Ukraine Russia Gas War Revisited
My blog is currently ranked as #1 result on Google and MSN for the search phrase “ukraine russia gas war”, which is nice, though I must confess I’m not such a credible source of information on that. Of course, I follow the news just like everybody else, but I don’t have any insider’s information.
As of January, 3, early morning it looks like Ukraine is sort of winning because Russia is promising to restore the normal pressure in the pipe (Gazprom Vows To Restore European Gas Levels).
There are all kinds of speculations about this conflict. One of the fellow bloggers from Belarus, who is quite knowledgeable about Russia’s banking and oil sectors, said that except for political reasons (obvious anti-Jushchenko pressure before the parliamentary elections in Ukraine) there could be two other very important reasons:
- to divert public attention from the fact that Dresdnerbank bought Gazprombank (and possible German game to discredit Gazprom);
- top managers of Gazprom use this situation in order to create a pseudo-chaos in the paperwork so that they can steal more money from the company and write it off as a loss from the “gas war.”
January 3rd, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Dresdnerbank didn’t bought Gazprombank… Gazprom will still rule the bank:
“В результате продажи акций допэмиссии доля Группы Газпром в капитале Газпромбанка уменьшится до 66,67 %.”
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Oh, thank you, Mirritil. I should’ve checked the facts. As I said, I’m not an expert on those gas deals, I’m just a passive news consumer. ;)
January 3rd, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Russia: Gazprom’s Message To Kyiv Backfires In Europe
Russia appeared to retreat in its quarrel with Ukraine when it resumed larger shipments of gas in order to meet delivery quotas for its key consumers in Central and Western Europe. European Union countries reacted hotly to the gas cutoff, criticizing Russia’s move and suggesting — as one British newspaper opined — that “Europe’s energy lifelines must never depend on Russia…”
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/01/279ec075-4b90-47ba-8153-da2620a688b6.html
January 3rd, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Been a bit about this topic on local radio as well… interesting comment from the “news” reporter… he claimed that ALL gas / oil pipelines from Russia to the rest of Europe run through Ukraine. I’m sorry but I was under the impression that a number of pipelines also run through Belarus. (And through the Finnish sea. Most likely also through Lithunania, Latvia and Estionia as well).
January 3rd, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Of course not, there are many threads. The big one going through Belarus is “Jamal-Europe” which serves Germany (I think most of Russian gas sold to Germany goes through this line).
The ones that suffered from the fall of pressure in the Ukrainian pipe yesterday and today are Slovakia, Hungary, Poland…
Here, check out this map:
* http://www.svaboda.org/images/photo/pipelines_big.jpg
P.S. Although I think it’s not entirely correct, and a bit outdated (for example, Russians built a line bypassing Belarus that goes to Kaliningrad; but maybe it’s not shown because it’s not so major). Minsk is placed in Western Belarus, instead of Central-northern Belarus. So it’s not a very precise map, but major pipelines seem to be shown correctly.
Overall, Belarus transits about 20-25% of Russian gas, and Ukraine serves 75-80% of Russian gas to Europe. At least, that’s how it was about two years ago.
January 4th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Hi Administrator
Seems we have a few common topics especially about Russia and Germany. Why don’t you have a look on my blog, I just recently had an entry on the gas trouble as well.
schiehallion.blogspot.com
Talk to you soon!!!
January 4th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
> Of course not, there are many threads
Figured as much. If I were to ask the newsreader that gave the original statement to point on a map where Ukraine is… he wouldn’t even know.