Crude Oil and Natural Gas Export Policy of Russia

Abstract

We can find easily dozens of media and academic articles over the past 1-2 years that foretell and warn of Russia's aggressive foreign policies to her neighbours by means of her energy-exporting power in oil and gas. Many of them are the products of the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine in the early 2006, which also reminds some authors of Russia's oil cut-off of the Baltic countries in the early 90's. In their arguments they seem to share a common understanding that Russia has firm intentions and aims in her foreign policies-to decelerate, if not to exclude fully, democratization of her FSU neighbours and to extract maximum diplomatic concessions from them and the EU members, concluding that her oil and gas resources are political instruments these purposes. After having a look at each oil/gas pipeline project of Russia, however, we feel this conclusion may not match reality. In this article the current main oil and gas pipeline projects of Russia (to Europe-BTS, Burgas-Alexandropoulis, Nord Stream, and South Stream; and to Asian countries-East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (VSTO) and Altaj) are briefly reviewed, and it is hard to see her aggressive diplomatic intentions in them. The main motive of new pipeline construction by Russia to Europe is to bypass as many transit countries as possible or to avoid transportation bottlenecks. They are of a commercial character rather than a political one, though the current transit countries which may lose their position by newly routed pipelines of Russia fear the theoretical worst that they will be under a full energy supply control by Russia. The construction plans of eastbound pipelines to Asian countries and the Pacific Ocean have a primary task to develop the areas of East Siberia and the Far East of Russia, accompanied by again commercial tactics in avoiding transit countries and a single destination route of the energy export. We have to pay more attention to the fact that Russia's energy export policy is hardly reliable in the world energy market, not because of her politicized aggressive stance to consumers but because it only plays a passive role against what the world