Energy security cuts both ways, we are told. It is not only the gas-guzzling American motorist who needs comforting, but also the bloated petrocrats of the Gulf. At the Opec summit meeting in Riyadh this weekend, the talk will not be of supply insecurity, but of demand collapse. Even as truckers threaten mass meetings in Britain to protest about the price of diesel, the risk is seen on the downside from the perspective of the producers. Algerians attending the Rome World Energy Congress this week were less than impressed by the screeching about $100-a-barrel oil and shortages.

“What do you think the American economy will be doing next year?” was the comment of Chakib Khelil, the Algerian Oil Minister. “If there is a recession, then we won’t have a supply problem.” No need to pump more crude, then.

In Europe, two-way security is about looking at each end of a natural gas pipeline, and Paolo Scaroni, the chief executive of Eni, the Italian oil and gas giant, had a strange message. Europe has wrapped itself in a web of gas pipelines and the Continent is now in thrall to the piped fuel, he said, with gas accounting for a quarter of all the energy consumed – and 60 per cent of that gas is imported. The Eni boss then pinpointed the suppliers: Algeria and Russia. He could have mentioned Norway, but more on that later.

Forget nuclear power, forget renewables, Mr Scaroni said. To keep the lights burning for the foreseeable future, we must have more gas and, whether we like it or not, it will come from Algeria and Russia. We have become utterly dependent on the continuing flow of molecules from Siberia and the Sahara, a dependence to which Europe awoke with a shock on New Year’s Day in 2006, when Gazprom turned off the export tap to Ukraine.

The odd thing about Mr Scaroni’s message was that it was not a call for action but for inaction. The best response to the danger of dependence, according to the Eni boss, is to deepen it. He wants to build stronger relationships with Russia and would prefer that the European Union soft-pedal its demands for more liberalisation in Russia.

Less than two years ago Mr Scaroni was singing a rather different tune. Signs of a rapprochement between Algeria and Russia in the summer of 2006 caused huge alarm in Rome. According to Eni, the two countries will account for three quarters of Italy’s gas supply by 2010. In a big diplomatic offensive by Moscow in Algiers, involving debt forgiveness and armaments, a memorandum of understanding was discussed between Sonatrach, the Algerian energy company, and Gazprom over liquefied natural gas (LNG). A breathless Mr Scaroni rushed to Brussels to warn officials about the risks of a gas cartel. Italy could be caught in a price squeeze between Algerian gas arriving in Italy’s boot and Russian gas imported from the north.

What has changed? Why is the boy who once cried wolf now urging us to pet the bear? The answer is that Italy struck a deal last year in which Gazprom extended its agreement to supply Italy out to 2035 in return for more direct access to Italian gas markets. In addition, Eni is supporting Southstream, a pipeline that will link Italy to Russian gas exported via Bulgaria and Greece. If built, it could scupper an EU-sponsored pipeline, Nabucco, that would import gas from Central Asia into Europe via Turkey.

AntiRussian hawks in Washington would say that Eni has sold out, but Mr Scaroni might respond: what would you have me do? Italy needs gas and Gazprom and Sonatrach are the only suppliers in town.

Meanwhile, Gazprom is anxious about its markets. It is constantly juggling competing interests - declining production from its old gasfields, rising domestic gas consumption, the emerging assault on Europe’s gas markets from Qatari LNG ships and competition in European gas markets from Norway.

Norway’s potential should not be overlooked and, therefore, it was with dismay that Europe learnt on October 19 that the Norwegian Government had decided to cancel plans to accelerate gas production at Troll, the country’s biggest gasfield, and build a new export pipeline into the EU. It was a hammer blow to hopes in Brussels to bring more fuel into the market and prevent winter spikes in the gas price.

Norway’s explanation was that taking out more gas now would reduce the long-term oil flow from the wells operated by StatoilHydro. Perhaps, but could there be another factor at work?

Only a week after the Troll disappointment, Gazprom announced that StatoilHydro would be its partner in the development of Shtokman, a juggernaut of a gasfield in the Barents Sea. Shtokman has been delayed several times, in part because of technical problems and fears in Moscow that a gas bubble was emerging from excess supply. The commercial issues were complicated by Kremlin disputes with foreign multinationals and nationalist sentiment about investment in Russian resources.

The gas bubble vanished and Moscow is now in development mode. Shtokman is going full steam ahead with the Norwegians on board. That is good for Norway, because it needs to work closely with its partner and neighbour in the Arctic. That is good for Russia, because it would be nice to coordinate gas developments in the Barents Sea. And if it means that cooperation extends to the timing of Norwegian exports to Europe, that would be “nice”, too.

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