The Russian gas industry provides 50% of Russian domestic energy supplies, a substantial proportion of CIS gas supplies, and around 20% of European gas demand. Declines in production at existing fields mean that Gazprom will face increasingly difficult decisions about moving to higher cost fields on the Yamal Peninsula. The alternative will be increasing imports from Central Asian countries and allowing other Russian gas producers to increase their role in the industry. Russian exports to Europe will gradually increase and deliveries of Russian LNG will commence to Asia and the both coasts of North America. Pipeline gas deliveries to East Asian countries may have a longer time horizon. Export projects aimed at new markets will depend crucially on the maintenance of (oil and) gas prices at the levels of 2003-05. European exports will also depend on the pace of EU market liberalisation and Gazprom's ability to agree mutually acceptable terms for transit, principally with Ukraine and Belarus. Reform, liberalisation and restructuring of the Russian gas industry have been more substantial than has generally been recognised. Most important has been price reform which, in 2005, allowed Russian industrial customers to become profitable to serve at regulated prices. Price increases may significantly reduce future increases in domestic gas demand. The increasing need for production from companies other than Gazprom will ensure that liberalised access to networks expands considerably over the next decade. In the 2000s, Gazprom reclaimed its CIS gas business from intermediaries, while maintaining its de facto monopoly of exports to Europe and establishing a similar degree of authority over future exports to Asia. The merger of Gazprom and Rosneft will provide the potential to become a force in the domestic and international oil markets, particularly given the authority that the president has conferred on the company in terms of Russian energy policy.

This book explores the impact on the Russian gas sector of changes in international gas markets, including the growth of competition and development of new sources of supply.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gazprom has dominated the Russian gas industry. However, the markets in which it operates have changed dramatically, with the company increasingly being challenged at home and abroad. At this critical moment, this insightful book analyses the involvement of the Russian gas industry in the changing international gas market and the dramatic implications for Russia’s role as a global supplier of gas in the future.

Europe and Russia are pushing against each other in a contest of economic doctrines and political ambitions, seemingly erasing the vision of cooperation that emerged from the end of the Cold War. Thane Gustafson argues that natural gas serves as a bridge over troubled geopolitical waters, uniting the region through common economic interests.

Russia’s use of its vast energy resources for leverage against post-Soviet states such as Ukraine is widely recognized as a threat. Yet we cannot understand this danger without also understanding the opportunity that Russian energy represents. From corruption-related profits to transportation-fee income to subsidized prices, many within these states have benefited by participating in Russian energy exports. To understand Russian energy power in the region, it is necessary to look at the entire value chain—including production, processing, transportation, and marketing—and at the full spectrum of domestic and external actors involved, from Gazprom to regional oligarchs to European Union regulators. This book follows Russia’s three largest fossil-fuel exports—natural gas, oil, and coal—from production in Siberia through transportation via Ukraine to final use in Germany in order to understand the tension between energy as threat and as opportunity. Margarita M. Balmaceda reveals how this dynamic has been a key driver of political development in post-Soviet states in the period between independence in 1991 and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. She analyzes how the physical characteristics of different types of energy, by shaping how they can be transported, distributed, and even stolen, affect how each is used—not only technically but also politically. Both a geopolitical travelogue of the journey of three fossil fuels across continents and an incisive analysis of technology’s role in fossil-fuel politics and economics, this book offers new ways of thinking about energy in Eurasia and beyond.

Cover -- Title page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Introduction: A New Era of Gas -- 1. The Changing Global Gas Sector -- 2. The Politics and Commerce of American LNG Exports -- 3. The Politics of Supply: Russiaand Gazprom -- 4. The Politics of Dependence Transformed: Europe -- 5. The Politics of Transit: Ukraine and Belarus -- 6. The Politics of Isolated Suppliers: The Caucasus and Central Asia -- 7. The Politics of Demand: China and Beyond -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

Offers an innovative look at why science and technology cannot alone meet the needs of energy policy making in the future.

In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union and enjoyed one of the greatest transfers of wealth ever seen, claiming ownership of some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires.