Valdai Club

Any response would likely boomerang on Russia – the partnership between Rosneft and ExxonMobil is a case in point. The United States has hit Russia with a third round of sanctions. This time the Americans went with a higher caliber weapon, targeting Russia’s biggest energy companies (Rosneft and Novatek) and banks (VEB and Gazprombank).

The key to resolving Russia-Ukraine gas disputes is to ensure the solvency of Naftogaz and Ukrainian consumers, but this is an unlikely scenario for the next two to three years.

The growth of shale gas market segment is an indirect threat to Russia, which has already materialized. Also European power plants are increasingly switching from gas to coal on the back of increased imports of cheap American coal.

Shale gas continues to provoke fierce debates and discussions, and has split the world into two opposing camps. The skeptics claim that this is yet another financial bubble that is bound to collapse sooner or later.

One of the most obvious obstacles to implementing the Trans-Caspian project is the undefined legal status of the Caspian Sea. Iran and Russia believe that construction of the pipeline cannot and must not begin before all five Caspian countries have signed a treaty on the legal status of the sea.

Although Bushehr is the most important project of Russian-Iranian economic cooperation, it is not the only one. In 2010, trade between the two countries exceeded $3.6 billion, out of which Russian exports accounted for $3.3 billion. Iran is Russia’s major trade partner in the Middle East.