Gazprom chief says firm to be top in world -- FT

Friday June 27, 11:46 AM


LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - Gazprom's chief Alexei Miller
was quoted on Friday as saying the Russian company would become
the world's most powerful energy business and that the OPEC oil
cartel had in effect lost control of the market.
The world was undergoing "a great surge in oil and gas
prices ... which will end with prices at a radically new
level", Miller said in an interview with the Financial Times
that was carried on the newspaper's website....
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/080627/3/3le3t.html

By Peter Fedynsky
Moscow
27 June 2008

Energy and security dominated the Russia-EU Summit in Western Siberia, where Kremlin leader Dmitri Medvedev called for creation of all-European institutions to replace long-standing structures, including NATO. VOA Moscow Correspondent Peter Fedynsky reports...


http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-06-27-voa54.cfm

The Caspian Sea is becoming a hub of the world's economy. Western corporations are increasingly tapping its oil and gas resources and pumping them to the rest of the world. They pump them not only through oil and gas pipelines running through Russia, but also via lines bypassing Russia: Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa, and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum. This undermines Russia's monopoly on the transportation of hydrocarbons from this geostrategic area. But...

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080701/112712628.html

July 9th, 2008

Gazprom, Russia’s state-­controlled gas company, said on Wednesday it was in talks to buy all of Libya’s oil and gas exports, in its latest effort to strengthen its influence over world energy markets.
Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s chief executive, made the offer in talks with Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, in Tripoli...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e6bf1b98-4e00-11dd-820e-000077b07658.html

10/ 07/ 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Oleg Mityayev) - On July 8, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller reported his company's plans to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He spoke about a steady, long-term growth of gas prices for all consumers, be it in Western Europe, next-door neighbors, or at home.
Miller specified that by the end of this year, the average European price for gas will exceed $500 per 1,000 cubic meters compared with the current price of $410....
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080710/113721687.html

A fresh New Year energy crisis is brewing in Europe as Russia prepares to foist an indigestible price rise on Ukraine, putting European supplies at risk, an expert warned on Tuesday. Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies, said Russia's pledge to pay Central Asian gas suppliers "international prices" for gas from January 1 meant a huge increase in the price Russia demands from Ukraine. "Essentially they're going to try to impose a price on Ukraine that...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080708.wrussiagas0708/BNStory/energy/home

30.06.2008

By Garry Kasparov
Published: July 10 2008 18:21
Recently we have witnessed a flurry of high-profile and contradictory statements on the Russian state. In a role reversal, Russia’s leaders have been abnormally candid while several prominent western politicians and pundits have lavished undeserved praise.
Russian president Dmitri Medvedev was bold enough last week to state that democracy is irrelevant to the Group of Eight leading nations. It is sad to see that some of Europe’s leaders seem to agree with him. He also accidentally told the truth by saying that while political competition could be a good thing, it must be “competition correctly built”, a phrase of which George Orwell would have been proud.
Despite broad acknowledgement that our March presidential elections were neither free nor fair, Terry Davis, the Council of Europe secretary-general, recently expressed his admiration for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Medvedev. His comments about “growth” and “progress” make it clear that, to the council, the importance of liberty and democracy in Russia is inversely correlated to the prices of oil and gas. Such behaviour helps legitimise fraudulent elections and the dictatorial regime that runs them...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3519714-4e91-11dd-ba7c-000077b07658.html