Energy Blast – April 14, 2010

President Dmitry Medvedev insists that reports on shale gas deposits in the US are a stimulus for modernizing the Russian economy, not a threat.  No sign of that modernization on the horizon, however, as the Natural Resources Minister seeks to draft steps for increasing oil production and commentators suggest that the natural resources industry is floating the economy.  The International Energy Agency forecasts that this year will seen an ‘all-time high‘ in demand for oil, hitting 86.6 million barrels a day.  Yulia Latynina draws a link between Putin’s commemoration of the Katyn massacre and US plans to start drilling for shale gas in Poland: ‘All of Russia’s neo-imperialism has been built upon the fact that it has “peaceful gas” (similar to the Soviet Union’s “peaceful atom”) and that it can shove its gas pipelines through Poland just like the Kremlin did with Ukraine. But what if Poland becomes a shale gas exporter?‘  Russia has made a deal with ‘energy-starved‘ Bangladesh to build a new nuclear power plant there.