PLATTS - Moscow also hopes to have its 55 Bcm/year Nord Stream 2 pipeline and its 31.5 Bcm/year TurkStream link ready to flow gas to Europe by the end of 2019, leaving only limited volumes for transit via Ukraine.

АЛЕКСАНДР НОВАК: САНКЦИИ США НЕПРОДУКТИВНЫ

CNBC - "We can see that the pricing situation today depends not just on the supply/demand balance or the general economic situation but also on the uncertainty that we observe today in the global markets: the trade wars, the sanctions that the U.S. pursue," Novak said, speaking to CNBC's Geoff Cutmore at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, Russia.

BLOOMBERG - “Based on fundamentals, Russian sovereign risk is still extremely attractive for investors,” he said. “They’d be hard-pushed to find this kind of yield versus risk anywhere else.”

FT - Higher energy prices and a weakened rouble saw second-quarter profits soar at three of Russia’s largest oil and gas groups, underlining a strong earnings season for the country’s energy industry that has weathered international sanctions to reap strong earnings.

REUTERS - Ukraine government should consider looking for alternatives to natural gas supplies from Russia.

FT - The German official welcomed an agreement reached earlier this month between the Caspian littoral states — Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — on a legal framework for sharing the Caspian, the world’s largest inland body of water.

PLATTS - "This has been discussed for a while with Russia's largest trading partners such as India and China. Even Arab countries are starting to think about it... If they do create difficulties for our Russian banks, all we have to do is replace [dollars],"

REUTERS - “This trade war is slowing down and destroying economic growth - and it creates new uncertainties,” Altmaier told Bild am Sonntag newspaper, adding that consumers suffered the most because higher tariffs were driving up prices.

REUTERS - The bill includes restrictions on new Russian sovereign debt transactions, energy and oil projects and Russian uranium imports, and new sanctions on Russian political figures and oligarchs.

NYT - Demand for natural gas — a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than coal or oil — is rising worldwide, and the United States is a growing supplier of liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G. The European Union, meanwhile, wants to diversify its energy supply, which remains somewhat dependent on Russia, with which it has a difficult relationship.

PLATTS - "I have not seen this bill, we need to study it from a legal point of view, but based on what the media has written about it, this is, in my opinion an absurd bill that offsets all market rules," Novak told journalists, Prime reported.

REUTERS - Two thirds said they supported the construction of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline because it would help provide Germany with a more reliable supply of natural gas.

REUTERS - The Republican president, in Brussels for the NATO summit, took a swipe at Germany for supporting a new pipeline for Russian gas, saying at a pre-summit meeting: “We’re supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.”

BLOOMBERG - Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a Texas judge that Exxon Mobil Corp. doesn’t have a right to see privileged documents related to a $2 million fine assessed against the energy company for violating sanctions related to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine.