Title: Europe's Strategic Dependence on Russian Energy | The Heritage Foundation
Headings: Europe's Strategic Dependence on Russian Energy
Europe's Strategic Dependence on Russian Energy
Ariel Cohen
Director, CENRG and Senior Fellow, IAGS
Energy Dependence on Russia
Implications for European Energy Security
Policy Implications for the United States
Authors
Ariel Cohen
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Content: As recently as May 2007, a top Ventspils executive said that "the company was prepared to take on a strategic Russian investor." [ 18]
As of 2004, Gazprom had invested $2.6 billion in 23 major joint ventures, including buying a 50 percent stake in Slovrusgaz in Slovakia, 48 percent of Europol Gaz inPoland, and 30.6 percent of Eesti Gaas in Estonia. [ 19] Russia is also buying up strategic infrastructure companies in Georgia, Hungary, and Ukraine. [ 20] In 1998, Gazprom took over shares of Topenergy, a Bulgarian company dealing with commercial distribution of gas. [ 21]
Russia is also aggressively consolidating its control of European pipelines. The Kremlin has actively opposed Western-controlled pipeline projects directly linking Eurasian energy-producing countries to European markets, such as the Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Erzurum gas pipeline. Earlier in 2003, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Putin agreed to build a Nord Stream pipeline to supply Germany with Russian gas. The pipeline will cross the Baltic Sea and bypass Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland. ( See Map 1.) It will have an annual capacity of 27.5 bcm of gas and is expected to become operational by 2010.