Russian natural gas policy and its possible effects on European gas markets

Abstract

There is a growing perception among Western European gas experts that Russia has developed a considerable gas surplus — the Russian gas bubble. Thus, the question clearly arises how much gas is available for export and how much gas, over the next 15 to 20 years, can the Russian quasi-monopolist Gazprom market in Western Europe. We consider that Gazprom's export strategy mirrors the approach of Russia's natural gas policy towards the Western European market. In this paper, we will focus on the characteristics of Gazprom's export strategy, its underlying logic, and its impact on Western European gas markets. A quantitative approach to managing natural gas flows characterizes Russian natural gas policy towards domestic as well as foreign markets. The Russian government's way of managing and regulating Gazprom clearly has an influence on the company's export strategy, as indicated by the importance of gas exports for the Russian gas industry's, and indeed the whole country's, financial situation. As a consequence of Gazprom's export strategy, the Russian gas company faces today a price quantity dilemma. Gazprom's problem is to place as much gas as possible in the growing Western European gas market, without destroying downstream gas prices. We argue that Gazprom has adopted a market share expansion and downstream vertical integration strategy, aimed at capturing a part of the downstream gas rent. Although this strategy appears to have initiated a form of gas to gas competition in a number of European consumer markets, this strategy is not based on an aggressive price policy. However, in order to live up to its ambitions, there is a chance that Gazprom will have to somewhat relax traditional contract clauses, such as contract length, indexation terms and take or pay conditions.