[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

too: so long as the pipeline route crosses a small bit of Czech territory, en route to southern
Germany, the government in Prague will not object. That leaves Slovakia and Ukraine,
literally, out in the cold. Russia will be able to drive a much harder bargain with these transit
states once its supply route to powerful Western countries is assured.
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
be Britain
It will be a similar story for oil. By the end of 2010 Russia will be able to close down the ill-named Druzhba
(“Friendship”) pipeline, built to carry Soviet oil to the western half of the Kremlin’s empire. Instead, Russian crude oil
will be carried by tankers, from a new port being built at Ust-Luga, near St Petersburg. That is bad and expensive
news for countries such as Hungary, with oil refineries dependent on the Druzhba pipeline.
With friends like these
But the Kremlin will not have it all its own way. Russia’s gas production, crippled by corruption and bad management,
is falling. As domestic and export demand recovers, it will be painfully clear that Russia does not have enough gas to
satisfy all its customers. This will result in rapid price rises for countries with no alternative to Russian supplies, and
more embarrassing announcements about delays to prestige projects such as the underwater Shtokman field off
Russia’s north-western coast. Russia’s clumsy use of energy blackmail in past years has spurred many European
countries to diversify, albeit belatedly. Refineries that once took only Russian oil, such as Lithuania’s Mazeikiai Nafta,
will start experimenting with supplies from other countries. It may be expensive and technologically more difficult. But
it increases these customers’ bargaining power.
The weakest link in the West will be Britain, which has left it too late to build new nuclear power stations before its
existing ones are decommissioned. Unease, or even panic, will spread in 2010 as consumers digest the prospect of
much higher energy bills, blackouts, or both. The likely outcome is a “dash for gas”: such power stations are quick
and relatively cheap to build. But where will the gas come from? The gasmen in the Kremlin are licking their lips.
Edward Lucas: central and eastern Europe correspondent, The Economist; author of “The New Cold War” (Palgrave/Bloomsbury)
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