{"id":8226,"date":"2015-05-18T09:54:54","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T14:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8226"},"modified":"2015-05-18T09:54:54","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T14:54:54","slug":"russian-gas-there-is-no-alternative-for-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8226","title":{"rendered":"Russian Gas: There Is No Alternative For Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Natural-Gas\/Russian-Gas-There-Is-No-Alternative-For-Europe.html\" target=\"_blank\">Russian Gas: There Is No Alternative For Europe<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>The sanctions are now in their second year; the ruble is still not quite itself; and national champions Gazprom and Rosneft are both bracing for what can generously be called a down year. Still, while Russia\u2019s political relationship with the west continues to be redefined, the broader element of codependence remains relatively unchanged \u2013 though its worth is hotly disputed. Nowhere is that dispute more pronounced than in the energy sector.<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, Gazprom is in trouble. Last year, the gas giant saw its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2015\/03\/31\/investing\/russia-gazprom-profit\/\">profits fall 70 percent<\/a>\u00a0to $3.3 billion. Through the first three quarters of 2014, Gazprom<a href=\"http:\/\/rbth.com\/business\/2015\/02\/02\/gazprom_declares_alarming_slump_in_revenues_as_debt_burden_rises_43339.html\">deliveries fell<\/a>\u00a03 percent, 13 percent, and 8 percent to Europe, former Soviet republics, and domestic consumers respectively. Its debt burden is up and opportunities for long-term credit are few. Moreover, its legal woes are growing by the day. Recent antitrust filings from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/uatoday.tv\/business\/polish-gas-company-files-lawsuit-against-russia-s-gazprom-427183.html\">Poland<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/business\/258329-gazprom-anti-trust-investigation\/\">Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0join the European Commission\u2019s (EC) April\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2015\/04\/22\/news\/gazprom-europe-antitrust-lawsuit\/\">charges<\/a>\u00a0that could cost the company up to 10 percent of its global turnover.<\/p>\n<p>For its part, Europe \u2013 more specifically, the European Union \u2013 is still attempting to define the terms of its own energy security. Plans for the 28-member bloc to unite in an energy union are still a go, though only marginally more clear than when they emerged. In a recent statement at the European Economic and Social Committee\u2019s Plenary Session, Energy Union commissioner Maros Sefcovic<a href=\"http:\/\/europa.eu\/rapid\/press-release_SPEECH-15-4833_en.htm\">described<\/a>\u00a0the goals of the union as follows: a fully integrated energy market; energy efficiency above all else; decarbonization; a commitment to R&amp;D; and securing supply through solidarity and trust.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russian Gas: There Is No Alternative For Europe The sanctions are now in their second year; the ruble is still not quite itself; and national champions Gazprom and Rosneft are both bracing for what can generously be called a down year. Still, while Russia\u2019s political relationship with the west continues to be redefined, the broader [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[2869,279,281,2535,284,352,3122,694,1557,965],"class_list":["post-8226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-ec","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-gazprom","tag-rosneft","tag-russia","tag-russian-gas","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8227,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8226\/revisions\/8227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}