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«South Stream is dead. For Europe there will be no other gas transit
options to risky Ukraine, other than the new Turkish Stream pipeline».With
these lapidary statement Alexei Miller, CEO of Gazprom, summed up the end of a
project that, both for Italy and for Russia could assume a crucial geopolitical
value and could be the seal of a strategic alliance between Eni and Gazprom. -
See more at: http://www.geopolitica.info/south-stream/#sthash.Jb7jbwoV.dpuf
However, what variables
occurred to disturb the frame of the 2007 agreement? The first is the crisis in
Ukraine.The secession of Crimea and the civil war in the regions of Donetsk,
Luhansk and Kharkivraised again the ghost of the Soviet power policy all over
Eastern Europe and created difficulties for governments – like the Italian one
–that entertained very good relationships with Moscow. Italy, as a result, had
to align to the policy of sanctions against Russia, losing the flexibility in
its relations with it. The second variable is the OPEC policy.
The organization, despite the
collapse of oil prices, decided to keep the mining quotas at a high level,
probably to drive American crude out of business.Its first result, however, was
the damage of many producing countries, like Russia whose hydrocarbons exports
account for 75% and represent about half of the state budget. The third
variable is the result of the first two, namely the economic crisis.The
interruption of the flow of western capital and goods and the global oil
depression led to a strong devaluation of the ruble and to a reduction of the
funds available in the coffers of the Federation.
The concrete consequence of
this situation was the cutting of those projects, the most important of which
was the South Stream that cannot be financed with market capitals but that have
a geopolitical vision behind them.The weak demand of European markets, due to
both the economic contraction and the subsidies for renewable energy, together
with the absence of a concrete improvement in the volume of gas to be exported
(and, therefore, in the relevant revenues), led the Kremlin to consider the
project not economically sustainable and, consequently, to cancel it. Its
raison d’être after all, was not to be found in the field of economics, but in
that of geopolitics.
The South Stream would have
meant the diversification of the routes of Russian pipelines to Europe and
would have neutralized the blackmail power of Ukraine, whose political weight
is partly due to the fact that its territory is crossed by the Soyuz and
Bratstvo pipelines, supplying Russian gas to Central and Southern Europe.The
final design of this strategy is clearer by linking the South Stream, which
would have served Italy, to the North Stream, which, since 2011, has been
supplying Germany and, indirectly, France.These two parallel routes would have
reached the main consumers of Russian gas and probably decreased prices,
bypassing unstable territories and weakening income positions.
If for Russia the decision to
cancel the project represented a setback, what did it meanfor Italy?Let us
leave on one side the direct economic damage, not yet fully quantifiable – even
though the share of the Saipem, which would have carried out the installation
of the pipes, has already lost half of its value – and take into consideration
the political one. Italy remains the only major market of Russian gas still
depending entirely on the transit of the pipelines in Ukraine and, therefore,
depending on the stability of that country, on its relations with Moscow and on
the relationship between this and a European Union where Russophobes
governments are the majority (also because of the reckless foreign policy of the
Kremlin).
These are three conditions on
which, as demonstrated by the history of the last decade, it is not possible
rely on.The elimination of the South Stream, however, having as its first
objective the diversification of routes (source or supply ones), would have
constituted a simple setbackin a different context situation (like that of
early twenty-first century). Conversely, it might today assume the outlines of
a real defeat because of the disorder that is engulfing the Mediterranean
region.It must be added,indeed, to the civil war in Libya, whose pipelines
still manage to ensure a part of the supplies agreed in the past, to the
general instability affecting the Arab States and to the obstructionism “with
no ifs and buts” of several Nimby movements that prevent the development of our
country.
The hope is that there are no
further changes blocking also the Trans Adriatic Pipeline from Azerbaijan,
which, however, does not seem to be able to solve by itself the problem of our
energy dependency.
- See more at:
http://www.geopolitica.info/south-stream/#sthash.Jb7jbwoV.dpuf
