by SouthFront: http://southfront.org/network-of-power/
Natural gas has limited and expensive transport options. As a result, natural gas pipelines are constantly used as tool of the political pressure and bargaining. One of the most notable battlefields is the European continent, where Russia has exerted its influence through an intricate network of pipelines. Find the text with an additional information about the pipelines below the graphics.
(for high resolution image go here: http://southfront.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/A-gas-pipeline-network-of-the-European-continent.jpg)
1. NORD STREAM
Capacity: 55 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Gazprom, Wintershall, E.ON, Gasunie, Engie.
The Nord Stream pipeline became operational in 2011. First proposed in 1997, disputes between Kiev and Moscow in 2006 and 2009 prompted Russia to stop natural gas flows through Ukraine, depriving Europe of natural gas and accelerating Nord Stream construction. The pipeline enables Russia to deliver energy directly to Germany and parts of Central Europe.
2. NORDEUROPAISCHE ERDGASLEITUNG (NEL)
Capacity: 20 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Gazprom, Wintershall, E.ON, Gasunie, Fluxys.
The NEL pipeline is complementary to the OPAL project and connects Nord Stream to existing gas infrastructure in western Germany.
3. OPAL
Capacity: 35 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Wintershall, Gazprom, E.ON.
The German-built OPAL pipeline came operational in 2011 and connects Nord Stream to the gas infrastructure in eastern Germany and Central Europe. The EU Third Energy Package limits how much Gazprom can use OPAL. The European Commission was expected to increase exemption by 50 percent in March 2014, allowing Gazprom to use the pipeline to full capacity. However, the commission postponed its plans because of Ukraine crisis.
4. NORTHERN LIGHTS AND YAMAL EUROPE
Capacity: 84 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Gazprom, Beltrangaz, PGNiG.
The Northern Lights and Yamal-Europe pipelines are two major systems that deliver Russian gas to Eastern Europe. Poland depends on the pipeline system and lacks good alternatives. In an attempt to become less reliant on Russian energy, Warsaw seeks to develop an LNG import facility on the Baltic Sea.
5. SOYUZ
Capacity: 26 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Gazprom, Ukrtransgaz.
The Soyuz and Brotherhood pipelines are Gazprom’s major export routes for delivering gas to Europe through Ukraine. They have a total capacity of over 150 billion cubic meters. In an effort to avoid using Ukraine as a transit state, Gazprom is seeking alternative routes from 2019 onward.
6. BROTHERHOOD
Capacity: 132 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Gazprom, UkrTransGaz.
Together with the Soyuz pipeline, the Brotherhood and Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline systems are Gazprom’s major export conduits, delivering gas into Europe through Ukraine. Russia has been trying to reduce its reliance on Ukraine as a transit state.
7. BLUE STREAM
Capacity: 16 bilion cubic meters per year (expanding to 19 bcm). Partners: Gazprom, BOTAS, Eni.
One of two major pipeline systems that Gazprom uses to deliver natural gas to Turkey. Gazprom can deliver about 16 bcm to Turkey via Ukraine, and another 16 bcm directly to Turkey via Blue Stream. At the moment, neither pipeline alone has the capacity to meet Turkey’s energy demands. In 2014, Turkey and Russia agreed to expand the capacity of Blue Stream by 3 bcm.
8. RUSSIAN GAS-WEST PIPELINE
Capacity: 16 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: BOTAS, Transgaz, Bulgartransgaz.
The Russian Gas-West pipelines deliver gas to Turkey through Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. In the future Turkish demand will exceed both the existing pipelines’ capacity and a third will be needed.
9. NORD STREAM 2
Capacity: 55 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Gazprom, Shell, OMV, E.ON.
Gazprom signed a memorandum of understanding with Shell, OMV, and E.ON at the 2015 St Petersburg International Economic Forum to build the Nord Stream-2 pipeline. As proposed, Nord Stream-2 would be the same size as the original pipeline and go operational in late 2019. The pipeline will increase capacity over time to balance out reduced North Sea production.
