War of gas pipelines. Forum of gas exporters will open in two weeks. The meeting is expected to be historical. The brothers in Blue Blood had no reason to gather for the past three years. A reason was found by the current meeting - plans to create a gas OPEC. This word of four letters frightened the main consumer of gas, Europe, where they know another OPEC, oil. And they remember the experience of the embargo of 1973 and the energy crisis of the seventies.
The death of Turkmenbashi - And the idea - gas OPEC
For the first time, rumors about the creation of a gas cartel organized following the example of OPEC appeared in November last year. An internal report of the NATO economic committee appeared in the press, which indicated that Russia could try to create a gas cartel into which Algeria, Qatar, Libya, Central Asian Republics and Iran would invite. The authors of the document warned that, having united, gas exporters would use the energy carrier as a political pressure tool.
Then the press service of the Russian president called the report "absolutely empty." But two months later, the head of the Russian Ministry of Industry, Viktor Khristenko, went to Algeria, and the secretary of the Russian Security Council Igor Ivanov - to Iran. In Tehran, during a meeting with the Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Ivanov received an official proposal to create a gas OPEC.
The version of the gas Niva, the New Times, was proposed by Mikhail Malyutin, a member of the RSPP expert institution: “The death of Turkmenbashi, some of our own tricky circumstances and the fact that Iran clearly crawls into military confrontation with the United States suddenly, is the whole set and began to push it in this direction.”
“The idea of a gas OPEC is secondary in relation to the energy NATO,” said Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, as part of the International Forum “Resource-Industrial Potential of Global National Projects”. “The essence of the consumer alliance is simple - to receive gas on the border of the European Union at a wholesale price, and then prohibit retail trade in this gas in European markets. The difference from such unfair trade should go to the pocket of Western European intermediaries, ”Margelov explained.
Energy embargo against one member of NATO - will be considered - as an attack on the entire block
The energy diagnosis of Russia and the EU is actually frozen for the past six months - after the refusal of Moscow, to sign the energy charter. The North Atlantic Alliance set up for the European Union, calling energy issues - issues of national and collective security. This means that the United States entered into the Russian dispute with the EU, which do not depend on Russian gas.
With the filing of the American senator Richard Lugar NATO, is now discussing the idea of spreading the action of the 5th article of the Washington Treaty on Joint Defense for Energy Relations. In this case, the energy embargo against one NATO member will be considered as an attack on the entire block. At the same time, the US Congress supported Ukraine and Georgia in their desire to join the North Atlantic Alliance.
- Who is against us -
At the same time, Europe and the USA are looking for alternative sources of energy revenue. The George Bush administration is actively involved in several gas projects to create new gas pipeline infrastructure in Europe as an alternative to Russian Gazprom pipelines, the US Secretary of State and Eurasia Daniel Frida said this week: “They will become the“ southern corridor ”of the infrastructure, which will offer honest and transparent competition Gazprom gas pipelines, which is available and expanding in Northern Europe. ”
According to Frida, Türkiye will be the center of “these great strategic efforts”. Already in 2007, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum (BTE) gas pipeline will work, according to which gas from the large Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field will go. The Commissioner of the European Union Andris Piebalgs described the tasks in this area: “The European Union today has very clear priorities: 1) the Brody - Plotsk oil pipeline (Ukraine - Poland. - The New Times), which works in the European direction, and, of course, 2) close to the completion of the Baku -Tbilisi -Erzerum gas pipeline. (Azerbaijan - Georgia - Turkey) with a further connection with the Nabucco gas pipeline (Turkey - Bulgaria - Romania - Hungary - Austria; must go into line in 2011. —The New Times). " The development of the Nabucco project, which is estimated at $ 5.8 billion, is engaged in the International Consortium, headed by the OMV - Austrian oil and gas company. The throughput is 31 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The European Union takes on the main part of financing, hoping to receive, regardless of Russia, Azerbaijani gas.
Azerbaijan, offended by Russia and refused to procure Russian energy, calls on Europe and the United States to turn to Turkmenistan. Azerzima Foreign Minister Azima Azimov invites Europeans to buy gas from Turkmenistan directly, despite the previously made decision to terminate trade relations with this country due to human rights violations. By the way, on December 20, 2006, the day before mysterious and sudden death, the President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov held negotiations with Andris Piebalgs and promised to send about 15 billion cubic meters of gas through the Nabucco 1 gas pipeline.
Niyazov also supported the project of an alternative pipeline, which was discussed at the last CIS summit in Minsk. The key point in this project appeared in the Black Sea. The republic still remembers the phrase of the first head of Gazprom Rema Vyakhirev: "They will not go anywhere, they will crawl on their knees." Niyazov tried to get away from a strict binding to the Russian gas pipeline system in recent years of his reign, for which he was looking for the release of his gas to the world market. At the same time, the Russian gas exports are 20% dependent on Turkmenistan, according to the former vice president of Lukoil Vladislav Bazhenov.
