It is a long period of almost four decades that comes to an end, with a brief statement issued from Moscow and a statement in an undisguised euphoric tone pronounced in kyiv. “Due to the repeated and clear refusal to renew these agreements, Gazprom was deprived of the technical and legal ability to supply gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine,” reads the accusatory text released by the Russian gas giant. On the western edge of the front line in the Ukrainian war, the mood It was very different. “It is a historic event; Russia loses its markets and will suffer financial losses”declared, without hiding his satisfaction, German Galushenko, Ukrainian Minister of Energy.
The era of cheap gas from Russia to Europa Central y Oriental It closes in this way, wrapped in the echoes of the Ukrainian war. It started in the 70swhen the USSR still existed, and has resisted over the years the attacks of innumerables crisis y political upheavalsreaching its climax in 2021, the year before the start of the contest, when 35% of the gas consumed in Europe it had been extracted from the depths of the Russian subsoil. With the start of hostilities in the Slavic country, the European Union realized that it could no longer trust the current Kremlin leaders and began plans to find alternatives to shipments from the Eurasian giantmanaging to reduce said percentage al 8%.
In recent years, the liquefied gas coming from Qatar and the US, and through pipes from Norway, has been progressively replacing the Russian, although at higher prices, reducing the industrial competitiveness from countries like Germany. The fall of the regime Bashar al-Assad and the coming to power in Damascus of the Syrian rebels, about whom Moscow in principle it lacks influence, It opens the possibility that, in the long term, the Old Continent will once again have this source of energy at prices as competitive as before the war. It would also be supplied by pipeline, although this time from Qatar, a country that houses 13% of the world’s reserves in its subsoil. The deposed Syrian dictator had always vetoed the project of an energy highway between the Persian Gulf and the Old Continent crossing Syrian territory, since it posed an important competition in the European energy markets at its great allyRussia.
Limited impact
In the short term, the impact of closing the tap on the European markets will be limited, precisely due to the modest volumes of gas passing through the infrastructure, which on December 1 of this year were calculated at 14,000 million cubic metersa figure between four and five times lower than what existed in 2020, analysts agree. The European Commission has advanced that these shipments can be replaced by imports of liquefied gas, and has ruled out a sharp rise in energy prices, not even to the levels they did in 2022 with the start of the war. In fact, hours before the lockdown came into effect, prices had barely increased, reaching 48.5 megawatts per hour at the end of Tuesday.
The member states most affected by the outage are Austriaa country to which Gazprom has not supplied gas since November due to a trade dispute and which has been preparing for this eventuality for some time, and Slovakiawhich will have alternative supplies from the Czech Republic or Germany which, yes, will mean a greater outlay in transit fees, making the cost more expensive. final price to clients. Outside the EU, Moldova will undoubtedly suffer the most, whose authorities are already implementing measures to reduce consumption by a third. In Transnistria, the separatist fringe inhabited by people of Russian ethnicity and where they are stationed 1,500 Kremlin soldiershas cut off the supply to some state institutions while its authorities rejected humanitarian aid from Chisinau Governmentchaired by Maia Sanduwith a pro-European vocation, to maintain its loyalty to Moscow.
Where the impact of the lock will also be strongly felt will be in the already battered finances of the gas giant Gazprom. Last May, the company reported massive losses of $6.8 billion, a figure that will most likely increase in the coming months as it will stop earning 5 billion dollars coming from the European market in this year that is now beginning. “The losses (in 2023) demonstrate the extent to which Gazprom’s decision to turn off the gas tap has backfired on them,” he said. Agathe Demaraissenior researcher in Geo Economics at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in an article published in Foreign Policy magazine. The possibility of replacing the European market by increasing sales to countries like China or India is not just took offand according to this expert, “without options to increase declining sales, losses could affect the Russia’s capacity of finance the war“. And only in 2022, Gazprom transferred to the Russian public coffers 40 billion dollars. Even more so. He 10% of the federal budget comes from Gazprom, whether through customs duties, excise taxes or profit taxes.
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