Economic and Geographical Features of the Domestic Fuel and Energy Industry in the Historical Context

Abstract

The author of the article analyzes the importance of transport component in the price of energy resources in different historical periods of domestic energy industry. According to economic and geographical features of predominant production (in tons of conventional fuel), these periods are divided into: “Donetsk-Baku”, Donetsk-Volga-Ural” and “West-Siberian”. The author argues that development opportunities of “Giant energy” critically depend on geographical location of main fuel bases and cost of production and delivery of all used energy resources to places of their consumption. The relevance of approaches of Soviet leaders to solve the problem of permanent deficit of energy resources is illustrated by: 1) transfer of most energy-intensive industries to the sources of cheapest energy; 2) transfer of energy from energy surplus regions to energy-deficient regions with the help of long-range overhead lines; 3) saving of energy due to energy-saving technologies and economic incentives. It is suggested that the tremendous transport infrastructure of the fuel and energy industry of the former USSR continues to send distorted signals with pricing errors to the electricity market.