In response to the publication of last week’s white paper, Tony Blair said that nuclear was key to increasing security of supply and reducing dependence on imported gas. With considerably more of our gas coming from Russia, concerns over Russia’s tactics regards regaining control of its gas assets must be helping to persuade Government thinking.

This week we’ve heard that BP is one step closer to losing their gas licence for the Kovykta gas field in East Siberia. The deputy head of Russia’s environmental agency has said that the license could be withdrawn before June because under the terms of the licence they should have been producing 9 billion cubic metres pa by 2006 rather than the 2.5 billion cubic metres being processed. TNK-BP say they cannot produce any more as the local region does not require it and it has been denied an export licence. TNK-BP which own 63% of Russia Petroleum – the company that holds the licence, had taken the matter to an arbitration court. This week the court ruled that the matter was outside of its jurisdiction. This is not the first time such tactics have been employed with Gazprom , the state run gas firm, seizing a majority stake in a large gas field formerly led by Royal Dutch Shell just last year.

Incidentally, with Russia obviously not a favourite with BP at the moment, on Tuesday BP announced its return to Libya after 30 years in an exploration joint venture with the Libya Investment Corporation.