Kremlin Energy Comes to Hungary
Surgutneftegas is to buy a stake in Hungarian oil and gas company Mol, in a move which is raising alarm bells about Russia's ambitions to expand into the downstream of Europe's energy sector and the fate of the EU's Nabucco gas pipeline.
Yet any blow to the Nabucco plans could be collateral damage from Russia's broader campaign to consolidate the country's oil exports in the hands of its biggest producers - and preferred traders. That strategy, in place since the Kremlin dismantled YUKOS in 2004, has seen oil exporters close to the Kremlin, including Surgutneftegas and Rosneft, concentrate the bulk of seaborne and overland sales in the hands of favoured trading companies, such as the secretive Switzerland-based Gunvor.
The arrival in Hungary of Surgutneftegas may now influence Mol's crude-oil purchasing policy from the pipeline, too. It will also help meet Russia's ambition to broaden its portfolio of downstream assets in Europe's downstream. Previously, the Kremlin was disappointed not to win control of a refinery in Lithuania that once belonged to YUKOS.