Topic: Russian Gas ban - A problem for Europe or suicide for Russia? - page 2. (Read 14469 times)

Laughing out loud 

While some are trying to convince themselves that everything is fine in Russia, and are actively engaged in neuro-economic self-satisfaction, the reality is this:

- In 2023, Russian gas exports to the region (in which the IEA traditionally includes European OECD countries, including Turkey) decreased by 42%, or 33 billion cubic meters. m. According to the agency, the level of exports from Russia last year was the lowest since the early 1970s. In 2022, the drop was even more significant: exports dropped by 90 billion cubic meters. m, that is, more than doubled year on year, and amounted to 78 billion cubic meters. m. Gas supplies from Russia to EU countries in 2023 decreased by 60%, or 38 billion cubic meters. m, and amounted to 25 billion cubic meters. m, the IEA reported.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2024/01/27/1017014-postavki-gaza-po-truboprovodam

Even the lying Russian media are forced to admit failure in the gas market

- here is a very good indicator: https://bcs-express.ru/novosti-i-analitika/gazprom-eksport-v-evropu-na-minimumakh

This is about the dividends of the “successful Gazprom”. For some reason they didn’t show 2021, because there was a dynamic decline. In 2022, after the terrorist attack on Ukraine and the economic terror of the EU, yes shot,” but then - where is Gazprom going? And don’t forget that dividends are in rubles, which has lost 2/3 of its value over the past 3 years

- Lenta.ru writes an amazing fact. Prices are falling, volumes are falling, and on the side of Russia with 1 gyrus and even a vertical one - everything is fine, everything is growing 
“The cost of gas in Europe fell by 60 percent during 2023, with prices falling by a further 12 percent in 2024, despite increased demand amid cold weather.”

Not everything is as good in Russia as the Russian State Statistics Service portrays at the request of the Kremlin. First let's look at Wikipedia. It states that only three population censuses were conducted in the Russian Federation - in 2002, 2010 and 2021. According to the 2002 census, the number of Russian citizens was 145.2 million people (98% of the country's inhabitants compared to 1989). The second census registered a further decline in Russia's population - 142,905,200 people. Since the 2002 census, Russia has moved from 7th to 8th place in population in the world.

The last Russian population census took place from October 15 to November 14, 2021. Its peculiarity was that it was a “digital” population census, in which the organizers chose the “State Services” portal as the main way to collect information, and census takers walked around residents with electronic tablets and entered the survey results into an electronic database. However, as a result, a record low number of residents participated in the census - only 57%, and most of the data was obtained from administrative sources. Such administrative data is significantly incomplete in comparison with survey data or self-filled questionnaires on the State Services portal. But according to the results of such a census, 147,182,123 Russians were indicated.
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B8_%D0%BD %D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%B2_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1 %81%D0%B8%D0%B8
It is obvious that with the general trend towards a decrease in the population of Russia, its explosive growth during the incomplete census of 2021 is indicated to please Putin’s eye.

Next, let's look at the information from The Economist. According to this publication, Russia reached its population peak in 1994 - 149 million people. Since then, the overall population has declined in a zigzag manner. Even according to the Russian State Statistics Service, in 2020 and 2021, the country's population decreased by 1.3 million people, and the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by 1.7 million. The largest reduction occurred among ethnic Russians, whose numbers, according to the 2021 census, have decreased by 5.4 million in 2010-21. Their share of the population fell from 78% to 72%.

According to Western estimates, cited by The Economist, 175,000-200,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded last year. Between 500,000 and 1 million, mostly young people, fled abroad to escape the meat grinder.

If we add deaths from the pandemic to those of war and flight from mobilization, Russia lost between 1.9 and 2.8 million people in 2020-23, in addition to its usual demographic deterioration. This would be even worse than the disastrous early 2000s, when the population fell by about half a million a year.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2023/03/5/7392036/

It should also be mentioned here that according to the latest report that was presented to Patrushev and the content of which is provided by the Russian telegram channel "General SVR", Russia's irretrievable losses in the war against Ukraine amount to 472,491 people (396,299 military personnel and 76,192 from the Wagner PMC) .

