The modern capitalist economy has three main types of mechanical energy: coal (steam engines); oil (internal combustion engines); and natural gas (LNG).
All forms of energy involved in production have the property of converting to electrical energy. This is a common process involving all capitalist States. The electrification of production is, above all, a technical process so obvious and real that it is prompted by the most elementary instinct of capitalist society, the pursuit of profit and competition. This is especially true not for the competition of individual small enterprises for which the transition to electrification might be too wasteful, but for the relatively large enterprises or enterprises group.
The intensive growth, rapid diffusion of electric energy, the constant process of converting all primary forms of energy into electric energy, instead of their direct use in production, is an indisputable fact. Moreover, on the basis of the data provided above, it can be argued that these phenomenon have become a clear sign of modern capitalist production. This is the energy base, the very foundation of industrial organization, a phenomenon that is inevitably radical and that must change the entire structure of material productive forces.
Quite naturally that the application of electric energy has received a sudden boost to its development just in the era of monopolistic capitalism, and in the era of giant capitalist associations, since the application of electric energy not only emerged during the period of capitalist society but also found the conditions for its further development.
Scale of development, diversification, internationalization and subsequent globalization – all these factors contributed to its transformation, which in turn facilitated the transition from monopoly to competitive market management. The post-imperialist era required new and effective ways, methods, instruments and mechanisms to reduce the risk of investment and to increase the capital intensity of new projects. Thus, one can imagine how the stages of development of energy development are constructed: from the stage of monopoly to the stage of competition (see Fig. 1).
Strategic interests and strategies of importers, exporters and major energy companies have changed accordingly. With the growth of energy companies, it is not individual contracts between individual market participants, nor even collective agreements within individual groups of participants, that have come to the fore, in quantitative terms, but completely different collective agreements between groups as such. The strategic interests (behavioural strategies) of consumer States, producing countries, large energy companies and many other international organizations have begun to change accordingly.
In global markets, increased competition and international interaction, taking into account inter-State regulation, have become interlinked. As market space has expanded, common legal frameworks have become increasingly important. Together with bilateral treaties and agreements, multilateral treaties that took into account the formation of common «rules of the game» in these market zones played an increasingly important role.
The formation of a single world energy market with common «rules of the game» was already based on the principles of fair competition. Many factors have influenced and continue to influence the processes: technological, economic, geopolitical, etc. Some accelerate the process while contributing to the formation of a global energy market, while others delay it.
An example is the natural gas market, which has provided a technical and economic opportunity for the trans-ocean transport of gas, and gas has become the main engine of international trade in recent decades. As such, it will remain for the next 15–20 years. Factors that have hindered the development of a global gas market include those that reduce the energy import requirements of energy-deficient countries and regions: energy efficiency growth, renewable energy penetration, economic crisis, geopolitics, and now - coronavirus pandemic.
The role of the technological factor in the development of the globalization of gas markets, where energy transport technologies are changing most rapidly, plays a major role, as the emergence and development of technologies for the transport of gas through large-diameter pipelines, opened up the possibility of regional gas markets. As a result, the development of liquefied gas transport technologies has paved the way for the formation of a global gas market. With increasing globalization, factors that create instability in the world market as a whole are emerging. Such factors include geopolitical and socio-economic relations between leading energy centres, environmental problems, the crisis of traditional models of extensive development, and the scarcity of natural resources, while continuing to be wasted. The authors of the article believe that these factors, which create instability in the world energy market, might not exist if the valuation and use of national wealth were part of the overall problem of the accumulation, generation and use of national wealth. Why the evaluation? Because valuation is an important task for any market, as for the state - to increase income in using elements of wealth in the production of GDP, and for the owners of companies - to increase market capitalization.