Russian oil firm says Asian buyers willing to use euros

(Reuters) – Russian state-controlled oil producer Gazprom Neft said it had received positive responses from Asian clients about the possibility of using euros as a settlement currency instead of the dollar.

Company head Alexander Dyukov said this week Gazprom Neft had broached the idea of dropping the dollar, traditionally the currency of choice for the global energy sector, in response to a possible new round of Western sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

A Shift in the Global Energy Balance

Big changes are already underway in the global energy sector. And some of these changes are contrary to previous expectations. What we now realize, once again, is that capitalism works. Capitalism has always solved our most basic problems. Even now it is solving our energy problem.

Four years ago Russia was the rising powerhouse of global energy production. Marshall I. Goldman’s 2008 book on Russia was titled Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia. As Goldman explained, “Russia … finds itself in a newly assertive, even dominant, international position. Its emergence as a new super energy power overlaps with the weakening of the United States as we have squandered our … resources in Iraq.” But Russia’s energy sector has always been a state-manipulated behemoth with serious problems of its own.