A Snapshot of Key Developments in the External Relations of the Russian Gas Sector
By Jack Sharples, EGF Associate Researcher on the external dimensions of Russian gas and Lecturer in Energy Politics at the European University of St Petersburg

Key points:

• Special report on Ukraine: A tense month dominated by political relations between Russia and Ukraine, and by commercial relations between Gazprom and Naftogaz, as debts and price negotiations leave Naftogaz in a difficult situation
• EU antimonopoly investigation into Gazprom could be delayed by crisis in EU-Russia relations; Gazprom’s deals in Germany and the UK come under renewed scrutiny in context of current international tensions
• Nord Stream: EU delays resolution of OPAL exemption
• South Stream: Uncertainties remain, despite Gazprom’s optimism and the signing of a contract with Saipem for the laying of South Stream’s offshore section
• Gazprom CEO expects to sign contract with CNPC in May
• Gazprom plans for access to Crimean gas deposits and a doubling of gas production in the region
• A month of milestones, as Gazprom celebrates 50m tonnes of LNG exports from Sakhalin-II and 100 bcm of gas exports via Blue Stream

• April 3, 2014

Russia has massed all the forces it needs on Ukraine's border if it were to decide to carry out an "incursion" into the country and it could achieve its objective in three to five days, NATO's top military commander said on Wednesday.

• April 2, 2014

A surprise decision by President Mahmoud Abbas to sign more than a dozen international conventions that could give Palestinians greater leverage against Israel left the United States struggling on Wednesday to put peace talks back on track.

• April 2, 2014

NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Russia on Tuesday in protest at its annexation of Crimea, and ordered military planners to draft measures to strengthen its defenses and reassure nervous Eastern European countries.

• April 2, 2014

A quarter-century after the fall of the Soviet Union, authoritarian rulers such as Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad are showing they can and will defy international norms, suppress dissent and use military force. American policymakers are struggling with how to respond.

• April 1, 2014

Russian natural gas producer Gazprom announced a more than 40 percent increase in the price of gas for Ukraine on Tuesday, stepping up economic pressure on Kiev in its crisis in relations with Moscow.

• April 1, 2014

At the height of the euro zone crisis, a Chinese official quipped that Europe was being reduced to a "wonderful theme park" for tourists. That view no longer has much currency as Beijing recalibrates links with the world's biggest trade bloc.

• April 1, 2014

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks on Sunday about ways to defuse the crisis over Ukraine, with Kerry telling Moscow that progress depended on a Russian troop pullback from Ukraine's borders.

• March 31, 2014