Abstract
The USSR has been able to secure a growing share of the Western European energy market during the past decade. This applies particularly to natural gas supplies to some Western European countries; but lately it has been true of oil consumption as well (see Tables 8.1 and 8.2). The USSR probably owes the increases in its shares to the following factors:
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(a)
Soviet energy prices are usually lower than the average prices of other suppliers. If more favourable alternatives had been avail-able (such as Norwegian natural gas), companies certainly would not have signed contracts with the USSR.
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(b)
Drawing on USSR energy is also considered a way to increase security by diversifying the sources of supply. The fact that the USSR has always fulfilled its contracts faithfully lends weight to this point of view; the same cannot be said of energy suppliers from other regions (OPEC oil embargo, USA and Canadian uranium embargo).
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(c)
Natural gas does not significantly emit harmful substances; expanding it as an energy source thus serves the goal of an ecologically sound energy supply.
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Notes and References
At that time the CIA forecast that the USSR would have to import more than 100 million tons of oil in the early 1980s. See Central Intelligence Agency; Prospects for Soviet Oil Production. (Washington DC, July 1977)
See Dienes, Leslie and Shabad, Theodore, The Soviet Energy System. (New York: V. H. Winston and Sons, 1979) S. 37.
The principle may have been changed de facto for oil and natural gas. Since 1981, prices have corresponded more to a three-year average. See Bethkenhagen, J., Oil and Natural Gas in CMEA Intra-bloc Trade; Economic Bulletin, no. 12. February 1984.
Quoted in Wright, A. ‘Soviet Natural Resource Exports and the World Market’, in Robert G. Jensen et al. (eds), Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1983) p. 619.
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© 1986 International Economic Association
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Bethkenhagen, J. (1986). Soviet Energy Supplies as a Factor in East-West Relations. In: Csikós-Nagy, B., Young, D.G. (eds) East-West Economic Relations in the Changing Global Environment. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18400-2_8
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