Natural Gas Network

According to the US Energy Administration natural gas prices rose above $5 per Mcf earlier this year, for the first time in nearly four years. Provide explanation. Conclude with a forecast of the natural gas market condition over the next 5 years.
 Analysis of demand
 Analysis of supply
 Explanation of market equilibrium
 Justification of forecast

In the U.S., natural gas pipeline transport has undergone a wave of deregulatory actions over the past several decades. The underlying motive has been the presumption that removing regulatory frictions would facilitate spot price arbitrage, helping to integrate prices across geographic locations and improve efficiency. Yet certain frictions, specifically the effect of congestion on transportation costs, inhibit positive deregulatory impacts on efficiency. With the increase in domestic production and consumption of natural gas over the coming decades, upward pressure on the demand for transport will likely result in an increased occurrence of persistently congested pipeline routes. In this paper we explore the relationship between congestion and spot prices using a simple network model, paying particular attention to the influence of storage. We find that as congestion between two hubs increases, the scarcity value of transmission capacity rises, driving a wedge between spot prices. We empirically quantify this effect over a specific pipeline route in the Rocky Mountain region that closely resembles our structural design. Although our results paint a stark picture of the impact that congestion can have on efficiency, we also find evidence that the availability of storage mitigates the price effects of congestion through the intertemporal substitution of transmission services.

History of Naturgy (formerly Sociedad Catalana para el Alumbrado por Gas, Catalana de Gas y Electricidad, Catalana de Gas, Gas Natural SDG, Gas Natural Fenosa and Naturgy), the leading company in the natural gas sector in Spain, with a significant presence in electricity and renewable energies

Nesta monografia de especialização, discorre-se sobre viabilidade de construção de Termelétricas a Gás Natural no âmbito do Setor Elétrico Brasileiro, para complementar o suprimento das usinas hidrelétricas, objetivando a confiabilidade do sistema elétrico que está intimamente ligada à gestão integrada das usinas e à estratégia de expansão da oferta. São demonstrados os aspectos: técnico, ambiental e econômico-financeiro das usinas hidrelétricas e termelétricas, que servirão de subsídios de comparação entre as duas formas de geração e análise de viabilidade de construção de termelétrica como fonte alternativa. Considero imprescindível para esta avaliação de viabilidade o estudo sobre o suprimento de insumos e, como a termelétrica em estudo é de gás natural, são abordados aspectos relacionados à evolução da indústria do gás natural no Brasil e no mundo, bem como sobre os agentes participantes dessa indústria, o Gasoduto Bolívia-Brasil e preços do gás natural. Apesar das mudanças e de vários avanços no setor elétrico nos últimos anos, o Brasil continua enfrentando uma preocupante crise. O déficit de energia não é mais uma ameaça do futuro. É um problema do presente e que necessita, já, de atenção na busca de soluções de curto, médio e longo prazo.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has the fourth largest natural gas (NG) reserves in the world. One third of these reserves are located in the Ghawar region of Eastern Province. NG production is controlled tightly due to close conjunction with oil production until recently. KSA’s NG production of 85 billion cubic meters in 2015 from 70 billion cubic meters in 2008 sets an average annual increase of 2.7%. More than half of the annual KSA’s NG production has been accompanied by gas. The Saudi Gas Initiative (SGI) aims to increase foreign investment in the NG development sector through petrochemicals, power generation, and gas development while integrating with salt water desalination. The barriers in the success of motor fuel policies include high initial capital costs, lack of information or skills, less market acceptance, technology limitations, and financing risks. This article aims to review the potential of NG as an alternative to oil and coal in KSA in meeting the country’s high energy requirements.

The issues connected to the introduction of the SECAs by January 1st 2015 are numerous and interconnected constitut-ing a mesh of problems through which ship owners and charterers have to pass. Decisions have to be made amid uncer-tainty and are bound to influence a much wider number of players than the two aforementioned ones. The European Union, itself confused about incentives and subsidies, is unable to provide assistance to its affected member states which will be left to their own devices. The same applies to ship owners who see the huge amounts of money available under the various schemes go to infrastructure projects rather than the cost of retrofits. There is no doubt there is going to be an impact on the terms of trade and most writers on this subject agree there will be higher freight rate levels in short sea shipping and a significant degree of backshift of cargoes from the sea to the land modes. This summary paper attempts to depict the larger picture in a concise way and suggests that the problem has been approached from the wrong angle ab originem.

