Decisive force
"Russia has become a decisive force in the world oil market in a way it hasn't been since the beginning of the 1960s, when its exports stimulated the birth of OPEC," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Yergin said, however, that the Kremlin's tussle with Yukos "at another time wouldn't have had the same effect."
This, he said, is in part because "the world oil market is even tighter than in the 1973 oil crisis."
What the Kremlin certainly did know before proceeding in the prosecution against Yukos was just how important the company is to Russia's status as a petro-state. Yukos produced 591 million barrels of crude oil last year, nearly 20 percent of Russia's production. Yukos has 14.7 billion barrels of oil reserves, slightly less than the OPEC members Algeria and Indonesia combined.
That helps explain why the Yukos affair has had such a powerful global effect.
"If it weren't for Yukos, we wouldn't have crossed the US$45 mark," said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.
Industry leaders in Russia say they encourage outsiders to take a longer view of the country's ability to stabilize the price of crude. "Russia today has a very important role in the stability of world oil markets," said Viktor Vekselberg, one of the founders of the big Russian oil company TNK.
Even if Yukos ends up being run by someone other than its current management, however, Russia's status as a mighty global oil producer is secure, experts said.
The question is, who will the superpower allow to own those oil assets? The Kremlin clearly wants a larger role in oil and gas, which it views as a strategic sector of the economy. But government control could mean that Russia's production would not grow as swiftly as it might under private ownership, with oligarchs and other wealthy businessmen trying to maximize profits.
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