Posted on 10/06/2022 9:48:54 AM PDT by dennisw
When Russia seized Crimea in March, it acquired not just the Crimean landmass but also a maritime zone more than three times its size with the rights to underwater resources potentially worth trillions of dollars.
Russia portrayed the takeover as reclamation of its rightful territory, drawing no attention to the oil and gas rush that had recently been heating up in the Black Sea. But the move also extended Russia’s maritime boundaries, quietly giving Russia dominion over vast oil and gas reserves while dealing a crippling blow to Ukraine’s hopes for energy independence.
Russia did so under an international accord that gives nations sovereignty over areas up to 230 miles from their shorelines. It had tried, unsuccessfully, to gain access to energy resources in the same territory in a pact with Ukraine less than two years earlier.
“It’s a big deal,” said Carol R. Saivetz, Eurasian expert in the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It deprives Ukraine of the possibility of developing these resources and gives them to Russia. It makes Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian pressure.”
Gilles Lericolais, the director of European and international affairs at France’s state oceanographic group, called Russia’s annexation of Crimea “so obvious” as a play for offshore riches.
In Moscow, spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin said there was “no connection” between the annexation and energy resources, adding that Russia did not even care about the oil and gas. “Compared to all the potential Russia has got, there was no interest there,” the spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Saturday.
Dig deeper into the moment. Special offer: Subscribe for $1 a week. Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and other major oil companies have already explored the Black Sea, and some petroleum analysts say its potential may rival that of the North Sea.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Scratch the surface of any of Russia’s aggressive moves and petroleum is usually at the bottom of it.
Pretty ironic because typically, that is what has been asserted about the US.
Double irony indeed......
Yup. And that’s really all it’s about.
And the griping Putin engages in with regard to American economic dominance is really a swipe at US oil companies doing exploration in both Russia and former Soviet Union republics...that Vlad’s gang used to control.
That’s our stuff! They say.
And they have something of a point, but it’s more about survival because of the collapse of demand for Soviet industrial products: once the guaranteed market of the Warsaw Pact countries went away, Russia had one thing left to sell.
Putin’s primary geopolitical strategy is to control Europe’s energy. He has blocked pipelines to KSA/Qatar, will block any pipeline to Israel/Egypt, and is currently working on Ukraine. He’s just a drug dealer defending his corner.
It’s not just the offshore reserves, there’s also potential gas fields underneath some of the areas Russia now occupies. And almost all of Ukraine’s industrial capacity was located in the Donbas area. This war has been a disaster for Ukraine from which they will never recover.
Russia cannot do jacksh#t with those reserves because they don’t have the technical expertise.
After the invasion, Schlumberger, Hughes and all their buddies left Russia. There is no way the Russians can even keep their current infrastructure running. The eastern oil fields feeding China are the toughest nut to crack. And, without foreign services companies, those fields will just dry up and blow away.
“Russia cannot do jacksh#t with those reserves because they don’t have the technical expertise.”
Technical expertise yes, but anyone who has worked there knows just how broken a society it is.
Give a Russian firm $100 million to build a pipeline and within a year 90% of it will have been embezzled.
The Germans at least are honest. Give them $100 million to build a pipeline and in a couple years you will have a pipeline.
Damn. That oil and gas was Hunter Biden’s birthright.
He and Pedo Peter had only just started to monetize it.
They certainly have made it obvious, and I suppose its not a bad strategy. Everyone needs energy, and they have a lot of it. It may or may not work out for them
It makes ask the question: what is our geopolitical strategy?
“because of the collapse of demand for Soviet industrial products...”
Which really they should be laying at China’s doorstep at this point, more than the West.
Bkmk
They sure were calm about it back then. Russia took Crimea and they hardly batted an eye. Neither did the government. One reason I don’t trust the whole Ukraine fiasco this time around. It always smelled funny to me.
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