The statement of Aleksei Miller, chairman of Board of Gasprom, at the meeting with Marosh Shefchovich, member of the European Commission for Energy, on January 14 that Russia could switch all gas deliveries for the European Union to the Turkish Stream pipeline has sounded like ultimatum.
Miller has urged the EU to build the pipeline to Turkey within a short period of time and said that otherwise Europe will not be able to receive Russian fuel in case of suspension of its transit through Ukraine.
Does Gasprom have real grounds to lay down such terms to the European Union? Will Europe freeze without Russian gas, if it refuses to buy it on the Turkish border instead of the Ukrainian one? Will Gasprom be able to find the buyers of fuel, which will become free in case of such a development of events?
Mikhail Krutikhin, partner and analyst of RusEnergy company, is sure that Miller’s statement is nothing, but a bluff: the Turkish Stream gas pipeline does not exist as a project yet, Russia does not have other buyers of such a volume of gas and after two years the European countries will be able to be independent of Russian gas.
Russian analyst believes that first of all, Europe did not plan to build new gas pipelines. In order just to simply make a statement about the necessity to build one, the EU needs to coordinate this issue for a year and sometimes 1.5-2 years.
Secondly, even if Gasprom threatens to switch to other markets, it simply does not have those markets. Gasprom is extremely dependent on Europe. Gasprom is unable to transfer this volume of liquefied gas to other markets, Russia does not have the plants able to liquefy such an amount of gas. The volume of gas to be exported to China by Gasprom is much smaller. At best, by 2030 China will receive 30 billion cub.m through the Siberian Force pipeline, while in 2014 Gasprom sold 138 billion cub.m. to the Western Europe. Other markets cannot replace Europe for Gasprom and what Miller is saying is just a ridiculous bluff.
RFE/RL
