Gazprom's Profit Triples (The Wall Street Journal)

by: Rianna Das
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704206804575466892075923202.html

This article discusses how Russia's Gazprom, the world's largest producer of natural gas, has tripled its profit after three months of decline. This decline is partially due to the movement to create alternative energy sources. Gazprom supplies about a quarter of Europe's energy needs and as the weather begins to grow colder, the need for natural gas will begin to increase even more.

Gazprom's recent tripling of its profit will affect the energy industry in several ways. Firstly, it will put a damper on the movement to find alternative energy sources, as people will have no incentive to use these alternative sources if natural gas is readily available through Gazprom. Secondly, it will reduce the coal imports into Europe, as it supplies not only the world's largest amount of natural gas, but a quarter of Europe's energy. Thirdly, this will impact the growth of the industry, by allowing natural gas to become one of the dominant energy sources for, not only, Russia, but Europe, as well. Also, this has impacted natural gas by demonstrating its success as an energy source.

Globalization has affected the natural gas industry by allowing Gazprom, a Russian producer of natural gas, to supply a quarter of Europe's energy. Also, it has opened up the market for other non-Russian producers of natural gas to compete with Gazprom. For example, it has given other European alternative energy producers a chance to compete with Gazprom, which successfully took profit away from Gazprom in the first three months of the year.

-Rianna Das