Gaz de France and Soviet Natural Gas: Balancing Technological Constraints with Political Considerations, 1950s to 1980s

Abstract

This chapter analyses the development of France’s gas cooperation with the Soviet Union. It traces the beginnings of cooperation between France and the Soviet Union from the first contacts in the second half of the 1950s to the signing of the first contract for gas purchase in 1971 and, finally, the beginning of gas deliveries in 1976. The authors also look into developments in the following years, focusing on the French reaction to the US embargo on deliveries of pipelines and pipeline technology to the USSR in 1982. Unlike Italy and West Germany, France never became a major importer of Soviet gas, which, by the end of the 1980s, constituted only a small fraction in the country’s overall energy mix. France was, however, a key European player in fostering closer ties with the Soviet Union from the early Cold War period onwards, oftentimes going against the general interests of the US and the West.