A methodology is developed in this paper to estimate the time-dependent reliability of a pipeline in Algeria, which is in exploitation from 1981 and with internal and external localized corrosion defects detected in 2009. A probabilistic approach was applied to a pipeline made of API 5L X60 steel for the long-distance transportation of natural gas (55 km), which crossing several geographical reliefs in different country areas. The analysis was carried out by taking into consideration the potential stochastic variables altering drastically the reliability of the pipeline, i.e., dimensions of the localized corrosion defects, their locations, and distribution, and the corrosion rate. The correlations between the pipeline spatial corrosion defects distribution and their dimensions , obtained by using an intelligent inspection tool are used to analyze the actual in-service corrosion attack rate and for enhancement of the accuracy of the reliability assessment. The failure scenario was considered as the moment when the pipeline operating pressure exceeds the failure pressure defined analytically in accordance with different commonly used standards. The assessment of the reliability index of the corroded pipeline subjected to internal pressure and the failure probability was done. The detailed reliability analysis is carried out by using the second order reliability method (SORM) for the basic random variables with different prob-abilistic density within a nonlinear limit state function. The latter is based on the limit analysis of the failure pressure model for different standards and the numerical analysis using the finite element method and ANSYS software.

It would be an exaggeration to say that the North-South Gas Corridor alone has, in the short run, strategic meaning for the whole region. Some countries find it more beneficial to gain direct access to West European gas markets; that is why in harsh contrast with vast cross-border capacities in the East-West direction, the connection in the North–South direction is as yet limited. Of primary significance are Russian energy companies’ marketing strategies, the future of the Baumgarten hub in Austria, and even global trends, though NSI has potential to cause geopolitical breakthrough in the region in the long run. All the more reason then that this idea is not only about physical infrastructure but also LNG terminals, UGS facilities and the creation of functional regional market. In this programme, one could include the development of unconventional gas, too. All of these are crucial elements of energy security with no short-term effects in this calculation. Bearing in mind the fact that Central Europe is of key strategic importance to secure safe supplies of natural gas thanks to its location at the East-to-West and North-to-South transportation corridors, in a few decades the region could achieve not only significant independence from sole-source suppliers but also could become a crucial player in the European energy market, even with opportunities to export energy.

It describes manufactured gas industry in Europe, giving  details of the development and extent of the manufactured gas industry across Europe. A paper will follow which will take advantage of the information prepared.
Gasworks in Europe, Usine à gaz en Europe, Gaswerk in Europa, officine del gas in Europa, газовите заводи в Европа, gasværk i Europa, majapidamisgaasigeneraatorid Euroopas, gázgyár Európában, kaasutehdas Euroopassa, gāzes fabrika Eiropā, Serverių Europoje, gasskraftverk i Europa, fábrica de gás na Europa, gasverk i Europa

Gazprom on the European market: Gazprom continues to increase its sales on the European market; EU standards for coal-fired power plants likely to result in increased gas demand for power generation

Gazprom in the Baltic region: Lithuania's first shipment of US LNG arrives; Baltic Prime Ministers agree on development of joint regional LNG infrastructure

Nord Stream: Gazprom Chairman praises lifting of OPAL restrictions as Gazprom increases gas flows through the pipeline

Southern Corridor: 170km of Turkish Stream offshore section laid as point of landfall in Turkey is confirmed

Ukraine: Gazprom files another appeal against the enforced recovery of a fine issued by the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine in January 2016

Asia: Gazprom CEO states that Power of Siberia is 'ahead of schedule' and announces intended launch date; Gazprom to delay launch of Yuzhno-Kirinskoye gas field at Sakhalin by two years, to 2023

Other News: Novatek intends to launch Yamal LNG terminal ahead of schedule, planning second Arctic LNG terminal; LNG carrier completes journey across Northern Sea Route without icebreaker support

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, 23 rd. June 2017 launched the deep-water phase of the TurkStream gas pipeline project, calling Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan from a ship off the Black Sea coast. TurkStream will deliver Russian gas to Turkey and is eventually intended to serve the European Union.
"Go!" Putin said, pressing a button on the Pioneering Spirit pipe laying ship, the world's largest construction vessel, to formally launch the work, accompanied by Gazprom energy giant's chief Alexei Miller..........    ....  TurkStream Historical Background

TurkStream will directly connect the large gas reserves in Russia to the Turkish gas transportation network, to provide reliable energy supplies for Turkey and south-east Europe .
TurkStream is the project for a transit-free export gas pipeline stretching across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and further to Turkey's border with neighboring countries. The first string of the gas pipeline is intended for Turkish consumers, while the second string will deliver gas to southern and southeastern Europe. Each string will have the throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas per year. İ.e The Turkstream project entails the construction of two lines, each capable of carrying 15.75 billion cubic metres of gas per year. The first is due to be completed in 2018 and the second in 2019.

