Here’s another article that rather debunks the latest round of attacks on Russia for using the ‘energy weapon’.

It seems that reports in the press - even from Reuters - are exaggerated.

This article is not from anything like ‘The Socialist Worker’. It’s from a rather dry independent trade journal. What follows is a quick precis, but, if you’re brave, you can read the full text at Mineweb, along with lots of fascinating stuff about coal shipments and phosphor yields.

Quote:

George Bush has weighed in on the side of the Estonian victims of an alleged Kremlin oil cut off. Only there’s no evidence of this. An unusually warm burst of spring and early summer weather across Europe is the real culprit, cutting demand for both gas and heavy oil for heating.

Russian oil shipments for re-export from Tallinn, the Estonian capital, are running at their normal seasonal level for the month of May.

If Mother Nature can be pressed into campaigning against the Kremlin on behalf of the Bush Administration, why blame Reuters for failing to check the temperature, and for putting the blame on President Vladimir Putin instead?

Industry sources are categorical in contradicting claims aired by Estonian politicians, US Government officials, and western media, all of which have charged the Kremlin with imposing a rail and oil squeeze on Tallinn.

As is traditional in the affairs of the Baltic states, nostalgia for Adolph Hitler is a cash register that promises to spit out money for all types of interests. Initially, the local Tallinn land developers, who stand to make the most out of the relocation of the Soviet memorial, lacked the clout of the Estonian shipping lobby. In February, when the Estonian parliament put off the relocation decision, the interests of Tallinn port were at odds with those of the real estate developers. But after twelve weeks of stirring, the latter have now prevailed. The former must now begin to count their losses.

When the Soviet Union included the Baltic states, they provided all the northwestern maritime gateways that Moscow needed. When the union collapsed, Russia suddenly found itself more landlocked than was comfortable. The creation of Primorsk, Ust-Luga, Vysotsk, and Kaliningrad on the Baltic, expansion of Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, and the building of Varandey on the Barents, were a natural reaction. This port strategy has been under way for a decade now.

The obvious losers have been, and must be, the Baltic states, and the long-term data on oil export flows and tanker loadings prove it. In the short term, however, the Kremlin is not wielding its oil weapon against Estonia. It doesn’t need to — time and Baltic tanker commerce are on its side.

Hostility towards Putin in the media have also blinded observers to the subtlety with which Russian oil delivery strategy manipulates the Estonians. For they are afraid that the rival ports of Lithuania and Latvia — Ventspils, Riga, Klaipeda, Butinge — may regain Russian oil cargoes, at Tallinn’s expense.