10. TURKISH STREAM
Capacity: 63 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: BOTAS, Gazprom.
The pipeline is designed to provide an alternative route to deliver natural gas into southern Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Gazprom signed a deal with Greece for the Southern European Pipeline connector that would linkup with TurkStream at the Turkey-Greece border to move supplies into Europe. Gazprom and Turkey have yet to finalize an agreement on the TurkStream pipeline itself. One of Ankara’s biggest incentives to support TurkStream would be to remove its own reliance on Ukraine-transited gas.
11. EASTRING PIPELINE
Capacity: 20 billion to 40 billion cubic meters per year. Partners: Eustream, Transgaz, Bulgartransgaz.
Eastring would connect infrastructure in Slovakia to Romania and Bulgaria. Slovakia has taken the lead on the project and even suggested connecting to TurkStream. Bratislava wants to be part of Gazprom’s plans to diversify transit options away from Ukraine because Slovakia is the critical link between pipelines in Ukraine and central Europe.
12. TRANS ADRIATIC PIPELINE
Capacity: 10 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: BP, SOCAR, Statoil, Fluxys, Enegas, Axpo.
TAP is one of the EU’s South Corridor projects designed to move gas from the Caspian Sea region to Southern Europe through Turkey as a way to reduce reliance on Russia. The TAP pipeline would connect with the TANAP pipeline at the Turkey-Greece border and send gas to Italy through Albania. Construction on the project is expected to begin in 2015.
13. TANAP
Capacity: 16 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: SOCAR, BP, BOTAS.
TANAP is designed to move gas from Azerbaijan’s to Turkey, where it will connect to markets in Europe. TANAP will send 16 billion cubic meters of gas into Turkey where it will connect with the TAP pipeline to send 10 bcm onward to Europe. The TANAP and TAP projects are cornerstones of the European Union’s Southern Gas Corridor energy projects to bring Caspian-sourced gas into Europe to counteract dependence on Russia. Construction on TANAP is expected to be complete by 2018.
14. SOUTH STREAM
Capacity: 63 bilion cubic meters per year. Partners: Gazprom, Eni, others.
South Stream was a pipeline system that would have sent gas from Russia to Bulgaria across the Black Sea and then onward through Serbia into Central Europe. Gazprom canceled the project in December 2013 and is pursuing the TurkStream pipeline project instead, hoping to achieve the same strategic goal of bypassing Ukraine. The European Commission opposed South Stream and contributed to Gazprom’s cancellation of the project.
From Sputnik International today :
“West Misreads Russia, Falls in Trap of Imperial Ambitions – Murray Dobbin”.
Western policy-makers are ignorantly pushing the world to the brink of a new global conflict, making even America’s pre-eminent warmonger Henry Kissinger feel scared, a Canadian author says.
Ekaterina Blinova — Murray Dobbin, a Canadian author and journalist says the Western foreign policy course is based on imperial hubris rather than on critical thinking and warned against catastrophic consequences of warmongering in Ukraine.
“Canada, Britain, the US and the boys with their toys in NATO headquarters are looking for a fight with Russia. Throughout the confrontation and provocations these protagonists treat Russia as if it is some insignificant middle power that can be provoked with impunity. That is just dangerously stupid and stupidity is something the West can ill-afford given all its internal problems – economic stagnation, unsustainable inequality, collapsing infrastructure,” the author emphasizes.
Although it has almost become a clichés that most politicians are astonishingly uninformed of numerous political, social and historical nuances of world events they have to cope with, it looks like many of Western decision-makers are living in some alternative reality based on “imperial hubris instead of science and expertise,” the journalist points out.
