Gas Just Part of EU-Russian Problems
by Daniel J. Graeber, Oil Price:
The Ukrainian government postponed a natural gas price meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who’s slated to meet with European leaders later this week. Kiev said it wasn’t ready to go ahead with the tense negotiations that are a focal point of European energy security. Europe gets much of its natural gas from Russia, while transits feed both Ukrainian and Russian coffers. Though European leaders are still complaining about Ukraine’s parliamentary elections, and the Kremlin now worrying over “color revolutions,” an authority in Kiev say there are no signs of “a new gas war.”
Contractual disputes between Ukraine and Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom left downstream consumers in the European Union in the cold during the winters of 2006 and 2009. Those disputes sparked a diplomatic frenzy over various pipeline projects meant to diversify the European energy sector. By next year, a BP-led consortium working in gas-rich Azerbaijan is expected to pick between competing pipeline projects for European gas deliveries. This year, Gazprom started gas deliveries through its Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea and said in December that it, in theory, started construction of its South Stream pipeline though southern Europe.
2012-12-22 10:06:12
Source: http://sgtreport.com/2012/12/gas-just-part-of-eu-russian-problems/
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