Nowadays, the market for natural gas production and its use as a source of energy supply has been growing substantially in Brazil. However, the use of tools that assist the industry in the management of production can be essential for the strategic decision-making process. In this intuit, this work aims to evaluate the formulation of Holt Winter's additive and multiplicative time series to forecast Brazilian natural gas production. A comparison between the models and their forecast play a vital role for policymakers in the strategic plan, and the models estimated production values for the year 2018 based on the information contained in the interval between 2010 and 2017. Therefore, It was verified that the multiplicative method had a good performance so that we can conclude this formulation is ideal for such an application since all the predicted results by this model showed greater accuracy within the 95% confidence interval. Abstract Nowadays, the market for natural gas production and its use as a source of energy supply has been growing substantially in Brazil. However, the use of tools that assist the industry in the management of production can be essential for the strategic decision-making process. In this intuit, this work aims to evaluate the formulation of Holt Winter's additive and multiplicative time series to forecast Brazilian natural gas production. A comparison between the models and their forecast play a vital role for policymakers in the strategic plan, and the models estimated production values for the year 2018 based on the information contained in the interval between 2010 and 2017. Therefore, It was verified that the multiplicative method had a good performance so that we can conclude this formulation is ideal for such an application since all the predicted results by this model showed greater accuracy within the 95% confidence interval.

—Nigeria is committed toward developing its Natural Gas energy subsector in order to address the energy trilemma in the country; as a result, Nigerian Gas master plan proposes new gas pipeline. The paper analyzes the life cycle cost (using Shahanon Pipeline Cost Model) of the Gas pipeline networks (FRA) proposed in the plan, and introduces additional and separate pipeline system (SRA) for comparison. SRA pipeline represents 67% increase on the FRA pipeline capacity, 115% increase on the FRA's capex and 152% increase in kilometer distance, and as a result, led to increase in Levelised Gas Transportation Cost (LTC) by 25%. This justifies that higher increase in capacity results to relatively modest increase in LTC. The effect of adjusting pipeline capacities on LTC was also observed, and LTC was discovered to fall continuously as capacity increases. The study concluded that, it is more economical to have large gas pipeline capacities and operate pipelines at their full capacities, as more capacity leads to low LTC. Therefore, it is advisable if Nigerian government will consider the second alternative route as it covers most of the demand potential areas and has relatively low LTC. Moreover, investing in the SRA will also serve long-term investment needs, as all potential demand areas are covered.

Untreated natural gas is a colorless and an odorless substance, difficult to detect in ambient air. Odorization is is process of adding an odor to natural gas, and it is crucial for safe gas consumption, as it allows a lay person to detect gas leakages and to take measures to eliminate them. An important development for the gas sector is the emergence of biomethane- biogas upgraded to the quality to natural gas- that can be injected into the natural gas network. Just like natural gas, biomethane has to be odorized in order to possess a characteristic alarming ‘gas’ smell. Biomethane is increasingly recognized as an equivalent to natural gas in legal terms: e.g. Third Energy Package applies in equal measure to both biomethane and natural gas. This is also the case in the Dutch national legislation. In view of the above issues, an important question arises, and namely: Are the legal developments on European and Dutch national level in relation to biomethane translating into an equal legal regime applicable to its odorization in comparison to natural gas? The current paper applies theoretical framework embedded in institutional economics as a starting point and employs functionalist perspective as the method of legal comparative analysis. The paper reaches the conclusion that on the European and Dutch national levels there is no divergence between the legal regimes as applicable to natural gas and respectively to biomethane. Whereas in terms of legal provisions related to the odorization of both gases on a more technical and applied level some discrepancies are indeed identified, it is established that these differences are dictated by the technical and market aspects of the current Dutch practices of biomethane production and injection into the natural gas grid, rather than by regulatory disconnection between technology development and legal system.

Las transformaciones acontecidas en el entramado regulatorio de los servicios públicos energéticos en las últimas tres décadas permiten visualizar la existencia de desigualdades regionales, que merecen ser revisadas en virtud de un sistema que permita ampliar el acceso al tiempo de generar una estructura de precios y subsidios para garantizar la sostenibilidad del crecimiento del acceso con una alta calidad del servicio. Se trata de avanzar en un Nuevo Federalismo Energético, que contemple planificación nacional con una intensa participación de todas las provincias en el diseño y la implementación de la regulación y fijación de las tarifas energéticas, contemplando la protección de los intereses de los consumidores relacionados con el precio, calidad y disponibilidad del servicio, el crecimiento de la cobertura, la promoción del empleo y la competitividad de la economía, la sostenibilidad económica de las empresas prestadoras del servicio y la promoción del desarrollo económico de largo plazo

