Simon Pirani

Senior Research Fellow

Tel: +44 (0)1865 311377
Home office: +44 (0)20 8333 2152
Fax: +44(0) 20 8333 2152
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Expertise

The Ukrainian gas sector
Russian and CIS energy and economics issues

Current/Forthcoming Projects

Research of the Ukrainian gas sector
Russian and CIS Gas Markets and Their Impact On Europe

Academic and Professional Experience

2006 –

Currently Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Recently completed a monograph on Soviet politics and labour in the 1920s, Revolution in Retreat 1920-1924: Soviet Workers and the New Communist Elite (to be published in 2008 by Routledge).

Awarded a PhD from the University of Essex for a dissertation on Soviet politics and labour. Published articles related to this project in Europe-Asia Studies and Revolutionary Russia.

1997 –

to the present. Journalist covering energy, economics and finance issues, mainly in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, for Gas Matters, Energy Focus, Emerging Markets, Trade Finance, Project Finance, Metal Bulletin, the Guardian and others.

1995 – 97

Completed a BA in Russian Studies from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London.

1974 – 95

Journalist and editor covering UK, and then Russian, energy and industry, including as Editor of The Miner, the journal of the National Union of Mineworkers (1990-95).

Institute Publications

sorted by date, most recent first

Ukraine’s Gas Sector
by Simon Pirani, 2007. NG21 [0.77MB]

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Simon Pirani: Russian and CIS Gas Markets and Their Impact On Europe

This will be the first book to deal with the political economy of CIS gas markets. The rationale for such a book is simple: there has been little discussion of, and attention devoted to, CIS gas markets – with the exception of Russia – by those outside the region. Viewed in a European (and even a global) context, CIS countries rank among the largest gas producers and markets yet, Russia aside, there is relatively little information available about them. In Europe, they have been viewed largely in the context of Russian gas transit. The 2006 Russia-Ukraine and 2007 Russia-Belarus incidents highlighted the importance of those countries for EU gas supplies. The death of the Turkmen president in December 2006 illustrated the potential fragility of Central Asian gas contracts with Russia and other customers. The development of gas production and markets in Caspian and Caucasus countries will be of substantial importance to the creation of any “4th Corridor” through which additional gas supplies might flow to Europe. The chapters of the book will focus on gas markets and the political economy of decision making in these countries. The aim of the book is to demonstrate why European (and other) countries dependent on CIS trade and transit need to understand the internal dynamics of these markets.

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