The European Union’s hydrocarbon energy supply depends heavily on imports. While the European Commission has recommended diversifying and increasing domestic resources, notably with renewable resources which should grow to 20% by 2020, dependence on hydrocarbon imports will remain not only substantial, but will increase.

Last week the gritty Russian/Ukrainian gas relationship was back in the press. This time the issue appeared to be Ukraine’s efforts to secure lower prices for its consumers - perhaps even on a par with Russia’s domestic consumers. The Ukrainians must surely know that to qualify for those kinds of special prices available previously only to politically compliant neighbors - Ukraine would have to return to some form of pre-Orange Revolution relationship with Mother Russia.

There is a valuable lesson to be learned about raw material dependence from the tensions between China and Japan in the East China Sea. It’s not about the oil and gas that is thought to be stored under the seabed in disputed waters, but rather the so-called “rare earth elements”, of which China produces 97% of the global supply.

Turn on the news or open the paper and sure enough there will be mention of the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Although it has retreated from the big headlines, the disaster still looms large as people deal with the aftermath of the BP catastrophe. 

A major change has taken place in the company structure of the European electricity and gas markets. Twenty years ago, national or regional monopolies dominated the markets and there was strictly no competition between utilities. But since the liberalization of EU energy markets began in the 1990s, companies like E.ON, GDF Suez, EDF, Enel, and RWE have become European giants with activities in a large number of Member States.