The agreement between Germany and the United States, which at first glance appears to be to Russia’s advantage, is in fact beneficial to all parties—even Ukraine.
In theory, climate change and green energy are areas in which there is scope for joint international projects, new investment, and the transfer of green technology to Russia. Yet drastic differences in targets set and regulatory frameworks make such an optimistic scenario unlikely.
It is not the Biden administration that Russia should be concerned about when it comes to climate, but its own inaction, which Moscow risks paying for in both economic and security terms over the coming decade.
Sino-Russian relations may be a marriage of convenience arranged by oil and gas, but arranged marriages have a way of lasting. It is particularly helpful if there is a common enemy, such as an overbearing West.
The Republican and Democratic candidates have fundamentally opposite views on developing the energy sector, but whoever wins—and for different reasons—it won't be good news for Russia’s oil and gas industry.
Right now, the strength of each country’s negotiating position is determined by its ability to swiftly regulate the supply of oil on the global market. Saudi Arabia has been preparing for this for decades, while Russia has failed to take advance measures that would help, such as the construction of oil storage tanks.
The slump in gas prices will create plenty of problems, but at the same time it could provide a much-needed purging of an industry that in recent years has seen increasingly absurd projects unveiled for pipelines and LNG terminals.
The Power of Siberia pipeline is a long overdue step in the right direction in developing the strategic relationship with China in the gas sector. Yet plenty of questions remain about the implementation of future pipeline projects.
Don’t be misled by Western sanctions’ limited impact on Russia. In reality, they operate with an accumulating effect: the more time passes, the greater the potential technological backlog, financing gap, and negative consequences will be. In the long run, sanctions may jeopardize Russia’s oil and gas production volumes and the development of pipeline infrastructure, gradually squeezing the country out of foreign markets, limiting its export revenues, and undermining the stability of the Russian economy.
The main obstacle to energy negotiations between Russia and the EU is the clash between their perceptions of energy security. Moscow claims that the biggest threat to European energy security is Ukraine’s unreliability as a gas transit country, while Brussels believes the construction of new Russian pipelines circumventing Ukraine will do nothing to improve the EU’s energy security.
