RIA Novosti: EU Embargo on Russian Gas Would be Catastrophic for Eastern Europe – Nexant

WASHINGTON, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – A complete European embargo on Russian gas imports would lead to an energy catastrophe in eastern European countries, an expert from San-Francisco based Nexant told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

Bulgaria, Macedonia, Slovakia, Finland, Bosnia and Herzegovina could be completely cut off by Western countries if they no longer serve as gas transits, Nexant’s Global Gas Principal Mike Fulwood said during a presentation at the US Energy Association in Washington.

“Everything east of Germany and Italy would, by and large, be cut off,” he said.

That would take effect if gas transit routes from Europe to Russia were closed by next year, except for the Blue Stream pipeline, according to the model by Nexant, a provider of grid software and clean energy solutions.

With the United States unable to provide relie f until 2016, when it plans to start liquefied natural gas exports, gas spot prices “would go through the roof,” while China would see a sharp reduction in cost, as exports from Russia and the Former Soviet Union gas region “can’t go anywhere else and there is additional pipeline capacity in 2015,” Fulwood said.

Concerns are rising in Europe about the consequences of possible sanctions against Russian energy supplies, in response to the conflict in Ukraine. The United States and the European Union have imposed targeted sanctions against several senior Russian officials following a referendum in Ukraine’s Crimea, in which voters overwhelmingly supported secession and reunification with Russia. So far, energy suppliers have not been targeted.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a CNN interview on Monday that sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, as well as defense and finance, may yet follow, if Moscow interferes with Ukraine’s early presidential el ections, scheduled for May 25.