Speculation is rife that an agreement achieved at December’s gathering of the United Nations to discuss climate change could spell the beginning of the end for cooking and heating with gas. The Paris climate change deal to stop global warming, approved by 195 countries, commits nations to greater reductions in greenhouse gases from 2020 onwards.
Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Alexey Miller and Member of the E.ON Management Board, Klaus Schaefer met this November to discuss the highly-anticipated, upcoming Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.
After four years of decline, European gas demand is estimated to increase by 7% in 2015 with respect to last year according to the latest forecast from Eurogas, the gas association representing the European gas wholesale, retail and distribution sectors. The first half of 2015 saw a significant increase of approximately 9% in demand, compared with the same period in 2014. This estimate comes from their annual survey, covering approximately 87% of the EU gas market.
At the Eastern Economic Forum in September, Gazprom, the world’s largest extractor of natural gas, signed three major deals with some of the EU’s biggest energy companies.
An innovative project, The ‘SeaGas’ scheme, is underway in the north east of England aimed at creating biomethane from seaweed. The conversion of seaweed to biogas via anaerobic digestion could enable the UK’s seabed to become a long-term source of environmentally friendly fuel. The ‘SeaGas’ scheme is being supported to the tune of nearly £3 million by the Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst, which helps UK companies to bring their biotechnology innovations to market.
Gazprom, the energy group controlled by the Russian state, has been embroiled in disputes over both contracts and supplies this summer.
A report commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a non-profit organisation, has found that leaks from natural gas and oil production on federal or tribal land in the USA in 2013 produced the equivalent in greenhouse gases of 5.6 million cars.
After a torrid 2014, the UK’s North Sea oil industry is determined to ensure that it remains a viable, global player in the years ahead.
Underground salt caverns containing stores of hydrogen could provide a solution to the problem of back-up electricity generation in the years ahead.
When it comes to the current outlook for the chemicals industry it is definitely a tale of two continents. While the prospects for the chemicals industry look healthy in the USA, at least in the medium term, it is a much more uncertain outlook on the other side of the Atlantic.