In the past we have blogged about Gazprom's hostile offer to take control of Serbia's national energy company, which is in an especially weak position given the country's reliance on Russian support against Kosovo's independence. Today Vladimir Socor has a new article arguing the the bifurcation of the planned South Stream pipeline project, a joint venture between Gazprom and the Italian firm Eni, will greatly assist Russia's objective of acquiring control of NIS. He writes "If signed and executed, the project would set back the energy security objectives of the European Union and the United States on two major counts: First, it would preempt markets targeted by the Nabucco project, cementing a Russian monopoly on some of them and breaking into new ones, and increasing the overall level of European dependence on Russian-delivered gas. And, second, it would use this pipeline to carry gas from Central Asia via Russia, thus preempting Turkmen and other gas volumes and strengthening Russia’s monopoly on Central Asian gas, despite Western intentions to demonopolize that situation also."
Source: ENI