No one knows exactly how much of the population is in the Russian Federation now. But there are definitely not even 140 million people there.

My little lying, retarded friend! It's time to expose your lies:



By this you're trying to say that modern Russia has no military industry? That's also a lie:


And the source? There is no link to the source? Probably you saw it in your dream as always? I will once again expose your lies:


Source: https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/99168/

I love exposing your stupid lies, I can do it all day long. It's so easy, it's like stealing candy from a baby.  

And now the most important question: why are you still here and not in trenches in Donbas? Your compatriots are dying there while you hide your cowardly ass in safety of your home? Remember, AFU accepts retarded people now so you have to join them ASAP!  

Indeed, Putin’s propaganda for resolving territorial issues by military means has reached its maximum levels. At the same time, the word “war” itself is banned there and you can end up in prison for pronouncing it. But propaganda has worked very well so far.
According to the results of a survey of Russians in January 2024, the majority of respondents (77%) support the war against Ukraine, 16% of respondents do not support it, and another 8% find it difficult to answer. About 64% of Russians do not think that the country made a mistake by starting the war; about 22% of respondents consider the start of the war against Ukraine a mistake.
https://nv.ua/world/countries/skolko-rossiyan-podderzhivayut-voynu-protiv-ukrainy-procent-novosti-rossii-50390654.html#:~:text=%.

Of course, some Russians are afraid to openly express their opinions for fear of persecution. Thus, the share of those who openly express disagreement with the “special operation” fluctuated slightly and in the February wave of surveys amounted to 11%. But the fact that there is practically no freedom of speech in Russia is the fault of Russian citizens themselves. Other countries have no right to interfere in these internal processes of Russia.

For now, we must assume that the majority of the Russian population wants to continue bombing and shelling civilian settlements in Ukraine and turning them into ruins, as well as killing women and children in Ukraine. Therefore, they deserve that sanctions continue to be strengthened to include them, and that Ukraine intensifies attacks on military and dual-use installations on Russian territory.

Quantitative indicators of oil and gas sold are not indicators of profit received. And here the picture is very sad for Russia: even officially, oil revenues fell by almost 40%. As for gas, the European market has been lost, and this was more than 70% of all gas sales. China refused to develop the Power of Siberia 2 project. At the same time, China and India, knowing the situation with Russian nonsense and gas, demand and RECEIVE huge discounts. And they buy not for dollars, but for low-liquidity yuan and rupees!

That oil that is sold through gray schemes - a significant part of the money ends up with interlayer companies, even Russian ones, but they cannot “distill” them into the Russian budget - sanctions!

simple example: MOSCOW, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Sakhalin-1, a subsidiary of Russian Rosneft, is forced to store Sokol oil in sea tankers in anticipation of buyers, and the storage volume of the variety has already exceeded 10 million barrels, traders said and showed data from ship statistics .

It is clear that propaganda is trying to create the appearance that there are no problems, but the secondary manifestations of problems in the budget are very strong - cuts in social programs, spent reserves of the national welfare fund, cuts in the development of science, medicine, education... If these budget items are sharply reduced - probably the budget not as good as they say on TV?!

Its not a problem for Russia. Thay are already faced various kind of boycott from EU and NATO after the Ukraine war.Although they are also buying Russian product. Even before war they faced the same.They are sailing their oil and other product to major country. They are getting their revenue
on time. Yes this is not denial they have lost huge currency for war.

It is silly to argue that russia is for example in today's military confrontation it is a blank slate. Don't underestimate it:
- almost 100 million population
- For 80 years the USSR military-industrial complex worked, and the RSFSR collected the largest warehouses "for the war against world imperialism".
- The Russia had a production base of some kind left from the USSR.

