“Russia will have to struggle for its market share one way or another,” said Andrey Polischuk, an oil and gas analyst at Raiffeisenbank AO in Moscow. Gazprom is gaining market muscle due to low oil now but may need changes to keep the price in line with competitors when crude rebounds, he said.

“The economy has held up surprisingly well when you consider the stresses on it” that include Western sanctions preventing banks and oil companies from issuing debt and imposing bans on high-tech oil equipment purchases, said Christopher Miller, Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy Program at Yale ISS. “The reason is that government policies since 2008 have been relatively effective,” he said in a Feb. 18 presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

LNG cannot reach every corner of Europe: there may be a lot of under-used capacity in import terminals in the Iberian peninsula but these are not useful for security of supply in mainland Europe except where they have reloading facilities. There is very little transport capacity overland into France.

Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world’s two largest crude producers, agreed to freeze output after talks in Qatar.

The first was that Europe has a multiplicity of suppliers and that, in terms of gas at least, its energy security is good; the second is that Statoil does not pursue a market share policy but instead focuses on the need for a predictable market environment to enable it to maintain current levels of piped gas deliveries to Europe for the next 20 years or so.

“We are working on preserving our traditional markets and we will supply those markets with oil in a competitive battle,” Igor Sechin, Rosneft chief executive officer said in London today.

Commenting on a statement by Gazprom on February 2 that Austria had imported 76.2% more gas this January than it had in January 2015, the country's dominant supplier OMV said that was because deliveries last year had been low for unspecified "technical reasons." "We are however back to normal levels this year," a spokesperson said. Gazprom said exports to Austria in 2015 were up by 11.5% in 2015 on the year but gave no volumes for either period.

“Everything is possible in theory. It was possible a year ago, a month ago. Nothing new has happened. This frenzy is idiotic. It stems from the fact that people can’t read.”

“Co-ordination between Russia and Opec has been discussed in the past and has always come to nothing, and it would be a shock if any different outcome occurred this time,” says James Henderson at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

“While we view this outcome as unlikely, a 5% production cut by just Saudi Arabia and Russia would be sufficient to bring the market close to balance,” said Jason Gammel, oil analyst at Jefferies. “A balanced market…would set the stage for oil price recovery.”