Illustrating such an approach, Murray Dobbin cites Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Ron Suskind who interviewed an unnamed aide to George W. Bush. The aide claimed that while people “believe that solutions emerge from [one’s] judicious study of discernible reality,” “that’s not the way the world really works anymore.” According to the aide it is Washington who creates new realities, while others are just left to study what the US has done. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” he said.
The Canadian journalist emphasizes that the hideous Iraqi war, the rise of the Islamic State and the disastrous ongoing strife in Libya can serve as a vivid example of the “new realities” created by the United States, nailing the dangerous “anti-intellectual roots” of American policy-making.
Western response to the crisis in Ukraine has indicated that not only the US, but also Canada, the UK and the European Union have fallen into the trap of non-critical thinking, notes the author. Indeed, an investigation conducted recently by the British House of Lords revealed that both Britain and the EU has misread the mood of the Kremlin regarding the Ukrainian affairs which led them “sleepwalking” into the crisis.
“How could they have misread Putin so badly? How was it possible that senior politicians could have been unaware of the centuries-long relationship between Russia and Ukraine? Of the EU and US promise in the 1990s that they would not expand NATO eastward?” Murray Dobbin asks.
According to the journalist, scientific expertise and well-balanced decision-making have been ultimately replaced with the “crusader rhetoric” of prominent Western leaders and leading mass media sources. The results could be devastating, warns the author, noting that even one of America’s pre-eminent warmongers, Henry Kissinger, has already expressed his growing concerns regarding US involvement in Ukraine’s military crisis.
“There is still a chance that the world can step back from the brink in Europe,” writes Murray Dobbin, “If it doesn’t we will know who to blame,” he concludes
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,”
That’s why we are in the Twilight Zone, where the most dangerous country in the world is not a totalitarian country, but a “beacon of Democracy”, and where there is more surveillance done by those in the “free world” than even in the old USSR, East Germany or Mao-era China….
The article said an “unnamed” aide to Bush.Well it was Carl “I’m a crook,and everybody knows it” Rove,he even said it,to I believe, a Fox News reporter.
I’m so proud of Murray Dobbin…he lives in a town on the northern coast of British Columbia…a small rainy town that is not a tourist attraction. And he writes alot of super great articles about Stephen Harper and his criminal government. Murray does all his history very well…all about Harper’s past criminal political activities..Harper really wanted to dismantle Medicare in his other ‘party’….I forgot the name, sorry, but Murray Dobbin has many articles about it.
OT.
For those who haven’t seen it yet, a very enlightening and profound treatment of Russian culture/civilization as understood by Berdyaev, Dostoyevsky and Spengler: The Spiritual Roots of Russian-American Conflict.
@ Seamus Padraig,
Q; Spengler
R; That’s Mr. Goldman, of the tribe. Never anything wrong with the Apartheid State. I love that kind of objectivity.
article referring to a different Spengler.
@ alan,
Q; article referring to a different Spengler.
R; In that case I stand corrected.
Must be close to some big world event, possibly financial but maybe a real war event somewhere else though (uke?), for them to put out this schlock today 21st.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-08/21/c_134539439.htm
DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un orders frontline army to enter state of war from 5pm Friday
English.news.cn 2015-08-21 06:47:31 [More]
PYONGYANG, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — The top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un has ordered the country’s frontline combined forces to enter state of war from 5pm (0830 GMT) Friday, the official KCNA news agency reported early Friday.
Kim made the order at an emergency enlarged meeting of the central military commission of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, said the report.
anon…top brass of both N & S Koreas talk…
http://www.rt.com/news/313092-koreas-talks-border-crisis/
For those who have not seen this Verrry informative article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noam-chomsky/the-iranian-threat_b_8014922.html
The KEY importance of this detailed article, lies in the fact that it has been printed in the largest website on the planet, Huffington Post. It has been on their Front page all morning and into the afternoon.
Millions are reading Chomsky’s article – and in the mainstream media.
Furthermore, the comments are significant. Some are in shock and denial as they hear the truth for the first time.
