Page 2 of 2 THE ROVING
EYE Who profits from a gas
OPEC? By Pepe
Escobar
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov,
the successor to the recently deceased Saparmurat
Niyazov "Turkmenbashi", who reigned
absolute-monarch-style for 21 years.
A
Russian-Iranian game It is widely assumed
that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei
formally proposed the creation of a gas OPEC to
the secretary of the Russian Security Council,
Igor Ivanov, last
January in Tehran. But the
fact is, a gas OPEC has always been a
Gazprom-nation initiative. It was not Iran, but
Vladimir Putin himself - supported by the Central
Asian republics - who first came up with the idea
of a gas OPEC, way back in 2002. Obviously all
major Western corporations were against it.
Lately, Putin has been much more cautious.
In his annual Kremlin press conference on February
1, he said on the record that he did not want to
see a gas OPEC controlling production to influence
gas prices; he was more interested in
"cooperation" to help the security of supplies.
This happened after May 2006, when Gazprom
deputy chairman Aleksandr Medvedev had thrown a
news bomb, saying that if Russia didn't get a good
energy deal with the European Union it would
create "an alliance of gas suppliers more
influential than OPEC". In August, this "alliance
of gas suppliers" was already in business - as
Gazprom and Algeria's Sonatrach signed a
memorandum of understanding calling for
coordinated gas prices. It's practically
inevitable that Gazprom and Sonatrach will market
their gas together in Europe - and that certainly
opens the way to a gas OPEC. What EU officials who
keep complaining about the "lack of transparency"
of Russia's gas strategy really wanted was to see
Sonatrach involved in a price war with Gazprom, so
in the end the Europeans would dictate their own
conditions. Wishful thinking: this is not going to
happen.
The Nezavissimaya Gazeta daily
argues, "More than 57% of the world's gas reserves
are concentrated in three countries - Russia, Iran
and Qatar. If these states create a cartel, the
gas OPEC will be easier to manage than the oil
cartel and may in fact have the monopoly on the
sector."
If that is the case, one should
expect an inflation of Putin voodoo dolls. The key
reason Putin and the Gazprom nation are so
demonized among Western financial/corporate elites
is simple. It's called direct marketing - which
happens to be yet one more Western concept. Putin
does not give a damn about Wall Street or the City
of London. He does not give a damn about the US
dollar, either (he prefers selling in euros). And
he prefers to sell the Gazprom nation's gas
contract by contract, and company by company.
Russia and Iran united in a gas OPEC
royally serves them both. Iran's export way out is
first and foremost Asia. Russia wants to
concentrate on Europe. But the Europeans would do
anything to diversify their sources, so Iran, in
the end, will also be the winner.
Russian
newspaper Vremia Novostiei argues that "an
agreement for the formation of a gas OPEC would
mean the unequivocal passage of Russia from the
status of partner of the West to opposing it, and
not only from the point of view of energy". It's
not that simple. It would all depend on a peaceful
solution to the Iranian nuclear dossier - which is
in the interests of the gas-hungry European Union.
Diplomats in Brussels never stop swearing that the
EU's ultimate fear is to become a hostage to
Russia's energy policy. The alternative supplier
is definitely Iran.
One thing is certain.
Doha signals to the world that the Gas Exporting
Countries Forum is no longer a talking shop: now
it really means business. "Gas OPEC", as a
branding concept, is here to stay. It does not
matter that Canada, Norway, the Netherlands and
Australia - which combined sell 35% of the gas
available in world markets - are not part of it.
The idea has been planted - and in this case the
idea is far more influential than concrete
mechanisms to implement it.
The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, true to form, had to
react with extreme paranoia. Last November, NATO
members were "warned" that Russia was fabricating
a new, deadly political roadside bomb against
Europe, by trying to set up a natural-gas cartel
from Algeria to Central Asia.
Welcome to
the new, Pentagon-inspired, arc of (gas)
instability. Who would have thought that branding
could become so explosive?
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