ABSTRACT
Concerns over secure energy supplies are high on the global political agenda. Because global demand for oil and gas is expected to grow faster than supply, the energy market is generally tight and prices are generally high. These developments have dramatically increased the awareness among Western energy consumers of their precarious dependency on those countries that produce and export fossil fuels. In the larger European context, Russia stands out as the single most important energy supplier. The European Union (EU) imports nearly a third of its oil and almost half of its natural gas from Russia – although the level of dependency differs greatly among the EU member states. Some of Russia’s post-Soviet neighbors, as well as the non-EU members in the Western Balkans and Turkey, are also heavily dependent on Russian energy. Russia is important for Eurasia’s energy flows, as the bulk of the gas and oil transported from the energy-rich Caspian states still passes through Russian pipelines.
