Wheel of Fortune


Book Description

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year on Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Republics The Russian oil industry—which vies with Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer and exporter of oil, providing nearly 12 percent of the global supply—is facing mounting problems that could send shock waves through the Russian economy and worldwide. Wheel of Fortune provides an authoritative account of this vital industry from the last years of communism to its uncertain future. Tracking the interdependence among Russia’s oil industry, politics, and economy, Thane Gustafson shows how the stakes extend beyond international energy security to include the potential threat of a destabilized Russia. “Few have studied the Russian oil and gas industry longer or with a broader political perspective than Gustafson. The result is this superb book, which is not merely a fascinating, subtle history of the industry since the Soviet Union’s collapse but also the single most revealing work on Russian politics and economics published in the last several years.” —Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs “The history of Russia’s oil industry since the collapse of communism is the history of the country itself. There can be few better guides to this terrain than Thane Gustafson.” —Neil Buckley, Financial Times




The Political Economy of Russian Oil


Book Description

One of the dominant export-oriented industries in Russia, oil is a major source of tax revenue and wealth. The privatization of these vast assets has made the industry a site not only for conflict between power holders but also a strategic target for international corporations and Western governments. In this thoughtful analysis, a group of international specialists explores the political and economic issues and controversies surrounding the oil industry's move to capitalism. The authors examine the spread of crime and corruption, the role of Russian and Western financial institutions, regional tensions, and the international dimension. As a paradigm for the Russian economy as a whole, the case of oil industry provides invaluable insights for understanding the political and economic problems confronting Russia today.




The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy


Book Description

By 1999, Russia's economy was growing at almost 7% per year, and by 2008 reached 11th place in the world GDP rankings. Russia is now the world's second largest producer and exporter of oil, the largest producer and exporter of natural gas, and as a result has the third largest stock of foreign exchange reserves in the world, behind only China and Japan. But while this impressive economic growth has raised the average standard of living and put a number of wealthy Russians on the Forbes billionaires list, it has failed to solve the country's deep economic and social problems inherited from the Soviet times. Russia continues to suffer from a distorted economic structure, with its low labor productivity, heavy reliance on natural resource extraction, low life expectancy, high income inequality, and weak institutions. While a voluminous amount of literature has studied various individual aspects of the Russian economy, in the West there has been no comprehensive and systematic analysis of the socialist legacies, the current state, and future prospects of the Russian economy gathered in one book. The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy fills this gap by offering a broad range of topics written by the best Western and Russian scholars of the Russian economy. While the book's focus is the current state of the Russian economy, the first part of the book also addresses the legacy of the Soviet command economy and offers an analysis of institutional aspects of Russia's economic development over the last decade. The second part covers the most important sectors of the economy. The third part examines the economic challenges created by the gigantic magnitude of regional, geographic, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of Russia. The fourth part covers various social issues, including health, education, and demographic challenges. It will also examine broad policy challenges, including the tax system, rule of law, as well as corruption and the underground economy. Michael Alexeev and Shlomo Weber provide for the first time in one volume a complete, well-rounded, and essential look at the complex, emerging Russian economy.




Russian Oil Supply


Book Description

Russian Oil Supply traces the development of the Russian oil industry from its inception in the 1870s through the present. The fundamental geology of the two main producing basins (Volga-Ural and West Siberia) is presented along with a review of key production technologies. The technical, economic, and policy aspects of achieving the 1987-88 peak production are described as well as the mechanics of the production collapse that followed and, since 1999, the recovery of Russian output. The performance of Russia's major oil companies, independents and joint ventures is analyzed and conclusions drawn on the future course of production and exports.




The Russian Oil Economy


Book Description

Considine (an analyst with Engage Energy Canada) and Kerr (University of Saskatchewan) argue that Russia will occupy a strategic role in the future world energy market. This book details the development of the Russian oil economy and provides an overview of its position in the coming century. It assesses the policies and institutions of the Russian Federation, and offers recommendations and forecasts. Statistics are provided, representing reserves, production, and tax rates from 1860 to 2000. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Russian Oil Companies in an Evolving World


Book Description

This book examines Russia’s capacity to respond to a changing world through the lens of the country’s oil industry. Against a backdrop of social, political and climatic change, Indra Overland and Nina Poussenkova present a systematic analysis of how modern energy developments in the form of shale oil, offshore oil and the global energy transition are handled.




