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37 comments on Are we worried yet? Or more on Gazprom etc.

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Dave Cohen on April 17, 2006 - 11:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Yes, I am worried.

From Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller met with Iranian Ambassador to Russia.

Work meeting of Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller with Ambassador of Islamic Republic Iran to Russia Gholamreza Ansari took place at the company's headquarters, informed derrick.ru, citing materials of OAO Gazprom Mass-Media Department.

Parties discussed questions of bilateral cooperation in oil and gas sphere, including perspectives of cooperation in export of Iranian gas to markets of third countries, as well as Gazprom participation in projects to establish Iranian gas export streams, based on principles of participation in all sections of price chain - from carbohydrates extraction to realization to consumers. In this connection, as one of promising cooperation directions Gazprom's participation in following projects was recognized: project's realization of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, construction of one or two parts of South Pars gas-field with following export supply of extracted carbohydrates.

And here's Alexey


Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller

Sibneft to change name to Gazpromneft in May - Gazprom CEO

Oil company Sibneft will change its name to Gazpromneft in May and move to St. Petersburg next year, the head of Gazprom said Friday.

"The Sibneft board of directors has made a decision to rename the company," Alexei Miller told reporters, adding that the Sibneft brand would be retained for some time at gas stations.

Gazprom here, there and everywhere, corrupt and an unreliable supplier. My God, it's everywhere you look! Eni CEO says no deal yet with Russia's Gazprom.
Italy's Eni did not reach a deal with Russia's Gazprom on gas sales and areas of cooperation, saying that a meeting of the heads of the two companies on Friday was a step in a long negotiation process.

Eni and Gazprom GAZPPE.RTS have for months sought to strike a cooperation agreement. An earlier deal was scrapped last year following doubts voiced by Italy's antitrust authorities over gas sales.

I could go on and on and on....

What does "neft" mean in Russian anyway? Why does it strike me that it rhymes with "theft"?

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BaSE on April 18, 2006 - 12:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Do you think Russia is trying to hold onto its resources, or are they waiting for a better price, or is some other thing going on, perhaps their own version of mitigating GHG?

I think if I was Russia, I would try to hold onto the resources as long as possible and would only sell when necessary to honor existing contracts.

Also Russia is rapidly approaching the second peak of production for oil.  What will this mean in terms of their own needs for their gas?

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Sargon on April 18, 2006 - 9:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Eni and Gazprom GAZPPE.RTS have for months sought to strike a cooperation agreement. An earlier deal was scrapped last year following doubts voiced by Italy's antitrust authorities over gas sales.

Well, given that the previous deal fell through, shouldn't sensible businessmen negotiate more thoroughfully this time? Why should anyone be worried about this due diligence?

And BTW, 'neft' is 'oil' in Russian. It doesn't rhyme with 'theft', which is 'vorovstvo' in Russian. Anyone could go on and find an infinite number of interesting rhymes across dissimilar languages, but is it really necessary to put these shades of racism into writing?

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Dave Cohen on April 18, 2006 - 10:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That was a joke, Sargon. I know what "neft" means in Russian.

Racism? Give me a break.

Is it racism is if criticize ExxonMobil? Or Gazprom? These are corporations. Since Russia holds 1/4 of the world's natural gas reserves, they are engaged in monopolistic practices and pressuring many countries who need the gas or would like to sell their own gas, as in the FSU.

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Sargon on April 18, 2006 - 11:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Is it racism is if criticize ExxonMobil? Or Gazprom? These are corporations.

Exactly. But 'neft' is a word. From a language. Which is spoken by people. And jokes about peoples are best left to the peoples themselves - not to the others.

Anyway, break given :-)

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dima on April 18, 2006 - 12:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hmm... Just for the sake of the argument, if Gazprom held 100% of the world's gas, would they still be "engaging in monopolistic practices"? I wonder... I mean, they don't have to sell to people who are mean to Russians, do they? It seems a little funny to get all huffy about Gazprom's business practices - given the West's record of dirty dealings with Russia and the developing world. A bit desperate and pathetic as well.
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Dave Cohen on April 18, 2006 - 1:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Re: "It seems a little funny to get all huffy about Gazprom's business practices..."

I am sometimes equally harsh in my views and remarks about IOCs like BP, ExxonMobil, etc. and state-owned NOCs like SaudiAramco. Gazprom is now very powerful and with power comes corruption. As for the West's "record of dirty dealing", I take that as a given.

It is never valid to make the argument that somebody (in this case Gazprom) is OK because others are worse.

On a related note, you might read Reheating the Cold War by M K Bhadrakumar from the Asian Times, one of my favorite sources.

Three assaults on the Kremlin within the month must be extraordinary even by Cold War standards. They prompted Anatol Lieven, a prominent American scholar on Russia, to pose a rhetorical question: "Why are we trying to reheat the Cold War?"

