Gazprom’s African Pipeline

Adam Wolfe is blogging about a favorite topic of mine today: Russia’s intrepid (and worrying) push into African energy.

The ultimate goal for Russia would be a gas pipeline from Nigeria, through Niger, ending at Algeria’s export terminals on Mediterranean coast, then on to Spain. The Nigeria/Algeria Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline (TSGP) is estimated to cost $13 billion, but some argue that it is technically and politically impossible. The MoU seems to remove some of the political obstacles, but not all. (…) Obviously if Gazprom is successful in these deals it would reduce the European Union’s leverage over Russia. It’d also change the balance of power between the US and Russia, since Europe would have to be more careful about provoking Russia with stupid offers of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. I’ll be keeping an eye on further developments.