The politics of pipelines

Writing in the Washington Post, Steven Mufson has an excellent summary of the issues surrounding Russia and the way it uses its energy resources as a tool of foreign policy. You'll recognize some themes I touch on from time to time here, and other things I don't often get to. Here's an excerpt:

Because much of the Russian gas bound for Europe flowed through the Ukraine route, people in European capitals took notice. "This sharpened the attitudes of Europeans even more than the Americans," said a senior European diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because talks are ongoing. "This was very much an important thing for us."

Europe relies on Russia for about a third of its natural gas supplies. Those supplies arrive via two major pipeline routes constructed in the 1980s over the objections of the Reagan administration. Today the United States realizes that Russian gas will remain vital to Europe, but it is pushing nations to diversify supplies so that Russia cannot exploit Europe's energy dependence for political purposes.

"What does it mean to achieve energy security when you're reliant on one country?" Karen Harbert, assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the Energy Department, asked at a meeting at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

At the same time, however, Russia sells 80 percent of its natural gas to Europe and is worried about European plans to increase gas purchases from Algeria and Libya, as well as about liquefied natural gas from Qatar, which plans to triple its exports.

Bryza and more senior U.S. officials have been promoting pipeline routes that would bring gas from fields in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan near the Caspian Sea through Turkey to Europe. One such pipeline, from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, opens Oct. 1. U.S. officials have been saying that reserves in Azerbaijan alone could justify bigger pipelines even if territorial disputes over the Caspian Sea are not resolved. (Missing from the U.S. vision: supplies from Iran, whose natural gas reserves are second to only Russia's.)