The Fight for Influence


Book Description

Russian influence in Central Asia is waning. Since attaining independence, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have forged their own paths—building relationships with outside powers and throwing off the last vestiges of Soviet domination. But in many ways, Moscow still sees Central Asia through the lens of the Soviet Union, and it struggles to redefine Russian relations with the region. In The Fight for Influence, Alexey Malashenko offers a comprehensive analysis of Russian policies and prospects in Central Asia. It is clear that Russian policy in the formerly Soviet-controlled region is entering uncharted territory. But does Moscow understand the fundamental shifts under way? Malashenko argues that it is time for Russia to rethink its approach to Central Asia. Contents 1. Wasted Opportunities 2. Regional Instruments of Influence 3. Russia and Islam in Central Asia: Problems of Migration 4. Kazakhstan and Its Neighborhood 5. Kyrgyzstan—The Exception 6. Tajikistan: Authoritarian, Fragile, and Facing Difficult Challenges 7. Turkmenistan: No Longer Exotic, But Still Authoritarian 8. Uzbekistan: Is There a Potential for Change? Conclusion Who Challenges Russia in Central Asia?




Soviet Oil Exports


Book Description




The Depths of Russia


Book Description

Russia is among the world’s leading oil producers, sitting atop the planet’s eighth largest reserves. Like other oil-producing nations, it has been profoundly transformed by the oil industry. In The Depths of Russia, Douglas Rogers offers a nuanced and multifaceted analysis of oil’s place in Soviet and Russian life, based on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in the Perm region of the Urals. Moving beyond models of oil calibrated to capitalist centers and postcolonial "petrostates," Rogers traces the distinctive contours of the socialist—and then postsocialist—oil complex, showing how oil has figured in the making and remaking of space and time, state and corporation, exchange and money, and past and present. He pays special attention to the material properties and transformations of oil (from depth in subsoil deposits to toxicity in refining) and to the ways oil has echoed through a range of cultural registers. The Depths of Russia challenges the common focus on high politics and Kremlin intrigue by considering the role of oil in barter exchanges and surrogate currencies, industry-sponsored social and cultural development initiatives, and the city of Perm’s campaign to become a European Capital of Culture. Rogers also situates Soviet and post-Soviet oil in global contexts, showing that many of the forms of state and corporate power that emerged in Russia after socialism are not outliers but very much part of a global family of state-corporate alliances gathered at the intersection of corporate social responsibility, cultural sponsorship, and the energy and extractive industries.




Petrostate


Book Description

In the aftermath of the financial collapse of August 1998, it looked as if Russia's day as a superpower had come and gone. That it should recover and reassert itself after less than a decade is nothing short of an economic and political miracle. Based on extensive research, including several interviews with Vladimir Putin, this revealing book chronicles Russia's dramatic reemergence on the world stage, illuminating the key reason for its rebirth: the use of its ever-expanding energy wealth to reassert its traditional great power ambitions. In his deft, informative narrative, Marshall Goldman traces how this has come to be, and how Russia is using its oil-based power as a lever in world politics. The book provides an informative overview of oil in Russia, traces Vladimir Putin's determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era, and describes Putin's efforts to renationalize and refashion Russia's industries into state companies and his vaunted "national champions" corporations like Gazprom, largely owned by the state, who do the bidding of the state. Goldman shows how Russia paid off its international debt and has gone on to accumulate the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves--all by becoming the world's largest producer of petroleum and the world's second largest exporter. Today, Vladimir Putin and his cohort have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow, and fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) have made it all possible. The story of oil and gas in Russia is a tale of discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism, and power. Marshall Goldman tells this story with panache, as only one of the world's leading authorities on Russia could.