| Abstract: |
Russia and its main gas company Gazprom, essential suppliers for the European
gas market, are today at the centre of the debate surrounding the security of
the European Union's gas supply. A variety of factors have focussed interest
on the question of Gazprom's industrial strategies and more precisely :the
Gazprom's ability to meet its future contractual commitments. The gas market
liberalisation in Europe is bringing about some significant changes in the
relations (especially contractual ones) that the EU had established with its
main natural gas suppliers. The aim of this paper is to throw some light on
how European gas market liberalisation is affecting and changing the
strategies of one of the EU's essential gas suppliers, namely Russia. The
export policies developed by Gazprom are however largely conditioned by the
particular characteristics (essentially institutional) of its domestic market,
not only in terms of supply and demand but also prices". It is important to
take into account this aspect in order to understand the Russian gas export
strategy. |