Russia's New Abbott and Costello Defense
Vladimir Putin -- listen up.You now have an airtight defense against those who have savaged you ever since you temporarily cut off natural gas shipments to Europe a couple of years ago in a pricing dispute with Ukraine. It would make Abbott and Costello proud.
Last week, Turkmenistan made news by cutting off natural gas supplies to Iran. The Central Asian nation, the runt forever being picked on by neighborhood bullies, had been shipping 23 million cubic meters a day to Iran, but is tired of being short-changed by Russia and Iran for its natural gas and wants more money. Russia is now paying $130 a thousand cubic meters (versus $350 it plans to charge Europe); Turkmenistan presumably wants at least that much from Iran.
Here's where the story gets wind. You see, even though Iran buys natural gas, it also sells it. But this is an incredibly cold winter, and Iranians are freezing. The country needed those Turkmen imports. So it has cut off Turkey, which was supposed to receive 30 million cubic meters a day from Iran but is only getting about 5 million.
Except it's also mighty cold in Turkey. So it has cut off Greece.
The poetic coda? The rescue squad is from Russia. Gazprom, the lightning rod for things that go wrong across Eurasia, is shipping an extra 8 million cubic meters of natural gas a day to Turkey and 1.5 million cubic meters a day to Greece.
Photo: Pirate Alice
Rights: Creative Commons
Labels: botas, Gazprom, greece, iran, natural gas, oil book, russia book, turkey, Turkmenistan
9 Comments:
This is kinda fun!
Hi all. From what I understand that's not completely accurate. The source for the news that Gazprom is bailing Turkey out (which it does admittedly every winter when Iran cuts off its gas to Turkey citing cold winters) is a Gazprom statement first picked up by Interfax. That says that the levels had been increased above contract levels starting in December, before Iran turned off the taps to Turkey.
Now there are other sources in the Turkish energy ministry saying that Gazprom is not filling the deficit, this was checked yesterday, but that it's actually dropped its gas levels by a daily 5mcm.
Turkish energy officials have their own agendas of course, but this rings true to me. If so it's very interesting and I think worth exploring what is going on between Russia and Turkey. There's a good deal of pressure building up between Moscow and Ankara regarding gas prices (which Turkey pays suspiciously high amounts for) and perhaps, but much less so, even this whole Nabucco and South Stream.
Hi Hammer and Thomas. Thomas, though I can't find links in a quick search for what you suggest, intuitively it rings true. I'm going to monitor, and would appreciate the same from you.
I did notice that the State Department has mindlessly used the incident to bash Iran, ignoring the origin of the domino effect.
Thanks for the comment and best, Steve
Hi Steve, hammer. I'm pasting a small excerpt from a Reuters story below. Don't know where/if it showed up on the internet, pasting directly from the wire. The same source confirmed that the Gazprom cut was still in place yesterday - wednesday.
Besides I find timing and quotes of yesterday's Gazprom statement fishy.
"Russia, which usually increases its gas exports to Turkey
when supplies from Iran run short, said it could not provide
additional gas during the shortage.
"Due to cold weather in Russia, they cannot meet (our
requests for additional gas supplies). In fact there is a daily
five million cubic metre drop in the gas supplies that are
supposed to come from Russia," said the official, speaking on
condition of anonymity.
Turkey will be taking other measures to secure supplies,
such as making purchases from the spot liquid natural gas
market, he added."
Furthermore, it sounds like Ahmadinejad spoke with Erdogan and promised resumption of fuel by Monday. Not sure from where. We'll see.
bests, Tom
Say Tom would you mind sending the Reuters link. Still having trouble finding on Google and Yahoo. Thanks, Steve
i like that dog!
Now that you mention it, Candy, I just noticed that I post a lot of dogs on the site. That's inadvertent.
I'm pointing out again, for those who have only recently joined us, that Candy is the site's ingenious designer.
Hi Steve,
The problem I don't know where it showed up on the internet. I'm a reuters correspondent in Istanbul, so this was an article with reporting from me and colleagues. If you want any more info, please drop me a line at thomas.grove@reuters.com or tggrove@gmail.com. Unfortunatley though I can't help much more now. We're just trying to figure out when the gas will be turned back on to Greece. Hope all's well, very much enjoying your book at the moment.
Okay Thomas thanks. I didn't realize that you are with Reuters. I'm going to keep monitoring this as well. As I originally responded, your case makes intuitive sense. Best Steve
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home