We are publishing below two articles from Battaglia Comunista 4 of this year. These articles deal with the increasing specific weight of gas reserves within the imperialist system, in the light of the increase in oil prices. This price has continued to increase since the articles were written, reaching a level closer to $70 per barrel rather than the $46-7 per barrel mentioned in the first article, and rendering the pressure to substitute other energy sources for oil even greater.

The first article, “Gas follows Oil” deals with the greater effect of the availability of gas on the process of imperialist competition in general, and the recent announcement by Centrica, the owners of British Gas, that they are to go ahead with the building of the first new power station in Britain for five years is evidence that this also affects the British bourgeoisie. The new station is, of course, gas-powered, will produce 885MW and is projected to cost £400mn. In addition, the German company E.ON wants to build a 1200MW gas-powered power station. ⁽¹⁾

The second article, “Gas at the Centre of Imperialist Manoeuvring” details how the imperialists have begun to intensify their strategic activities around the resource. In particular, it deals with the emergence of a Moscow-Peking imperialist axis, and how the facts surrounding gas are reinforcing this nascent anti-American pole. In turn, the birth of this axis will favour the emergence of an East Asian bloc and render the development of a centralised European bloc more pressing.

As the article discusses, the first plans for this East Asian bloc are already being talked about, and the very recent (15th June) American decision ⁽²⁾ to drop its decades long opposition to an Asian currency unit may be a sign that this bloc may be seen as a counterweight to Europe by the Americans, or, alternatively, a recognition that an Asian single currency is inevitable and opposing it would therefore be a diplomatic error.

As well as indirectly forcing the pace of further European integration, the increased political and economic specific weight of gas has directly made itself felt through the recent crisis over the Ukrainian dispute over the transport of Russian gas to the European Union. Although the gas pipeline which will built from Russia and across the Baltic Sea (mentioned in “Gas follows Oil” and discussed in the last Revolutionary Perspectives) is intended to prevent a repeat of this, the EU’s common economic interest is made clear through such affairs and, where there is a common economic interest, there is a common interest in building an imperialist power strong enough to defend that interest.

Finally, it should perhaps be stressed that the analysis according to which the US has a vital interest in oil remaining priced in dollars so that dollars issued to service its debts circulate outside its economy and do not unleash the degree of inflation that they otherwise would do, is in no way altered by these articles, although they do not repeat that analysis explicitly. The important thing from that point of view is that the commodities with the greatest specific weight in the world economy remain priced in the US currency, not the identity of the commodities.

(1) The Guardian, “Centrica to build £400m gas-fired power plant in Devon”, 17th June 2006

(2) Financial Times, “US drops opposition to Asian currency unit”, 16th June 2006