Does Russia face the European Union with the Asian Tigers?
In the last decade of the outgoing year in Russia, a significant event took place in the economic sphere. This event is the launch of the second line of the East Siberia - Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. President Vladimir Putin took part in the event as a videoconference. The project is called “ESPO-2” and connects the Amur transport hub Skovorodino and the seaside oil port Kozmino with a pipe for pumping oil. The length of the branch is more than 2-x thousand kilometers and will allow to deliver oil from the East Siberian fields directly to the Pacific coast, where oil tankers are already at the ready and waiting for hydrocarbons to be loaded to the APEC countries. You can, of course, begin to sprinkle your head with ashes and say that, say, another child of the raw material economy; the advanced countries have long been moving to an innovative, high-tech product-producing economic system, and we are putting all the pipes here ... On the one hand, the raw material priority of the Russian economy also manifested itself in the implementation of the ESPO-2 project, but at the same time, this project The branch of the pipeline for the East Siberian and Far Eastern regions may well be called a positive phenomenon. After all, the laying of a multi-kilometer artery for the distillation of EPSO oil, which, according to experts, is of higher quality than the oil from the depths of the Gulf countries, automatically causes the development of infrastructure. And with the infrastructure in these regions, everything is not at all cloudless ...
One may be ironic about the fact that Russia is once again attacking the same commodity rake, but if this rake allows hundreds of thousands of people to provide stable work and income, then abandoning them in the midst of a periodically manifested economic crisis would simply be groundless. One should not forget that recently they are actively talking about the development of the Far East. And what's wrong with the fact that an oil transportation network appears here, the intensity of operation of which determines the level of investment in the region, and hence the well-being of the entire region.
Before you think about whether there are any other advantages to the new oil line Skovorodino-Kozmino, besides increasing the number of jobs in the region, you should touch stories the entire ESPO project. And the story of this project was not even born yesterday.
Since the end of the 70s, when the world was experiencing a real oil boom, and the prices for “black gold” unexpectedly for many jumped many times, Moscow began to carry out a plan to build an oil branch in the direction of the Pacific Ocean. At that time, the concept of “powerful Chinese economy” did not exist yet, but in the region another economy stood out - the economy of the Land of the Rising Sun. It was planned to send tankers delivered to the Soviet ports of the Pacific oil in Japan and some other countries (China was also considered as one of the options, but, apparently, far from being a priority). However, the Soviet Union was unable to implement such an ambitious project that would open the gates to East Asia and supply the country’s budget with substantial additions.
But after the collapse of the USSR, the project was not completely buried. Russian business, which although in its infancy, already understood a great deal about how to extract substantial profits, began to promote a project to build an oil pipeline capable of connecting the East Siberian fields to the ports of the Pacific Ocean and cities on the Russian-Chinese border.
The pipeline promotion baton was grasped by Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who (Khodorkovsky) noticed the booming Chinese economy and predicted that in a few years China might need several times more oil than at the time of the end of 90's. Based on such predictions, Khodorkovsky decided to enlist the support of the Chinese side in the face of the leadership of the state-owned company China Nation Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The first negotiations on the construction of a branch of the pipeline stretching from the fields of Eastern Siberia to the Amur cities of China were held at 1999, and a couple of years later an agreement was signed on laying the pipe from Angarsk to Daqing. The signatures of the 2001 model agreement were put on: from the Chinese side - Chairman of the Celestial Kingdom Jiang Zemin, and from the Russian Federation - Chairman of the Government Mr. Kasyanov.
How precisely the agreement between Russia and China was fulfilled from a financial point of view in the future is already a matter for another material. But ... But the agreement between Moscow and Beijing opened another page in regional geopolitics, somewhat stirring Tokyo. Indeed, in Japan, they were well aware of the USSR’s plans to create an oil transportation system in the direction of the ports of the Pacific Ocean. In 2002-2003, the real struggle for Russian oil broke out between China and Japan, because both countries urgently needed energy resources that could be obtained from Russia to develop their economies.
For obvious reasons, such a fight between Beijing and Tokyo was only on the hand of Russia. As a “goodwill gesture” in 2002, Moscow offered to build an oil pipeline not only from Angarsk to Daqing, but also to Nakhodka. There, according to the plan, the delivered oil should be met by tankers and in large quantities be driven to Japan. The Japanese authorities were satisfied with this decision and put their signatures under the project, which meant large investments.
Ultimately, the project was transformed into ESPO, according to which the starting point for a number of reasons (including environmental issues on Lake Baikal) was transferred by Transneft to the city of Taishet, and on December 31 of the Russian Federation by order of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Russian Federation The design and construction of two branches began: Taishet-Skovorodino and Skovorodino - the Bay of Kazmina (port on the Pacific Ocean).
As soon as the order to start the development and construction was signed, I decided to break into the process and the player, whom no one here expected to see at all. This player, and a disgruntled player, was the European Union. It would seem, moreover, here is the Far Eastern region and Brussels, but, as it turned out, it’s even more so ... EU politicians were very alarmed by the fact that Russia is going to deploy its raw material machine in a different direction. Obviously, by the 2004 of the year, Europe had already become accustomed to the idea that it was the main consumer of Russian hydrocarbons, and therefore could consider Russian oil reserves in Siberia to be almost its own ... However, Moscow made a move that showed that in the current volatile world seek and alternative consumers.
As soon as such consumers in the face of a number of APEC states were identified, the Europeans became seriously worried. According to them, Russian oil, in case of its export to China and Japan, may not be enough for Mother Europe. They say that Russia does not develop new fields, and if it does, it is too slow to load oil pipelines of both western and eastern directions.
However, Russia today proves that there is enough oil, development has been carried out in a timely manner, and pipes can be built in any directions. And the most interesting thing is that after entering both branches (ESPO-1 and ESPO-2), Russia gains leverage of certain control over its neighbors. After all, someone says that only the Russian Federation is in the most powerful commodity dependence. Is not it? And unless those to whom we export oil, in this dependence are not? ..
Yes, the same China is already forced to build giant underground storage facilities that will allow it to survive a couple of months of the largest financial and energy crisis. And then what? .. In Russia, such repositories exist by nature, and it is foolish to say that it does not give Russia the tools to stabilize its own economy and the means for more, let's say, effective dialogue with partners.
Those APEC countries that have supported the Russian project ESPO-2 with both hands, today, whether they want it or not, fall into a very strong raw material dependence on Moscow. What is the strategy to solve geopolitical problems? After all, today any state in the world is ready to use the forces and means to fight for a place under the sun, which they have. Americans have a dollar ... Let the flimsy, staggering, but being the main reserve currency ... And with the help of this flimsy dollar, dozens of states are dependent on the US.
And Russia has natural energy resources. And this, it must be admitted, is a much more essential tool for “business talk” both now and in the future, rather than at the insane pace of printed gray-green paper rectangles. So if the resources with each year have more weight, then why not try to achieve their geopolitical and economic goals with their help? The case when you can chase after two hares, and get both ...
PS China declares that it is ready to buy from Russia three times larger volumes of oil than those that Russia sells to the Middle Kingdom today. Russia, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, the United States, the Philippines and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region have signed contracts for the supply of crude oil.
In addition to selling oil, which came to Primorye along the ESPO-2, abroad, a project of an oil refinery near Vladivostok is being implemented, which (refinery) will produce high-quality fuel for domestic consumers.
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