The Moscow Times: Soon, Buyers Will Use Gas as a Weapon

Three weeks ago, just as Russia was in the early stages of annexing Crimea, I wrote in this space that the most strategic move the West could take against President Vladimir Putin would be to help lower world oil and gas prices. On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Washington was prepared to supply gas to Europe in place of Russia.

After Russia unleashed its "gas war" against Ukraine in 2006, Europe realized that the Kremlin was an unreliable supplier and that it used gas as a weapon, not a commodity. Therefore, even before the advent of the shale gas revolution, Europe began making every effort to reduce its dependency on Russian gas. As a result, from 2006 to 2013, the share of Russian gas in Europe's overall consumption fell from 39 to 25 percent.

Actually, Russia's most hawkish patriots suggested that Moscow stop supplying Europe gas and sell it to China instead.

To get an idea of whether Russia could really make good on such a threat, consider the following: In 2013, China extracted only 200 million cubic meters of shale gas, but it expects to extract 6.5 billion cubic meters in 2015 and up to 60 billion to 100 billion cubic meters by 2020.  MORE