Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

Original: Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

Why has Russia's natural gas dispute with Ukraine stretched out so long?

A key reason is the subtext from Russia's side: an effort once and for all to tar and discredit much-detested neighbors who have become darlings of the West, and end the West's intrusion into Moscow's claimed sphere of influence.

Despite some self-inflicted damage, the gambit so far has been relatively successful.

In the fall, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his junior partner, President Dmitry Medvedev, managed through s as severely -- and perhaps permanently -- damaged. (And, not incidentally, the U.S. was revealed to be largely impotent in what it had hubristically claimed as a pro-Western new region.)

Now, Putin and Medvedev have in their sights another primary local irritant -- Ukraine and its independent-minded president, Viktor Yushchenko. In the latest part of this effort, the Russian leaders are trying to recruit Europe into a strategy of reducing their new dispute with Ukraine to this: Ukraine is a country-size thief.

On its face, what we have is a simple pricing dispute. Ukraine wants to pay close to today's price for its 2009 natural gas supplies, or about $180-$235 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. But Russia wants Ukrain s-russias-medvedev">met with Eur

Original: Obama drawing on Soviet propaganda techniques

пятница, 9 января 2009 г.

Not Everyone is Losing Money

Original: Not Everyone is Losing Money

Pure traders are the only ones left standing in the crude oil speculation business now that oil prices have collapsed, sending hedge funds, college endowments and pension funds scampering. And these traders have found a new way to make solid double-digit profits. It's called betting on the contango.

What's contango? It's when the market as a whole bets that oil prices are going to steadily rise well into the future, and traders react by buying two contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange -- say, one for the purchase of oil next month at $41.24 a barrel, and a second contract to sell it in Februar

Ukraine and Russia: The Role of a Middleman

Original: Ukraine and Russia: The Role of a Middleman

Russia has prickly relations with several of its neighbors, but all pale in comparison with its friction with Georgia and Ukraine. Last August, the former resulted in a full-fledged war, and pessimism about the security of the U.S.-backed oil and natural gas corridor connecting the Caspian Sea with the West. Now, the latter -- Russia's long antagonism with Ukraine -- is provoking a similar recalibration of energy security, this time about natural gas supplies to Europe.

I have pointed out the pricing he article notes the role of an opaque middleman company called RosUrkEnergo in the
deal. We have discussed RosUrkEnergo at O&G; The Wall Street Journal's Glenn Simpson has done the best ground-breaking work on the company. Half-owned by Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen, RosUrkEnergo is the equivalent of a maitre d' who performs no principal role but controls access to the best tables. RosUrkEnergo owns no gas, or pipelines, yet earns a flat 20% take off the top of all the gas sold by Russia to Ukraine.

RosUrkEnergo takes that gas, and sells it. That amounted to a

Original: Russia-Ukraine: A Market Dispute

Are the Russians and Ukrainians simply fated to go to the mat every year about this time, causing grief to their neighbors? Or is something else at work in their antagonism?

The philosophical answer is that, while it's hard to imagine these two former Soviet states living as friendly neighbors any time soon, the current dispute is a separate matter.

It can be reduced to a difference of outlook: Do you expect oil prices to rise to $60 a barrel this year, or to drop back down to between $30 and $40 a r amounts to a "humanitarian gesture."

Ukraine, however, has embraced oil's most recent price band. It's arguing that oil will average $40 a barrel this year, or $235 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas. That's precisely what Ukraine has counter-offered to Gazprom.

(As a separate matter, if Europe truly is paying $500 per 1,000 cubic meters, as Gazprom has claimed, it is seriously overpaying. That corresponds to $84-a-barrel oil.)

(Another baffling issue is Russia's claim that it's owed a

среда, 31 декабря 2008 г.

Afghanistan: Central Asia Takes Center Stage Again

Original: Afghanistan: Central Asia Takes Center Stage Again

With the Taliban having made Pakistan an insecure supply route for war materiel headed into Afghanistan, NATO and the U.S. are looking again to Central Asia for help.

Thom Shanker of The New York Times has filed a piece this morning detailing talks with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan about serving as alternate supply routes. The talks also include Russia, which exerts considerable influence in the former Soviet region.

Uzbekistan, carried out a new offensive against militants based in the border area.

Blunder: A New Age for Russia

Original: Blunder: A New Age for Russia

My friend Zach Shore, who teaches at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, usually writes about foreign affairs with a historical bent -- on militant Islam in Europe, and on we have covered the Gazprom-led rivalry with the West to build new natural gas pipelines into Europe. Russia's Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines appeared to beat out the West's proposed Nabucco pipeline without breaking a sweat.

Not any longer. Simply put, Russia is in trouble. Its much-ballyhooed $600 billion cash reserve base dropped by a out in his conversation with The