New Cold War: US, Russia fight over Europe's energy future

[webfact]

New Cold War: US, Russia fight over Europe's energy future
By BRADLEY KLAPPER and MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Russia are once more locked in what could be a generation-defining conflict, and Europe is yet again the core battleground. But this Cold War reprise isn't about military supremacy.

It's about heat and electricity for tens of millions of Europeans. The points on the map aren't troop deployments, tank battalions and missile silos but pipelines, ports and power plants.

As the Obama administration escalates economic sanctions on Russia and weighs military support to Ukraine, it also has revved up a less noticed but far broader campaign to wean Central and Eastern Europe off a deep reliance on Russian energy. Success, U.S. officials say, would mean finally "liberating" former Soviet states and satellites from decades of economic bullying by Moscow.

To that end, Washington is helping set up new natural gas pipelines and terminals in a region that depends on Russia for more than 70 percent of its energy needs. It is pushing American companies' bids for nuclear plants and fracking exploration in Europe.

Yet as the U.S. makes headway, the Kremlin is fighting back, warning neighboring governments about the consequences of looking westward for fuel. Russia is trying to outmaneuver the U.S. on nuclear bids, buy up pipeline infrastructure across Europe and control not only how its vast energy reserves move westward, but what European governments can do with those supplies afterward.

"It's a chess match," said Amos Hochstein, the State Department's special envoy for international energy affairs, as he pored over a map of Europe dotted with existing and proposed pipeline routes.

Although the U.S. has pressed its European partners for decades to find new oil, gas, coal and nuclear sources, the crisis in Ukraine has upped the ante. Russia's takeover of Crimea last year and continued support for rebels in a brutal civil war in Ukraine has changed Europe's mindset about relying so heavily on Russian energy.

Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Bulgaria to push for a new gas spur and to promote an American company's bid to build a new nuclear plant. Bulgaria relies on Russia for 85 percent of its gas and all of its nuclear power. The prices, among the highest for NATO countries, are a concern within the alliance, which prides itself on winning the Cold War.

"The battle was won," Kerry told staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Sofia. "And here we are today in 2015, and Russia is still trying to impose on people its will."

In November, Vice President Joe Biden visited Romania, another vulnerable country, and Turkey, Europe's bridge to resource-rich Central Asia, to press the case.

Victoria Nuland, America's top diplomat for Europe, and energy envoy Hochstein have spent much of the past few months working with Europe on a coordinated energy strategy. Their message: Failure now will only invite more Russian pressure.

While episodes of Russia shutting off the energy spigots to its neighbors have raised alarms, persistent infighting among European governments and energy companies has hampered diversification efforts across the continent.

Big countries, especially, have found it easier to make private deals with President Vladimir Putin's government. And that has done little for Europe's most vulnerable economies, whose infrastructure is designed only to take in supplies from Siberia.

But, increasingly, there now is action in addition to diversity talk.

With U.S. support, Lithuania and soon Poland will be importing liquefied natural gas from Norway, Qatar and potentially the United States. New pipelines will enable Central and Eastern European countries to send fuel from west to east and north to south.

And in a couple of years, a southern corridor should be taking fuel from the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, and into Europe, bypassing Russia.

Those advances combined with other moving parts — a liquefied gas plant off the Croatian coast, a Bulgaria-Romania network connection, links into Serbia and Hungary, and greater energy integration as far afield as Spain and France — will mean Europeans can increasingly trade energy among themselves, pooling their fuel sources and weakening Russia's grip.

Hochstein said the U.S. would like to see a 20 percent slice cut out of Russia's current share of the Eastern European gas market by 2020, considering that a major step forward.

While Western Europe provides the funding, the U.S. is giving technology and political support.

In a speech last week at the Brookings Institution, Nuland hailed Poland, Hungary and Slovakia for starting flows of gas in reverse to help Ukraine stave off an energy crisis. Moldova established a gas interconnector with Romania.

"In the area of energy security, we're not just talking the talk," Nuland said. The strategy aims "to create competition. ... It's about ensuring energy can't be used as a weapon."

Within the U.S., there is debate over whether America can be doing more.

