Even after the end of the Cold War and the rising US political and commercial hegemony, Russia is still nurturing its ambition to revive its former glory by becoming a major force to reckon with has become clear with the recent move by the state-controlled Gazprom’s foray into Libya. Gazprom, the largest producer of natural gas in the world has joined forces with Eni of Italy to pipe natural gas from Libya across the Mediterranean to Southern Europe. This move by Gazprom is aimed at controlling the gas supply routes to Southern Europe.
Libya has the fourth largest natural gas reserve in Africa after Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt. Besides Libya, Gazprom is trying to win production contracts in Algeria, which already supplies 13 percent of Europe’s total gas requirements. By creating a natural gas cartel, Russia would geopolitically surround Europe with its pipelines, further increasing its monopolistic hegemony in the European energy sector.
The EU is trying to reduce its dependence on the Russian gas supplier by strongly backing the construction of the Nabaccu pipeline that when completed would make it possible to supply natural gas from Azerbaijan via Turkey to rest of the EU countries. However, divisions within the EU members has stalled the Nabaccu project with Italy, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and Austria benefiting by striking separate deals with Gazprom, the Gazprom-Eni deal being the latest in the series of bilateral agreements.
That Gazprom’s monopoly is not good for the European energy sector has been proved repeatedly by Russia’s confrontation with the former Soviet States. Russia entered into direct confrontation with Ukraine over Gazprom’s demand for price increase that saw Gazprom not only curtailing gas supply to Ukraine but also blocked Ukraine’s attempt to negotiate directly with Turkmenistan by denying Turkmenistan the right of way for its gas through the Gazprom pipeline network unless it was first sold to Gazprom. Gazprom’s efforts to control the African gas supplies will increase the woes of Europe.
