This volume sheds light on the technical and institutional handicaps that the gas industry had to face since the early 19th century to consolidate its position in the energy market. It traces the history of gas energy use in a European context to understand the reasons for its crucial nature in the region. Going back to the start of gas production in England and France at the turn of the 18th century, the book has a specific focus on Latin Europe: Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. Topics discussed include, but are not limited to the evolution of gas technology and associations; capital, technical, and human transfer among countries; strategies carried out by gas companies to promote their activity; how gas companies adapted to changing markets, faced with the competition of electricity at the end of the 19th century, until late 20th century; and how war, especially the Second World War, affected gas supply in Latin Europe. Finally, the volume discusses the emerging use of natural gas by France and Italy after 1945, which meant a quantitative advantage compared to their neighbors in Latin Europe, Portugal and Spain, as well as a political advantage, in terms of energetic independence. The book will appeal to scholars, students, and researchers of economic history, business history, as well as technological history, interested in a better understanding of the evolution of gas into a major energy source, a role that it has kept until today.

Global climate change and the war in Ukraine have put energy back on the agenda for Europe in a way that has not been seen since the oil crisis of the 1970s. But the economics and business of supplying energy to Europe has a long and rich history going back to the nineteenth century. This book explores changes in energy markets, strategies, firms and investments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The primary focus is on manufactured gas—the gas that was initially produced from coal distillation until new ways of manufacturing gas emerged after the Second World War. The expert contributors to this volume draw on their extensive research and utilise primary sources to explore a wide range of issues, including technological adaptation, market regulation, energy investments (particularly the role of foreign capital), gas consumption and supply issues. The case studies are particularly drawn from Spain, France and Italy, but the authors provide a comparative and global perspective to consider the wider context. The volume closes with an epilogue that brings the story into the present day to consider current issues affecting gas markets in the EU, including war, geostrategy and pipelines. This book will be of interest to readers in economic history, business history, energy history, the history of public utilities and modern European history more broadly.

This book explores the development of the gas industry within Latin Europe (France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). Through charting the growth of this industry during the 19th and 20th centuries, the technology and public policies used are examined to highlight the long term impact of the industry. Utilising a comparative analysis, similarities and variation between the development of gas within the Latin European countries is compared and contrasted with the aid of specific case studies. This book aims to place the development of gas resources in Latin Europe within a global perspective that takes into account the development of energy resources in the rest of Europe and the world more generally. It will be of interest to students and researchers working within energy economics and economic history. The book forms part of the results of the research project ‘Gas in Latin Europe: a comparative and global perspective (1818-1945)’, financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Spanish Government and ERDP Funds.

Zhoršení vztahů mezi Ruskem a západními zeměmi v uplynulých deseti letech provázelo mimo jiné i vzájemné obviňování z politizace energetických dodávek. Rusko je v tomto smyslu nejčastěji obviňováno spotřebitelskými zeměmi, že dodávky energetických surovin zneužívá jako nátlakového nástroje k dosažení svých zahraničněpolitických cílů. Nejvyhrocenější spory se v tomto ohledu odehrály v souvislosti s přerušením dodávek ruského zemního plynu, které v lednu 2009 významně dopadlo zejména na region jihovýchodní Evropy. Dopad na státy v této části kontinentu byl tvrdý s ohledem na jejich závislost na energetických importech a struktuře ekonomiky. Autor v této knize odpovídá na otázku, zda Ruská federace skutečně zneužívá plynové dodávky jako mocenský nástroj a za jakých podmínek takovéto zneužití hrozí. Na případech 13 zemí zkoumá, na kolik Rusko skrze státem vlastněnou ruskou společnost Gazprom a její dceřiné společnosti jedná dle tzv. strategického přístupu k energetice, tj. zda tyto společnosti fungují jako nástroje ruské zahraniční politiky.

The history of the European oil and gas industry reflects local as well as global political events, economic constraints and the personal endeavours of individual petroleum geoscientists as much as it does the development of technologies and the underlying geology of the region. The first commercial oil wells in Europe were drilled in Poland in 1853, Romania in 1857, Germany in 1859 and Italy in 1860. The 23 papers in this volume focus on the history and heritage of the oil and gas industry in the key European oil-producing countries from the earliest onshore drilling to its development into the modern industry that we know today. The contributors chronicle the main events and some of the major players that shaped the industry in Europe. The volume also marks several important anniversaries, including 150 years of oil exploration in Poland and Romania, the centenary of the drilling of the first oil well in the UK and 50 years of oil production from onshore Spain.

This book takes stock of arguments about the historical legacies of communism that have become common within the study of Russia and East Europe more than two decades after communism's demise and elaborates an empirical approach to the study of historical legacies revolving around relationships and mechanisms rather than correlation and outward similarities. Eleven essays by a distinguished group of scholars assess whether post-communist developments in specific areas continue to be shaped by the experience of communism or, alternatively, by fundamental divergences produced before or after communism. Chapters deal with the variable impact of the communist experience on post-communist societies in such areas as regime trajectories and democratic political values; patterns of regional and sectoral economic development; property ownership within the energy sector; the functioning of the executive branch of government, the police, and courts; the relationship of religion to the state; government language policies; and informal relationships and practices.