World of Oil

Serbia’s parliament ratified an ac-cord, signed in January in Moscow, for Russia’s Gazprom to build a pipeline in southern Serbia and an underground gas storage facility in northern Vojvdina province, and to buy the Serbian oil monopoly NIS. Gazprom offered to pay €400 million for 51% of NIS and to invest €500 million in the company. Gazprom also promised to ensure pasage via Serbia of the planned 560-mi South Stream pipeline to transport gas from Russia to southern Europe. Libya’s 45,000-bpd Al-Jurf Field will remain shut for another two months for repairs, longer than previously ex-pected. The field offshore Libya was shutin late April because of a damaged well, and production was expected to resume in a few weeks following repair work, but Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation, said the field would remain shutin for another two months.