Others (Democrat gang hacks) attempt to pin the blame for Chomsky’s undeniable revelations, on the Republican gang – exclusively.
The why – for the devastating article, appears to be an effort (even by some Zionist leaders), to actually support the IRAN Treaty, as they concentrate their energies elsewhere, such as the Ukraine – against Russia, and against China. Therefore they need to defend the treaty as best they can, even by allowing some truth to enter the media, in order to rally support for the treaty. Chomsky is internationally recognized. But he does not come cheap. The Truth comes with him, and is his price.
Today has been a good day!
The Saker.is – still is. And….
For the Democratic Republics!
IMAGINE
sorry to burst your bubble, but Chomsky isn’t exactly a well listened to speaker by 90% of Americans, as they are more like zombies.
Fact is, the USA has turned into a Gulag, just like PCR says:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/08/20/america-land-justice-absent-paul-craig-roberts/
the Chomsky article is great, BTW
Peter J. Antonsen, Thanks for the link; I didn’t know Huffington was so popular.
Chomsky’s books are very good too. The truth almost always comes w him, but not quite. He is onboard w the boxcutters story. His reasoning: The CIA cdn’t possibly have done it; they’re too stupid. Not a joke, he says he believes its blowback for the Mideast wars.
Otherwise, though, he’s very good.
I keep wondering just how much longer any of this is gonna matter.
I mean, supplies of natural gas are currently more or less sufficient; existing pipelines may be showing their limits but are not definitively inadequate yet. As renewables increasingly come on stream, due to their continuing reductions in cost if nothing else, demand for gas is going to peak and start to decline, slowly at first but at an increasing rate. I’m thinking peak, well, very soon indeed if the next big world recession is as near as it seems, and solid long term decline quite noticeable within fifteen years at most. The writing on the wall for the future of natural gas as a fuel, will by then be readable for everyone.
At which point, whither the politics of gas pipelines (not to mention ludicrously expensive LNG facilities and tankers)?
this is so funny, the anti-Iran fear mongers continue to try to sink the nuclear deal with all kinds of false info, using AP. I dont know why AP continues to be used like a cheap dirt bag, I guess they dont care much about reputation anymore….
You would think such people would be at least smart enough to come up with good forgeries, but no….
http://news.antiwar.com/2015/08/21/former-iaea-official-ap-doc-on-iran-a-crude-forgery/
Totally misfooted regarding what the future holds…the carbon dollar is coming….that no man shall buy or sell except he who has the signifier of all life….carbon….and this is why Russia and the Ukraine are the great prize….sure they will poison you with gmo and bio agents first but after that the steppes and the plains are for trees. No man shall buy or sell save he who hath the mark (signifier) of the beast (in Greek the or all lifeforms). And who will bring but Gore and who precedes him but Barack Obama. And they are respectively gore (a triangle and a horn and the blood of murder) and Barack (a small vigorous horn or if you will lightning bolt). And the clue was left in the Gospel of John wherein Christ like Pythagoras sees 153 fish (the sum of the minor Pythagorean triangle) and 666 in revelations the name of a man ( Gore the major Pythagorean triangle).
Russia Invited To Join Eastring. Must have been w EU permission. Designed to get Balkan access to gas w/o Russian influence, by bringing in other suppliers.
Turkstream is for the time being suspended– since end of June. Word is US ordered Turkey to forget transited gas to Europe, but its own use of Russian gas ok.
Results:
– Gazprom began negotiations in case they need to extend the time they wil be transiting via Ukraine.
-Turkey requested Russian proposal be split into two parts: 1 pipe to Turkey & 3 pipes to transit to Europe. Russia has complied..
The article on Eastring & how attacks on Macedonia are connected, etc. http://www.voltairenet.org/article187897.html
As a result, natural gas pipelines are constantly used as tool of the political pressure and bargaining. One of the most notable battlefields is the European continent, where Russia has exerted its influence through an intricate network of pipelines.