Turkmenistan's president fires oil, gas minister for inefficiency.

ASHGABAT, January 16 (Itar-Tass) -- Turkmenistan's President
Gurbanduly Berdimukhamedov on Friday fired the oil and gas industry and
natural resources minister.


Oraznur Nurmyradov has been in office for a
mere three months. His dismissal was due to inactivity and the industry's
ineffective operation, as follows from a televised report from the
enlarged meeting of the Cabinet, devoted to the results of 2009.
Deputy Minister Bairamgeldy Nedirov has been appointed to substitute
the fired predecessor for the time being.
At the government's meeting no special comments were made regarding
the industry's operation, except for the commissioning of two gas export
pipelines, those to China and Iran.
In connection with the commissioning of the
Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China pipeline on December 14
Berdymukhamedov has instituted a professional holiday called Oil and Gas
Industry Geology Worker Day.
Under the plan for 2009 Turkmenistan was to produce 75 billion cubic
meters of natural gas and 10.8 million tonnes of crude oil. Turkmenistan
fell short of both targets. According to the ministry's statistics, gas
production proved no more than 40.2 billion cubic meters, mostly due to
the suspension of export to Russia.

.Nord Stream compressor begins to be built at Vyborg.


MOSCOW, January 16 (Itar-Tass) -- Construction work on the site of a
future gas compressor plant Portovaya of the Gryazovets-Vyborg pipeline -
the starting point of gas traffic via the Nord Stream pipeline - began on
Friday in Portovaya Harbor near the town of Vyborg, the Leningrad Region.
"We have launched the construction of the last facility before the
underwater section of Nord Stream. The laying of the pipeline on the
seabed will be our next step. It will begin next spring," Gazprom's CEO
Alexei Miller said at the inauguration ceremony.
The Portovaya compressor plant is to become a unique gas industry
facility by world standards in terms of the overall capacity, working
pressure (220 atm), gas transportation distance and the gas-drying rate.
The compressor will ensure gas transportation at a distance of 1,200
through the Nord Stream pipeline on its own. Building more compressor
facilities in Germany will be unnecessary.
"The construction of a gas compressor plant is another major phase in
Gazprom's work to diversify Russian gas export routes and enhance the
energy security of European countries," Miller said.
The commissioning of first compressor facilities at Portovaya is
scheduled for 2011. The eventual target is to build them up to 366
megawatts by the end of 2012, Gazprom's information department told
Itar-Tass on Friday.
The Gryazovets-Vyborg gas pipeline 900 kilometers long is being laid
to feed gas from Russia's unified gas supply system into Nord Stream and
meet the consumers' needs in the northwestern region. So far 600
kilometers of the pipeline has been laid. Pipe-laying work is expected to
completed by the end of 2010.
The Gryazovets-Vyborg gas pipeline project has been synchronized with
the laying of Nord Stream and proceeds in keeping with the authorized
schedule. Its piece-meal commissioning will begin in 2011. The pipeline is
expected to achieve capacity operation by the end of 2012.
Nord Stream is a fundamentally new route of Russian gas export to
Europe. It will run under the Baltic Sea from Portovaya Harbor to Germany'
s coast (the area of Greifswald) to establish a direct link between Russia'
s unified gas supply system with the gas pipeline system of the European
Union. The first line of Nord Stream is due to go operational in 2011, and
the second one, in 2012. The gas carrier will have an aggregate throughput
of 55 billion cubic meters.

.Yushchenko uses last chances to press for anti-Communist tribunal.

KIEV, January 16 (Itar-Tass) -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko
has invited Russia and the East European countries to institute an
international tribunal that would condemn the crimes of Communism.
"The president has addressed the leaders of the East European
countries that suffered from Communist regimes - Russia, Poland, Georgia,
the Baltic states and others - with a proposal for signing an
international agreement on establishing such a tribunal that would declare
the principles of its creation and activity and approve of its charter,"
the Ukrainian leader's press-service said on Friday, literally days before
the end of his term of office.
Yushchenko explained that the recent court decision concerning famine
in Ukraine in 1932-1933 would become a precedent for changing approaches
to the definition of genocide of peoples in international law and initiate
the creation of an international tribunal over Communist crimes.
Kiev's Court of Appeal on January 13 ruled that Joseph Stalin,
Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Pavel Postyshev, Stanislav Kosior,
Vlas Chubar and Mendel Khatayevich were guilty of genocide, a crime
punishable under Ukraine's Criminal Code.
"The Ukrainian court's decision transfers any discussions over the
theme of famine from the political dimension into the legal one. From now
on only hard facts and not political or historical stereotypes or myths,
can be the sole argument in that discussion," Yushchenko said.
Russia has said that the court's decision was political. Ukraine's
Communists are certain that the right place for Yushchenko himself is in
jail.
Russian State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov has said "this is a political
action aimed at starting a quarrel with Russia."
"Regrettably, there can be years when there is no harvest due to
climatic conditions. That is precisely what happened in the Soviet Union.
All peoples of the USSR suffered from that," Gryzlov said about the
massive death by hunger in those years.
The chairman of the State Duma's international affairs committee,
Konstantin Kosachyov said that the Ukrainian court's decision "was quite
obviously politicized, made hastily and contains no convincing proof of
genocide of the Ukrainian people."
The Ukrainian Communists see eye to eye with the Russian officials.
They do not believe that such a tribunal can ever be created. Nor do they
recognize the court's decision regarding the famine of the early 1930s.
They are certain that after the elections Yushchenko himself must be
put on trial.
"I am certain that within the next few months he will be brought to
justice for all of his crimes," said the leader of the Communist Party in
Ukraine's Crimean autonomy, Leonid Grach. "The elections will put 'paid'
to his political career.

-0-str