The chances of an interruption to the natural gas supplies to Western Europe from Gazprom pipelines were seriously lessened recently when Ukraine agreed to pay the 1.3 billion dollar gas debt by November. In the U.S. a new gasoline refinery hasn’t been built in decades, but in Russia, in keeping with the Kremlin’s suggestion of more value added production instead of just shipping natural resources abroad, a second multi-billion dollar refinery will be built. This was the second announcement in just a matter of weeks with the first being built in the city of Kazan, the second will be built in the St. Petersburg region.