[Wildwell]

Extracts taken from BBC article:

The row between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas is the result of a powerful combination of world energy concerns and Russia's desire to exert its influence in its own back yard.

It is ironic that as Russia takes over the 12 months chairmanship of the G8 industrial countries, at the top of whose agenda is security of energy supplies, it chooses to reduce the security of its neighbour's natural gas imports.

Ukraine fears that it is being none too subtly punished for the Orange Revolution and for its pro-Western policies.

Whatever the cause, the case illustrates the new world we are entering, one in which new sources of energy became new sources of potential tension and conflict.

Of course, there is nothing strange about energy being at the centre of diplomacy and world policies, even war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had its origins, at least in part, in a decision by the United States to limit oil exports to Japan in 1941 in response to the Japanese invasion of China.

Oil played its part in a 1953 coup in Iran - organised by the US and Britain. They overthrew an elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh and installed Shah Reza Pahlavi instead, a move that still reverberates in relations with Iran.

The West became interested in the Arab world not because a few diplomats fancied themselves as latter-day Lawrences of Arabia (although some did). It wanted its main source of oil to be secure.

We learned from British archives released a couple of years ago that in 1973, the US drew up a plan to seize oilfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi in response to the Arab oil embargo.

For decades the aim of securing oil has been realised.

It is only now, with the drying up of oil a prospect over the next decades, that new worries are coming to the fore.

The US government's Energy Information Administration tracks the world's energy supplies and needs and has this to say about the European Union:

"The EU is a net importer of energy. According to a report published by the European Commission, (European Union Energy Outlook to 2020), two-thirds of the EU's total energy requirements will be imported by 2020. Eurogas expects that the EU will also import up to 75% of its natural gas requirements by 2020."

No wonder the EU is looking at the argument between Russia and Ukraine with concern.

Such concern has meant that world attention has turned to some previously obscure parts of the globe.

The fact is that Britain's own supplies of gas from the North Sea are not what they were. New horizons have to be opened up. Soon, for example, the sight of huge liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships from Algeria and Venezuela will become familiar in UK ports. That, too, will have an impact on British diplomacy.

And the future of nuclear power is now back on the agenda. This means that those countries with big uranium deposits, such as Australia and Kazakhstan, are going to find they have many new friends if governments choose to take the nuclear track.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4573944.stm

[lutherquick]

It's NOT "new world power play"...

If Exxon started selling some product below market value, it's shareholders would take CxO managment to court...

Russia needs to sell her products are market price or they are not considering their shareholder's interests...

It's not power play, it's THE MARKET.

Are sky rocketing housing prices in the US and most of the world, are these "power plays", no... it's the market...

Is the fairy tale about wmd in Iraq a "power play", no... it's THE MARKET... does anyone realy think Iraq was about wmd or 9/11? no... it's was about OIL/Energy, that is THE MARKET...

Why when Russia demands fair price, people get paranoid and say Putin is becoming Stalinist... When America invades Iraq and can't find one gram of wmd, does the rest of the world start thinking about history and remembering dead American Indians or lost land from Mexico or Black Slavery? no... because we all know it's about THE MARKET.

It's THE MARKET STUPID, it's THE ECONOMY STUPID !!!!!
Russia wants whatever the market can bear...
Germany pays $230, let Ukraine pay $230

[small_steps]

We should also get some perspective on this, the $50 gas number is $1.42 per million BTU, we in the US have been paying over $10 per million BTU over the last few months due to the effects of the hurricanes. While the folks in the UK are grabbing all the LNG they can get thier hands on for upto $20 per million BTU.

Paying about $6.50 for the same amount of gas looks quite tame by comparision, but is quite an adjustment none the less.

[Karl]

All hail to the all powerful MARKET!

Do you not know "Money is the root of all kinds of evil and injurious things" - Apostle Paul. For the want of this worthless 'fiat' currency all morality is thrown to the wind.

"And God shall certainly bring to ruin those ruining the earth" - Revalation to the Apostle John.

No I dont want to be raptured, but I'm tired of the greed and futility of it all. Its for nothing, while we ruin the most precious jewel that we know, the earth.

F**k the MARKET and all the mindless morons who worship it!

[gg3]

Good one, Karl.

Economics produces scarcity.

Start with Resource A, which is abundant. Run down the supply of A until it's more expensive than B, and then switch to B. Run down B until it's more expensive than C, and then switch to C. Rinse and repeat. Along the way, A and B have gone from being plentiful to becoming scarce.

All of this, dictated not by sound scientific or engineering principles, but merely by the comparative rates of return on fiat money. Speaking of insane, this is truly crazier than asking your pet gerbil who you should marry.

[Doly]

All of this, dictated not by sound scientific or engineering principles, but merely by the comparative rates of return on fiat money. Speaking of insane, this is truly crazier than asking your pet gerbil who you should marry.

I don't think the problem is economy so much as the fact that people don't learn that they can run out of something until they do.