I wrote: > --- > I edited several articles on this subject a while back. My memory is fuzzy, but as > far as I recollect there was no US role. It was competitive lobbying by LUKoil and > Yukos; Yukos was favoring developing (completely hypothetical) shipments to the US > (and we all know what happened to Yukos), LUK was favoring some other development > strategy. (Transport limitations of the state oil-pipe network, Transneft, also > played a big role.) John Helmer wrote a lot on this; do a google and you'll find > material.
BTW, unlike in other big oil-producing countries, Russian oil companies are not state-owned, so the Kremlin cannot cut or increase oil production as it wishes. What it CAN do is to deny oil companies access to Transneft. Yukos spent the first half of last year aggressively lobbying to have TN privatized or be allowed to build alternative pipelines; there is some speculation that this is what finally did Khodorkovsky in.
