Free Republic

ST. PAUL (Reuters) - U.S. reliance on imported oil poses a national security risk, and energy policy should include everything from expanding domestic drilling to finding alternative fuels, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said on Wednesday. In her speech accepting the vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, Palin said a natural gas pipeline under construction in Alaska would one day "lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart." She said the United States should not be so reliant on imported oil that it has to tap its...

ANKARA -- At the moment, 60 percent of Turkey's natural gas and about half of its crude oil demand are supplied by Russia. The report said that any possible disturbance in crude oil needs to be supplied from other countries and the international spot market, however, a similar solution for a natural gas crisis is not available. Turkey has threatened to retaliate against new Russian import controls that are seen as an attempt to punish Turkey for allowing U.S. warships carrying aid to Georgia to pass through the Turkish straits, which connect the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Experts do...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday secured agreement from Uzbekistan to start building a new gas pipeline to Russia in a deal that bolsters Moscow's sway over Central Asian energy supplies. In the wake of Russia's war with Georgia, it also strengthens Moscow's hand with the European Union, which has been looking to secure energy supplies that bypass Russia. Uzbek President Islam Karimov, after meeting with Putin in Tashkent on Tuesday, announced that the new pipeline would carry up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, boosting Russian imports by 50 percent. Gazprom will set up...

Turkey threatened on Friday to restrict imports from Russia in a trade dispute that has highlighted Ankara’s precarious diplomatic position between its Nato allies and Moscow. Kursad Tuzmen, Turkey’s foreign trade minister, said his country would impose unspecified curbs on Russian goods after thousands of Turkish lorries were held up at Russian border posts. Turkish ministers fear that the disagreement is more significant than past export rows and could mark a Russian attempt to punish Turkey for allowing US warships to pass through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea. The dispute comes in spite of Ankara’s efforts to maintain good...

Russia today has become more powerful relative to Europe than it has been since Napoleon, a situation that is all but certain to make the Europeans less willing than the United States to challenge Russian policies. Energy may accomplish for the Russians what the Soviet and Russian armies by themselves could not.

About a year ago, the Bush administration and the neocon babble-ocracy began touting Vladimir Putin as America's next Man We Love to Hate. This is odd, since by nearly all standards, Mr. Putin is the most successful neocon on the planet. Or perhaps it's jealousy. Since taking power in 2000, Mr. Putin's Russia has dodged chaos, seen its GDP increase six-fold, its poverty fall by half, average monthly real wages rise by 150% and, with the invasion of Georgia, demonstrated to the world that it can no longer be baited, humiliated or ignored without consequences. In politics, international politics especially,...

The real reason for Budapest's tepid diplomacy, of course, is energy supplies - Hungary is reliant on Russia for its gas. The Socialist Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, a former communist youth leader-turned-multimillionaire, makes sure to keep good relations with the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, who also visited in 2006. ... Five million ethnic Hungarians live in neighbouring countries after Hungary lost two thirds of its territories at the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. Even today, numerous cars have a Hungarian emblem showing “Greater Hungary”. If Russia can invade Georgia to protect its nationals (never mind that most are not...

Georgia Conflict - Open Thread #4 Posted by Gail the Actuary on August 15, 2008 - 10:08am Topic: Policy/PoliticsTags: georgia, pipelines, russia [list all tags] Russia has won in the conflict in Georgia, and we are in the process of sorting out what happens next. Various ones have written what they see happening. GEORGIA-RUSSIA CONFLICT SHOWS EU'S ENERGY VULNERABILITY But this week's offensive, during which British Petroleum shut down an oil pipeline and temporarily stopped pumping gas through Georgia, has called into question plans for a Eurasian corridor free from Russian interference. "The Caspian region is wondering what this...

A Turkish energy ministry official confirmed that the BTC pipeline blast was a terrorist act. But what’s more, Russia’s international politics advisor to the Russian Duma declared the pipeline “dead” and that it would never operate again. An adviser to the Russian parliament also claimed the closed pipeline would not be opened again and declared the line is “dead”. “The world and countries in the region have seen that not NATO, but Russia is the only one who could secure the energy routes,” Alexander Dugin, international politics advisor to the Russia’s Duma, told Turkish Cumhuriyet daily. “In this context, regarding...

