Russia gas disruption spreads to Czechs and Turks

[calfoxwc]

Russia gas disruption spreads to Czechs, Turks

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Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By Yuri Kulikov and Tanya Mosolova Yuri Kulikov And Tanya Mosolova – Sun Jan 4, 1:29 pm ET Reuters – A pipe is seen at a Ukrainian gas compressor station in the village of Boyarka near the capital Kiev …

Play Video Energy & Oil Video: EU to monitor gas supply Reuters Play Video Energy & Oil Video: Lawmakers: Infrastructure, alternative energy should get stimulus money WRAL Raleigh Play Video Energy & Oil Video: Gazprom warns of 'danger' to Europe gas supply AFP KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian gas supplies to the Czech Republic and Turkey dropped on Sunday, the latest victims of a deepening row between Russia and Ukraine over debts and pricing.

 

Russian natural gas supplies fell by five percent to the Czech Republic as a result of the stand-off, which began when Russia cut off the gas to Ukraine on New Year's day. The two sides blame each other for the dispute.

 

"It is the first signal of the Russia-Ukraine crisis in the Czech Republic," said a spokesman for gas importer RWE Transgas.

 

European energy firms, which received about a fifth of their gas via pipelines through Ukraine, said they had enough gas stockpiled to maintain supplies for several days.

 

But analysts said Europe, where temperatures in many places were below zero, could face problems if the row dragged on beyond that.

 

European Union ambassadors will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Monday, where the Czech presidency of the bloc will brief members about talks it has been holding with officials from Kiev and Moscow.

 

Turkey reported a small fall in the gas it receives from Russia through a pipeline that passes through Ukraine, joining Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary which also said their supplies had dropped. Germany and France were unaffected.

 

Ukraine -- long at odds with the Kremlin over its ambition to join NATO -- accused Moscow of deliberately cutting flows to Europe and said the bloc needed to send a signal to the Kremlin that it cannot bully its pro-Western neighbors.

 

"If Europe ... does not help us get out of this situation, then it can expect a more aggressive position from Russia on gas and other issues," Oleksander Shlapak, a senior Ukrainian presidential aide, told Reuters.

 

Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom blamed Ukraine for siphoning off or blocking deliveries of gas equivalent to one sixth of the total Russian supply to Europe, and said it was increasing exports to make up some of the shortfall.

 

"While we have been trying for four days, regardless of the holidays, to try to find a way out of this crisis, (the Ukrainian negotiators) are staying in Kiev and not continuing talks," said Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov.

 

Igor Yolkin, an official with a Gazprom subsidiary in Bulgaria that distributes gas to the Balkan region, told Reuters supplies to Greece and Macedonia were also reduced. That could not immediately be confirmed with domestic importers.

 

POSITIONS ENTRENCHED

 

The gas row, which mirrors a similar dispute three years ago that also disrupted supplies, is likely to raise new questions in Europe about Russia's reliability as a gas supplier.

 

Russia's ties with the West are still fraught after it waged a war with Georgia last August. Some policymakers see parallels between that conflict and Russia's treatment of Ukraine.

 

Analysts say whether consumers and industries in Europe suffer problems with their fuel supplies depends on a swift resolution of the dispute.

 

Gazprom and Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz have been in daily contact by telephone, officials said, but with no face-to-face negotiations in sight both sides seemed to be entrenching their positions.

 

Moscow and Kiev said they would bring cases against each other in an arbitration court in Stockholm that deals with international commercial disputes.

 

Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller said that since Ukraine had turned down a previous proposal to pay $418 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, he was raising the price to $450. That is more than twice the sum Kiev says it is willing to pay.

 

Political leaders of Russia and Ukraine, most of them on holiday, have been silent on the issue for days.

 

Ukraine's financial markets re-open on Monday after the New Year holiday, offering the first indications of how badly the gas crisis could hurt its already fragile economy.

 

Presidential aide Shlapak told Reuters on Sunday the economy was set to contract by between 3 and 5 percent this year, leaving it little room to accept the higher gas prices Russia is demanding.

