[BOOK] Creating new energy dependencies The post-Soviet states inherited from the Soviet energy system a number of features that would significantly affect their ability to deal proactively with energy issues after independence. While the most obvious of these dependencies are infrastructural (the system of oil and gas pipelines centered on Russia and the fact that the energy-poor states lack direct energy transport connections with non-Russian energy producers, so that, even when able to buy oil and gas from other suppliers, those would most likely need to go through Russian pipelines), these are not the only ones. Other important legacies have to do with the fact that some oil and gas reserves located outside Russia were not developed, the fact that the republics had little control over the oil and gas infrastructure within their borders (infrastructure which was controlled directly by ministries in Moscow), and the fact that their overall development strategy was based on an assumption of energy-abundance—reflected in heavy energy subsidies and unrealistically low energy prices that had little to do with real production and recovery costs—that privileged inefficient energy-intensive industries, industries which have little chance of survival under energy-poverty and market economy conditions. To these dependencies Russia has been able to add new ones in the post-Soviet period, sometimes with the help of domestic players in the energy-poor countries themselves. The clearest examples of these new types of dependencies have to do with the issue of market control and of contractual diversification, and control over transit infrastructure. [DOWNLOAD]
