[Graeme]

US-Russia “New Cold War”: The Battle for Pipelines and Natural Gas

Illustrating this elephant in the room is the fact that when, on July 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin first addressed whether he would grant Snowden asylum, he did so at the annual meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) in Moscow, which unfolded July 1-2.

“If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: he must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips,” Putin stated at GECF’s annual summit.

Paralleling the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) — The New York Times calls it a “gas OPEC” — GECF is a bloc of countries whose mission is to fend off U.S. and Western power dominance of the global gas trade. The 13 member countries include Russia, Iran, Bolivia, Venezuela, Libya, Algeria and several others.

GECF has held informal meetings since 2001, becoming an official chartered organization in 2008 and dominated in the main by Russia. GECF Secretary General Leonid Bokhanovskiy is also the former VP of Stroytransgaz, a subsidiary of Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom.

Depicting the close proximity between Putin’s regime and GECF’s leadership is the fact that Gennady Timchenko – a member of “Putin’s inner circle,” according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism – owns an 80-percent stake in Stroytransgaz.

A 21st-century “gas Cold War” has arisen between the U.S. and Russia, with Edward Snowden serving as the illustrative protagonist. President Obama, upset over Russia’s asylum offer to Snowden, recently cancelled a summit with President Putin.

With access to the free flow of oil and gas resources a central tenet of U.S. national security policy under the Carter Doctrine, there’s no guarantee this new Cold War will end well.

globalresearch

[ROCKMAN]

Interesting article. Thanks. But a few rather strange tidbits. “GECF is a bloc of countries whose mission is to fend off U.S. and Western power dominance of the global gas trade.” First, not only is the US not a dominant power in global NG trade they aren’t even a small bump in the road. With the exception of exports of NG to Mexico the US has a completely insignificant position in global NG sales. The second oddity is fending of “Western” dominance by a group that includes Venezuela which is not only a western country but also has a huge LNG export potential along with Trinidad.

OTOH the primary competitors to Russian NG sales to the EU are Libya, Algeria and a host of other African and ME countries. The Eastern dominance of global NG sales has long been established and appears to be growing every day. So Russia is teaming up with it NG export competitors to fight against the US which isn’t a NG competitor in Russia primary market. Truly bizarre IMHO.

[radon1]

Russia has lost quite a bit of its share in the European NG market over the last couple years to countries like Algeria and others. Gazprom has been run quite poorly lately. Instead of looking after markets, Miller (Gazprom's CEO) is busy buying up laughingly expensive players for the Gazprom-sponsored football team, and organizing multi-million dollar tenders for the design of his personal ipad.

Snowden has nothing to do with NG at all, and he has nothing to do with Russia except that he happened to stay there.

[ROCKMAN]

radon - Which I why I suspect the "us" against the US is just a foolishly designed smoke screen. It seems more like an "us" against the EU consumer organization. Especially countries like England which seem to be becoming more dependent upon imported LNG. What makes more sense is that the participants may truly be trying to develop a NG cartel in the region. We'll see if that works for them any better than it did OPEC.