This paper describes the state of energy security of Visegrad countries in the aspect of natural gas. The dependence of all countries on supplies from the Russian Federation is a serious threat to their security. Monopolization of the market forces the search for alternatives in the form of development of LNG gas terminals, interconnections and the construction of internal markets. Implementation of EU energy law is a very good direction to diversify gas supplies for these countries./Niniejsza praca opisuje stan bezpieczeństwa energetycznego państw Grupy Wyszehradzkiej w aspekcie gazu ziemnego. Uzależnienie wszystkich krajów od dostaw z Federacji Rosyjskiej jest poważnym zagrożeniem ich bezpieczeństwa. Monopolizacja rynku zmusza do szukania alternatyw w postaci rozwoju gazoportów LNG, połączeń międzysystemowych oraz budowy wewnętrznych rynków. Implementacja unijnego prawa dotyczącego sektora energetycznego jest bardzo dobrym kierunkiem działania w celu dywersyfikacji dostaw gazu dla tych państw.

In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in LNG liquefaction and regasification capacity of many countries. The factors underlying this growth are the use of LNG to produce electricity, a reduction in costs due to technological advances and the current environmental concerns. In Italy, natural gas is transported into pipelines and LNG mainly by road, starting from coastal storage facilities, or from docks. But together with the development of these activities there is also a need to assess and counter the related risks. The handling of tanks offers dispersion scenarios connected to collision or impact, or to leaks during LNG transfer operations. So, there may be a need for emergency LNG transferring, managing the risks of the scenario. Some emergency procedures and safety measures for LNG storage and transport have been studied by the Italian Firefighters. This work offers a brief overview of the risks and safety measures associated with LNG storage and road transport in Italy and Europe.

Nowadays, the market for natural gas production and its use as a source of energy supply has been growing substantially in Brazil. However, the use of tools that assist the industry in the management of production can be essential for the strategic decision-making process. In this intuit, this work aims to evaluate the formulation of Holt Winter's additive and multiplicative time series to forecast Brazilian natural gas production. A comparison between the models and their forecast play a vital role for policymakers in the strategic plan, and the models estimated production values ​​for the year 2018 based on the information contained in the interval between 2010 and 2017. Therefore, It was verified that the multiplicative method had a good performance so that we can conclude this formulation is ideal for such an application since all the predicted results by this model showed greater accuracy within the 95% confidence interval.

As the German energy company, RWE, restarts small-volume West-East 'reverse flow' gas deliveries to Ukraine, it remains clear that Ukraine will continue to be dependent on Russian gas imports, and that Russia, Ukraine, and Europe are tied by mutual gas dependency.

Economic Geography of the Australian Mining Industry.  Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie.  2016.  ISSN: 1467-9663. 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tesg.12185/abstract

This paper is a discussion of the economic geography of Australia. It provides a history of foreign investment in mining, and discusses several resources booms that shaped the landscape of the continent and the role of governments (state, federal and territory governments) in this process. The paper presents a chronological account of the development of the Australian mining industry, the primary activities of which are the extraction, and export of unprocessed coal, iron, minerals and increasingly natural gas. The paper analyzes the industry’s interaction with foreign investment and government assistance (that is government spending in relation to the industry such as subsidies, loans and infrastructure construction etc). Australia’s trade and foreign investment environment have long been deregulated. The Australian mining industry has benefited from this deregulation. But its most spectacular period has been the “commodities super-cycle” of the 2000s-2010s. Overall, its contribution to exports has long typified the mining industry. The discussion herein draws attention to the applicability of the ‘eclectic theory’ in reference to foreign investment in mining. That is, investing mining MNEs (multinational enterprises) have three main types of ‘locational advantages’ in Australia, 1) volume of the availability of resources, 2) foreign investment regulatory environment and 3) government assistance that benefits the mining industry’s expansion.
Keywords: Australia, economic geography, mining, FDI, government, neoliberalism

"Methane is common in organic-rich marine and freshwater sediments. Escape of this gas via ebullition is the most efficient
mechanism of methane transport from the shallow sediments to the atmosphere. Therefore characterization and quantification of free gases in surface sediments is an important ecological issue. High spatial heterogeneity of methane distribution does not allow using conventional sampling methods for representative quantification of sedimentary gases over large areas, such that development of remote-sensing methodology is required to investigate gassy sediment distribution. In this paper we compare the results of acoustical sampling to study sound scattering in soft gassy sediments in two deep subtropical lakes - Lake Kinneret and Lake Biwa. Acoustic samplings were carried out using 70 kHz and 120 kHz single beam echosounders along standard transects. To determine the typical acoustic features of gassy sediments we conducted echo envelope parameterisation using different spectral, wavelet, fractal, statistical and energy parameters. A number of parameters appeared to be sensitive to the presence free gases in sediments. Comparison of the results obtained on two lakes allows detecting the effect of sediment type, its location, and water level change on acoustic properties of the top layer of gassy sediments."

