RUSSIAN GAS TO U.S.

BLOOMBERG- The tanker carrying Russian natural gas that's been sitting outside of Boston Harbor for days will probably land over the weekend, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Gaselys carries liquefied natural gas originally produced in Siberia, according to vessel tracking data. The ship, poised to dock at Engie SA's Everett import terminal, would be the first LNG shipment from anywhere other than Trinidad and Tobago in about three years.

"It is expected to be in the port over the weekend," Luke Pinneo, chief petty officer at the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston, said in a telephone interview.

The delay in bringing the ship into the harbor "is not unusual,'' according to Pinneo. Inspections can take as long as three days, depending on the time line for getting a Coast Guard boat with a boarding team to it and the specific safety concerns being addressed, he said.

Guiding an LNG tanker in is a multi-agency effort with federally mandated protocols, Pinneo said.

Gaselys loaded its cargo at the Isle of Grain terminal near London, where another tanker had unloaded the Russian LNG. French energy giant Engie bought the cargo on the spot market in early January "due to the higher demand for LNG resulting from the extremely cold weather here in New England," Carol Churchill, a spokeswoman at Engie's Everett terminal said in an email Thursday afternoon. She said the Coast Guard has the final authority as to when the ship will dock at Everett.

A second tanker named Provalys will pick up Russian natural gas from Dunkirk, France, and may reach the U.S. on about Feb. 15, according to Kpler SAS, a cargo-tracking company. The tankers would arrive at a time when New England is paying a hefty premium for supplies as pipeline capacity limits flows of cheap shale gas from other parts of the country in the peak demand season.

Engie purchased that cargo from Dunkirk before the winter season began because "we anticipate LNG demand greater than what we had already scheduled from Trinidad" and scheduled it for the latter half of the winter, Churchill said. "At the time of purchase, we only knew that the cargo would be sourced from Northwestern Europe and that the LNG would be the proper quality for the New England market."

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Earlier:

2018, January, 29, 08:30:00 U.S. WANT RUSSIA'S MARKET SHARE BLOOMBERG - The expansion of Russia’s gas pipeline to Germany under the Baltic Sea, which bypasses a number of east European nations, will allow the Kremlin to use energy as a “political tool,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Warsaw.

2018, January, 22, 07:55:00 RUSSIAN LNG TO U.S. BLOOMBERG - Engie bought the cargo from Petroliam Nasional Bhd and that the Malaysian company in turn bought it from Yamal LNG operator Novatek PJSC. It was the first cargo from the Siberian plant.

2018, January, 17, 23:25:00 U.S. OIL +111 TBD, GAS + 890 MCFD EIA - Crude oil production from the major US onshore regions is forecast to increase 111,000 b/d month-over-month in February to 6,549 million b/d, gas production to increase 890 million cubic feet/day to 64,071 million cubic feet/day .

2018, January, 15, 10:00:00 FOSSIL FUELS DIVESTMENT $5 BLN RBF - New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer announced plans to divest the city’s five pension funds of approximately $5 billion in fossil fuel investments in an effort to safeguard the retirement plans of the city’s employees from the threat of underperforming assets. The total size of the retirement funds, $189 billion, makes New York City the largest American municipality to divest to date.

2018, January, 12, 12:30:00 U.S. GAS EXPORTS BLOOMBERG - “Never before has the global LNG market had such significant flexible LNG volumes as the volumes coming online in the next three years, mostly from the U.S., which will lead to a fundamental shift in how LNG is marketed and traded globally,”

2018, January, 10, 12:35:00 RUSSIAN LNG FOR U.S. REUTERS - If the vessel is carrying Russian LNG and ends up in the United States despite the U.S. sanctions against Novatek, it would be the first ever Russian LNG to go to the United States, according to U.S. energy data.

2018, January, 5, 23:50:00 RUSSIA'S GAS RECORD BLOOMBERG - Russia needs to strengthen its position in the global gas market as it’s considered a leading global energy power, President Vladimir Putin said last month. Already the world’s largest exporter of the fuel, the nation is working to boost output with new LNG plants stretching from the Baltic region to the Pacific coast. That will pit the country against the biggest producers of the super-chilled fuel, including Qatar and Australia.