Beirut - Lebanese Energy and Water Minister Alan Tabourian said natural gas shipments to be used for electricity production, will begin to arrive from Egypt to Lebanon at the beginning of 2009, local Lebanese media reported Saturday.

"Egypt assured us that Lebanon will receive natural gas at the beginning of 2009 and would supply it until 2013," the Voice of Lebanon Radio station quoted the minister as saying.

The Lebanese government hopes to reduce the national energy bill by 30 percent by switching from oil to natural gas.

Moscow - The splurge of oil profits feeding Russia's years of growth has turned sticky with falling production and energy prices.

This double whammy is threatening to undercut the government's economic policy as the industry that is its main source of revenue takes a battering from the country's worst financial crisis in a decade.

Scooping huge oil windfalls into state coffers over the oil industry's boom years from 1999 to 2004 has been at the root of Russia's ideology under former President Vladimir Putin.

The surplus helped pay back a national debt as part of a therapy to recover from the humiliation an impoverished Russia suffered by the Soviet collapse and then move toward a resurgent foreign policy.

Ispat Energy Ltd, a part of Ispat Industries Ltd, is planning an investment worth Rs 1,000 crore in the current fiscal, for producing bio-CNG from pressmud, a byproduct of sugarcane processing.

The gas produced can be used as a fuel for transportation and industrial applications.

According to the source, the company has showed it’s willing to work with 20 sugar mills in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh for producing bio-CNG.

The firm has decided to invest Rs 35 crore in a bio-CNG facility for Warna Sugar Ltd, Maharashtra.

State-run gas utility Gas Authority (India) Limited has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) to explore possibility of setting up a Rs 10,000 crore petrochemical plant at Barauni in Bihar.

Under the arrangement, a joint working committee consisting of two representatives from each company shall be formed for undertaking techno-economic feasibility study of the project including feedstock (naphtha and natural gas) management.

New York - The second largest US oil company Chevron on Friday reported record third quarter profits as it benefited from high oil prices.

Profits nearly doubled to 7.9 billion dollars, the San Ramon, California-based firm said. Revenue rose 43 per cent to 78.9 billion dollars.

Chevron joins the other energy companies that have reported record profits this month. Rival ExxonMobil recorded the largest quarterly profit in US history at 14.8 billion dollars.

Vienna - The price for