By Vanand Meliksetian

Oil Price

The Chinese economic growth miracle is disrupting the global balance of power. President Trump’s trade war with China was the latest manifestation of Washington’s effort to pivot to the east, a strategy that began under former President Obama. Now, another ‘pivot’ is progressing steadily while the rest of the world grapples with Covid-19. Russia is increasingly focusing its attention to the east and its relationship with China. To highlight this pivot, the world’s largest energy producer, Gazprom, has started a feasibility study for the company’s next massive pipeline, the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline.

The first decade of this century was a promising one for Russia, with its international trade booming and a growing number of oil and gas buyers both to the east and west. Moscow’s fallout with the West, however, has strengthened the necessity for a ‘Pivot to the East’. The most obvious and short term result has been the Power of Siberia gas pipeline.

The agreement was struck during the height of tensions between Moscow and the West, when Russia was desperate to show its geopolitical independence in the face of western obstruction. The gas pipeline started operating this year and is expected to transport 38 bcm annually to China, earning Russia $400 billion over three decades.

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Picture: Kremlin.ru / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)