If gasoline prices have you muttering curses at OPEC during each fill-up, maybe you should just say \o7nyet\f7.
With global oil output barely covering demand, Russia and other countries outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are wielding more sway. They're affecting the price of oil and everything made from it.
Indeed, when world energy leaders gathered in Houston last week to dissect industry issues, their remarks were translated from English into only two other languages -- Russian and Chinese.
Daniel Yergin, chairman of conference sponsor Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said the language selection "just reflects the force of globalization." So did the delegates' list: 55 countries were represented at the influential energy conference, including a large contingent from Russia.
With substantial oil and the world's largest natural gas reserves, Russia has seen its significance grow on the world energy stage.
Russia and Qatar, which together hold more than 40% of the world's natural gas reserves, recently agreed to discuss forming a natural gas producers' group akin to OPEC. The suggested gas cartel has picked up a nickname -- "GasPEC" -- and the displeasure of U.S. officials.
"I don't like it," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told reporters at the conference. "It is not something that we encourage, and I will make my views known as I visit with the various ministers in question."
The country's trading partners, particularly European nations, have grown increasingly wary amid moves by the Kremlin to use its supplies for political leverage. An Energy Department report described it as "an inclination to advance the state's influence in the energy sector, not to reduce it."
Critics cite the Kremlin's efforts to gain more control over oil and natural gas projects that involve major outside oil companies, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell. They also point to a January dispute between Russia and Belarus over oil taxes that led to a cutoff in the flow of crude oil through a pipeline serving European customers. And a year earlier, natural gas producer OAO Gazprom cut off supplies to Ukraine because the two nations couldn't agree on price -- a disruption that also affected exports to Europe.
