Free Republic

SOFIA, Bulgaria — Barely two weeks after President Vladimir V. Putin annexed Crimea on one side of the Black Sea, he won a different prize on the other side. In Bulgaria’s Parliament, lawmakers gave initial passage to a bill clearing the way for a mammoth gas pipeline from Russia. The pipeline, known as South Stream, was Mr. Putin’s most important European project, a tool of economic and geopolitical power critical to twin goals: keeping Europe hooked on Russian gas, and further entrenching Russian influence in fragile former Soviet satellite states as part of a broader effort to undermine European unity....

The Russians called the EU’s bluff by pulling out of the project instead of accepting the EU’s conditions and are cutting deals with China and Turkey instead.By Alexander Mercouris ~ Russia Insider The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully. In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s. Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe....

Every 10 or 20 years a series of watershed events come together that change the face of the international energy picture. The Saudi-led war on crude oil prices is one of these pivotal situations. And while others fret about what the OPEC production move means, I'm actually meeting with the guys who made the decision. I can tell you that what's unfolding here in the desert will have a decisive impact on producers, end users, and government/corporate policymakers worldwide. Of course, I've been involved in a fair share of all of this for over 40 years, from both the public...

Stand on the sea wall next to the port in Varna and you can see the bits and pieces of South Stream piled up in front of you. Hundreds of long black sections of piping - some on the dockside, and others still stacked on cargo ships. They were supposed to have been laid beneath the gloomy waters of the Black Sea, bypassing Ukraine and bringing Russian gas directly to south-eastern Europe. But - suddenly and unilaterally - Vladimir Putin has declared the project dead. Gas, he said, will be sent to Turkey instead. "It's really not clear what's going...

The latest, spectacular “Exit South Stream, Enter Turk Stream” Pipelinistan gambit will be sending big geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia for quite some time. This is what the New Great Game in Eurasia is all about. In a nutshell, a few years ago Russia devised North Stream – fully operational – and South Stream – still a project – to bypass unreliable Ukraine as a gas transit nation. Now Russia devises a new sweet deal with Turkey to bypass the “non-constructive” (Putin’s words) approach of the European Commission (EC) concerning the European “Third Energy Package”, which prohibits one company from...

President Vladimir V. Putin said Monday that he would scrap Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, a grandiose project that was once intended to establish the country’s dominance in southeastern Europe but instead fell victim to Russia’s increasingly toxic relationship with the West. It was a rare diplomatic defeat for Mr. Putin, who said Russia would redirect the pipeline to Turkey. He painted the failure to build the pipeline as a loss for Europe and blamed Brussels for its intransigence. The decision also seemed to be a rare victory for the European Union and the Obama administration, which have appeared largely...

Now that all eyes are on Ukraine and the potential of a bigger war looms, there’s never been a more important time to understand what is at stake. As WhoWhatWhy readers know, the real reasons surrounding a conflict are often buried under the headlines and rhetoric. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that, behind the scenes, oil and natural gas are driving a big piece of the U.S. response to Russian involvement in Ukraine. If you want to understand where the rubber meets the geopolitical road in the Ukraine war, you need to learn about the 1,480-mile South Stream...

The South Stream gas pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine, may halve the value of Ukraine’s gas transportation system (GTS), according to Andrey Kobolev, head of Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz. After the Russian–led South Stream project is complete and working at full capacity, the value of Ukraine’s GTS may fall as much 50 percent from the present estimate of $25-$35 billion, RIA Novosti quotes the head of the company. “We have no wish to lose it, and it’s unreasonable," Kobolev said on a Ukrainian local TV channel. Construction of the South Stream pipeline in Bulgaria and Serbia was suspended...

Ukraine's Acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk urged the European Union on Tuesday to block Russian South Stream gas pipeline, currently under construction and expected to transfer Russian oil and gas to central and southern Europe via Black Sea bypassing Ukraine. "We call on the European Union to block the South Stream. Ukraine is a reliable transit country, we have fulfilled and will continue to fulfil our obligations," Yatsenyuk told the parliament. Aiming to diversify Russia's gas supply routes to Europe due to Ukrainian gas debt of $3.5 billion, which Russia fears may lead to possible transit disruptions, Russian gas giant...

On February 17, the stakeholders and supervisory board of the Russian-led Burgas-Alexandropolis oil pipeline project shelved the project in all but name. The host countries, Bulgaria and Greece, had (each for its own considerations) recently suspended payments to the project company. The meeting decided to lay off staff and give up rented office space of the project company. Moscow has not given up officially on this project, and has scheduled a follow-up meeting for June. But Moscow does plan a pipeline via Turkey (the Samsun-Ceyhan project) as an alternative option (Interfax, Novinite, February 17). Led by a consortium of Russia’s...

German papers Handelsblatt and Die Welt write Tuesday that Russian energy giant is taking concrete steps to hinder the completion of EU gas pipeline Nabucco. The two papers come out with materials commenting the recent move on the part of Gazprom to invite German energy giant RWE to join rival project South Stream. Up to this point, RWE is serously committed to Nabucco and a switch to South Stream is seen as posing great danger for the completion of EU project. Handelsblatt has called Gazprom's move “Putin's immoral offer”, writing that “Behind the friendly offer are lying unfriendly calculations. Gazprom...

MOSCOW, April 27 (Reuters) - Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev got a frosty reception from Russia's leaders on Monday and expressed no clear hopes that a gas pipeline deal with Moscow would be reached during his two-day official visit. Not only did President Dmitry Medvedev unexpectedly postpone his meeting with Stanishev with no official explanation, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took a jab at Bulgaria during his welcome speech that evoked load groans from the crowd. .... Speaking at a welcome event alongside Stanishev, Putin took an apparent jab at Bulgaria's meagre investments in Russia. "If Russia's investments (into Bulgaria)...