Russian-ASEAN cooperation in the natural gas sector. Lessons from the Russian-Vietnamese relation

The Russian natural gas business has long been connected with the European market via pipelines. Recently, the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has brought up the importance of this resource on the Asian market and Russia is shifting its market strategy towards the countries in the region. While a lot of attention is focused on the potential of the gas relations with China, another country is where Russia is stepping up its efforts. Vietnam, part of the major economic association ASEAN, is cooperating with Russian companies to produce the 3rd largest amounts of natural gas in ASEAN. The article looks at the cooperation between Vietnam and Russia in the gas sector through the state-owned company, Gazprom, and tries to indicate if the strategy used in Vietnam can be extended to the whole ASEAN region, in order to bust the Russian presence.