Third time unlucky - why Gazprom wants no new gas war
excerpts:
The West accused Moscow of using gas to punish an earlier pro-Western government in Ukraine, and said the dispute caused irreparable damage to customers' confidence in Russia as a reliable supplier. Gazprom said it cut supplies because Ukraine stole billions of dollars worth of gas, which Kiev denied.
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Gas supply contracts have been changed in the past few years such that Gazprom no longer sells its gas to Europe on the Russian-Ukrainian border, but on the Ukraine-EU border, which makes Gazprom responsible for getting it all the way there.
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As Kerry spoke about sanctions, investment bank UBS issued a report headlined "The price of politics". It devoted large sections to the history of oil crises and sanctions, including the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.
Some doubt it will come to sanctions, conscious, perhaps, that Russia is not without defences.
"Who do you sanction? Russian state companies? Does anyone remember they have over $200 billion worth of debt to Western banks?" one banker said.
Almost all Western banks are lenders to Gazprom, which has debt of $36 billion, some of it secured on export revenues.
Western energy partners are in no rush to sever ties, either.
MORE - http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/07/uk-ukraine-crisis-gazprom-insight-idUKBREA260B020140307