Operators of Belarus, Ukrainian, Hungarian and Slovakian sections of troubled Druzhba network have agreed on technical measures to clean contaminated oil from part of the system and expect normal quality oil from Russia to start entering Belarus and Urkaine in the coming days, Ukrainian pipeline operator Ukrtransnafta said Tuesday.

The EU has long worked to diversify from relying on Russia for almost 40 percent of its gas needs by developing LNG infrastructure to access other suppliers. Qatar and Australia are other major LNG suppliers.

Putin said Ukraine was overpaying for gas which it could get much cheaper if it signed a transit deal with Russia.

Gazprom is looking to bypass Ukraine completely with the construction of the 55 Bcm/year Nord Stream 2 pipeline and the 31.5 Bcm/year TurkStream link, though some delays mean some kind of deal with Kiev will be necessary.

BP and partners have sanctioned the Azeri Central East (ACE) project, the next stage of development of the giant Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) oilfield complex in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea.

To further explore opportunities for bilateral energy expansion, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez and German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier met in Ankara for the second Turkish-German Energy Forum in October last year to sign a letter of intent to enhance the Turkish-German energy partnership.

Alparslan Bayraktar, deputy minister of energy and natural resources, stated that there is great potential for the natural gas market between Turkey and the U.S., in an address at the 37th Annual Conference on Turkey-U.S. Relations organized by the Turkey-U.S. Business Council (TAİK) and the American Turkish Council (ATC) in the U.S. capital Washington, D.C.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), has forecast the UAE’s nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to grow 4.7 percent to AED1.673 trillion in 2019, compared to AED1.589 trillion a year ago.

The rules governing the EU's internal gas market will in future also apply to pipelines to and from third countries. The Council today formally adopted an amendment to the so-called gas directive which aims at closing a legal gap in the EU's regulatory framework and boosting competition in the gas market. This is the final step in the legislative process.

In absolute terms, the cumulative national debt of Ukraine in 2018 increased by 1.3%, to UAH 2.169 trillion, and in U.S. dollar terms by 2.5%, to $78.32 billion.

Naftogaz Ukrainy CEO Andriy Kobolev has called on gas market players in Ukraine to create gas reserve stocks in the conditions of a threat of termination of contracts with Russia's Gazprom from January 1, 2020.

Bulgaria, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas for its domestic needs, will lose hefty transit fees when TurkStream becomes operational at the end of this year and Gazprom stops its gas deliveries to Turkey, Greece and Macedonia via Bulgaria in 2020.

DS - Turkey's monthly liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports reached a historic record high at 2.34 billion cubic meters (bcm) in January 2019, according to Turkey's Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) data.

In 2018, Hungary increased its gas imports from Gazprom by 9.3 per cent, up to 7.6 billion cubic meters. Gazprom’s gas supplies to Hungary continued to grow in early 2019. According to preliminary data, Gazprom supplied the country with 1.3 billion cubic meters of gas between January 1 and March 20, which is 12.1 per cent more than in the same period last year.

Gazprom is ready to continue the contract for gas transit to European countries with Ukraine, Chief Executive Officer of the Russian gas holding Alexei Miller said on Friday at a meeting of the Russian Prime Minister with Ukrainian politicians.