Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gazprom has dominated the Russian gas industry. However, the markets in which it operates have changed dramatically, with the company increasingly being challenged at home and abroad. At this critical moment, this insightful book analyses the involvement of the Russian gas industry in the changing international gas market and the dramatic implications for Russia’s role as a global supplier of gas in the future.
'Russia is an increasingly important player in global energy markets, yet its policies are under-researched and little understood. This collection represents an important and sophisticated contribution to the debate. While much of the commentary on Russian energy consists of generalizations about Russia's political strategy, this work lifts the lid and looks inside the process through which Russian energy policies are designed and implemented. It brings together essays by top specialists in the field, and makes a conscious effort to integrate the various disciplines of politics, economics and geography by developing a model of the "cognitive frames" through which the policy process is shaped. It addresses both domestic and international dimensions of the problem, and gives equal weight to traditional customers in Europe and new markets in Asia.' Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, US 'The book explains Russian energy policies, instead of a policy. It portrays a picture with multiple policy drivers, including institutional, regional and federal, environmental and commercial. The study markedly improves our understanding of the multifaceted nature of Russian energy policy, a topical and complex issue. This is a highly commendable book that should be included in the reading lists of anyone with an interest in the role of energy in Russia's political economy or energy matters more generally.' Kim Talus, University College London, Australia Russia's vast energy reserves, and its policies towards them have enormous importance in the current geopolitical landscape. This important book examines Russia's energy policies on the national, interregional and global level. It pays particular attention to energy policy actors ranging from state, federal and regional actors, to energy companies and international financial actors and organizations. The book models the formation of Russia's energy policies in terms of how energy policy actors perceive and map their policy environment. The case studies cover federal, regional and environmental aspects of Russian energy policy, Russia's energy relations with Europe and the CIS, North East Asia, the globalization of Russian oil companies and the political economy of Russian energy. It is found that there are several concurrent energy policies in contemporary Russia, and that this situation is likely to continue. These policies are conducted primarily from the business frame perspective while notions of energy superpower Russia are found more ambiguous. Russia's Energy Policies will benefit advanced master's level students, doctoral students, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. The book will be a great resource for advanced international relations, political economy, international business and globalisation courses alongside energy policy courses, as well as area studies courses on Russian, post-Soviet and European politics and environmental politics.
In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union and enjoyed one of the greatest transfers of wealth ever seen, claiming ownership of some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires.
This edited collection details and analyses the dramatic changes that the international political economy of energy has undergone in the past decade. This change began with the increasing assertiveness of Russia when the oil price rose above the $100 mark in 2008. This, combined with the rise of shale oil and gas, made the USA all but self-sufficient in terms of fossil fuels. The collapse of the oil price in 2014-15, Saudi Arabia’s new strategy of defending its market share and the increasingly tense and controversial relationship between the West and Russia all worked to further strengthen the geopolitical dimension of energy in Europe. The global result is a world in which geopolitics play a bigger part than ever before; the central question the authors of this volume grapple with is how the EU – and European small states – can deal with this. Chapter 4 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com
Cover -- Title page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Introduction: A New Era of Gas -- 1. The Changing Global Gas Sector -- 2. The Politics and Commerce of American LNG Exports -- 3. The Politics of Supply: Russiaand Gazprom -- 4. The Politics of Dependence Transformed: Europe -- 5. The Politics of Transit: Ukraine and Belarus -- 6. The Politics of Isolated Suppliers: The Caucasus and Central Asia -- 7. The Politics of Demand: China and Beyond -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index
A volume on the pricing of gas in international trade. Gas accounts for around 25% of global energy demand and international gas trade is growing rapidly. The book covers the development of international gas pricing in all regions of the world where gas is traded, and considers whether gas could become a global market.
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year on Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Republics The Russian oil industry—which vies with Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer and exporter of oil, providing nearly 12 percent of the global supply—is facing mounting problems that could send shock waves through the Russian economy and worldwide. Wheel of Fortune provides an authoritative account of this vital industry from the last years of communism to its uncertain future. Tracking the interdependence among Russia’s oil industry, politics, and economy, Thane Gustafson shows how the stakes extend beyond international energy security to include the potential threat of a destabilized Russia. “Few have studied the Russian oil and gas industry longer or with a broader political perspective than Gustafson. The result is this superb book, which is not merely a fascinating, subtle history of the industry since the Soviet Union’s collapse but also the single most revealing work on Russian politics and economics published in the last several years.” —Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs “The history of Russia’s oil industry since the collapse of communism is the history of the country itself. There can be few better guides to this terrain than Thane Gustafson.” —Neil Buckley, Financial Times
"In many ways, everything we once knew about energy resources and technologies has been impacted by: the longstanding scientific consensus on climate change and related support for renewable energy; the affordability of extraction of unconventional fuels; increasing demand for energy resources by middle- and low-income nations; new regional and global stakeholders; fossil fuel discoveries and emerging renewable technologies; awareness of (trans)local politics; and rising interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the need for energy justice. Research on these and related topics now appears frequently in social science academic journals-in broad-based journals, such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Review of International Political Economy, as well as those focused specifically on energy (e.g., Energy Research & Social Science and Energy Policy), the environment (Global Environmental Politics), natural resources (Resources Policy), and extractive industries (Extractive Industries and Society). The Oxford Handbook of Energy Politics synthesizes and aggregates this substantively diverse literature to provide insights into, and a foundation for teaching and research on, critical energy issues primarily in the areas of international relations and comparative politics. Its primary goals are to further develop the energy politics scholarship and community, and generate sophisticated new work that will benefit a variety of scholars working on energy issues"--
This book provides an overview of the gas industry and markets in the CIS. This region's strategic importance as one of the largest gas producers has largely been ignored- with the exception of Russia. The book is comprised of 10 country chapters, covering production, decision-making and regulation, domestic market reform, and trade issues.
