From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   QUORA: Ukraine found huge proven reserves of natural gas after the Soviet   
   Union broke up. Does Putin want them?   
   Answered by Doha, Updated Jun 30   
   Yes Putin wants them. Why does he want them despite having one of the largest   
   natural gas reserves? He wants them because if Ukraine gets their hands on   
   them, the results are gonna be catastrophic for Russia.   
      
   BTW, Putin already took most of them. The gas reserve was one of the biggest   
   reason why Putin annexed Crimea and started the pro Russian separatist   
   movement in Donbass.   
      
   Ukraine found 1.1 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves. its total gas   
   reserves would have been estimated upto 5.4 trillion cubic meters.   
      
   80% of those were located in Off-shore Crimea, Sea of Azov, the western   
   Carpathians, and the Dnieper Donitz rift in the East. Which means during that   
   time, Ukraine had the 3rd largest proven natural gas reserve in Europe behind   
   Russia and Norway.   
      
   With that Natural gas reserves, the EU and rest of Europe could of replaced   
   most of Russian gas with Ukrainian Gas. If that happened, then russia could of   
   lost tens , if not hundreds of billions of dollar and its largest gas market.   
      
   There was a problem for Ukraine though. At that time, Ukraine didn't had the   
   technology or the equipment to go after any of those reserves. And the   
   president of Ukraine at that time was pro Russian. So putin didn't need to   
   worry about the gas reserves.   
      
   Later in 2013, Ukraine signed a deal with western companies like ExxonMobil,   
   Shell, Chevron..etc to explore the oilfields near the Carpathians and Dnieper   
   Donitz rift in the east. But then In February of 2014, Ukraines pro Russian   
   regime were overthrown    
   and replaced with more of a pro western president.   
      
   And then Putin made some bogus claim about Ukraine killing Russian speaking   
   people in Crimea and Donbass. Russia then fully annexed Crimea taking a   
   significant portion of Ukraine’s proven natural gas. Pro Russian separatist   
   in the donbass region    
   occupies the areas near Yuziska oil field in the east which made Shell abandon   
   its $10 billion project in the region.   
      
   By the end of 2014, all of the western oil companies abandoned their projects.   
   As a result, Russia remained the largest exporter of Natural gas in Europe's   
   market.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)