I hope everyone has heard about the war in South Ossetia and Georgia. You probably are convinced by what the media reports, in particular that “Russia is the aggressor against innocent Georgia”. Our government is backing Georgia and also telling us about Russia’s aggression. But that is a lie. I have always made fun of the conspiracy theory people, but I find myself in the same position–criticizing the government and sounding crazy. But I cannot keep quite when such an injustice is going on; so please do not take my words as that of a crazy man who hates America–on...

Geopolitics: Russia's aggression is not only about toppling a pro-Western democracy and potential NATO member. It's about the only pipeline bringing Caspian Sea oil to the West not controlled by Moscow or Iran.Georgia is only the latest instance of Russia's plans to reassemble the "evil empire" and neuter NATO expansion, using energy as both a weapon and a means of financing its rapid military expansion. Russia has doubled its military in the past five years, thanks in large part to the "windfall profits" it has reaped from skyrocketing energy prices. One of the Russian targets in Georgia is a pipeline...

As the Olympic Games opened, the tragic and ominous conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted as well. On Thursday of last week, South Ossetian separatists, supported by Moscow, escalated their machine gun and mortar fire attacks against neighboring Georgian villages. This past Thursday and Friday, Georgia attacked the separatist capital Tskhinvali with artillery to suppress fire. Tskhinvali suffered severe damage, thus providing the pretext for Moscow's long-planned invasion of Georgia.As Russia responded with overwhelming force, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flew from the Beijing Olympics to Vladikavkaz, taking control of the military operations. Putin sidelined his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, thereby...

Russian cut oil supplies to the Czech Republic have been cut by half, just days after the United States signed an agreement to build a missile shield radar station on Czech territory. Moscow insisted that the cut was nothing to do with a US deal and that negotiations between suppliers were to blame for the hold up. However, the Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek appeared to remain sceptical over official explanations. "I want to believe that reasons which the Russian supplier states are only technical," he said. Russia's cut in oil supplies coincided exactly with US Secretary of State Condoleezza...

ran and Gazprom Sunday signed an agreement for the Russian energy giant to help Tehran develop its oil and gas fields, days after Total dropped out of a multi-billion-dollar gas deal. "The Iranian National Oil Company and Gazprom signed an agreement in which the two sides will cooperate in the development of Iran's oil and gas fields," the oil ministry's Shana news agency said.

Gazprom Offers to Buy All of Libya’s Gas By REUTERS The Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom wants to buy any available natural gas produced by Libya and some of the country’s oil, the top Libyan oil official said on Wednesday. Gazprom’s latest bid to strengthen its grip on gas supplies around Europe comes as no surprise, said David Cox, the president of Poyry Energy Consulting.

Even in his early days, Mikhail Fridman, a Russian oligarch now worth more than £10bn, displayed the ruthless streak that, 20 years on, is causing BP's senior management at its London HQ in St James's Square alarm and fury in equal measure. Fridman, who has accused BP's respected chairman Peter Sutherland of behaving like a Nazi in a battle over control of Russian oil and gas fields worth billions, first entered the business world cleaning windows in his native Ukraine with help from his university friend German Khan. If legend is to be believed, Fridman, all smiles and charm, would...

Russia's nationalized oil company, Rosneft, supplies more than 90% of Mongolia's oil. Over the past three months, it has increased prices twice -- by an average of 20% each time. This comes on top of surging prices that, since 2006, have pushed inflation in Mongolia to over 15% annually. Rosneft recently told Mongolian officials that it would "lower" oil prices if given the rights to "run oil production" in the country. Moscow also wants to build 100 gas stations throughout the country, which would solidify its overwhelming presence there and reduce consumers' energy choices even further. Similar tactics are afoot...

