Europe’s reluctance towards reliance upon Russian natural gas trade is no secret. It’s also no surprise, due to fallouts between Russia and Ukraine (a major transit country for the trade) in 2006, 2009 and 2014. Currently Russia and Ukraine do not even have a bilateral gas trade, but Russian gas is transported through Ukrainian pipelines to Europe, only to be resold to Ukraine by E.U. countries in “reverse-flow” deals. This doesn’t sound like a stable system, considering the reliance of Europe’s gas supply upon these Ukrainian pipelines (European supplies were cut by 30 percent in the 2009 Ukrainian crisis). What happened to Europe’s plans for energy diversification? The Nabucco pipeline, which planned to bring gas from the Caucasus, is more or less dormant. This line would have succeeded in providing Europe with a stable non-Russian supply from the Caspian region. It may have some life in it yet, but […]