The Nord Stream gas pipeline was launched as recently as on November 8, but it completely stopped pumping gas to Europe for a while on December 6. According to the official version, “it was a brief maintenance shutdown needed to adjust the pipeline to functioning at full capacity.” Still, was not this episode an evidence of Europe’s dependence on decisions that are taken in Moscow?
“Russia has transformed the Nord Stream ideology, having tied the pipeline to the aging fields in Western Siberia and undeveloped fields in the Yamal instead of the Shtokman field, and so it has been converted into a means of waging future energy wars in Europe,” says the Nomos Center’s director of energy programs Mykhailo Honchar. “This route increases Russia’s ability to manipulate volumes, directions, and prices of gas it exports. Should the South Stream project come to fruition, too, Russia would then realize the cherished dream of Kremlin leaders from late Brezhnev onwards, of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras alike.” According to the expert, while the Nord and South Streams “are regarded as projects that are directed exclusively against Ukraine, they are also bypass routes for Belarus, Poland, and Slovakia, because they exclude any transit country participation. However, while the Yamal-Europe pipeline is a quite reasonable project to provide the shortest connection possible between the Yamal fields and the German gas market, the current project of the South Stream, to be built at some time in the future, confirms our assumptions that it is no longer a commercial enterprise in any sense, but just a geopolitical idea, pure and simple.”
As our readers can see, the debate on our country’s place in the United Europe’s energy industry is increasingly going beyond the walls of official institutions and becoming a subject of discussions in the expert community. The National Convention on the EU in Ukraine held a working group hearing in Kyiv on December 6 that was devoted to studying the relationship between the entry of Ukraine in the FTA with the EU and prospects for the domestic energy sector. The discussion’s topics included organization of broad social and expert community support for initiatives to modernize Ukraine’s gas transit system with the EU and Russia’s help, as well as the need for analytical and communicative work in Ukraine and in Europe to promote comprehensive expert creation and public dissemination of knowledge about these initiatives. It was noted that the energy chapter of the FTA was an important part of the package of agreements on Ukraine’s integration into the EU common energy market which would establish the principles of market pricing and market trading for the energy goods. This would open the door for structural reforms in the energy sector of Ukraine and the nation’s full participation in this market which would increase the competitiveness of energy enterprises and strengthen energy security in the region.
First Deputy Director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies Yaroslav Zhalilo said in the opening speech that “our key objective within the European integration framework is to implement those necessary changes in the energy sector that would bring us closer to the conditions that correspond to the socioeconomic modernization strategy.”
Speaking of the energy chapter in the association agreement and the FTA with the EU, MP and co-chair of the convention’s working group Anatolii Kinakh said that Ukraine should use every opportunity to “not only maintain but also strengthen its status as an integral part of the European energy security architecture.” However, according to the MP, despite the fact that Ukraine has ratified the Energy Charter and is a member of the European Energy Community, there is no common energy strategy between the EU and Ukraine, starting with the objective of diversification of energy supply and ending with the issues of Ukraine’s national interest. “We do not understand why companies from the major EU member states are actively participating in the South Stream pipeline project while Ukraine’s gas transportation system is capable of transporting 140 billion cubic meters of gas to the border with the European Union. This project, as well as the South Stream, is threatening Ukraine with loss of the European transit country status.”
Let us recall that Ukraine remains a unique bridge linking the countries that possess large reserves of energy with the countries which have growing demand for these resources. Moreover, the country’s energy transportation infrastructure has significant reserves for expansion. Annual capacity of the oil transportation system of Ukraine is 121 million tons at the entrance and 56 million tons at the exit. Ukrainian gas transportation system includes 37,600 kilometers of pipelines of various purpose and varying capacity and 13 underground gas storage facilities with total capacity of more than 32 billion cubic meters. Ukraine also has a large number of international electric power transmission lines that connect our country with not only Russia, but also Moldova, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
Head of Energy, Transport and Environment Aid Programs Department of the EU’s Mission to Ukraine Hans Rein recalled that Ukraine had signed special memorandum of understanding in energy cooperation, including gas, oil, electricity, energy security, energy efficiency, and renewable energy with the EU in 2005. He named as the major milestones in the implementation of this document conference in Brussels on the EU participation in modernization of Ukrainian gas transportation system in 2009 and negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Energy Community. Rein said: “What we are trying to do now during the negotiations on the association agreement and the FTA is to cement all this so that we would be able to make another step into the future.” The European official is sure that the already prepared agreement with the EU would allow Ukraine to continue to be seen look “a safe and reliable energy partner and a reliable transit country” by Europeans.
