Russia
presses for development of world gas market
By Antoine Agasse
AFP
MOSCOW
Petroleumworld.com 02 13 06
Group of Eight finance chiefs, struggling at a weekend meeting
here to avert future energy shocks, considered creating an anti-shock
fund and developing a global gas market.
Russia, the world's second-biggest oil exporter and largest natural
gas producer, startled Western partners in January when it shut
off gas supplies to Ukraine to force through a steep price increase.
Under pressure to show itself as a reliable energy provider, Moscow
told the mightiest industrial powers that it wanted to narrow
the cracks in the fractured world gas market.
"Russia said it wanted to create a world gas market like
the existing world oil market," French Finance Minister Thierry
Breton told a closing news conference after the weekend meeting
in Moscow.
France was "in favour" of the proposal, he said.
The plan involved developing new European and Asian distribution
networks, which might be funded by the European Union's long-term
financing instiution, the European Investment Bank, Breton said.
The scheme would also rely on the use of technology to produce
and store liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is transportable
by ship without the need for pipes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed the same theme at lunch
he hosted at the end of the meetings, said Breton, adding that
he "noted a desire to sell more gas."
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who hosted the Group of
Eight financial discussions, said ministers discussed shipping
gas "not just through pipelines but in liquified form."
Ministers also pondered the creation of an "anti-shock fund"
to protect economies against sudden fluctuations in energy prices
or other things like tsunamis," Kudrin said. No further details
of the proposed fund were given.
"It is obvious to all" that without new energy sources,
world economic growth would be affected, he said. The industrial
powers agreed to search for alternative sources including atomic
energy, he said.
Then US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan called more than
a year ago for development of a more global natural gas market
to ease US price volatility.
Because gas was particularly challenging to transport in its cryogenic
form as a liquid, LNG imports into the United States accounted
for a negligible two percent of US gas supply in 2003, he said
in an April 2004 speech.
If the US natural gas suppply was to be as flexible as the crude
oil supply, the United States would have to improve access to
vast world reserves, including by expansion of LNG import terminals,
Greenspan said
But a major expansion of US import capability appeared to be under
way, the central bank chief said, as the technology of LNG liquefaction
and shipping improved.
AFP
02/12/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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