WILL THE GAS CARTEL BE ESTABLISHED AND WHAT SHOULD BE ARMENIA’S EXPECTATIONS?
PanARMENIAN.Net
10.04.2007 GMT+04:00
NATO thinks that the gas cartel will aim at giving Russia the
opportunity to realize its political goals through the energy policy
implementation.
The meeting of the ministers of gas exporter countries in Doha,
capital of Qatar, may become the birthplace of a gas cartel like
OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), which,
as gas importers fear, may set the market prices. Countries,
whose representatives were in Doha, have about 42% of the world
gas production in their control; this is almost the share the OPEC
countries posses.
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ States possessing energy vectors seem to have
decided to display some pressure on Europe using economic methods,
which always acquire political meaning in the end. Establishment of gas
OPEC initiates from Iran’s and Russia’s wish to be least dependent on
the USA and it should better be through Europe, for namely the European
gas consumers will find themselves in difficult situation in case the
cartel is really established. NATO thinks that the gas cartel will
aim at giving Russia the opportunity to realize its political goals,
first of all regarding the bordering countries of Georgia and Ukraine,
through the energy policy implementation. Europe is perfectly aware
that the economy will simply stop functioning without Russian gas,
as it does not posses enough resources of its own. And Russia is
considered the major gas supplier – Europe receives over 60% of the
natural gas and 43% oil necessary. Many EU Countries, which are already
anxious about the growing dependence on imported supplies from the East
and their probable seize in case of any conflict between Moscow and
Eastern Europe countries, are concerned with Russia’s participation in
the forum together with its largest gas resources in the world. Besides
the East still remembers well the oil embargo imposed in 1970’s.
The first rumors about establishing the gas cartel appeared in
November of 2006. It became known from NATO’s internal report,
which had somehow appeared in the Financial Times, immediately
after which the RF President’s press-service qualified the rumors as
quite groundless. However in January of 2007 the religious leader
of Iran ayatollah Ali Hominy made an official suggestion in Moscow
about establishing "gas OPEC". Vladimir Putin called this suggestion
worth attention.
House of Representatives of the US Congress turned to the Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice with a letter regarding the establishment
of gas OPEC. The letter demands to inform the Russian government that
establishment of the gas cartel will be regarded as an intentional
threat for the US, and the gas cartel itself – as "a global
organization of blackmail and racketing", the Commersant writes.
Nevertheless, there is also another view point existing among experts;
unlike oil, gas is sold according to long-term contracts and its most
part is transmitted through pipe line, so instead of one global market
many regional ones will exist. There is one more accepted truth;
it will take at least a year or two for all the interested parties
to come to an agreement on the establishment of the cartel.
How this idea will tell on Trans-Caspian gas pipe line Armenia wants
to connect to, is not clear yet. It is very probable that it may
be the very regional project that gas supplying countries will be
interested in.
True, everything depends on Azeri position, which will by no means
agree with Armenia’s participation in this project. Yet the encouraging
fact is that Azerbaijan and Turkey are not included in the forum,
while Iran and Russia, which are friendlier to Armenia, are.
The gas exporters’ forum was intended to be organized in 2001 by
Algeria, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar,
Russia and Turkmenistan – countries having more than 70 world gas
supplies in their control.
"PanARMENIAN.Net" analytical department
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
