Executive Summary  While the Romanian state has been struggling with a constitutional crisis pitting President Traian Basescu against the Social-Liberal Union (SLU) government of Victor Ponta, the Kremlin mouthpiece Voice of Russia has increasingly been instigating and drawing out the conflict. President Basescu survived the... MORE

Echoing Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election campaign theme, Georgia’s governing United National Movement (UNM) tells voters to “ask  [themselves] a very simple question:  Is Georgia now a better country than it was eight years ago? And if the answer is positive and if we want to... MORE

South Stream, the Russian-led project company, considers moving its legal address and changing its registration from Switzerland to the Netherlands. The reasons behind this internal debate are not being disclosed as yet. Reportedly, Italian ENI favors this proposal. Earlier this year, ENI registered a company,... MORE

Moscow is “pressuring” Croatia to join Gazprom’s South Stream project urgently, before Croatia’s accession to the European Union takes legal effect in 2013. An internal analysis, prepared by Croatian government officials for senior decision-makers and leaked to the press, warns that yielding to Gazprom’s demands... MORE

The longest section of the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China transit pipeline passes through Kazakhstan’s territory: it measures 1,115 kilometers in length, of the total 1,830-kilometer Turkmenistan-China distance. Kazakhstan is adding a dedicated export pipeline for its own gas exports to China. In combination, these developments (alongside planned oil... MORE

On August 7, Norway’s Statoil announced its exit from the super-giant Shtokman gas field development in the Russian Arctic. The Norwegian company, majority state-owned, is writing off its investment into the Shtokman project, booking $335 million (apparently most of that investment) as financial expenses for... MORE

Beijing proposes to increase the volume of Turkmenistani natural gas supplies to China to 65 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year, more than doubling the present level of deliveries. This implies China is scooping up production increments in Turkmenistan in the years immediately ahead. While... MORE

Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas holding, Kazmunaigaz, has started its first-ever oil exploration drilling outside that country. Rompetrol Upstream, a division of Rompetrol Group, is drilling the Kaz-1 exploration well near Focsani in eastern Romania. The Rompetrol Group is a fully-owned subsidiary of Kazmunaigaz Processing... MORE

On July 31, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Transnistria is entitled to self-determination, implying secession from Moldova. Answering questions at the Kremlin-sponsored Camp Seliger Forum, Putin stated: “Many problematic spots have remained after the Soviet Union’s fall, and Transnistria is one of them. Only... MORE

On June 28, the Shah Deniz gas producers’ consortium in Azerbaijan announced that it has selected the Nabucco-West pipeline project to be the route for Caspian gas into Central Europe. This decision is an immediate consequence of the Azerbaijan-Turkey inter-governmental agreement, signed on June 26,... MORE