----snip---- As news outlets pointed out, most of the G-8 countries have little control over production. One, however, does, and it has leveraged that control, and its enormous reserves, to regain status as a world power. ----snip---- He does have a stern warning for Western Europe, however. The region has become dangerously dependent on Russia for natural gas, he writes. With its spreading network of pipelines, Gazprom now has the power to let Europe freeze if it so chooses. ----snip---- While the Europeans and Americans have sought to break Gazprom's pipeline monopoly by promoting the construction of a bypass gas...

BP has upped the stakes in its battle for control of its Russian joint venture, by accusing Vladimir Putin of damaging his country's reputation through failing to intervene in the escalating dispute. John Sutherland, the BP chairman, used a press conference in Stockholm to lament the prime minister's lack of action to halt oligarchs using strong-arm tactics to try to take control of TNK-BP. "This is just a return to the corporate raiding activities that were prevalent in Russia in the 1990s. Prime minister Putin has referred to these tactics as relics of the 1990s, but unfortunately our partners continue...

Semion Mogilevich, a top Russian crime boss, was arrested in Moscow in January for his alleged connection to a tax evasion scheme involving a Russian cosmetics company. He is wanted in the U.S. for masterminding a money laundering stock fraud in the late 1990s with a Pennsylvania-based company that traded on stock exchanges in Canada. But the Mogilevich dealings that make law enforcement agencies most nervous have to do with the trading of natural gas in Eastern Europe. The U.S. Justice Department pointed to Mogilevich's "influence over large portions of the natural gas industry in parts of the former Soviet...

KIEV, Ukraine (Thomson Financial) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Friday urged fellow leaders to diversify eastern Europe's energy supply routes away from Russia and not succumb to 'energy blackmail.' Speaking to six other heads of state at an energy summit in Kiev, Yushchenko said his country could play a greater role as a supply route from energy-rich Caspian Sea states such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. 'Ukraine has a powerful energy potential and is therefore planning to play a bigger role in shaping Eurasian energy security,' he said. Referring to claims that Russia uses its energy might for political ends,...

BERLIN: Gazprom, the Russian export monopoly that delivers a quarter of the European Union's natural gas, warned the bloc Tuesday that it was endangering its own security of supply with plans to break up the Continent's energy giants. At an annual EU-Russian energy conference, Gazprom's director for international relations, Stanislav Tsygankov, said proposals being drafted by the European Commission to force the separation of energy production, transmission and distribution would sow "instability and unpredictability" across the sector. "Which companies will be able to plan long term investments under those...

It’s hard to overemphasize Gazprom’s role in the Russian economy. It’s a sprawling company that raked in $91 billion last year; it employs 432,000 people, pays taxes equal to 20 percent of the Russian budget and has subsidiaries in industries as disparate as farming and aviation. ... When Mr. Putin was still president, he used Gazprom’s wealth and economic might to fight political enemies inside Russia, to reassert influence over former Soviet republics, to gain leverage over Western European countries by increasing their dependence on Russian gas, and to wrest Russian energy assets back from foreign companies. ...Mr. Putin denied...

Cologne, Germany - A senior executive at Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is under investigation in Germany over the claim that he was a German secret-police officer in the communist era, a prosecutor confirmed Tuesday. The newspaper Die Welt was set to name the man on Wednesday as Felix Strehober, chief financial officer of Gazprom Germania. It said it was possible he would be charged in Cologne with perjury after making a statutory declaration last year, 'I have never been a salaried employee of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) or the equivalent.' Die Welt said more than 100 pages in...

Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Monday he had turned down a Gazprom offer to become chairman of the South Stream natural-gas pipeline, which will pump as much as 30 billion cubic meters of Russian gas into the European market. The 560-mile, €10 billion ($15.6 billion) pipeline -- a 50-50 joint venture between Gazprom and Italian oil-and-gas-giant Eni SpA -- is politically sensitive because it would deepen Europe's reliance on Russian gas and is seen as a rival to a U.S.-backed pipeline. A spokesman for Mr. Prodi said the prime minister, who is slated to step down when a...

