What do you do With the Analyst that talks smack about Gazprom?

[Rodent + 1,424]

Fire them. Bank analyst fired for suggesting that all of Gazprom's projects were unprofitable, except for the subcontractors that were friends of Putin.

http://uawire.org/sberbank-lays-off-analysts-for-negative-gazprom-report

Well, that's one way to dispose of unwanted publicity.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

It doesn't really make sense: Gazprom is at least as important to Moscow as all the subcontractors taken together. And one can't just say "It doesn't have to make sense" simply because--media reports aside--Moscow is now as pragmatic as governments go. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

56 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

It doesn't really make sense: Gazprom is at least as important to Moscow as all the subcontractors taken together. And one can't just say "It doesn't have to make sense" simply because--media reports aside--Moscow is now as pragmatic as governments go. 

Locking the customers up with gas supply deals means that those customers are not making alternate supply deals with other vendors. And that means that, when there is a political crunch, Russia can threaten to shut off the gas - and will do so when Russia needs to apply the squeeze.  It is no longer necessary to actually invade a neighbor, when you can accomplish domination by controlling the sole source of heat and industrial fuel.  

Gas is thus another version of the T-72 tank: a way to exert power.  So building the gas lines at a loss is not the criterion for going ahead or not.  The other component that is not described is that, "if" gas gets much more expensive on the world market, "then" spending that money on a series of pipelines makes good sense. That, obviously, is a gamble.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Nobody can force anyone to buy their gas and prevent them from buying from someone else. It's as simple as that. And this thread is not about Russia's supposed invasion plans. Feel free to start another one in the relevant section, which is "Geopolitics".