Vladimir Socor
Kramer accetta di dirigere South Stream/ Gazprom gioca sulla carta geografica con South Stream
Vladimir Socor
● Mosca espande tramite Gazprom la sua rete politica in Europa occidentale; con i progetti sul gas Mosca offre pacchetti di accordi a importanti gruppi di interesse in Europa.
● Ad es. la parte del leone riservata ai produttori siderurgici tedeschi ed italiani negli ordini per i progetti di oleodotti europei di Gazprom procura alla Russia il loro appoggio politico al di là degli effetti negativi sulla politica per la sicurezza energetica e sulla politica comune UE.
● La posizione della Russia in Europa viene rafforzata dall’opera di lobby incrociata dei partner di South Stream per Nord Stream, e vice-versa.
– Gazprom ha nominato a presidente del C.d.A. e capo esecutivo di South Stream, la società che costruirà e gestirà il gasdotto sotto il Mar Nero, per portare il gas da Russia a Europa,
● Marcel Kramer, attuale presidente e Ceo di Nederlandse Gasunie, la società che detiene una quota di minoranza in Nord Stream.
– I tratti sulla terra ferma sono progetti separati tra Gazprom ed ogni paese partecipante.
– Gasunie cerca di rafforzarsi con gli accordi con Gazprom, date le riserve di gas in diminuzione nel Mar del Nord.
● Siglato un anche accordo di intenti trilaterale tra Gazprom, l’italiana ENI e la francese Elécricité de France (EDF), alla presenza del presidente russo Medvedev e di quello francese Sarkozy:
o EDF entrerà in South Stream prima della fine 2010, con una quota di almeno il 10%, ad essa ceduta dal 50% detenuto da ENI; Gazprom mantiene il suo 50%, anziché cedere anch’essa una quota a EDF rimanendo alla pari con ENI, come da questa richiesto.
– Sarkozy e Medvedev avevano in precedenza negoziato anche la partecipazione di EDF in progetti per l’energia nucleare e l’accesso di Gaz de France al progetto Nord Stream (Baltico).
– EFD produce energia dal nucleare, cerca di avere un peso internazionale anche nel settore gas; progetta di vendere in Europa il gas proveniente da South Stream.
– Anche ENI si è alleata con Gazprom nel 2000-2002 fornendo tecnologia e investimenti per l’oleodotto Blue Stream attraverso il Mar Nero, da Russia a Turchia. In cambio ENI, ha ricevuto gas da Gazprom che ha venduto in Italia; Eni, primo ministro Berlusconi, ha aperto il mercato del gas italiano a Gazprom.
– L’Italia ha sollecitato la UE ad assegnare a South Stream lo status di progetto Trans-europeo (TEN), che faciliterebbe l’accesso al credito per South Stream.
– Lo status di TEN ha aperto l’accesso a crediti di parecchi miliardi di $ per Nord Stream.
– L’ingresso della Francia in South Stream è mirato anche a favorirne il riconoscimento dello status TEN.
– I costi per l’intero progetto South Stream sarebbero, secondo fonte russa, di $25-30MD, compresi $9MD per la tratta sottomarina, molto superiori a tutti quelli finora conosciuti per il trasporto di gas.
– Mosca prospetta il finanziamento del progetto sia da parte di paesi dell’Europa occidentale e quelli poveri dell’Europa orientale, che si trovano lungo le varie diramazioni di South Stream.
– I paesi dell’Est potrebbero finanziare la loro parte delle joint venture con Gazprom solo con capitali a prestito, indebitandosi solo per rinunciare alla diversificazione del rifornimento e per condividere con Gazprom il controllo dell’infrastruttura sul proprio territorio.
● La Russia – avendo ricevuto il rifiuto bulgaro per il passaggio di South Stream, oltre che per altri due suoi progetti, e temendo che la Grecia non riesca a partecipare a South Stream, a causa dei suoi problemi di bilancio –
● sta probabilmente considerando di una diversa opzione per il transito di South Stream: evitare la Bulgaria e quindi la Grecia, e ridirigerlo attraverso la Romania.
