Hurriyet English with wires
OluÅŸturulma Tarihi: Temmuz 03, 2008 12:38
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will travel to Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on Thursday to review gas supplies as contracts come up for renewal and Azerbaijan steps up output from its offshore field.
The visit of Medvedev is seen as a lock up of rights to ship natural gas from these three Caspian Sea nations that control 3.3 percent of the world's reserves as competition for fuel from Europe and the United States increases.Â
Russia provides 39 percent of Europe's pipeline gas supplies, using its dominance to assert a leading role for Russia in determining Europe's energy security.
The European Union wants a pipeline from the region through Turkey, Nabucco, bypassing Russia, while Gazprom pursues a system that would connect Russia directly to the European Union.
Medvedev is looking for exclusive arrangements to fill the South Stream project as production falls at Russia's biggest fields. Russian natural gas production fell 0.8 percent to 607.4 billion cubic meters last year, and accounted for 20.6 percent of total world output, according to data from BP Plc.
Natural gas and crude oil are Russia's biggest exports, fueling a trade surplus of $84.3 billion in the first five months of this year.
The price of natural gas has risen 219 percent in the past 12 months in London.
Russia has used its control of shipments as a political weapon, halting deliveries to Ukraine in January 2006 after its neighbor rejected demands from Gazprom to quadruple the purchase price. This year Gazprom cut supplies by 50 percent in early March in a dispute over unpaid gas debts.
Â
