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2014-03-03 Europe
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On Ukraine: Shifting energy trends blunt Russia's natural-gas weapon
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While Russia flexes its military might at its Black Sea naval base in Crimea, Moscow has another weapon that it has wielded against Ukraine in the past: natural gas supplies.
Russia provides more than half of Ukraine's natural-gas needs and since 2006 has twice curtailed supplies in disputes over politics, price and late payments. Those supply cuts rattled countries across Europe that depend on the Russian pipelines that run through Ukraine.
But changes in the global trade in natural gas have blunted Moscow's weapon, forcing the Russian pipeline monopoly Gazprom to cut prices worldwide and giving Ukraine slightly more bargaining power.
The boom in U.S. shale gas has left gas-exporting countries shopping for other customers. Europe, as it adds terminals to handle liquefied natural gas, will be able to offset its own declining production with supplies from countries such as Qatar. And in 2012, Norway's Statoil sold more gas to other European nations than Russia's Gazprom.
"Since the Russian supply cuts in 2006 and 2009, the tables have totally turned," said Anders Aslund, a fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics who has advised Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
As clunky Soviet-era factories and mines have become more efficient or gone out of business, Ukraine's domestic gas consumption has dropped nearly 40 percent over the past five years, cutting its imports from Russia in half, according to a report by Sberbank Investment Research.
This may not be good news. A country's energy consumption is a yardstick of its economic health and this may explain how Ukraine is a basket case.
In past years, Russia tied its natural gas prices to crude oil prices, but as gas supplies grew more plentiful and crude oil prices soared, customers picked up their marbles and went elsewhere resisted. In 2012, many European industrial users and power plants switched to coal, and Russia agreed to renegotiate. The link between gas and oil prices has been severed for about half of Russia's gas sales. Gazprom also agreed to eliminate contract clauses that said a country such as Germany could reship Russian gas only with Gazprom's approval.
As a result, Ukraine ended up paying more than Gazprom's customers in Germany. 
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Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-03-03 03:15||
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Posted by Besoeker 2014-03-03 10:31||
2014-03-03 10:31||
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Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-03-03 12:31||
2014-03-03 12:31||
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