● Con la continua modifica del percorso di South Stream e con il suo rinvio, Mosca mette tra loro in concorrenza Romania, Bulgaria ed altri paesi balcanici.
● a impedire l’avanzamento del progetto Nabucco, promosso dalla UE (dal Caspio all’Europa passando per la Turchia). Il continuo agitare e pubblicizzare il progetto South Stream può inibire gli impegni di investimento dei privati, o forse erodere i fondi UE destinati a Nabucco;
● a far temere all’Ucraina che questo progetto che la bypassa renda ridondante la sua rete di transito del gas, e spingerla a cederne il controllo a Gazprom.
o Nei negoziati su South Stream la Russia non precisa quali siano le risorse di gas o i finanziamenti su cui conta.
– Le oscillazioni di Mosca nella scelta del percorso di South Stream:
o dopo aver preso accordi per l’ingresso della Macedonia in South Stream – che dovrebbe passare per la Bulgaria – e con Serbia e Bosnia-Herzegovina,
o ha promesso alla Romania, su sua pressione, di far passare South Stream e altri progetti per il gas sul suo territorio anziché in Bulgaria, promessa non compatibile con i precedenti accordi.
o Con lusinghe al sogno della Romania di un oleodotto da Costanza al confine rumeno-serbo Gazprom ha ventilato a Bucarest la possibilità di costruire South Stream parallelamente all’ipotetico percorso dell’oleodotto.
o Poi, a soli due giorni dal sì alla Romania, nel forum economico di Pietroburgo Mosca si è di nuovo rivolta alla Bulgaria, chiedendole di accelerare e terminare i negoziati con Gazprom; Medvedev ha ricordato l’accordo siglato con la Macedonia.
– L’accordo proposto alla Macedonia prevede anche la sua “gasificazione”; la Macedonia dovrebbe investire nel progetto di Gazprom, costo di 300mn., i 60mn di debito sovietico recuperati di recente, + altri $15mn che sta faticosamente cercando di raccogliere.
– A Pietroburgo, Gazprom ha promesso anche al Ceo di Serbia Gas di completare lo studio di fattibilità per la sezione serba del progetto, che avrebbe un senso solo se ci sarà un gasdotto proveniente dalla Bulgaria.
In precedenza Mosca aveva ottenuto dal primo ministro croato l’impegno a far approvare una legge che autorizza il passaggio di South Stream in Croazia; il gestore del gasdotto croato, Plinacro, costituirà presto una joint venture con Gazprom.
Jun 25, 2010
Kramer signs up to head South Stream
By Vladimir Socor
On June 19, at the St Petersburg Economic Forum, Gazprom announced the appointment of Marcel Kramer as chairman of the board and chief executive of South Stream AG, the company designated to build and operate the proposed pipeline in the Black Sea that is planned to channel gas from Russia to Europe. The overland sections are separate joint projects of Gazprom with each participant country.
Kramer is completing his service as chairman and chief executive officer of Nederlandse Gasunie, which is a minority stakeholder in another Gazprom-led project, Nord Stream (where Kramer also sits on the board). With dwindling gas reserves in the North Sea, Gasunie seeks to reinforce its positions in gas trading, transportation and storage by arrangements with Gazprom.
– Also during the St Petersburg meeting, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his French counterpart President Nicolas Sarkozy witnessed the signing of a trilateral agreement of intent by the heads of Gazprom, Italy’s ENI and Electricite de France (EDF).
– The agreement envisages EDF joining South Stream AG before the end of 2010, with a stake of at least 10%. EDF’s stake would come out of ENI’s present stake of 50%, leaving Gazprom’s 50% intact. The agreement also governs the project’s joint implementation. ENI had unsuccessfully sought a symmetrical cut in Gazprom’s stake, which would have added to EDF’s stake while preserving Gazprom-ENI parity.