Belgrade _ Russia's energy giant, Gazprom has warned Serbia over delays in adopting an oil and gas deal between the two countries. “Every lost day costs Serbia and Russia, and both countries lose out,” Dimitry Malishev, an advisor in Gazprom's oil branch, told a conference on the Future of Energy in the Balkans. He said the company understood Serbia was facing elections in the coming weeks but every postponement in the ratification of the deal meant a delay in the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline through Serbia en route to Western Europe, the modernisation of the Serbia's Oil...

A senior member of the Russian Communist Party says energy should be used to influence Ukraine's decision about NATO membership. VOA Correspondent Peter Fedynsky has this report from Moscow. About 100 demonstrators, mostly members of the Russian Communist Party, gathered in front of the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow to protest Kyiv's decision to seek NATO membership. Communist parliament members told the crowd the alliance is an aggressor that will make false promises of multi-billion-dollar payments to Ukrainians if they join the western defense alliance. They said most Ukrainians oppose NATO, and accused Ukraine's leaders of anti-Russian policies that violate what...

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech government wants the country's intelligence service to recruit more spies this year because of fears of terrorism and Russia's growing energy muscle, a document showed on Monday. The centre-right cabinet has been keen to protect the Czech Republic's energy sector from the might of Russia, its main oil and gas supplier, since coming to power in January last year. The interior ministry document, obtained by Reuters, proposed boosting spy ranks by 46 new operatives and analysts to counter growing security threats. "It is possible that the Czech Republic will transform more and more from a...

The Kremlin has made little secret that its energy policies are unlikely to change in the wake of the 2 March presidential poll. Russia's president-elect Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly pledged to sustain what he has described as political "continuity." The first deputy prime minister still serves as chairman of the board of natural gas monopoly Gazprom and has tended to defend the gas giant against what he has called unfair criticism by the West, including claims of "energy blackmail." From 3 March, Gazprom cut gas supplies to Ukraine by 25 percent, and the following day it again limited gas supplies...

Russia's new president has issued two clear messages designed to show he is no soft replacement for Vladimir Putin. Within hours of winning election Dmitry Medvedev allowed a pro-government youth march to descend on the US Embassy and the state-controlled gas monopoly reduced gas supplies to Western-leaning Ukraine. The moves are an early indication that Mr Medvedev, the president-elect, intends to continue the course set by his mentor Mr Putin, who has reasserted his country's power abroad while keeping a tight grip on society at home. Nearly final results from 99.45% of precincts showed that the 42-year-old Mr Medvedev had...

On February 28 Hungary’s Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany joined Russia’s outgoing and incoming presidents, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, in Moscow to seal an intergovernmental agreement on Gazprom’s further expansion into European Union territory via Hungary. Hungary’s privately owned energy company MOL is staying out of this intergovernmental, politically-colored deal. MOL is a partner in the U.S.-backed Nabucco project of the EU. The Hungarian government’s accession to South Stream, however, adds to the recent series of defections from the Nabucco project (see EDM, January 24, 28, 29, February 5, 28). The agreement just signed envisages building an extension of...

Dubai, Moscow, Feb 21 As the United States warns the world away from business with Tehran, Moscow's tightening ties to Iran's energy sector underline Russia's differences with Washington over Iranian nuclear plans and Kosovo's independence. While the timing of Moscow's announcement on Tuesday may have been political, the deal for Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom to take on big new Iranian oil and gas projects was a long time in the making and dovetails with Gazprom's strategic ambitions, analysts said. Gazprom, the world's biggest gas producer, will play a larger role in developing Iran's giant South Pars gas field and...

Gazprom Returns to Iran Gazprom has reached an agreement with Iran on the development of the country's largest natural gas deposits, Southern Pars and Kish. The Russian monopoly will form one or more joint ventures with the National Iranian Gas Company. This is in spite of competition from the Chinese, with whom Iran negotiated the development of the Kish deposit in 2006 and 2007, and the possibility of Iran's supplying as for the Nabucco pipeline. According to the Iranian Isna information agency, an agreement will be signed in April or May between Gazprom and the Iranian Oil Ministry. The deposit...

