Christmas has come early for the resource nationalists, as the Kazakbashi, the Turkmenbashi, and the Rusbashi have announced the signing of a critical agreement to build a natural gas pipeline along the Caspian coast, ending months of flirtation with a competing proposal backed by Western nations to build an undersea pipeline bypassing Russia. Following a conference call between Vladimir Putin, the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the unpronounceable Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, the trilateral agreement was signed begin the massive project, first proposed last May to export 20 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Central and Western Europe – an amount that could cover the demands of a country as large as France. Like many recent energy deals masterminded by the Kremlin, this pipeline victory carries enormous geopolitical significance and was years in the making.