 

European Union customers pay about $500 per 1,000 cubic meters of Russian gas, though that price is set to drop in line with crude oil, which tumbled in 2008. Gas prices traditionally follow oil prices with a time lag of about six months.

 

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Ankara, Toni Vorobyova and James Kilner in Moscow, Sabina Zawadzki, Pavel Polityuk and Guy Faulconbridge in Kiev and European bureaux)

 

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Jon Boyle)

 

 

 

[Mr. T]

any predictions of when the shit will fly in Georgia again?

 

 

 

Romania ready to back both Nabucco and South Stream

Nine O'Clock Oct 24, 2008

Romania remains open to both Nabucco and Gazprom’s South Stream projects. ‘Romania is ready to back any project adopted by the EU, both Nabucco and South Stream,’ Vosganian stated during a press conference, Mediafax informs.

 

The Finance Minister’s statement is the first in which a Romanian official reveals that Romania is interested in the South Stream project, a project that the analysts see as Nabucco’s direct competitor. Nabucco is backed by the EU as an alternative to the natural gas imports from Russia.

 

http://www.roconsulboston.com/Pages/InfoPa...asBypass07.html

 

 

 

If there is a war in Georgis over this will the UN stand silent during Obamas term?

 

 

[calfoxwc]

Yikes. I wonder if Russia is creating trouble with Iran/Syria --> Hezbollah and Hamas -

 

as a distraction to cover dissent over their policies of taking over Georgia AND the Ukraine AND Romania AND the Czechs again....

 

bad bad bad.

 

If all hell breaks loose, the upside is, liberals can blame it all on Obama. GGG

[Mr. T]

Russia Refuses to Restart Gas Supply, Declares Deal Void

 

Russia on Sunday refused to restart gas supplies that have been stalled since Wednesday, saying the deal for the monitors was made void by Ukraine, which signed the document but then issued what it called a "declaration" to accompany it.

 

The European Commission insisted the declaration could not change the agreement, but Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the document was void unless Ukraine withdrew the declaration.

 

He denounced the Ukrainian move as a "mockery of a common sense and a violation of previously reached agreements."

 

Russia has demanded monitors to track the movement of gas across Ukraine before it will restart supplies to other European countries. Russia stopped supplying gas to Ukraine on Jan. 1 amid a price dispute and later stopped supplying countries beyond Ukraine because it claimed Kiev was siphoning off the gas.

 

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in a phone conversation that Russia considers any supplements to the deal unacceptable. He added that the Ukrainian declaration defies the pact and refers to commercial issues that aren't part of it.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479170,00.html

[osusev]

i have a feeling with the russian economy being hit hard with the recession here in the states and the massively depressed oil prices Russia and the Ukraine will find a way to make the gas flow to europe. Financial pressures of being a net exporter of energy in a world market dealing with depressed prices from a recession tend to make the saber rattlers a little more congenial.

[Mr. T]

i have a feeling with the russian economy being hit hard with the recession here in the states and the massively depressed oil prices Russia and the Ukraine will find a way to make the gas flow to europe. Financial pressures of being a net exporter of energy in a world market dealing with depressed prices from a recession tend to make the saber rattlers a little more congenial.

I am not sure of the timeline but the drops in the price of sweet crued has gone down since the skirmish that had taken place back in georgia this past summer. Beforehand Russia had been taking advantage of the high prices of oil and with their profit they have been able to increase the size of their military.

[calfoxwc]

Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, went further. His office compared Russia's actions to those of the Nazis during the wartime siege of Leningrad. Andrei Kislinksy, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential secretariat, said the gas war "increasingly resembles the blockade of Leningrad after the failure of the blitzkrieg" and added that its primary purpose seemed to be about making Yushchenko step down from office.

 

 

.... the corrupt and power starving Soviets are using gas supplies as a weapon.

 

that's why they went into Georgia, to shut down Georgia's economy and THEIR pipeline,

that would have bypassed the Soviets' pipeline and taking away their monopoly.

 

Bad times ahead for the world, I think.

 

But, maybe NOW a lot of marxists will at least stay quiet and not undermine our every effort

 

to defend ourselves and our friends around the world.