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01/25/2006:

"Georgia Reopens Old Gas Line to Ease Post-Blast Shortage"

TBILISI, Georgia, Jan. 23 - Azerbaijan and Russia partly restored the flow of natural gas to Georgia on Monday, using an alternate pipeline to begin easing an energy shortage that developed after saboteurs blew up two Russian pipelines and an electricity transmission line on Sunday. In spite of the renewed flow of gas, much of it sent from Russia through Azerbaijan while technicians worked to repair the machinery, Georgia experienced a day with little heat and scattered electrical blackouts.
nytimes.com


'We say maybe': Gazprom set to pounce on UK gas market
Gazprom is considering a takeover bid for Centrica, the Russian state-controlled gas giant has admitted.

Its deputy chairman, Alexander Medvedev, said last week that it wanted to supply a fifth of the UK's gas within a decade.


Currency market wary of Iran
ion to withdraw investments from Europe to shield them from U.N. sanctions has unearthed an array of risks for currency investors to consider.

Iran's reserves and investments are probably too small to rock the $1.9 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market.

Still, the dollar could feel a sting, analysts said, if the move by Iran influences other major crude exporters or further inflame the geopolitical standoff between Western nations and the world's fourth largest oil exporter over its nuclear ambitions.

"I don't think it is possible for Iran to take money out of both the United States and Europe," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist with Bank of New York. "There are just not sufficiently deep or liquid markets to place these sums of money," he added.

The move by Iran to transfer its assets is to preempt a potential asset freeze by the United Nations Security Council after Iran refused to relent to Western pressure to curb a nuclear program.

During the Iranian revolution in 1979 the U.S. government froze Iran's U.S. assets, the status of which remains in dispute.

If the asset transfer by Iran, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is the start of a move by Middle East oil producers to redirect revenues generated from oil sales, financial markets would indeed be affected.

"What we are concerned about is that going forward they may decide to remove petrodollars and redirect them elsewhere. If they do, it is negative for the bond market and ultimately for the U.S. dollar," Woolfolk said.

Iran in 2005 had foreign exchange reserves of $40 billion, according to the U.S. central intelligence agency's "World Factbook," and analysts say the country raises annual oil revenues of around $40 billion to $45 billion.