Comments on: Russia Blackmails Neighbors, Cuts Off Gas

By: Russia Turned Gas Off | THE WEEKLY POINT

Russia Turned Gas Off | THE WEEKLY POINT — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:31:39 +0000

[...] Gazprom is not a market player, it’s a political weapon at timesonline.co.uk by Roger Boyes. Russia Blackmails Neighbors, Cuts Off Gas at poligazette.com by Michael van der [...]

By: David

David — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:48:28 +0000

I am sure that the Ukrainians are not entirely innocent of some “siphoning off” gas, but it was Russia not Ukraine which firstly reduced the flow of gas for onward pumping below the normal amounts and finally decided to stop all further gas supply entirely. Gazprom confirmed stopping gas supplies in its own press release dated Wednesday 7th January 2009. So regardless of Russian allegations of Ukrainian “theft” it was Russia which stopped supplies.

By: tony

tony — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:43:34 +0000

a clearly erroneous conclusion to assume the Ukraine is always right, and Russia is always wrong. For one, it is the ukrainian side that was refusing to allow EU monitors to be present along its pipelines while the alleged theft of gas was ongoing. Russia was allowing full EU presence at all crossing points into the ukraine, the amounts going in are fully documented. What was coming out was also measured by the EU, and noone is arguing that those amounts dropped. Yet somehow when gas disappears on the Ukrainian territory it’s Russia’s fault?

punishment politics aside, why should a country enjoy preferential energy rates when the main product of its energy use — steel and wheat — are being sold at market rates? The ukraine saw tremendous profits from these industries (ukraine’s main exports) over the past few years, yet it did nothing to force the companies to improve energy efficiency and switch to market gas pricing. The free ride can’t last forever, and the time happens to be now.

By: David

David — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:54:11 +0000

Thanks for covering this. Hungary also had its entire Russian gas supply stopped. This is probably 75% of the gas supply, the remainder being home drilled or imported from Austria. The current news is that a number of large gas users such as factories are closing today, shopping malls and similar places are adopting use reduction strategies (such as disabling automatic doors that allow too much heat out).

Temperatures below -10C are expected at the weekend, which clearly massively increases gas heating requirements. The estimate is that Hungary has in theory 60 days of reserves, but the reserves probably cannot be pumped fast enough to cover all uses.

The government seems to have prioritised home consumers as the last to be cut off – at gas is the main heating method this is probably wise.