Russia Doubles Natural Gas Price for Georgia

In Russia, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. From the Daily Mail:

Fears that Russia is using energy supplies as a political weapon increased last night after Moscow forced Georgia to accept a doubling of gas prices.

The deal came within hours of a threat by Gazprom, Russia's statecontrolled energy giant, to cut off supplies to the former Soviet republic from January 1.

Georgia had called the price increase 'unacceptable' and 'politically motivated'.

Relations between the Kremlin and Georgia's pro-West leadership were already at their worst for a decade after a spy row in September.

The Georgia 'agreement' is another example of what alarmed EU officials see as the Kremlin's heavy-handed tactics in dealing with energy clients.

It came the day after Gazprom took control of a massive oil and gas project from Royal Dutch Shell, which had suffered a long campaign of bureaucratic harassment.

Don't forget, as Geoffrey Styles said earlier this week, Russia's long-term goal is to be able to exercise just this sort of market power over the U.S. Of course, if the U.S. builds more nuclear power plants and displaces natural gas-fired electrical production the same way it displaced oil-fired electric production in the 1970s, the nation won't be in the same bind that much of Europe will be in the near future.

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