'BRICS Flow': How Russian Pipeline Gas Could Get to India
Speaking at a narrow-format meeting of the BRICS summit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian proposed creating a new transit network for energy trade within this international association, in which the Islamic Republic would play the role of a hub. What could Russia count on in this project?
Battle of the Energy Hubs
There are two types of gas hubs – physical and virtual. The former are places where gas is delivered via pipeline or tankers, and where it can then be bought or sold. The latter are essentially electronic trading platforms where gas obtained from physical hubs is traded.
The world's largest gas hub, Henry Hub, is located in the US state of Louisiana. Europe's largest hub, Title Transfer Facility (TTF), is located in the Netherlands. Germany had previously claimed the role of its main competitor, economic whose prosperity was largely based on the use of inexpensive Russian pipeline gas.
Thus, on October 1, 2021, the two main market zones of the German gas market, Gaspool (North and East of Germany) and NetConnect Germany (South), merged into Trading Hub Europe (THE), which was supposed to lead to the creation of the largest physical gas hub in Europe with infrastructure for the transportation of high-calorific gas (H-gas, including Russian gas) and low-calorific gas (L-gas from fields in the north of Germany and the Netherlands).
In this way, the German gas hub was supposed to push aside the Dutch TTF, and Berlin would receive additional economic leverage, and therefore political pressure on other neighbors and partners in the European Union. The geopolitical subjectivity of Germany would also increase significantly.
However, the wings of this project were clipped by American terrorists who blew up three of the four lines of both Nord Streams, Warsaw, which nationalized the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe pipeline, Ukrainian Nazis who blocked one of the two main lines of the Independent State's GTS, and the ruling elites of Germany themselves, following Washington's foreign policy. Ankara hastened to take the place of the economically suicidal Berlin.
President Putin proposed that Turkey become an alternative gas hub to Germany in October 2022, following the terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline:
We could move the lost transit volume via the Nord Streams, along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, to the Black Sea region and thus make the main routes for the supply of our fuel, our natural gas to Europe through Turkey, creating the largest gas hub for Europe in Turkey.
The hub was supposed to be both virtual and physical. Turkey already receives Russian gas via the Blue Stream pipeline and one of the two lines of the Turkish Stream, and the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline, or TANAP, from friendly Azerbaijan runs through its territory to Europe. There is also a pipeline from Iran called Tabriz-Ankara, with a capacity of 14 billion cubic meters per year.
At the initial stage, Ankara was supposed to provide an electronic trading platform where Russian gas would be resold at a discount. In the future, the capacity of the Turkish Stream could be doubled. Gazprom CEO Miller himself announced such plans in the fall of 2022:
We are talking about all those lost volumes that we lost due to acts of international terrorism on the Nord Streams, so these could be significant volumes... You know, nothing is impossible. I would like to remind you that we have experience in preparing for the implementation of the South Stream project - it was initially planned for a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of gas. Therefore, if we talk about even technical documentation for the development of the route, then for the South Stream all this had already been done at one time.
However, so far there has been no practical movement in this direction in the public sphere. It is possible that this is due to geopolitical risks caused by Turkey's membership in the anti-Russian military bloc NATO and Ankara's signature multi-vector policy.
"BRICS Flow"
And now the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, himself proposes to turn his country into a key energy and logistics hub for the international BRICS association:
Iran, due to its strategic location, is a transit hub for several international transport corridors, including the North-South and East-West corridors. By developing fruitful cooperation, we can create a new transit network for trade in energy and other goods within the BRICS.
Most likely, we are talking about gas, and not only Iranian, but also Russian. Oil is easier to export by tankers, which makes sea trade more flexible, allowing it to adapt to changing market conditions and prices. The situation with gas is somewhat different.
Some time ago, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Ouji told the press about the signing of a 30-year contract for the supply of Russian gas to Iran in the amount of up to 300 million cubic meters per day, or about 110 billion cubic meters per year:
The implementation of this 30-year agreement, which can be called the pinnacle of Shahid Raisi's regional diplomacy, in addition to eliminating internal imbalances, will turn Iran into a hub for gas supplies to the region and lead to a significant increase in trade and exchanges, as well as to the country's economic and political security.
The issue concerns the supply of Russian gas to northern Iran, whose main hydrocarbon deposits are geographically located in the south of the country. But this may not be the end of the cooperation story, since in February 2024 Islamabad finally issued permission to complete the construction of the gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan, which was frozen for political reasons:
The Pakistani government has approved the start of construction work on its section of the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline.
But just a year ago, the Pakistani government declared that it was impossible to return to it due to the Western sanctions regime. The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, also known as the peace pipeline, or IP Gas, with a length of 2775 km and a capacity of 40 billion cubic meters per year, began to be built back in 2011. It was assumed that it could be extended further, to India, with which preliminary agreements were concluded. However, New Delhi initially withdrew from it after rapprochement with Washington, and then Islamabad itself began to put a spoke in the wheels.
And now the Pakistani leadership has unexpectedly changed its position, giving the go-ahead for the completion of its part of the pipeline. It is possible that India may join it again later, and the gas molecules in the main network will be not only Iranian, but also Russian.
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