Moscow has apparently chosen Poland as a ground for testing the European Union’s common energy policy. In ongoing negotiations for a new supply agreement, Gazprom seeks to pressure Poland to circumvent or breach the EU’s legislation on energy market liberalization (Third Energy Package, 2009). Russia... MORE

The Kazakh-Russian joint working group will soon present a proposal for the construction of the “Eurasia” canal linking the Caspian and Azov seas (www.izvestia.ru, September 28). From expanded trade and transit across Eurasia to new energy projects and maritime access for landlocked Central Asia, the... MORE

Armenia and Iran are pressing ahead with the long-awaited implementation of fresh joint energy projects that will cement closer ties amid Tehran’s deepening standoff with the West. The two neighboring states are expected to start building, before the end of this year, two major hydro-electric... MORE

Senior Russian officials have made clear that the country’s energy policies will continue to evolve around the nexus of ambitious export plans. The government pledged to make the country’s gas exports more flexible. Russia’s total gas exports will include 10 percent of liquefied natural gas... MORE

As the United States ends the combat phase of its occupation of Iraq and begins an “advisory phase” known as Operation New Dawn, there are fears that a resurgent Islamic State of Iraq (ISI – closely tied to al-Qaeda in Iraq) may target Iraq’s oil... MORE

The Ukrainian government is stepping up its own efforts to discourage Gazprom’s South Stream project. Overestimating Russia’s capacity to implement it, Kyiv fears that Moscow would shift the gas transit to Europe into South Stream, bypassing Ukraine via the Black Sea, and devaluing Ukraine’s own... MORE

Turkmen President, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s, September 16 statement, explicitly linking the Turkmen East-West gas pipeline with the European Union-backed Nabucco project (EDM, September 17), is not only a boost for Nabucco, but also a blow to Gazprom’s rival project South Stream. As Moscow analysts recognize, Berdimuhamedov’s... MORE

Russian authorities have voiced their support for the country’s state-run energy giants in their possible bids to take over BP’s holdings in Russia. The maneuverings came as yet another sign of the government’s drive towards strengthening the state’s grip on domestic energy assets. Earlier this... MORE

On September 14 in Baku, the heads of state endorsed the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector (AGRI), a project to import natural gas from Azerbaijan to Romania and onward to Hungary. The project involves the liquefaction of gas for shipment by tankers across the Black Sea from Georgia... MORE

On September 15 in Murmansk, the Russian and Norwegian foreign affairs ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Jonas Gahr Store, signed a bilateral treaty on delimitation of maritime jurisdictions and cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Jens... MORE