Russia and Iran lead the new energy game

Whatever the West may have thought about it, Russian President Vladimir Putin has already spectacularly preempted this weekend’s Group of Eight (G8) summit in St Petersburg with his own bit of Pipelineistan news. Putin announced in Shanghai on June 15 that “Gazprom is ready to support the construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India with financial resources and technology”.

Thus the two top global gas producers – Russia and Iran – reached a strategic partnership abiding not only by their own interests but the interests of India, Pakistan, China and part of Central Asia, something that spells nothing less than an auspicious economic future for a great deal of Asia – independent from any American interference. Washington was not amused.
..The Russian masterstroke is to divert the bulk of upcoming Iranian gas exports to Asia – while Russia is still negotiating a very complex and very lucrative deal with Brussels to supply the European Union. Tehran and Moscow have reached a remarkable agreement. Putin and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will be working in tandem. In Shanghai they all but decided to consult on all matters regarding gas prices and the new routes of Pipelineistan. Control of prices plus transportation routes obviously spell out a gas OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) just around the corner (Putin though was careful to dub it just “a joint venture”, not a cartel).

In practical terms Gazprom (See The Gazprom nation Asia Times Online, May 26) Now, a decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russia’s lines of friction are startlingly similar: Eastern Europe, the Black Sea basin, Ukraine, Moldavia, Georgia and Iran. Sixty years ago, the Soviet Union offered Iran an energy partnership. Now Moscow is offering not only a nuclear partnership – building the nuclear reactor in Bushehr – but still an energy partnership, in the manner of selling its own gas wealth the most profitable way for both sides.

Putin is an accomplished chess player.

Asia Times