Five years before the Islamic Revolution, Iran produced 6.1 million barrels of oil a day. By the end of 2006 the Iranian oil industry was only pumping 3.9 million barrels a day, 5 percent below its OPEC quota. Barely able to produce any oil for export or cope with escalating domestic demand, Iran’s energy industry has been sliding steadily toward crisis. Yet Iran’s oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia’s, and its gas supply is eclipsed only by Russia’s. Having vast energy reserves and the technology to extract and refine them, however, are two different things. A mega-deal struck [...]
On Jan. 21, 2007, German Chancellor Angela Merkel conferred with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. Merkel has met with Putin six times since replacing Gerhard Schroeder as head of the German government in November 2005. This latest meeting highlighted the transformation of the German-Russian relationship, particularly in the area of energy. The Sochi encounter was the first meeting between Merkel and Putin since Germany assumed the presidency of both the European Union and the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations. With the expected departure from power of both Britain’s Tony Blair and France’s [...]
Ever since Russia briefly interrupted natural gas deliveries to Ukraine on New Year’s Day 2006, Moscow has been harshly criticized in the West for allegedly using energy as a tool to blackmail its neighbors. The recent spat between Russia and Belarus over Moscow’s price hike on oil and gas deliveries to Minsk once again prompted charges from Western politicians and pundits that Russia is not a reliable source of energy. But where many Westerners perceive Russia as a regional bully, the Kremlin argues that former Soviet republics are not entitled to cheap Russian energy simply because Russia’s major export pipelines [...]
