A WINDOW TO INDIA? THE TRILATERAL GAS UNION AND RUSSIA’S ENERGY PIVOT TO ASIA

Abstract

In November 2022, the government of the Russian Federation proposed the creation of a “Trilateral Gas Union” with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Commentators were quick to focus on the Central Asian dimensions of the proposal, in particular the potential expansion of Russian influence in the region or Russia’s attempts to substitute exports to the region for the drop in its natural gas exports to Europe. This article suggests there is a bigger picture to consider. It argues that the Central Asian natural gas market is too small for Russia to justify investing millions of dollars in modernising the old Soviet gas network. Instead, it analyses the capacities of various regional markets, traces the logic of earlier moves by Russia and connects them with ongoing infrastructural projects in the broader region, notably the “Pakistan Stream”, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan–Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, and the North–South corridor. It argues that Russia’s proposal makes economic sense only if the redirection of gas flows would expand Russia’s natural gas exports at least to China (via Central Asia) while potentially setting the stage for Russian piped gas to enter South Asian markets, opening a “window to India”. The article discusses possible scenarios and structural pre-conditions for the realisation of these possibilities while analyzing the various motivations, causal linkages, and mechanisms that have been driving the Trilateral Gas Union.