Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia

In recent days, energy diplomats on both the Azerbaijani and Turkish sides have revealed that an agreement in principle over the price that Turkey will pay for Shah Deniz gas from Azerbaijan has been reached. However, there are several ongoing sets of simultaneous negotiations over Shah Deniz, also taking place in the context of larger implicit bargaining games over other the Caspian Sea basin deposits of natural gas and indeed the geo-economics of their supply to Europe over the next several decades. These subtleties must be unpacked in order to understand the wide-ranging significance of even seemingly small agreements.

Various diplomats appear to be questioning the supposed competition between the Nabucco and the South Stream natural gas pipelines. In fact, Russia and Turkey are collaborating to block the full implementation of the EU’s Southern Corridor energy strategy so as to assert a duopoly over natural gas supplies to Europe.

Kazakhstan, which is seeking to strengthen its influence over the scale and pace of development of its natural resource projects, appears to have the onshore Karachaganak natural gas venture in its sights after driving through a shake-up at the offshore Kashagan deposit.

Казахстан, стремящийся усилить свое влияние над масштабом и темпом развития своих проектов по природным ресурсам, похоже, имеет в поле зрения прибрежное газовое месторождение Карачаганак после проведения коренной реорганизации на месторождении Кашаган.

The South Korean economy, which last year scraped through the global slowdown without sinking into recession, returned to the recovery path last month after faltering in January, Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said on Friday, backed by a report that attributed earlier negative data to one-off factors such as heavy snow and an end to tax incentives for car purchases.

Statements by Azerbaijani and Turkish diplomats indicate that the two sides have reached an agreement in principle concerning the price that Turkey will pay for gas from the offshore Shah Deniz deposit for its own domestic consumption. With these signals, the two countries are on the road to settling issues related to conditions for Shah Deniz gas to transit Turkey to Europe through the Nabucco pipeline.

The US stock markets have recently notched over a dozen consecutive days of upward movement. There is, however, no cause for complacency.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent moves to weaken institutionally the two principal centers of resistance to the conservative-populist rule of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have met with little resistance from the country's stock markets, buoyed by positive trade figures and upgrades in Turkey's sovereign debt ratings.

The EU is taking its time in deciding what real policy actions to implement regarding the crisis over Greek finances and the eurozone, but publics in Greece and elsewhere are not waiting to express their disenchantment with national and supranational elites.

Turkey last week strengthened its energy ties with Iraq by renewing a contract to import Iraqi oil to the Turkish Mediterranean Sea port of Ceyhan, where Azerbaijani oil also arrives via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. Earlier this year, it was announced that Iraq will export between 5 billion and 10 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas to Turkey for inclusion in the Nabucco pipeline carrying the fuel to Europe.

Евросоюзу не следует спешить и поздравлять себя с тем, как он поступил в ситуации, связанной с проведением президентских выборов на Украине. Будущее, а не прошлое, покажет, что произойдет дальше. И будущее должно отличаться от прошлого.

The EU should not be too quick to congratulate itself for its handling of the situation surrounding Ukrainian presidential elections. The future, not the past, will tell the story, and the future has to be different from the past.

The Moscow metro bombings on Monday hit the Russian currency, the rouble, yet ironically were a factor in gains on the energy-biased local stock market, on concern that further attacks could push up oil prices.