It's now been more than two years since Moscow cut off gas supplies to Ukraine. Yesterday, it threatened to do so again. Many in the European Union said back in 2006 that they had finally woken up to the risks of overdependence on a single supplier. Consequently, the EU began promoting several non-Russian gas pipeline projects to increase diversification and market competition. But in the absence of a unified EU energy security policy, Moscow has been able to play divide and rule with Europe, cementing its gas monopoly power on the Continent. Unless the EU starts treating energy as a...

WASHINGTON, Feb 5 - The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday. Such economic matters joined terrorism, nuclear proliferation and computer-network vulnerabilities as top U.S. security threats described by National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell in an annual assessment.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukrainian prime minister who is keen to clean up the murky natural gas trade between her country, Russia and central Asia, on Monday said Moscow’s arrest of a reputed crime boss was a sign that the days were numbered for ”corrupt” intermediaries. Ms Tymoshenko was referring to the arrest of the 61-year old mobster Semyon Mogilevich, who has alleged links to Swiss-registered RosUkrEnergo, a company half owned by Gazprom and 50 per cent controlled by two Ukrainian businessmen. ”We don’t need any shadowy intermediaries,” Ms Tymoshenko told reporters in Brussels while on her first foreign visit after...

Putin may become Gazprom chairman Dec 21, 2007 MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin may become the next chairman of Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom when he steps down following a presidential election in March, Vedomosti business daily reported on Friday. The newspaper cited two sources close to Gazprom and one source close to first deputy prime minister and current Gazprom chairman Dmitry Medvedev, whom Putin has designated as a preferred candidate to succeed him. Gazprom and the Kremlin declined immediate comments. Medvedev has said he would step down as the chairman of Gazprom, the world's largest gas producer and...

WHEN one of the top directors of Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas giant, was recently summoned to a meeting with his chairman, the billionaire executive did not go to the company’s lavish new head offices in a high-rise south of Moscow’s city centre. Instead his chauffeur-driven limousine and chase car crammed with armed bodyguards headed straight for the Kremlin. After a brief walk along the building’s eerily silent corridors, which run along sumptuous, gilded halls, he was ushered into the office of Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s deputy prime minister and close protégé of the president, Vladimir Putin. But what outsiders could...

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom says it will cut gas supplies to neighbouring Ukraine unless a $1.3bn (£650m) bill is paid this month. Previous disputes between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies have led to cuts in gas deliveries to Europe. Gazprom said Ukraine had taken no action despite repeated requests and warned it would be forced to decrease deliveries if the debt was not settled. State-controlled Gazprom said it had informed European clients. Gazprom's threat comes two days after parliamentary elections in Ukraine. No clear winner has emerged as rival parties claim victory. "Bearing in mind the approaching winter season...

Russia's hold on eastern Europe By Nick Thorpe BBC News, Budapest The European Commission has expressed concern about Russian plans to acquire gas pipelines and other strategic assets, but the Russians have already been buying up energy and other firms, particularly in countries which used to be part of the Soviet Union. "How many tank divisions has the Pope?" Josef Stalin is reported to have asked when it was suggested to him that he might make a conciliatory gesture towards the Vatican. It is a phrase which Jefim Fistejn, the head of the Russia desk at Radio Free Europe in...

Another scary story about globalism. The London Times reports that Russia's Gazprom, the state owned gas company, is trying to outbid Rupert Murdoch in purchasing the Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones. Can you imagine Russia dictating the editorial policy of the Wall Street Journal? I'm sure this would be every globalists utopia and every patriots nightmare. Globalists seem to think that foreign powers buying up everything in the United States is a great thing that will usher in a world of peace where everyone will be too busy buying and selling instead of fighting. Yeah right! This is...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned Russia on Monday against exercising its energy resources with "brutality" on the world stage, amid mounting concerns in Europe over future supplies of oil and gas. Sarkozy, in a sweeping speech to French ambassadors outlining French foreign policy, noted that "Russia is imposing its return on the world scene by playing its assets, notably oil and gas, with a certain brutality." Sarkozy said Russia's resurgent global activity comes "while the world, particularly Europe, is hoping for an important and positive contribution from (Russia) toward settling the problems of our age." He added, in unscripted remarks,...