– Sarkozy had discussed EDF’s entry into South Stream with Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during their recent visits to France. They also negotiated EDF’s participation in Russian nuclear energy projects as well as the accession of another French champion company, Gaz de France, to the Gazprom-led Nord Stream pipeline project on the Baltic seabed.
– EDF, a producer of nuclear-generated electricity, seeks to become a significant international player in the gas business. Apart from supplying its own gas-fired electricity production plants, EDF plans to sell natural gas from South Stream to its European customers.
– Thus, EDF joins the ranks of gas-poor companies that become gas traders by special arrangements with Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, or maintain their gas-trading positions by partnering with Gazprom in Europe.
– The Italian ENI did so many years before EDF. Indeed, ENI provided its niche technology and investment funding to lay Gazprom’s Blue Stream pipeline across the Black Sea, from Russia to Turkey, in 2000-2002. Gazprom, cash-poor at that time, repaid ENI with natural gas that ENI then marketed in Italy. Closely connected with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, ENI has opened a wide door for Gazprom to the Italian gas market.
– These appointments and accessions illustrate the expansion of Gazprom’s business and political networks in Western Europe, a process conducted from the Kremlin via Gazprom. The gas deals as such would probably not suffice to advance this process. With the gas projects, however, the Kremlin offers package deals to key interest groups in Europe.
– For example, German and Italian steel producers receive the lion’s share of steel pipe orders for Gazprom’s European projects, generating political support regardless of adverse implications for energy security or EU common policies. Cross-lobbying by South Stream partners for Nord Stream, and vice-versa, also strengthens Russia’s positions in Europe.
– Italy has been urging the European Union[e] to declare South Stream a Trans-European Network (TEN) project, a status that would facilitate access to credits for South Stream. The TEN status has opened access to multibillion-dollar credits for Nord Stream. The French entry into South Stream is partly intended to push for TEN status for this project.
– Russian sources generally cite Gazprom’s 2009 cost estimates at US$25 billion to $30 billion for the South Stream project overall, including $9 billion for the seabed section. Such costs seem to explode any known frame of reference for gas transportation projects.
– Moscow expects project financing both from Western Europe and impoverished East European countries along South Stream’s multiple branch lines. These countries would have to borrow heavily for financing their side of the joint ventures with Gazprom in each country. In that case, they would go into debt only for moving away from supply diversification and sharing control of infrastructure on their territories with Gazprom.
Vladimir Socor is a senior fellow and long-time senior analyst with the Jamestown Foundation. He was formerly a senior research analyst with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, and is a specialist in the non-Russian former republics of the USSR, Commonwealth of Independent States affairs and ethnic conflicts.
Gazprom plays South Stream map games
By Vladimir Socor
– Romania’s economy ministry announced on June 16 that it had persuaded Gazprom to include Romania, instead of Bulgaria, in South Stream and other gas projects on Romanian territory. The Romanian ministry sounded self-congratulatory about replacing Bulgaria, following Sofia’s recent suspension of South Stream and other Russian projects involving Bulgaria.
– Moscow, however, is merely playing Romania, Bulgaria, and other Balkan countries off against each other, constantly changing South Stream’s geography while delaying its implementation.
o As always in these negotiations, the Russian side does not identify any gas resources or investment funding behind the South Stream project, which is intended to carry natural gas from Russia eventually to Europe, by way of the Black Sea and the Balkans, with Bulgaria a proposed landfall.
– Just two days after Gazprom’s nod to Bucharest, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, winked back to Sofia during the St Petersburg Economic Forum. Meeting with international oil and gas company executives, Medvedev urged Bulgaria to move quickly and complete the negotiations with Gazprom for the South Stream project on Bulgarian territory. Medvedev cited a verbal agreement just reached with Macedonia to include that country in South Stream via Bulgaria.
– Indeed, on June 17-18, Macedonia’s President Gjorge Ivanov and Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Stavreski held talks with President Medvedev and Gazprom chief executive officer Aleksei Miller on the possible construction of a South Stream branch from Bulgaria into Macedonia. The sides agreed to create a working group for preparation of a feasibility study and a follow-up project agreement. Gazprom will send an expert team to start mapping out a pipeline route across Macedonia from Bulgaria.