After the unexpected death of the Turkmenbashi, the implementation of these plans slowed down. The new leadership of the country has not yet shown itself. Nevertheless, the United States, Europe and Russia do not leave hopes to take control of the tidbit of gas reserves.
Another historical partner in Russia in gas exports is Kazakhstan. Judging by the latest negotiations in Russia, Nursultan Nazarbayev, he is also not going to lock his export in Russia. Astana increases gas supply to Georgia and actively develops the Chinese direction.
In May, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, as well as Georgia and Ukraine are gathering at the invitation of the President of Poland in Warsaw to the Energy Summit.
Gas disposition
- Who is with us -
Emir Katar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Tani promised to think about the idea of a new gas union to the Russian president. Immediately, without hesitation, the Algerian President Abdelaziz Butflik and the Minister of Energy and Oil Venezuela Rafael Ramirez supported the initiative. Venezuela is far from a leader in gas production even in his region. But in early March, Venezuela united with Bolivia and Argentina into the organization of manufacturers and exporters of gas of South America. Negotiations on this subject are ready to conduct Trinidad and Tobago.
At first glance, there is no sense in the cartel. World gas trade is based on long -term contracts, and the price is calculated in reference to oil prices. “We do not yet have exchange tools for creating a cartel. Speaking in a simple language - there is no gas store. There is nowhere to come and buy. There is a seller, and there is a buyer, and all this is predetermined, ”said Vladislav Bazhenov in an interview with The New Times.
The chief researcher at the Institute of Folk Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakov Papa, believes that "it will be a kind of such advice on coordination without mandatory decisions."
However, possible participants in the future cartel are not going to influence prices. “On the contrary, given that I and Iran are now profitable to demonstrate the image of stable suppliers, I have no doubt that it will be stated that all contracts will be completed to the point and to aim,” says Mikhail Malyutin.
Games with prices, as investment analysts claim, are possible only in the liquefied gas market (LNG), which so far is only a fifth of gas volumes traded in the world. Although this sector is growing rapidly, and in Qatar, as part of the creation of the IMEX energy exchange, by the end of the year, excavated auction with liquefied natural gas will be launched. When choosing what to build - a gas pipeline or marine terminal, some countries choose the second (for example, Italy).
Russia recently signed the experimental version of the LNG agreement with Algeria. Russia can get a technology for the production of liquefied natural gas, which will give it the opportunity to become a large exporter of gas in new markets (for example, the USA), where gas can be taken only by sea. For this, the Algerian Sonatrach will receive licenses for the development and production of gas in Russia. At the same time, both countries complicate the process of investing in their gas resources to Western companies.
But this is all tactics. The strategic task is to coordinate the policy of extraction, sale and transportation of gas. The goal is to exclude duplicate gas pipelines, the very ones that Europeans are now drawn on their maps.
On April 9, in the capital of Katar, Doha, another forum of the gas exporters will open. This organization was born in 2001 and united 15 states that control more than 70% of world gas reserves.
On February 1, at a press conference in the Kremlin, one of the journalists asked Vladimir Putin if a gas cartel would be created. The president replied: “The gas OPEC is an interesting idea, we will think,” and a few days later he went to the Middle East tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.
The 5th article of the Washington Treaty equates an attack on one of the alliance members to an attack on the entire block: “Contracting parties agree that an armed attack on one or more of them in Europe or North America will be considered as an attack on them as a whole, and, therefore, agree that if such an armed attack takes place, each of them is in order to exercise the right to individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the United Nations, and the assistance of the Completed Nations will provide assistance to the agreed The side, which has undergone, or the contracting parties under the attack, through the immediate implementation of such an individual or joint action that considers it necessary, including the use of armed force in order to restore and subsequently maintain the security of the North Atlantic region. ”
The influence of the Russian Federation in the gas OPEC will be predominant: 28.5% of the global gas balance accounts on Russian production, 15.2% and 14.1% are, respectively, respectively. The share of Russia, Iran and Qatar in global gas export is 34%, 1%and 1%, respectively. Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, together supplying 35% of the volume of international gas trade to the world market, do not participate in negotiations on the creation of a gas OPEC.
President of the Institute of Economics and Finance Leonid Grigoryev about the future of the gas OPEC: “If the countries that produce gas are primarily liquefied, if they overproduce gas, then this factor can affect prices in a few years. Not now, not this minute, but in the future. But legally and politically, the cartel, in my opinion, is very difficult. This would meet huge resistance from consumers, developed countries. The transformation of NATO would begin into a cartel of consumers, which has already been discussed. In my opinion, nobody needs this confrontation. ”
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Faithful energy road
From the "Energy Strategy of Russia for the period until 2020", approved by order of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1234-r of August 28, 2003
“Russia has significant reserves of energy resources and a powerful fuel and energy complex, which is the basis for the development of the economy, an instrument of domestic and foreign policy. The role of the country in world energy markets largely determines its geopolitical influence. ”
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1 The General Gaza Gaza Gaza is 545 million cubic meters of gas per year.
War of gas pipelines • New Times • RIMA — Russian Independent Media Archive
