Reviving
the Shtokman extraction project in the Russian Arctic (no specifics mentioned).
Adding
a third parallel line to the Nord Stream pipeline on the Baltic seabed to
Western Europe, and prolonging that third line to supply the Netherlands and
Britain with Russian gas. This would boost Nord Stream’s capacity from the
existing 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) to more than 80 bcm per year.
Designing
the South Stream pipeline for its originally proposed capacity of 63 bcm per
year, with four parallel lines on the seabed of the Black Sea en route to
Europe. This seems to imply reinstating South Stream’s southwestern branch
toward Italy, which Moscow had dropped in 2011 from the initial project,
instead prioritizing the northwestern branch to Central Europe.
Building
a new pipeline from Belarus via Polish territory to Slovakia—the long-proposed Kobryn
(Belarus)-Poland-Velke Kapusany (Slovakia) line—to connect Russia with Central
Europe. This line would plug into Slovakia’s gas corridor.
The Slovakian corridor carries the lion’s
share of Russian gas supplies to the European Union, representing the direct
continuation of Ukraine’s transit pipelines to Europe. The proposed
Kobryn-Velke Kapusany line would circumvent Ukraine, but would not affect
Slovakia, inasmuch as the same gas volume would enter Slovakia from Poland,
instead of entering from Ukraine. The export destinations (Austria with the
Baumgarten distribution center, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy) would
not be affected either.
Compared with the Nord Stream and South Stream
mega-projects, a Kobryn-Velke Kapusany pipeline with its proposed 15-bcm annual
capacity looks almost restrained. But, if built, it could deal a coup de grace
to Ukraine’s gas transit system, which is already facing the South Stream
bypass threat. A Kobryn-Velke Kapusany line would not add any new volumes of
Russian gas to Europe. The operative goal of this project is to increase
Russian pressure on Ukraine to cede control over its transit pipelines to
Gazprom.
To achieve that operative purpose, the
Kobryn-Velke Kapusany project need not be actually implemented. It only needs
to become a credible threat, which would however require Warsaw’s and
Bratislava’s acquiescence, at least in the form of conducting serious
discussions about this project with Moscow. Apparently, the Kremlin and Gazprom
hope that the European Union member countries Poland and Slovakia might assist
Russia’s efforts to obtain control over Ukraine’s transit pipelines under
compounded pressures. According to Putin and Miller in their joint appearance,
Gazprom has recently held talks with Polish and Slovakian companies, which
allegedly expressed “very strong interest” in the implementation of the
Kobryn-Poland-Velke Kapusany pipeline (Russian presidential website
www.kremlin.ru, Interfax, April 3, 4).
According to Putin and Miller, this line could
be built and become operational by 2018–2019, after South Stream will have been
built by 2017. Stipulating such deadlines (without a discussion of resources
for the South Stream project) is designed to scare Ukraine into submission.
Russia would not need to come up with new gas volumes, but merely to re-route
existing export volumes into a Polish transit pipeline, before they reach
Ukraine’s transit system.
Kobryn, in the southwestern corner of Belarus
on the Polish border, is the exit point of the Beltranshaz trunk pipeline
connecting with Poland’s pipeline grid. Gazprom’s proposal, under discussion
since the late 1990s, envisages building a 600-kilometer pipeline from Kobryn,
via eastern Poland, to Velke Kapusany in easternmost Slovakia, the entry point of
the main transit pipeline from Ukraine en route to Central Europe. Under
the latest, Putin-Miller proposal, Gazprom would divert 15 bcm per year from
Ukraine’s transit pipelines into the Kobryn-Velke Kapusany route. Whether the
re-routing of this volume would still allow sufficient capacity for Russian gas
supply to Belarus itself through the Beltranshaz pipeline is not entirely
clear. Russia normally supplies Belarus with approximately 20 bcm of gas
annually for Belarus’s own consumption. Another 2.5 bcm per year of Russian gas
is delivered through a Beltranshaz line to Lithuania and onward to Russia’s
Kaliningrad exclave.
Gazprom has completed in 2011 a phased
takeover of Beltranshaz under Gazprom’s full ownership, achieving an integrated
gas transportation system on Belarus’s territory. This is partly intended as an
overture to a phased takeover of Ukraine’s gas transit system. Meanwhile, it is
obviously more profitable for Gazprom to use its own transit pipeline on
Belarus’s territory, rather than pay transit fees for using Ukrainian transit
pipelines.
Separately from Beltranshaz, Gazprom owns and
operates the Yamal-Europe One transit pipeline, with a capacity of 30 bcm per
year, running across northern Belarus into Poland and onward to Germany. The
Yamal-Europe One pipeline is fully dedicated to supplying Poland and Germany
with Russian gas. Russia (and, at times, Poland) intermittently discussed
building a Yamal-Europe Two pipeline, parallel to Yamal-Europe One, toward
Poland and possibly Germany. The construction of Nord Stream on the Baltic
seabed, bypassing the mainland, has rendered that version of Yamal-Europe Two
moot. Moscow, however, now proposes the name Yamal-Europe Two for the
Beltranshaz trunk pipeline that would carry Russian gas from a junction point
within Belarus to Kobryn and the exit to Poland.
Poland has no need for this pipeline, no
reason to cooperate with this Russian project, and no grounds for compounding
the pressure on Ukraine. However, Slovakia is a vulnerable target of Gazprom.
Like Ukraine, Slovakia is fearful of losing transit volumes in the event that
Russia builds South Stream. In that case, the same westbound gas volumes that
would be shifted from Ukraine’s transit pipelines could ipso facto be shifted
from Slovakia’s transit pipelines, these being a direct westward continuation
of Ukraine’s pipelines.
Moscow, however, now seems to offer to
maintain the gas transit volumes through Slovakia, re-directing them via
Poland, instead of Ukraine, into the Slovakian pipeline system. Russia’s move
seeks to isolate Ukraine while incentivizing a separate Slovak deal with
Gazprom. The South Stream project is designed to scare Slovakia almost as much
as Ukraine. The pressure on Slovakia is not so obvious because Russia refrains
from advertising it publicly, whereas it heavily publicizes its pressures on
Ukraine.
Back in 2000–2002, Russia insistently
discussed the Kobryn-Poland-Velke Kapusany project with Belarus, Poland and the
European Union, in an early effort to circumvent Ukraine’s transit system
(Kommission der Europaeischen Gemeinschaften, Energie-Dialog mit Russland,
April 2003). In 2002, Ukraine ostensibly agreed (without seriously intending to
deliver) to share its transit system with Gazprom in a “consortium,” possibly
with minority German participation. After this, Moscow de-emphasized the
Kobryn-Poland-Velke Kapusany project because it counted on using the Ukrainian
system under Gazprom’s control. This story may recur, albeit to a full
denouement this time, if Ukraine yields to Russian pressure. In that case, the
unaffordable South Stream and the more bankable Kobryn-Poland-Velke Kapusany
project would become redundant.
Vladimir
Socor is a senior fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation and its
flagship publication, Eurasia Daily Monitor, where he writes analytical
articles. An internationally recognized expert on the former Soviet-ruled
countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, he covers
Russian and Western policies, focusing on energy, regional security issues,
Russian foreign affairs, secessionist conflicts, and NATO policies and
programs. This article first appeared at
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=40698
