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Russia to Head “GAS OPEC”
October 20, Due to a record surge in crude oil prices, energy security has become the key issue of the presidential campaign in the United States. However, both contenders forget about the world's second major source of energy: natural gas, the Washington Post reports.
Both George Bush and John Kerry mention “hydrogen economy” and renewable energy infrastructure, but fail to remember the second-most-used energy in the world, which is natural gas, the newspaper believes.
Author of the article believes this lack of attention to be a serious oversight, explaining it by the fact that the nearest years will witness a noticeable increase in the use of natural gas in the developing nations, including ex-USSR republics as well as the United States itself, whose demand for natural gas is expected to increase 40 percent by 2025.
The role of Russia in this matter is that it owns a 28 percent share of global natural gas reserves, made even more significant by the instability of the other leading exporters like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, more than a third of natural gas in Europe is exported by Russia, which has already been heralded as the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas,” and has made natural gas its geopolitical weapon in some of its neighboring countries.
As a result, Russia has begun to organize the world’s natural gas exporters under its aegis and analysts are predicting that the Gas Exporting Countries Forum may be a precursor to a natural gas OPEC lead by Russia, the Washington Post believes.
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