Natural gas networks are spatially distributed systems that play a crucial role in the well-being and safety of communities. Most of the works in the current literature analyse natural gas systems only in topological terms. However, the low tolerance on amount and pressure of gas fed to end-users for maintaining serviceability generates the need for a capacitive analysis. The latter includes connectivity and involves computation of the system's operational state, in terms of pipe flows and node pressures. The paper presents a comprehensive methodology for the seismic risk assessment of gas transmission and distribution networks. The seismic hazard, the vulnerability assessment and the evaluation of the system's performance are addressed with a simulation-based approach, accounting for the relevant uncertainties. The use of the capacitive analysis in this scope represents the most important feature of this work: a complete steady-state flow formulation is used, encompassing multiple pressure levels, the pressure-driven mode and the correction for pipe elevation change. The presented methodology has been implemented into an open-source software, OOFIMS, and applied to a realistic benchmark network composed of 135 nodes and 170 edges, thus resulting to be usable by emergency managers and stakeholders engaged in increasing the seismic resilience of communities.

Available free at: https://www.oxfordenergy.org/authors/jack-sharples/
                                         
Abstract: With European gas import demand having risen substantially since 2014, Gazprom has dramatically increased its sales on the European market. In Q1 2018, Gazprom reported record daily gas exports to Europe in late February and early March. This Comment addresses the question of how those volumes were delivered to the market, and the extent to which the infrastructure for delivery of those volumes was used,  highlighting that, in times of peak European gas import demand, full utilisation of the Nord Stream and Yamal-Europe pipelines left Ukraine as the only transit route with spare capacity. Until Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream are built, Gazprom will remain dependent on gas transit via Ukraine throughout the year, with Ukraine providing substantial flows in summer as European gas storage facilities are refilled, and a combination of significant flows and additional spare capacity in the winter peak demand period.

• Gazprom and the EU: Gazprom-PGNiG gas price talks at ‘an advanced stage’; Gazprom and Eni pledge to continue close cooperation; Calm before the storm: Gazprom Deputy Chairman meets EU Competition Commissioner, with Gazprom due to reply to EU antimonopoly ‘Statement of Objections’ by the 28th of September
• Nord Stream: OMV CEO Seele confident of EU approval for Nord Stream II, meets with Gazprom CEO Miller to discuss joint venture for the project
• Turkish Stream: Stop and go – Russia and Turkey continue trading proposals, but real progress not expected until formation of new Turkish government in November; SE European Foreign Ministers could meet in September to discuss the ‘Tesla’ extension to Turkish Stream
• Ukraine: EU Commissioner for Energy Union meets with Ukrainian Energy Minister and Naftogaz CEO, and plans meeting with Russian Energy Minister in September ahead of next round of trilateral talks; Gazprom CEO expresses concerns over Naftogaz winter gas storage
• Belarus: Gazprom begins construction of Gazprom Centre in Minsk, set to be ‘the tallest building in Belarus’
• Asia: Shell participation in Sakhalin-III in doubt as US imposes sanctions on the project; Gazprom reports ‘good dynamics’ in ongoing negotiations with PetroChina and CNPC over pipeline deliveries of Russian gas to China, despite concerns over the commercial viability of the projects
• Other: Gazprom’s annual gas production could reach record low in 2015, as the company also cuts its sales price forecast

The current article claims that the recent changes taking place in the EU gas market, and namely internal market drive and security of supply concerns, have a significant impact upon the process of natural gas odorization. The latter did not represent significant problems in previously heterogonous and scarcely interconnected national gas markets of the EU Member States, in which the gas flows were traditionally uni-directional from gas supply/ transit to gas consuming countries. However, in the changing conditions of the currently developing EU gas market, discrepancies in odorization practices found between neighboring countries effectively hamper interoperability and represent an obstacle for bi-lateral flows, therefore negatively impacting the security of supply-ensuring measures, and the creation of an integrated and liquid internal market.

Turkey and Azerbaijan have been strategic partners over the years since Azerbaijan regained its independence, and the two states also share close cultural, ethnic and kinship ties. This mutually beneficial cooperation spans across many spheres, including among others, also energy.