Economy

Anti-coup protesters after 15 July 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt in Bağcılar, İstanbul, Turkey, photo by Maurice Flesier, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Escalation of the Global Gas War. Part V

Ruben Kruglov
Moscow and Ankara agree in their main tactical interests in the region. And of course, these interests are sharply at odds with those of the USA, NATO, and the EU.

Why did the project “Turkish stream” disturb so much both the United States and a significant part of the European elites? Why did not only the Sothern Europe with a strong demand for gas but also such countries as Germany, Austria, Denmark worry? After all, the latter ones have their own North European gas, and functioning, as well as fully reliable, operating pipelines for gas supplies from Russia, namely ‘Yamal-Europe’ and ‘Nord Stream’.

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Skyline of Levent and European side of Istanbul at night in winter across the Bosphorus by Hakan Sarıtaş - the tall folks, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Escalation of the Global Gas War. Part IV

Ruben Kruglov

 

From an economic point of view, the EU has lost much as a result of Russia’s abandonment of “South stream”

 

How should the Gulf Cooperation Council countries react to the attacks of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Organization banned in Russia) supported by Qatar at the “Arab Gas Pipeline” facilities when these attacks interrupt the export of gas to Jordan? They can consider these terrorist acts only as an obvious undermining of the “Arab solidarity” by Qatar. After all, such attacks did not only create problems for the Arab consumers of the gas, but also deprived Egypt of substantial export revenues.

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The colour of (Gulf) money by Peter Dowley, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Escalation of the Global Gas War. Part III

Ruben Kruglov

 

Due to the “world oil and gas price war” that began in September 2014, both Qatar and its Arab neighbors found themselves in a need of Arabian political unity.

 

Major current events of the economic war in the world and in Russia are regularly discussed in our lectures in the television program “Meaning of the Game”. The readers of our newspaper can view these lectures online (unfortunately, as of now only available in Russian – Editor).

Here I will continue the article I started earlier – “Escalation of the Global Gas War.”

Let me remind you that in the first and second parts of this article we discussed the main stages and directions of the post-Soviet economic wars against Russia in the “gas front”.

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South Pars Area, Persian Gulf. Photo by Alireza824, CC 3.0

Escalation of the Global Gas War, Part II

Ruben Kruglov

 

By a twist of fate, Middle Eastern countries turned out to be the world’s “oil and gas El Dorado.” There is a unique supergiant gas field in the Persian Gulf, with reserves of about 28 trillion cubic meters of gas, which roughly equally belongs to Qatar and Iran

 

A new stage in competition for the European gas market

Particular interest in the Russian gas pipeline project South Stream was expressed by Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Greece, and Italy. The reasons are obvious — they are the countries most dependent on gas transit supplies from Russia through Ukraine.

In October 2011, there was incorporated an international company, operator of gas pipeline construction  South Stream Transport, a joint company of Gazprom (50% of shares), Italian Eni (20%), French EDF Group (15%) and the German Wintershall AG (15%). So Russia started construction of the ground infrastructure of new pipes on our territory — the main gas pipeline, gas-pumping compressor stations and Russkaya onshore terminal.

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South Pars (natural gas field in the Persian Gulf) Onshore Facilities near Asaluyeh City. Photo by Hamed Malekpour, CC 4.0

Escalation of Global “Gas War”. Part I

Ruben Kruglov

 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, post-Soviet privatization began with the demands of the ‘market-oriented West’: primary Russian strategic industrial assets must be divided and sold on the global stock market. And the West, on the whole, achieved success in this already in the Yeltsin era.

 

What we are witnessing today is another and the most severe escalation of the global economic war in the post-Soviet history. And this is taking place with a new Cold War directly and explicitly declared exactly against Russia. And one of the most important fronts of this war at present is the ‘gas front’. Why?

First of all, because Russia, albeit very much weakened in comparison with the Soviet times, has managed to retain one of the most important economic (and hence political) instruments of global influence – a huge part of control over the global gas market. And one of the major objectives of the Western world (and, above all, of the USA) in a new Cold War is to take away this ‘global economic weapons’ from Russia.

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