Rusia has no case PERIOD - the whole thing is better explained in this article even that it is still a partial picture - there is more than just NG - transit of oil avoiding Russia is also at stake - time to wake up and see the big picture
Yet even if Russia can be said to have a "grand design", the same could be said of China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and other countries. For this reason, the Russian-Ukrainian gas row cannot properly be seen in a bilateral, or even trilateral (with the European Union) perspective. It is rather the interplay of all these interests, together with the multi-level bargaining, jockeying for position, and feinting, to which is added the random unexpected event and global financial surprises, that makes the whole nothing less than a roller-coaster that lays its own track ahead of it as it goes along.
atimes.com
atimes.com
Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR and Kazakhstan's state monopoly KazMunaiGaz this month signed an agreement setting out the main principles for a transport system to convey Kazakhstani oil across the Caspian Sea for entry into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline and subsequent re-export to world markets.
This represents a step forward in the realization of the Kazakhstan-Caspian Transportation System (KCTS) that, while long discussed, has become Kazakhstan's response to Russia's unwillingness and/or inability to implement the long-promised doubling of the capacity of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) line.
...............................................
This bilateral agreement was signed on the side of a larger meeting in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, this month, which saw another significant pact in which it was agreed to supply Georgia's natural gas consumption requirements for five years. This agreement represents Azerbaijan's declination of Russia's recent commercial offer for purchase of all of Azerbaijan's gas production. While the commercial basis of the offer was excellent, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliev averred non-commercial interests that must be considered.
................................................
in the words of the European Commission (EC)/EU, "set the stage for a new cooperation" among the EC, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Russia was present in 2004 and 2006 as an observer but did not respond to an invitation to send a representative to the most recent meetings.
.......................................................
Over the past two years, Russia has moved swiftly to set up obstacles to the realization of the Nabucco project. It has proposed its own "South Stream" pipeline, to branch westwards from the Russia-Turkey Blue Stream pipeline under the Black Sea. It has played the national interests of EU members off against one another and sought to entice European energy companies into special relationships that would prevent the all-European cooperation necessary to realize Nabucco from solidifying into concerted action. |
