Three in Doha

Gas producers will gather in Qatar, and diversification will be discussed again in Brussels

Today and tomorrow, the capital of Qatar, Doha, will host the first meeting of the highest technical committee of the “Big Gas Three,” the creation of which was announced two weeks ago by Russia, Iran and Qatar . The delegation of Gazprom specialists will be headed by Alexander Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Board for Foreign Economic Affairs. According to Iranian media reports, the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company, Seyed Reza Kazaizadeh, was elected chairman of the committee. The parties, as previously expected, will discuss the prospects for implementing joint projects from gas production to its sale on the markets. However, there are no specific proposals on the agenda yet.

Meanwhile, the European Commission, which has traditionally been nervous about any integration of gas producers, will present a new report on EU energy security on Thursday, in which the main priority will be to reduce the dependence of individual member countries on the mono-supplier Gazprom. The task of speedy development of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is aimed at supplying gas to Europe from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, bypassing Russia, will be declared once again. True, the visit of the European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs, who at the end of last week successively visited Turkey and Azerbaijan, and was also going to Turkmenistan (but there was no information that he reached Ashgabat), did not bring any encouraging news to those thirsty for “non-Russian » gas.

In mid-October in Tehran, the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller, the Iranian Minister of Oil Gholamhossein Nozari and the Minister of Energy and Industry of Qatar Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, as representatives of the three countries with the largest gas reserves (60% of known reserves), held trilateral negotiations for the first time. We agreed to consider cooperation in the gas sector on a trilateral basis and to accelerate the procedures for creating a permanent organization of gas exporting countries on the basis of the annual meeting of energy ministers of the gas powers, which has been held since 2001. The corresponding organization could be established during the next ministerial meeting in Moscow, which was planned for mid-November, but was postponed until the beginning of next year to carry out a large-scale approval procedure with all interested countries. Iran, apparently, insists on giving the association cartel functions, as well as locating the headquarters of the secretariat of the organization of gas exporters in Tehran. Russia stubbornly resists, proposing to consolidate the deliberative format of the organization and locate its permanent bodies on neutral territory, in Switzerland. However, Moscow is in no particular hurry here. Meetings of the “gas troika” at first may well replace the threat of creating a “gas OPEC” as a horror story for intractable consumers.

True, the European Union has already begun to react much more restrainedly to the demonstration events of Russia, Iran and Qatar. “The measures taken by Russia to organize its exports or cooperation with other exporters must be judged by their impact on the market and - what interests us - on the security of supplies,” Mark, head of the European Commission’s representative office in Moscow, said yesterday in an interview with RIA Novosti Franco. - If they do not contribute to security of supply and reduce competition, if they do not work in the interests of consumers, then we will think about what needs to be done. But this will only be necessary if these measures have a negative impact on safety, on competition, on consumers.”

At the same time, as world news agencies reported, referring to the text of the new report of the European Commission on the energy situation, which will be presented in Brussels the day after tomorrow, gas supplies from the Caspian region (bypassing Russia, of course) will again be declared the highest priority of the united Europe. At the same time, it is openly declared that some countries, primarily the Baltic countries, are almost completely dependent on Russian gas supplies, and they need to be quickly integrated into the European energy supply system through infrastructure development. Officials in Brussels are going to present concrete proposals in this regard next year.

Alexey GRIVACHS