Gazprom enters world's fastest-growing gas market

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The much-awaited signing of the biggest contract in the history of the former USSR's gas sector, as Russia's President named it, better known as the gas deal between Russia and China, has been welcomed by most analysts and market watchers.

It allows Gazprom to enter the world's fastest-growing gas market, providing a major growth opportunity for the company. Not only could it not have come at a better time for Gazprom, as its relations with European partners are going through a bad stretch, but also the company's challenge historically has been to find ways to monetize its 23 trillion cubic meters gas reserves. Alex Griffiths, Managing Director and Head of Natural Resources and Commodities at Fitch Ratings in London, says the best scenario for Gazprom is to increase its production.

• “Gazprom's problem as we see it has always been – it has got massive resources, it needs to find places to sell them to. It sells a lot to Western Europe at the moment, China is an obvious area of growth, but for Gazprom it means essentially a new stream of cash flow and other ways to monetize its gas reserves,” 

Alex Griffiths said. Griffiths' colleague at another rating agency, Julia Pribytkova, Moody's Vice President and Senior Analyst in the Corporate Finance Group, points out to the recently inked deal being a launch pad for Gazprom’s full-scale diversification into the Asia-Pacific region.

• “Definitely, for the next 5-6 years there'll be increased investment into the construction of the pipelines, exploration and production, construction of the processing plants. However, starting from according to different estimates 2018 or 2020, Gazprom will have a new diversified sales channel for 38 bcm per annum, and potentially this could be increased to 68 bcm per annum over the next decade,” Julia Pribytkova said. 

No doubt, quite a few pivotal details weren't made public last week when the headline-making deal was inked by heads of Russian Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation, among them are financing and construction of the brand new gas trunkline. But the fact alone that after those ten years the deal is finally here, and there's a commitment from China to buy this much for this long is viewed by many as a major success. Oksana Teplinskaya, Source: The Voice of Russia

Read More........ → July 04, 2014

Smart technology ventures into firearms market

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A lot of wonders of the modern technology came from military research, whether we like it or not. And even technology which generally seems peaceful enough is often adapted for combat needs. Listen on air and read more on our daily Runet review '.RU' at the voiceofrussia.com.

It seems that one of the primary motivators behind technological progress is the thought “I want to kill more people faster and from a greater distance and, preferably, not die myself.” The Internet as we know it grew from a US military research project – DARPA net. And even technology which generally seems peaceful enough is often adapted for combat needs. For example, take the 3D printer. There exists an “open source firearms” company, which specializes in creation and sharing of 3D-printable firearms. Not really sure if that’s a good idea, but here we are. Lawmakers across the world may soon have to deal with this issue – especially as cheaper metal printers hit the market. Plastic guns, while having poor longevity, are still capable of firing lethal shots – or exploding, which can kill or maim either the target, the shooter or bystanders. If people start using high quality metal 3D printers – well, that would be an unpredictable situation. Thankfully, every coin has a flipside. In the world of smart-everything, firearms are not an exception to being improved with modern tech. And no, smartguns won’t be able to take selfies at the firing range; they will be able to prevent anyone but the owner from pulling the trigger. There are different ways smart firearms try to accomplish this, but the general idea is common – the weapon cannot be triggered unless some kind of authentication is provided. One of the most popular smartguns to date is the Armatix iP1. The safety trigger of this .22 handgun is linked to a special watch which communicates with the weapon through a wireless signal utilizing RFID standards. Once paid, the smart gun will only fire if it’s located within 10 inches from the watch. There are similar designs out there as well. For example, arms manufacturer Mossberg has a shotgun with an RFID transmitter and a battery within the rifle. It pairs with passive rings; once they’re close enough to the gun they turn on and send the signal to the weapon, allowing it to be fired. There are other methods as well, which work not only for newly designed weapons, but can be retrofitted to older models with some modification. For example, Kodiak Industries has created a Intelligun model of the M1911 pistol, a very popular firearm in the United States. The handgun has a built-in fingerprint scanner located at the grip where the operator’s middle finger would be. The only way the gun can fire is if there is a correct finger resting at the scanner at the moment the trigger is pulled. Some of the solutions are more futuristic and high-tech. There’s the so-called Dynamic Grip Recognition system, proposed by the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The system essentially learns how the operator holds a gun on, and refuses to respond to anyone else. Supposedly, just like a lot of things about us humans, the pressure patterns from our hands are unique. Of course, there’s a number of questions raised by this system, like whether the pattern can be copied or what happens if someone changes their pattern. Same goes for other authentication methods – just how reliable are they? After all, people not only want to render weapons useless by unauthorized operators, they also want them to fire when they’re supposed to. Peter Lekarev, Read more:  Source: Voice Of Russia

Read More........ → May 28, 2014

Germany: even the closest friends don’t like to be fooled

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As the saga sparked by Edward Snowden continues to rage, more countries around the globe join the chorus of those outraged by the US spying programs. Even America’s closest allies seemed to be surprised by the “elastic conscience” of its long-standing partner. 

One of the most offended by the NSA eavesdropping was German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Considering that as a child of the former East Germany, Merkel grew up with her phone being tapped, no wonder that Der Spiegel’s report on the American surveillance agency listening to her phone calls, had a special resonance for Merkel. "This contradicts the interest of German people. There are no grounds for spying. Every German citizen is disappointed. The level of trust between the two countries needs to be restored,"Angela Merkel said. But sentiments aside, there are serious political consequences for this credibility gap. On October 24, the US ambassador was asked to come to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany because of the reports of phone tapping of the German Chancellor. Soon after that Merkel herself called the US President, Barack Obama asking for an explanation, Obama replied that the surveillance was carried out without his knowledge and was stopped in 2010. On October 28th, Hans-Peter Friedrich, head of the German Ministry of Interior Affairs announced that Germany should send US diplomats out of the country because of the possible wiretapping on Merkel. Jens Stomber, a coordinator for the NSA scandal with the Pirate Party in Germany, predicts it’s not the end of the story, as not only German politicians, but ordinary people have come to realize that the US is not trustworthy anymore. “I think in the past, maybe our government blindly trusted the US and I think from the Snowden leaks we can, of course, learn that you cannot trust the US in an unlimited way. And what is happening now, of course, in Europe if you look at what happened with the Swift agreement, which was suspended yesterday, or at least there was a decision to question it. So, there will be a vote in the European Council as many steps will follow. We are already in a discussion for a new date of protection reform all over Europe, so Europe is clearly taking steps to stand united against US surveillance and protect their citizens, I think so,”Jens Stomber said. Despite the strong words, experts says it's not likely that Germany and other targeted countries would sever relations with the US, but we are likely to witness an impact on the way they do business. Just a couple of weeks ago, the European Parliament suspended the service used to help the US track terrorist bank accounts known as the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program in direct response to the news the NSA monitored the international data-sharing system known as "SWIFT," which is used to transfer money electronically in Europe. Seems like the message that the world sends to the US is clear – even the closest friends don’t like to be fooled. Source: Article,

Read More........ → May 22, 2014