(Bloomberg, Baku, Azerbaijan, 15 September 2010) The Nabucco gas pipeline venture had its first round of talks with export credit companies to secure financing for the 7.9 billion-euro ($10.3 billion) link to ship fuel from the Caspian Sea to Europe. Nabucco talked to “a long listâ€ including Euler Hermes, Coface SA, OeKB, JIBC and the US Export-Import Bank, Reinhard Mitschek, managing director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, said today in an interview in Baku, Azerbaijan.

(Fox News, Washington, 11 September 2010) Despite President Obama’s moratorium on U.S. deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Export-Import Bank intends to guarantee $1 billion in loans to PEMEX, the Mexican state oil company, to bolster the company’s oil drilling in the region. In other news, environmental groups have noted that the UK ECA ECGD didn’t ask about blowout dangers when supporting deepwater drilling off Brazil.

(The Wilderness Society, Hobart, 17 September 2010) Gunns Ltd, Australia’s largest logging company, wants to build a polluting pulp mill in Tasmania. Whilst Gunns has stated publicly the mill will be 100% plantation fed from startup, they have a wood supply deal with Forestry Tasmania for at least 1 million tones of native forest wood every single year for the next 20 years! Each day Gunns will dump 64,000 tonnes of toxic pollution into Bass Strait. The State government used a corrupted assessment process to approve the mill. So far over 20 leading banks and paper companies have refused to fund the project and funding has not been secured.

(iStockAnalyst, Salem, Oregon, 16 September 2010) The China Export and Credit Insurance Corp., Sinosure, China’s only policy-oriented insurance company engaging in export credit insurance, said that the company had underwritten 126.93 billion US dollars of credit insurance and guarantee business by September 14, 1.1 times the performance for the entire year of 2009. Of the 126.93 billion US dollars, 110.19 billion US dollars went to export credit insurance, up 113.6 percent year on year; 4.45 billion US dollars went to investment and leasing insurance, up 43.4 percent year on year; 76.58 billion yuan went to credit insurance for domestic trade, up 29.3 percent; and 1.01 billion yuan went to new guarantee business, up 108.3 percent.

(Oilprice.com, 16 August 2010) NGOs have accused the US Export-Import Bank of “systematic bias towards financing fossil fuel projectsâ€, as the export credit agency prepares to consider backing two giant coal-fired power plants.

(Pacific Environment and Sierra Club, Washington, 25 August 2010) Bowing to political pressure to reverse its rejection of the 3,960 MW Sasan coal-fired Ultra Mega Power and Mine Project in India, the Export-Import Bank voted Wednesday to provide a “final commitmentâ€ and send the project to Congress for final review. The move marks the last step before final approval of U.S. subsidies for one of the world’s largest point sources of carbon dioxide emissions, and yet another strategic misstep for the global climate and the clean technology export sector in the United States.

(Reuters, Perth, 27 September 2010) Villagers in Papua New Guinea attacked Exxon Mobil’s liquefied natural gas project late last week as part of ongoing land disputes within the footprint of the $15 billion PNG LNG project. The project has received record US ExIm Bank financing.

(Jakarta Post, 4 September 2009) The Export Financing Agency, more popularly known as Indonesia Eximbank, launched by the Indonesian government on Tuesday is the country’s first full-fledged credit agency for financing foreign trade, similar to its counterparts in developed economies, such as the Ex-Im Bank in the United States.

(Mineweb, Johannesburg, 4 September 2009) The export credit agency of the Australian Government continues to support and expand its financial backing for Australian-backed mine project opportunities in Africa.

(Halifax Initiative, Ottawa, 26 August 2009) Export Development Canada will revise its Environmental Policy this year and recently concluded a period of public comment on the Policy. The Halifax Initiative prepared a submission for the review that includes a number of recommended improvements. The Environmental Policy, which was established in 2005, governs environmental risk assessment at EDC and outlines the environmental review processes that are applied to EDC’s financial products.