Archive for the ‘Gazprom’ tag
On EU’s energy future
Ukraine natural gas supply was cut-off by Russia’s state-owned oil company Gazprom on Thursday. It is reported that Gazprom has reduced its natural oil export to Ukraine by 90 million cubic meters per day. That amount is approximately the average daily consumption of the country which currently is at the peak of its winter consumption.
This incident occurred after negotiation over prices and transit fees unraveled between Ukraine government and representative of Gazprom Russia.
The most disturbing issue of EU’s energy dependence is Russia’s carelessness to use pipelines as political instruments. Russian “pipeline politics” date back to 1990, when Moscow interrupted energy supplies to the Baltic States in attempt to stifle their independence movements. The energy weapon was again used against the Baltic States in 1992, in retaliation for their demands that Russia remove its remaining military forces from the region. Read the rest of this entry »