Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has set Russia on a collision course with western Europe after he warned that the era of cheap gas is over even as oil prices continue to slump.
Russia’s prime minister was speaking as he hosted a meeting of a dozen gas-producing countries on Tuesday in Moscow to set up an OPEC-like production cartel.
“Costs of exploration, gas production and transportation are going up,” he said. “It means the industry’s development costs will skyrocket. The time of cheap energy resources, cheap gas is surely coming to an end.”
PHOTO: EPA
Analysts said that in the short term, energy markets do not reflect his comments. Gas prices are index-linked to the price of oil, typically with a time lag of about six months. Oil has slumped from an all-time high of US$147 a barrel this summer to barely above US$40 this week. Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank, said that natural gas prices should fall sharply in the next six months.
If Russia tried to keep the price it charges European consumers for gas artificially high next year, he said, it would encourage countries to seek other sources of energy, such as nuclear power, over the longer term.
Russia supplies a quarter of Europe’s gas. Other countries in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum include Algeria, Iran and Venezuela.
Russia has already flexed its muscles on energy this week. The state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom warned that supplies to Europe could be disrupted this winter because of a long-running row with Ukraine — through which most of the gas exported to Europe passes — over prices.
But Russia has resisted pressure from OPEC to cut its oil production. This week the cartel agreed to reduce output by a further 2.2 million barrels a day — its largest single cut — but the oil price continued to fall.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’