EUROLINKS DAILY VIEW
Wall Street Journal, NY
Former Soviet Republics
Present Vast Opportunity
By MICHAEL CONNOLLY
May 8, 2006
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian <asbed@usc.edu>
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Former Soviet republics were built on low-cost energy pumped out of
the ground in Russia and Central Asia, making them among the world’s
most energy-wasteful economies. But they now present a great
opportunity for energy savings.

The price jolt that OAO Gazprom caused in January with its brief
interruption of gas supplies to Ukraine, is beginning to force
fundamental change.

Ukraine, with its population of 50 million, has quickly produced a
program to reduce gas consumption, setting up an energy-efficiency
agency to direct the plan and pouring government money into efforts to
carry it out. Georgia, hit with a similar rise in gas prices, has
mothballed plans to build new gas-fired power stations, and will build
a hydroelectric plant instead. Armenia also has ordered up a plan
targeting gas consumption.

If all former Communist-bloc nations in Eastern Europe and Central
Asia could reach Western European levels of energy use per GDP unit,
world energy consumption could fall 7.2%, according to the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In addition, a fall in the
consumption of gas from Russia by Ukraine and its neighbors might make
supplies more secure for countries such as Germany and Italy.