Gas wars: Syria, Qatar, and Putin- Trump Summit

Written by Nasser Kandil,

Energy experts say that the Twentieth century was the century of oil par excellence, while the Twenty-first century is the gas century, and that the global status of America in the twentieth century which is associated with its dominance on oil markets, oil exploration, and export companies is threatened to be moved to Russia which has parallel strength in gas markets, in addition to the inability of Washington to be able to follow Moscow in this filed, so it is not a prediction to say that the wars of Afghanistan( 2001) Iraq( 2003 ) and Lebanon (2006) were the last oil wars, because Afghanistan was a pipeline passage of the Kazakhstan’s oil to China and India, Iraq was an oil spare reserve, while Lebanon is a sea passage of oil pipeline that links Jihan the Turkish port with Haifa, coming from within Nayako project for transferring Kazakhstan oil to the Mediterranean and Europe. The war on Syria was the first gas wars on behalf of its two allies the Russian and the Iranian the major players in the global gas market, in addition to its geographical location between Turkey with its European extension and between the Gulf on one hand and its location on the Mediterranean Sea on the other hand, so this grants a strategic value to the pipelines which pass by it. Qatar and Turkey are two pivotal players in this war, because they locate at the two sides of the pipeline which links the Qatari gas resources with Europe under German finding. Now the war of Qatar is the second war of Gas wars.

The production of the global gas market is close to three hundred billion dollars annually where Qatar takes one-third of it, while it shares with Russia and Iran the markets, which the Russians serve the European part of them, while the Qataris and the Iranians serve the Asian part. After Washington tried to produce the shale gas in response to the failure of its two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it re-overlooked it due to the difference of cost from the Gulf oil on one hand, and the decline of oil status in confronting the gas on the other hand. The US companies spent time and money to produce the share gas; it reached the stage of entering to the markets since the beginning of the year, in a capacity that is equal 60% of the productive capacity of Qatar, but it searched for a market that absorbs its production. But the Russian gas competes it in Europe and the Qatari gas in Asia. Russia and Qatar are preparing themselves to protect their shares in the markets through price cuts. So if this happens then the US companies investigating in the shale gas will go bankrupt. The agency granted to Saudi Arabia to have control on Qatar is just a part of war, but the Russian and the Iranian protection of Qatar, its independence and its role as a commercial partner in gas market is not mere a maneuver or manipulating with adversaries or tactics to invest in the crises-market between the partners of the war on Syria but a strategic movement that is related to the earlier knowledge of the meaning of the US-Qatari crisis which the Arabs were called to cover it as camouflage, as was the image of showing the war of Syria as a revolution, opposition calls, and reformist endeavors but the password is gas.

Today a summit between the US President Donald Trump and the Russian President Vladimir Putin will be held. Between a businessman who represents his partners in the US shall gas market supported by his Secretary of State Rix Tilerson whose his file is well known, and who was appointed as a General Manager of Exxon Mobil company one of the most important involved countries in the shale gas market, and a former general manager of Russian-American Mobil Oil Gas which is interested in coordinating the US-Russian interests in the oil and gas market ,  and the godfather of Gazprom company which announced its readiness to reduce its prices to 3 dollars per unit of production instead of 5,  versus 4.5 of the American gas which is proposed to Europe, he is supported by Sergey Lavrov the consultant in the Brom Gas.

The regional files are not an obstacle in front of the understanding; their roadmap is drawn since the days of John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov talks. It is not in vain that the files are related directly with the gas market from Ukraine to Syria towards Kores and the Sea of China. The password will be Qatar and the seeking for a peaceful settlement of the crisis, as the Syrian-Iraqi borders were the password in the Russian –Iranian resolving against the US real red lines, due to the linkage of the borders with the gas pipelines which pass from Iran to the Mediterranean.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,