It all began with a 94-page report released by the influential think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations on March 5 titled "Russia's Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do". It concluded that Russia's foreign and domestic policies had taken directions that hurt US global interests; that a US-Russian partnership was no longer feasible; and that the US should lead a coordinated Western policy of "selective cooperation" with Russia, a variant of the policy of detente during the Cold War years....

The same day, while on a visit to Australia, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed concern over the "centralization of power in the Kremlin" and spoke about the danger that "by its very existence, a presidency that is strong without countervailing institutions can be subverted, can subvert democracy".

Rice, speaking to a town-hall audience in Sydney, saw "a very difficult and shaky path" right now for Russian democracy, and expressed the hope that the Russian people "will find their voice to demand accountable, transparent institutions and to demand the ability to organize themselves to petition their government and, if necessary, to change their government".

A "regime change" in Russia!....

And there is much more. So, our current beloved administration and their neocon minions have decided to take a hostile position in regard to Russia's policies (and of course, their energy practices). This is exactly the opposite of what US policy should be--which should be cooperation and diplomacy.

But underlying some of these comments in this thread is the idea that I have something against the Russians. Nothing could be further from the truth. Moreover, I actually did a post on Russia in which I tried to do a detailed objective examination of their oil reserves and future capacity.

Finally, I realize that Putin is very popular in Russia and if that is the way they want to run their government, it's fine with me. My only concern with them is that their internal energy policies may be misguided.

best, Dave

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Stoneleigh on April 18, 2006 - 10:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"Neft" (oil) is pronounced 'nyeft'.
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Dave Cohen on April 18, 2006 - 1:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, I know!!! See my posts above. I'll try to never make a (bad) joke again.
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writerman on April 18, 2006 - 1:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Dear Dave,

I think you are doing a great job. But your one of the Big Beasts, and I think you can shrug off a little criticism now and then, no? Here on TOD we all seem to be on the same side, sort of, and contrary positions and perspectives only keep us all on our toes so to speak.

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Dave Cohen on April 18, 2006 - 4:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You're right. But as Deffeyes recently said, not paying attention to the key issues is like "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic".

Yes, I'm an Excitable Boy as Warren Zevon wrote (now deceased, unfortunately).

Shrug off? When somebody implies you are "racist" or anti-Russian for criticizing Gazprom? Yes, I need a thicker skin. Just having a tough time in my life write now. Psychological defences are down or non-existent. But, thanks for you advice, writerman. Sometimes I disagree with you (ie. genocide) but you've made some brilliant comments, especially on the post I did recently on Iran. I appreciate your input.

best, Dave

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Dave Cohen on April 18, 2006 - 4:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I can't believe I wrote "write now" when I mean "right now". Where's my mind when I need it? Typing too fast. I've always been sorry I can't edit my comments but that capability is impractical on a site like TOD.
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writerman on April 19, 2006 - 4:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Dave,

My brain and my hands often seem to exists in different time-zones when I'm typing too.

Regime change in Russia does seem to be on the agenda further down the line.

That's when we've finished democratizing the Middle East, have won the Long War on Terror, established a friendly government in Venezuela and contained the historic challange of a resurgent China! We are certainly going to be busy 'ruling the world' in the coming years.

I have a speculative flight of fancy about how American politics may develop in the future. I believe we may see a split between the 'Merchants' and the 'Militarists' across party lines.

In relation to Iran, another strange thing happened yesterday, which I'm having some trouble with, because it seems weired, and has made be question my memory.

I was looking at the BBC's website yesterday and noticed a very interesting lead piece containing a reference to a journalist's direct question to Bush about plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran. According to the BBC piece Bush once again did not use this opportunity, when asked directly about the nuclear weapons option, to catagorically deny that the United States would ever use nukes against a non-nuclear power. Instead, Bush replied that all options, including the use of force, are still 'on the table' to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. However, he insisted the US was trying to resolve the issue diplomatically.

Now, this is a very clear answer to a very clear question from Bush. He's saying, 'No, we have not ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran.' It's also a really big strategic and moral shift in American military policy, away from the stance of vowing not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries. The question arises, should a responsible President use this kind of forum to announce such important changes in American nuclear policy? Is Bush aware of the seriousness of these kinds of 'reckless' statements in the current climate? Does Bush know what the hell he is talking about? Should one talk about nuclear weapons like this at all?

I thought this was an interesting piece, especially on the BBC, which has a tendancy to 'smooth things over' in relation to Bush. So today I went back for a quick look at the piece, as other sources had picked up on 'Bush refuses to rule out nuclear strike on Iran.' Well, strangely, the BBC story had been changed when I looked this morning! The reference to the direct question about the use of nukes on Iran had been carefully removed. The rest of the piece was the same as yesterday though.

I'm not sure how much one should read into something like this. I think one could see this as a kind of 'censorhip' of a statement which is rightly regarded as being beyond the pale. I did think that it might interest you though.

In my ideal world Warren Zevon would sell as many records as Bruce Springsteen.

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