Here, CCTV reports on Vladimir Putin’s first visit to China since he became prime minister in May 2008. Putin and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao signed $3.5 billion in natural gas and other trade agreements.

A gas station in Budapest.

Russia’s dispute with Ukraine over gas prices has impacted other European nations whose gas shipments pass through Ukraine. Hungarian imports from Russia were down more than 20 percent on Tuesday, but the country still has more gas than others cut off in the dispute — Hungary plans to deliver gas to Serbia, which has no gas reserves.

Gazprom, a state-controlled Russian energy company and the world’s largest producer of natural gas, reduced gas supplies to Ukraine after accusing the country of stealing 65.3 million cubic meters of gas since Jan. 1.

Eva S. Balogh is a Hungarian academic and blogger who writes at “Hungarian Spectrum” about her country’s position in the gas dispute. 

Crisis after crisis: now it is gas

There is a Hungarian slang expression: “there is gas” (gáz van). It means there is big trouble. The big trouble now is that there is no gas. That is, there is no gas coming from Russia via Ukraine. Of course, the trouble would be greater if Hungary didn’t have enough reserves to survive for at least two more months. Other countries–Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Serbia, for example–are in much bigger trouble because they have practically no reserves. Serbia already turned to Hungary yesterday for help. The initial Hungarian answer was negative, but by today the Hungarian government decided that after all it could spare a couple of billion m³ of gas because yesterday Hungarian consumption was lower than expected. Also Hungary has some natural gas of its own and a smaller amount reaches the country from Austria as well. Thus while Bulgaria and Slovakia are entirely dependent on Russian gas, Hungary relies on Russian gas for somewhere between 50% and 75% of its needs. Today, for example, 4 billion m³ gas arrived from Austria. The problem is that countries in Eastern Europe that depend on Russian gas can’t really help each other because there are no pipelines between Romania and Bulgaria, or Hungary and Slovakia, or Romania and Hungary.

No one knows what the real situation is between the warring business partners, Russia and Ukraine. If one can believe the Russian ambassador to Hungary, there are four “faucets” that can be turned on or off. Three of these were shut off by Ukraine yesterday morning and only then did Russia move to shut off the one remaining “faucet.” The Ukrainians’ version of events, not surprisingly, is different. They claim that they would be most willing to send on any natural gas that arrives in their pipelines. But there is none. The Russians have shut off the flow of gas.

Then there are the two entirely different interpretations of the Russian-Ukrainian feud. There are those who claim that it is simply a business quarrel while others think that it is fundamentally a political issue. Russia is putting economic pressure on Ukraine to keep it within the fold. Ukraine, on the other hand, is looking westward; it wants to belong to NATO and eventually to the European Union. A Hungarian political scientist currently in Kiev views the crisis solely in political terms, a manifestation of Russia’s imperial aspirations. Even the Russian ambassador to Hungary admitted that Russia is unhappy with Ukrainian political ambitions. I’m inclined to think that Russia’s dispute with Ukraine is not solely economic. Russia’s loss of Ukraine must still be hard to swallow. After all, with the exception of a very brief period after World War I when Ukraine became independent, it was an integral part of Russia for over three centuries. Also there is a huge Russian population within Ukraine’s borders.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user zsoolt under a Creative Commons license.

Edward Chow, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaks with Martin Savidge about the political and business aspects of this complex situation. Chow recently published an article on Ukraine’s importance for European gas in The Washington Quarterly [PDF].

For more on the gas dispute, read what a Worldfocus contributing blogger had to say: Ukraine squares off against Russian gas giant. 

Watch an interview with Peter Coy of Business Week magazine about the effects of the price plunge.

On Dec. 17, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Companies (OPEC) is scheduled to meet to assess the international oil market situation. OPEC slashed oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day on Oct. 24, attempting to stabilize free-falling oil prices.

With resources dwindling, energy dominates many political and economic debates. Our Interactive map illustrates worldwide distribution and consumption of natural resources like oil, natural gas, biofuels and water. It answers some fundamental questions about global energy:

Which countries use the most resources?
Which countries produce the most?
What countries are exploring the use of biofuels?

For instance, each day the U.S. produces 7.46 million barrels of oil — more in volume than that of the Empire State Building — but this production provides for only 30 percent of America’s oil consumption.

So, where does the rest come from? North American neighbors Mexico and Canada are also top oil producers, shipping much of their oil to the U.S. A “click” around the world shows that the greatest producer of oil is Saudi Arabia — another major source of American oil.

Click on Japan and you’ll see that it’s a top consumer of oil, natural gas and freshwater, but does not have significant reserves for these resources. Which neighboring countries have the resources Japan needs? Which countries may be competing for these resources?

The map is interactive, which means you can click on its countries and resources. Use the arrows or click and drag to move around the globe, or click on the home icon to return to the full world map. For more information about the icons and coloring, visit the “key” located in the lower left-hand corner.