing Europe's dependence on North Sea oil. The pipeline from Odessa to Brody, which was officially opened on Sunday, links up with existing infrastructure to supply Slovakia and central Europe with oil from the Caspian region.

The Russian operators of an oil tanker implicated in a deadly collision with a U.S. fishing boat want their ship released from Canadian waters as civil lawsuits continue to pile up in the United States and Canada.