The impact of the natural gas price on industrial performance during a hybrid war

Abstract

In the contemporary world, natural gas is one of the focuses of hybrid wars and is used as a tool of international economic and political pressure to gain appropriate benefits. The long-term pressure of Russia on Ukraine using a combination of military, political, economic, information and energy tools is one of the most striking cases of applying natural gas as a weapon in a hybrid war. Exploring the case of Ukraine, the authors confirmed the hypothesis about the change in the impact of the prices of natural gas on the performance of its industrial consumers during a hybrid war. The study covered three industrial sectors that are major consumers of natural gas – the metallurgy, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The data of nine key companies of these industries for the period 2006–2019 were analyzed; this period was divided into two parts – before the hybrid war (2006–2013) and during it (2014–2019). The authors identified the heterogeneity of the influence of natural gas prices on the performance of different industrial enterprises. However, since the onset of the hybrid war, all of them have shown a reducing correlation of natural gas prices with