Russia's President Vladimir Putin, right, and U.S. President George W. Bush
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Russia Compared to Saudi Arabia
Washington’s Georgetown University hosted Monday the conference dedicated to economy and geopolitics of Russia’s power industry. The concern of U.S. leading analysts was to determine how the U.S.-Russia’s relations would be affected should Russia turn into an energy superpower.
The discussion dedicated to the energy policy of Russia attracted quite a number of famed experts, including Richard Herold, who is BP’s vice president for international affairs, Cliff Gaddy of Washington’s Brookings Institution, CERA President Daniel Yergin as well as a Russian guest – Energy Policy Institute Director Vladimir Milov.
The most unfavorable scenario, the participants of the conference concluded, is Russia’s emergence as the second Saudi Arabia, the energy superpower, which, unlike the loyal Saudi Kingdom, could become very unfriendly to the West one day.
But not all masterminds were equally pessimistic. Cliff Gaddy of Washington’s Brookings Institution pointed out that although the possibility of Russia’s turning into unfriendly Saudi Arabia couldn’t be totally crossed out, this scenario is very unlikely. Moreover, there is at least one vital difference between Saudi Arabia and Russia – the latter is unable to step up or reduce energy supplies so quickly.
As to Russia’s participant of the discussion, Vladimir Milov, he recalled more than three-fold growth of government’s interest in private energy companies, which widened from 11.5 percent in 2004 to 38.9 percent today.
Asked to comment on results of the conference, Milov told Kommersant that there was no one to pursue common energy policy in Europe, as “this calls for the people with muscles.” “Today’s strategy of the Germans, Frenchmen, Italians and Austrians will make them bankrupt, if Gazprom has problems with supplies. As to the relations of the U.S. and Europe with Russia, they proved unprepared and overslept emergence of undemocratic regime in the RF,” Milov pointed out.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 31, 2007
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