Russia is the world's biggest natural gas producer, with output of 581 bn m3 in 2001, and is also a key supplier of the European gas market (around 30% of current EU gas imports). Therefore gas exports rank with oil exports as an essential variable of Russian economic policy, and any...

The issue of EU gas supply security has become more and more important in the 2000s in the context of the gas market liberalisation and the question of reliability of Russian supplier. One answer to these problems is the EU gas diversification, specifically the opening up of a fourth gas...