Wildcat's Pick of the Week.

Every Monday, Wildcat will give you a headstart on the coming week, as well as a round-up of what mattered in the previous week.

Week Ahead

Monday, 11 June: Gas Malaysia expected to debut on the country’s stock exchange

Wednesday, 13 June: EU negotiations on the final Energy Efficiency Directive to conclude

Thursday, 14 June: German Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet with regional German governors to discuss a network plan for power distribution and power station development

Saturday, 16 June: Maintenance at the Norsea gas terminal in Emden, Germany

Sunday, 17 June: Submission deadline for tenders in the Khan Asparuh gas field in the Black Sea, Bulgaria

Winners & Losers

Winner: Myanmar is scheduled to receive a visit from Total’s Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie. “It has been a long time since I’ve been in Burma, I think it is time to go and see the authorities and our traditional local stakeholders,” he said during a press conference on the final day of the World Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur. With easing sanctions and some movement toward democratic reform, international companies have been flocking to Myanmar in the hope of entering one of Asia’s last frontiers. Oil and gas companies are no exception, with the recent government-organised Oil and Gas Summit in Rangoon apparently well attended.

Winner: A bill that decides the division of oil and gas royalties between the Brazil’s states could be approved by mid-June, and it may pave the way for the drastically delayed 11th bid round of concessions in the country. The bill could soon be approved by congress, local media reported on Thursday. “There is the chance of a congress decision in the next two weeks,” federal Senator Wellington Dias was quoted as saying.

Winner: Turkmenistan’s state gas company Turkmengaz and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) have signed an agreement for China to receive additional supplies of up to 65 bcm of Turkmen gas, Turkmen television has reported. The agreement, which has been under discussion since 2011, was signed following talks between Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister Yagshygeldi Kakayev and Chairman of the CNPC Board of Directors Jiang Jiemin on Thursday.

Loser: China may have to wait 15 years before its unconventional gas industry flourishes, according to Gavin Thompson, the director of China Gas Research for Wood Mackenzie. “The eventual success of China’s unconventionals has a big impact on the supply and demand balance in the long term, but you’ve got to get beyond 2025 before that happens. So China does need to contract more LNG, and it will need more pipeline imports in the meantime.”

Loser: Plans for new gas storage facilities in the UK have suffered a further setback, with Lancashire County Council formally objecting to plans to build new caverns for up to 900 MMcm of gas storage.

Quotes of the Week

“The tiger is hungry. It needs food, but at the same the food needs to be affordable,” Prabhat Singh, director of marketing for Gail, said in a keynote speech, Fuelling the Tiger, at the World Gas Conference on Thursday.

“It is very hard to predict what the price will be in two to three years’ time on [European] hub markets. [They are] voodoo prices,” Sergei Komlev, Gazprom’s head of contract structuring and price formation, said that European hub prices were prey to speculators and arbitragers. He advocated a hybrid model for gas pricing, where the majority of gas is priced on long-term oil indexed contracts with the spot market providing a market balancing mechanism to smooth over fluctuations in supply and demand.

“Pricing and regulation are the biggest challenge in China. This is what could jeopardise the growth of gas in China and they need to tackle these issues. Right now it is not possible for gas to compete in the power sector and it is also very difficult for any company other than the big three to enter the market,” Anne-Sophie Corbeau, co-author of the International Energy Agency’s Medium Term Outlook for Gas Markets, told Interfax in an interview on Thursday.

Week in Numbers

Old king coal

78%: Coal’s premium to gas in terms of CO2 emissions.

42%: Coal’s share of US power generation in March 2011.

35%: Coal’s share of US power generation in March 2012.

Source: EIA, ANGA

Indian war chest

$1 billion: Cash that Indian state-controlled Gail [reportedly] has for shale gas assets in North America.

$1 billion: Cash that Oil India [reportedly] has for overseas acquisitions.

$3.4 billion: Cash spent by Reliance Industries on shale gas assets in Pennsylvania and Texas in 2010.

Source: Interfax

Double take

$25 billion: Investment needed to develop Argentina’s Vaca Muerta, according to Repsol in March.

$25 billion: Required investment to develop Vaca Muerta prospect, according to YPF in June.

0: New investment projections in YPF’s strategy, according to source close to Repsol.

Source: Interfax