Russia is revving up talks aimed at exploring the formation of an OPEC-like natural-gas cartel, a prospect most experts call unrealistic but one that nevertheless worries European nations reliant on Russian gas.
During his recent swing through the Middle East, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the prospects of a gas cartel with leaders in Qatar, holder of the world's third-largest storehouse of natural-gas reserves and the world leader in the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Putin said he would dispatch a team of experts to the Qatari capital, Doha, in April to further explore a possible gas alliance.
In January, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggested that Iran and Russia team up to form a gas cartel. At his annual news conference Feb. 1, Putin reacted warmly to the Iranian's remarks, calling the notion of a gas OPEC an "interesting idea."
"We will think about it," Putin said.
Russian lawmakers have been even more enthusiastic. "Such a structure should exist," said Valery Yazev, energy committee chairman of the Russian parliament's lower chamber. "We already face a cartel of consumers - the European Union."
Russia has the world's largest reserves of natural gas, with an estimated 1,680 trillion cubic feet of gas buried deep beneath Siberia's vast tundra and taiga. Under Putin, Russia used its oil and gas wealth to emerge from the ashes of financial crisis of the late 1990s and now aims to position itself as an energy superpower.
However, the Kremlin has come under criticism from Washington and West European leaders for using its energy wealth as a cudgel against neighboring countries that have allied themselves with the West.
Right now, such a cartel would not affect the United States, which relies on domestic sources and on imports from Canada and the Caribbean for its natural gas. However, natural-gas consumption in the U.S. is projected to jump by nearly half in 20 years, and the U.S. is expected to look to liquefied natural gas to fill the gap. LNG lends itself well to a gas cartel because it can be shipped and traded much as oil is.
"All countries can act as they see fit, but I think it's fair to say that efforts to manipulate markets, trying to organize the suppliers in such a fashion, over the long term is not going to accrue to the benefit of suppliers," U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said during a recent energy conference in Houston.
In January, European leaders reacted warily after executives from Russia's state-owned gas monopoly, Gazprom, met with Algerian leaders to discuss joint strategies for marketing gas to Europe and the possible formation of an alliance of gas exporters. Algeria supplies Europe 10 percent of its natural gas.
"The context of these meetings between Russia and Algeria makes us nervous," European Union energy chief Andris Piebalgs told The International Herald Tribune in January.
Experts, however, say Europe and the rest of the West have little to worry about right now, largely because natural gas doesn't work well as a commodity around which to build a cartel.
Most natural gas is transported through pipelines and sold on a regional basis via long-term contracts that set the price for periods as long as 20 years. Oil, however, is transported by tanker as well as by pipeline and can be redirected from one buyer to another to react to market changes. As a result, oil is traded globally and is subject to daily price fluctuations.
"I don't think it's a terribly realistic option," said Christian Egenhofer, an analyst with the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels.
Talk of a cartel, Egenhofer said, could be Russia's ham-handed way of making European countries think twice about lessening their reliance on Russia as a source of energy. Europe gets about a quarter of its natural gas from Russia.
"It's just part of a broader Russian strategy to raise the stakes and say to Europe, `You're dependent on us,'" Egenhofer said.
A gas cartel could become useful once LNG becomes important to the global energy marketplace. Like oil, LNG can be shipped by tankers and therefore traded in spot markets where prices fluctuate. However, the development of LNG as a major source of energy is still in its early stages.
"There are reasons why a gas cartel isn't realistic now," said Claudia Kemfert, an analyst with the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. "But decisions made now about the gas market are very important because LNG is a long-term investment with ramifications 15 years from now. With that in mind, the idea of a cartel becomes more interesting."
The only other previous attempt at coordination among gas exporters came in the form of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, formed in 2001. Russia, Iran and Qatar are members. However, the group has been largely ineffective and rarely meets.
There has even been dissent within the Kremlin about the utility of a gas cartel. On Feb. 6, Putin's energy minister, Viktor Khristenko, called talk of a cartel or gas-OPEC "the fruit of over-active imaginations." Six days later in Doha, Putin said the idea of a cartel was still on the table.
"We do not need to repeat anything that we consider erroneous from the activities of other types of cartels," Putin said in Doha. "But, of course, we will coordinate our work with that of our colleagues."
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