Russia concerned about “unfriendly” energy transit

Russian analyst Ivan Danilin has expressed his, and presumably his country’s, concern over the new initiatives within the Eastern Partnership Programme which concern the processing and transporting of Azeri Oil to the EU through alternative routes bypassing Russia. His reaction followed a statement of the Belarus Foreign Ministry that during the Eastern Partnership Convention in Brussels around 20 regional energy security projects were discussed.

Danilin was concerned about the possibility of Azeri Oil transit to Lithuania via the Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk route, and he said that the Brussels negotiations could also have touched on providing Belarus oil to European countries, in particular Lithuania. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry representative has also stated that in the first half of February 2010 Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan are going to discuss the possibility of developing a Eurasian oil transportation corridor.

Danilin concluded that as all these projects are being discussed “there is appearing around us yet another unfriendly transit alliance.” He said however that this alliance has no money so far and no oil as well. So we are facing very interesting developments in 2010 as other projects with the same aim begin to be implemented alongside NABUCCO.