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Gazprom's Investment Strategy Runs Out Of Steam

By Sergei Blagov

Russian state-run gas giant Gazprom has cut its investment program in response to the difficulties it faces in the current economic downturn. These cost-saving measures contrasted sharply with Gazprom's pledge last year to become the world's largest company. Such efforts were supported by the Russian government. On July 13, the cabinet approved Gazprom's revised investment program worth 775 billion rubles ($25 billion) or 15.8 percent down from its 920 billion rubles ($29.7 billion) planned earlier. At a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin conceded that Gazprom's January-June 2009 production was 20.8 percent down year-on-year. However, Putin voiced confidence that Gazprom's production and sales will return to their pre-crisis levels eventually. READ MORE

Zeyno Baran: the USA Wants NABUCCO to Go Round Russia

The USA have no economic interests in the Nabucco gas pipeline project, as well as there was no economic interest in the oil pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan. This was stated by Zeyno Baran, the Director of the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute. According to Zeyno Baran, who is also a wife of the US State Secretary Deputy Assistant Matthew Bryza, Washington has a pure political interest in these projects. “We should assure for the countries of Caucasus and Central Asia, through the territories of which Nabucco pipeline will be laid, have no fear to become dependent of Russia”, - she noted. READ MORE

Azerbaijan: No Jitters Over Turkmenistan’s Caspian Sea Threat

By Shahin Abbasov

Turkmenistan’s pledge to take Azerbaijan to court over the two countries’ rival claims to Caspian Sea oil fields has sparked more confusion than anger in Baku. Some Azerbaijani experts even believe that an international arbitration hearing could prove the best way to resolve a long-standing energy dispute. READ MORE

Russia And Turkey Agree On South Stream Pipeline Project

Russia has signed an agreement with Turkey to build the South Stream undersea gas pipeline in Turkish waters. The deal comes one month after Turkey signed transit accords for the rival European-backed Nabucco pipeline. READ MORE

Gazprom Executive Confirms Production and Investment Woes

By Vladimir Socor

Briefing the press on June 16 in Moscow, Gazprom deputy chairman Aleksandr Ananenkov lifted a curtain corner on the company's investment and output prospects in the short-to-medium term. Gazprom is set to substantially reduce capital expenditures in the next few years, starting with a 22 percent capex cut this year: from 640 billion rubles in 2008 to a target figure of 500 billion rubles in 2009. READ MORE

The Eurasian Pipeline Calculus

By F. William Engdahl

Calculus has two main variants—derivative and integral. The Eurasian energy pipeline geopolitics between Turkey Washington and Moscow today has elements of both. It is highly derivative in that the major actors across Central Asia from China, Russia to Turkey are very much engaged in a derived power game which has less to do with any specific state and more to do with maintaining Superpower hegemony for Washington. Integral as the de facto motion of various pipeline projects now underway or in discussion across Eurasia hold the potential to integrate the economic space of Eurasia in a way that poses a fundamental challenge to Washington’s projection of Full Spectrum Dominance over the greatest land mass on earth. READ MORE

European countries sign gas pipeline deals with Russia

Russian natural gas giant Gazprom has signed deals with companies from four European nations, paving the way for a new natural gas pipeline that sidesteps the Ukraine and worries Brussels.
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Mitschek: Nabucco consortium making headway

Significant progress has been achieved with Turkey on moving forward the Nabucco gas pipeline project, Reinhard Mitschek told, managing director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International. READ MORE

Europe Could Draw Gas Through Iran-Armenia Pipeline

If Teheran manages to agree with Brussels, gas for the “Nabucco” pipeline could flow from Iran to the EU, comments Armenian analyst Armen Hanbabian for Deutsche Welle.

Today the Iran-Armenia pipeline has a regional importance and is in a way an alternative to the supplies of Russian gas by the pipeline via Georgia. But the Iran-Armenian pipeline could also transport “blue fuel” from Iran to European countries. Moreover, if Teheran manages to agree with the European countries, then gas for the “Nabucco” pipeline could flow from Iran, considers the expert Armen Hanbabian. READ MORE