Cáucaso: guerra pelo petróleo? (2)

A energia é a maior vulnerabilidade da Europa. Moscovo sabe como explorá-la.

Moscovo sabe que pode fechar a torneira (como já aconteceu à Ucrânia), por isso,sabe que pode contar com uma certa complacência europeia que preferirá um mau negócio a qualquer tipo de confrontação.

"Gazprom’s natural gas production forecast calls for modest growth of 1-2 percent per year by 2010. Russia’s natural gas production growth reflects its aging fields, state regulation, Gazprom’s monopolistic control over the industry, and insufficient export pipelines. Although the company projects increases in its natural gas output between 2008 and 2030, most of Russia’s natural gas production growth will come from independent gas companies such as Novatek, Itera, and Northgaz."

DOE

"Domestic gas prices in Russia are only around 15-20 percent of the market rate at which Russia’s gas is sold to Germany, and Gazprom lost around $420 million in 2006 on domestic natural gas sales. Low prices have impacted the gas industry’s ability to finance capital spending and have hurt incentives to increase efficiency. Raising domestic prices towards parity with market rates in Europe is now a major component of the country’s energy strategy that will play a significant role in avoiding supply shortfalls in the future." [...]

Due to an ongoing dispute about natural gas prices, on January 1, 2006, Gazprom shut off gas supplies to Ukraine, and as a result supplies to Europe were also affected. Gazprom resumed natural gas deliveries to Ukraine three days later. Even though Russia has used the threat of a cutoff to demand higher natural gas prices in recent years, this was the first time that a supply disruption affected flows to Europe. More recently in 2008, for no longer than a day, Gazprom cut exports by 25-35 percent after Ukraine failed to pay its debt."

DOE