The fracking revolution at home has propelled the United States past Russia as the world's top gas producer, yet U.S. exports to Eastern Europe are minimal. The region's lack of infrastructure, investment and transparency are partly responsible; another part is American unease with selling more liquefied natural gas overseas.

Still, officials say the U.S. gas boom is already affecting Russia's export power by lowering global prices and freeing sources of fuel that otherwise would have been gobbled up by the American market.

Last week, Gazprom announced a 60 percent dive in its latest quarterly profits.

Russia, however, isn't standing idly by.

As American officials have traveled around Europe, working with governments on new projects, Russian representatives have been quick to follow.

A September visit by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller prompted Hungary to suspend reverse gas flows to Ukraine for more than three months. Elsewhere, Russia has responded to increased European pipeline activity by trying to buy up the pieces.

A year ago, Hungary announced an $11.3 billion deal with Russia to construct two new reactors at a Soviet-built nuclear plant; the deal involved almost no discussion and no international tender, shutting out Westinghouse, which had been interested in the deal.

Putin accepted defeat in December for a multibillion-dollar plan to build a pipeline under the Black Sea and into Europe after mounting EU opposition. But he vowed to increase supplies to Turkey across existing infrastructure and possibly build a new link that would take gas into Greece and beyond.
___

Associated Press writer Pablo Gorondi contributed to this report from Budapest.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-02-04

[godden]

When you supp with the devil !!!

[laolover88]

It is also about agriculture and land. Ukraine black soil is very fertile; that is why the country is being bought up by Cargill, Archers, Monsanto and Dupont

[craigt3365]

Energy independence is a good thing for any country.

[hawker9000]

'Sounds more & more like a trust-busting campaign ramping up against Putin. The thing about honey attracting more flies than vinegar must not be a big part of the Russian mindset...

Edited February 4, 2015 by hawker9000

[zydeco]

Russia and Turkey? The deserve each other. While they're at it, take Greece, too. Repatriate all the Turks, and then seal the border. Europe will be a safer, more prosperous place.

[pattayasnowman]

More propoganda how Russia and Putin are the Bad Guys. This whole mess started because US Oil and Gas interests wanted to develop possible Gas fields in western Ukraine. For that they needed a Western friendly Ukraine goverment.

Moreover, the US since the 1990's have been pursuing a dangerous and unnnecessary policy of extending NATO.

With the collapse of the USSR , NATO should have been curtailed not expanded. NATO was created to counter the USSR and its presumed European expansionist policy.

Likewise the EU has been expanded with the Ukraine being woed with possible membership.

Russia is somewhat paranoid as to the Wests intentions, and probable rightly so having been invaded twice (3 times if you include the attempt to overthrow the Bolsheviks) by the West in the past 200 years.

The US and its EU allies are playing an extremely dangerous game here. This 'Cold' war could easily turn hot with direct conflict between the US (NATO) and Russia. Such a conflict would escalate very quickly to an all out Nuclear War.

Russia is being squeezed into economic ruin by the US that somewhat parallels the policy the US pursued towards Japan in the 1930,s

Edited February 4, 2015 by pattayasnowman

[lovetotravel]

Please. Russia is 100% to blame for this mess. Huge difference between business negotiations with a foreign government vs invasion. If Russia has a better offer, then foreign governments will align themselves with them. If not, they'll look for other partners. That's what every country does.

Russia even admits it's troops are in Ukraine. But they are their on their "holiday". Amazing how they have so many tanks and pieces of military equipment with them while on "holiday".

This isn't the first act of aggression by Russia. Several other countries have been "annexed". Thus, the strengthening of NATO. At the request of Eastern European countries. And the desire of others to become part of NATO.

Easy to solve all this. Have Russia remove all their troops and equipment from Ukraine. Allow UN observers in to make sure things are in order. And everything will be, more or less, back to normal. Easy.

[transam]

Perhaps if Putin was not in control there would be no problem...........

[Robby nz]

"The battle was won," Kerry told staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Sofia. "And here we are today in 2015, and Russia is still trying to impose on people its will."

But the US is not ?

And of course never has in the past.....Well whats the past got to do with it ?

"In the area of energy security, we're not just talking the talk," Nuland said. The strategy aims "to create competition. ... It's about ensuring energy can't be used as a weapon."