If one thinks that Russian energy re-Sovietization is for some lofty goal such as protecting that country’s national security or managing its oil and gas crown jewels, better think again. There are very fat profits to be made and a lot of them appear to be channeled towards Kremlin cronies and points beyond. Russia is currently producing 1.35 million tons (10 million barrels) of oil per day and, of this, 522 thousand tons (3.5 million barrels) per day is sold either under state-to-state contracts or through international traders. But trading in Russian oil is not for everyone and according to...

European Union moves to restrict foreign investors' access to its energy industry have not gone down well in Moscow. The Kremlin described the Europeans as "near hysterical," while Russian energy monopolist Gazprom lashed out at what they called "economic nationalism." The Russian wrath is aimed at EU measures to split up its energy giants, which Brussels now says should apply to non-European firms too, in order to prevent foreign energy giants from snatching up European firms. Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin's deputy press secretary, told the Financial Times that "measures to discriminate against Russian companies would be totally unfair," and warned...

Prague (CNSNews.com) - Austria's defense minister raised eyebrows recently when he claimed that the proposed U.S. ballistic missile defense shield to be based in Eastern Europe is a provocation. The remark has generated considerable speculation here over vested economic interests and dependence on Russian supplies. Defense Minister Norbert Darabos' assessment of the plan, which calls for the deployment of a radar facility in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland, echoes the position of Russia, which strongly opposes the BMD shield. Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg reacted to Darabos' remarks with scorn. Schwarzenberg noted that Austria has maintained a...

BERLIN, Germany (UPI) -- Russia has cut oil supplies to Germany by as much as one-third in recent weeks, worrying energy security experts the move is part of an overall energy strategy change in Moscow. The drop in Russian oil deliveries was first reported in Friday`s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. The Munich-based newspaper quoted an official from a German refinery who said oil deliveries via the Druzhba oil pipeline network dropped significantly. The refinery, based in Schwedt, near the Polish border, was able to operate on full capacity, but only by relying on domestic and North Sea oil. Owned by BP,...

A key adviser to President Vladimir Putin accused Foreign Secretary David Miliband of 'anti-Russian racism' over his handling of the Alexander Litvinenko affair. It was claimed Mr Miliband let his personal views cloud his judgment in the recent tit-for-tat diplomat expulsion row over the murder of ex-KGB operative Litvinenko. Last month the Foreign Secretary expelled Russian diplomats from Britain after the Kremlin refused to sanction the extradition of the prime suspect in the murder case. President Putin responded by throwing out several British Embassy officials and banning visas for other UK diplomats. Now Russian political analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, who is...

MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) - A Moscow court has given the green light for the seizure of 100 pct of the shares of the Russian oil group Russneft, Russian news agencies reported, citing a Russian interior ministry statement. 'A Moscow court has approved the seizure of 100 pct of the shares of the company. Russneft shares have now been seized,' the statement said. The ministerial press office was unavailable for comment. The seizure follows a judicial procedure launched in January by the interior ministry's committee responsible for tax arrears. Another Moscow court had found in favour of the Russian fiscal authorities...

Gazprom and Transneft given initial go-ahead to form armed units 5th July 2007 By Clare Watson Russia's lower parliament, the Duma, has given state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom and state-owned oil pipeline cartel Transneft permission to create their own armed security units in order to protect their domestic oil and gas infrastructure, media reports have revealed. According to Upstreamonline.com, although 341 of the 450-strong parliamentary body backed the bill, the approval has sparked fierce backlash and claims that Russia is attempting to create armies for its already powerful state cartels. AdvertisementIndeed, the Times Online cited Gennadi Gudkov, one of the Duma...

Russia is again flexing its energy muscle. On Friday, reports said Russia may cancel a contract it has with BP to develop a huge natural gas field in the middle of the country, claiming BP wasn't producing enough gas at the project. This would be the latest in a string of incidents generally interpreted as Russia strong-arming its partners into deals more favorable to the government. These moves, analysts say, could hurt worldwide production and drive up energy costs for consumers everywhere. Earlier this winter, the Kremlin shut off gas supplies to Europe after a dispute with Belarus, through which...