BLOOMBERG - The $11 billion pipeline is one of three giant projects helping the world’s biggest gas producer strengthen its grip on Europe and Asia. Thousands of miles to the east, the Power of Siberia pipeline will connect with China, and a project under the Black Sea will deliver fuel to Turkey and southeast Europe.

OGJ - “Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream are not commercial projects as their proponents proclaim,” Perry said. “They are naked political gambits aimed at driving a wedge between Europeans. They would increase Russia’s leverage over Europe’s foreign policy, and Europe’s vulnerability to a supply disruption.”

PLATTS - French nuclear performance has improved following a near-record low 379 TWh in 2017, but this is still only the fourth time this century for annual output below 400 TWh for the current fleet of 58 reactors.

WNN - Advanced Nuclear Technologies - otherwise known as small nuclear or small reactor technologies - encompass a wide range of nuclear reactor technologies under development, BEIS noted. "The common attributes that these technologies share is that they are smaller than conventional nuclear power station reactors and are designed so that much of the plant can be fabricated in a factory environment and transported to site, reducing construction risk and making them less capital-intensive," it said.

PLATTS - Ukraine is looking at different ways to use its vast gas transit network should Kiev fail to agree a new transit deal with Russia's Gazprom once their existing contract expires at the end of 2019, a senior Ukrainian politician said.

BLOOMBERG - Gazprom PJSC, the Russian company that’s the dominant exporter of natural gas into Europe, is exploring ways to produce emissions-free hydrogen from its fuel and create a 153 billion-euro ($175 billion) a year market by 2050

WNN - Toshiba Corp is withdrawing from its nuclear new-build project in the UK and plans to wind up NuGeneration (NuGen), its board of directors decided at a meeting today.

GAZPROM - In the course of the meeting, the parties signed an Amendment to the contract on gas supplies to Austria. According to the document, gas deliveries to Austria will be increased by 1 billion cubic meters per year beyond the contractual amount for the entire contract period.

WNN - The UK and Canada signed a bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement (NCA), the third such agreement signed by the UK this year in preparation for its exit from the European Union. It will allow the UK and Canada to continue their "mutually beneficial" civil nuclear cooperation when current European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) arrangements cease to apply in the UK, Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said.

PLATTS - In September 27, 2018, BASF signed a transaction agreement with LetterOne to merge their respective oil and gas businesses, Wintershall and DEA, into a joint venture.

NORGES BANK - The Government Pension Fund Global returned 2.1 percent, or 174 billion kroner, in the third quarter of 2018.

EIA - Imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the 28 countries that make up the European Union (EU-28) averaged 5.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2017, increasing for the third consecutive year but remaining below their 2011 peak.

FT - That the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will increase Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas is a geographic and arithmetical fact. But buried in the heated rhetoric — now rising to US sanction threats — over how much that matters, is just how inexpensive it would be for Europe to purchase supply diversity with liquefied natural gas from the US.

REUTERS - French energy group Total and China’s CNOOC have strengthened their existing partnership in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector to increase their output, the companies said on Monday.

PLATTS - Novatek will hold 49% and Fluxys 51% in the joint venture, which plans to build and operate a 300,000-mt-a-year terminal for receiving and unloading mid-scale LNG carriers, keeping LNG in storage, and providing downstream LNG distribution services.