"It's about ensuring energy can't be used as a weapon"

Isnt that exactly what the US is doing now, using energy as a weapon to attack Russia ?

[Paulc01]

More propoganda how Russia and Putin are the Bad Guys. This whole mess started because US Oil and Gas interests wanted to develop possible Gas fields in western Ukraine. For that they needed a Western friendly Ukraine goverment.

Moreover, the US since the 1990's have been pursuing a dangerous and unnnecessary policy of extending NATO.

With the collapse of the USSR , NATO should have been curtailed not expanded. NATO was created to counter the USSR and its presumed European expansionist policy.

Likewise the EU has been expanded with the Ukraine being woed with possible membership.

Russia is somewhat paranoid as to the Wests intentions, and probable rightly so having been invaded twice (3 times if you include the attempt to overthrow the Bolsheviks) by the West in the past 200 years.

The US and its EU allies are playing an extremely dangerous game here. This 'Cold' war could easily turn hot with direct conflict between the US (NATO) and Russia. Such a conflict would escalate very quickly to an all out Nuclear War.

Russia is being squeezed into economic ruin by the US that somewhat parallels the policy the US pursued towards Japan in the 1930,s

During that 200 year period you mention, those all so innocent Russians:

*Invaded Hungary and helped the Austrians put down a revolution in 1848-49.

*Invaded Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 (it was NOT the other way around)

*Invaded Poland with their Nazi allies in 1939

*Invaded Finland the same year, 1939

[Robby nz]

More propoganda how Russia and Putin are the Bad Guys. This whole mess started because US Oil and Gas interests wanted to develop possible Gas fields in western Ukraine. For that they needed a Western friendly Ukraine goverment.

Moreover, the US since the 1990's have been pursuing a dangerous and unnnecessary policy of extending NATO.

With the collapse of the USSR , NATO should have been curtailed not expanded. NATO was created to counter the USSR and its presumed European expansionist policy.

Likewise the EU has been expanded with the Ukraine being woed with possible membership.

Russia is somewhat paranoid as to the Wests intentions, and probable rightly so having been invaded twice (3 times if you include the attempt to overthrow the Bolsheviks) by the West in the past 200 years.

The US and its EU allies are playing an extremely dangerous game here. This 'Cold' war could easily turn hot with direct conflict between the US (NATO) and Russia. Such a conflict would escalate very quickly to an all out Nuclear War.

Russia is being squeezed into economic ruin by the US that somewhat parallels the policy the US pursued towards Japan in the 1930,s

During that 200 year period you mention, those all so innocent Russians:

*Invaded Hungary and helped the Austrians put down a revolution in 1848-49.

*Invaded Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 (it was NOT the other way around)

*Invaded Poland with their Nazi allies in 1939

*Invaded Finland the same year, 1939

To put some balance into things you may want to detail the countries the US has attacked (invaded?). No need to go back 200 years 60 or 70 should be enough.

[ABCer]

I remember a 'pie graph' here on TV showing that USA accounts for about 50% (???) of overall world spending on arms.

I posted a question "In view of the end of the cold war and break-up of USSR who is all this weaponry intended to be used against?".

Turned out I was talking to myself.

[PepperMe]

The US will reap what it has sown for its greed and global dominance policy.

The end is coming very soon.

Do not mess with the bear, it is NOT Iraq.

Russia will have most of the world on its side, the US will not even have ANY EU countries backing it in a war with Russia, China, India, Middle East South America. Even the UK will vote against a war with Russia.

Russia and China knows this and the world are just about pig sick of US aggression and meddling in other country's affairs.

I hope they try it..... I really do.

I feel sorry for the US people, they will all be dead against this, but their government will be doing it in their name anyway, whether they like it or not. The world are going to be terrified, and rightly so.

But if the US people do not come out and stop this aggression and build up to a possible apocalyptic scenario, then I guess they deserve what they get.

Unfortunately there is a minority of brain dead gung ho individuals who think the US is always right and they can crush anyone on the planet with their military might..... There are a few on here actually.... They are deluded and when the time comes, I suggest they sign up for combat.

Edited February 4, 2015 by PepperMe