– Gasification of Macedonia’s localities is included in the proposed package deal. There is no word on Gazprom financing, however. Macedonia has just recovered US$60 million in Soviet-legacy Russian debt, and is now supposed to invest this sum (plus another $15 million it is barely scraping together) into Gazprom’s $300 million project.
– Also during the St Petersburg Economic Forum, Gazprom promised Serbia Gas CEO Dusan Bajatovic it will complete the feasibility study for South Stream’s Serbian section by September. This can only make sense, however, if the starting premise remains a pipeline into Serbia from Bulgaria. All planning work since early 2009 (assuming that it has actually been conducted) proceeded from the premise. Feasibility of South Stream entering Serbia from Romania cannot be discussed without determining a Romanian route first, but that is nowhere in sight.
– During the St Petersburg event, Gazprom vice president Aleksandr Medvedev discussed with Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik the proposed construction of a South Stream branch into Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Serb Republic. This proposal has all along been linked to South Stream’s main line entering Serbia from Bulgaria.
– On June 18 in Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Croation counterpart, Jadranka Kosor, conferred on Russian oil and gas projects in Croatia, including a branch line from the main South Stream pipeline. A range of options exist for South Stream to enter Croatia, but no feasibility study is known to have been initiated. Nevertheless, Kosor promised that the Croatian parliament would soon pass a law authorizing the South Stream project on Croatia’s territory; and that the country’s pipeline operator, Plinacro, will soon form a joint project company with Gazprom.
– As a net result, all these Russian statements regarding Bulgaria (not taking Sofia’s "no" for an answer), Macedonia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Serb Republic are incompatible with the promise (if it was such) to re-direct South Stream via Romania, instead of Bulgaria.
– Furthermore, Russia is adding to the ranks of South Stream’s putative customers for Russian gas, despite Russian production facing stagnation and shortfalls in the years ahead. Stung by Bulgaria’s repudiation of South Stream (and two other Russian projects), Moscow is also concerned that an insolvent Greece may be disabled from participating in South Stream. This consideration may partly explain Gazprom’s June 16 proposal to bypass Bulgaria altogether, and thus Greece, re-redirecting South Stream via Romania to Central Europe.
– Moscow also plays on Bucharest’s unrequited dream of a Constanta-Trieste oil pipeline across Romania. To feed those unrealistic hopes, Gazprom suggests a possibility of laying South Stream’s Romanian section along the would-be oil route from Constanta to the Romanian-Serbian border.
– Manipulation of South Stream’s economics and geography is turning this Russian project into a shell game. These tactics aim mainly to forestall progress on the EU-backed Nabucco project, which is intended to transport gas from the Caspian Sea area to Europe via Turkey. Moscow hopes to derail EU funding decisions that are due before the year’s end for Nabucco. Artificial publicity around South Stream can inhibit private-sector investment commitments to Nabucco or even (in Gazprom’s ideal scenario) erode EU funding to the Nabucco project.
– Orchestrating high-level discussions around South Stream also serves to threaten Ukraine with this bypass project. Vastly overestimating South Stream’s viability, Kyiv (and Donetsk) fear that South Stream could doom Ukraine’s gas transit system to redundancy. To forestall that imagined threat, the Ukrainian government would cede control of its gas transit system to Gazprom.
Variations on South Stream’s geography and supply volumes can be discussed indefinitely. They serve to play off Balkan countries against each other, foster artificial interest in the project, intimidate Ukraine, justify at the same time the postponement of construction, and thus cover up Russia’s inability to commit gas and funding to this project.
Vladimir Socor is a senior fellow and long-time senior analyst with the Jamestown Foundation. He was formerly a senior research analyst with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, and is a specialist in the non-Russian former republics of the USSR, Commonwealth of Independent States affairs and ethnic conflicts.
(This article first appeared in The Jamestown Foundation. Used with permission.)