But at the same time it is not necessary to make "the second army of the world and a powerful economy" out of it:
- The population is degenerating and dying out, because even officially they are starting to introduce laws that will actually force more children to give birth. This is not a joke - listen to the speeches in the Federation Council and read the legislative acts of the last year. They have realized that soon, at this rate of population expenditure, they will simply have no hands to create terror around the world.
- Most of the new weapons are either destroyed or can't be mass produced. I saw the wreckage of a P35 missile-- "hello from the '60s." They already have to shoot at residential cities with an anti-ship missile that was developed and put into service 60 years ago ! How many old tanks, cannons and other junk born in the USSR and actively mothballed and used by Russia since 2023 - you can't imagine !
- Technological degradation affects everything - from shells, which forgot to put explosives in them, to "rockets that have no analog", which refuse to work and just fall, as for example recently - into the Dnieper River, and in the fields....

But let's get back to gas, it's even more fun here

Russian gas exports have collapsed to 1985 levels.  Having lost its largest foreign market, which before the war provided 80% of exports and two thirds of Gazprom's revenues, the Russian gas monopoly has rolled back almost four decades into the past. At the end of 2023, Gazprom sold about 69 billion cubic meters of gas for export, the lowest volume since 1985, Reuters calculated. Compared to 2022 (100.9 billion cubic meters), which has already become the worst for the company in its history, the volume of gas pumped abroad fell by another third. And if compared to pre-war levels (185 billion cubic meters in 2021), Gazprom's exports have tripled.

They are still strong unfortunately even going to social lows. However, Ruzzians have embraced the crap, they are used to live with whatever their illustrious leaders throw at them - not roses - look at their elites with fear and many times, simply fly the country in search of a better opportunity.

I saw a youtube video in which it was joking-but-not-joking about a process of reverse natural selection in which only the people who have no other option decide to cope an stay.

Since April 2022, already on 57 pages, we have been discussing the topic of Russia’s ban on gas supplies to Europe and therefore, as can be seen from the title of the topic, we are discussing the question of whether such a decision is suicide for Russia, and you state that, it turns out, this is the USA and the EU imposed such sanctions against Russia by refusing to buy gas and oil from it.

I advise you to read the third page of this thread, where it is discussed that on April 27, 2022, Russia itself stopped gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, because they did not want to pay in rubles, as Russia began to demand. Russia arbitrarily, unilaterally changed the essential terms of previously signed contracts and was looking for a reason to reduce or even temporarily refuse gas supplies to Europe, in order to ultimately force European countries, in exchange for continued gas supplies, not to provide adequate assistance and support to Ukraine in its defense against military Russian aggression.

Russia hoped that by winter Europe would be more accommodating, when gas reserves there would be minimal, but Europe did not succumb to crude blackmail and, of course, not without problems, switched to other suppliers. Yes, there is still some import of gas from Russia by some European countries until they finally switch to other suppliers. But at the end of this year, the contract for the supply of gas from Russia to Europe via pipelines through Ukraine expires and Ukraine does not intend to renew this contract. This means that from the end of this year, Russian gas will no longer flow through pipelines to Europe. Russia will completely lose the European market for its gas.

What plan? There was no plan. US and EU sanctioned Russia and refused to buy gas and oil and many other stuff. So what plan are you talking about?  But if you're unaware EU keep buying Russian oil and gas up to this day via proxies.

Russia hoped to freeze Europe? Really? They never sanctioned oil and gas exports, whereas US together with some NATO states blew up Nord Stream pipelines. So, who hopes to freeze Europe?    

Of course, the international economic sanctions imposed against Russia are not the most effective option that would force Russia to abandon the military takeover of the neighboring state of Ukraine. These sanctions hit both the state against which they are imposed and those who accept them. In addition, there are many ways to bypass them. But the point is that sanctions hit the sanctioned state much more painfully.

It would be much more effective if the UN had rapid-reaction peacekeeping troops and they were deployed to quickly end the military conflict. The very presence of such forces would cool the violent heads of the current potential conquerors. But unfortunately, we don’t have this, and we don’t have more effective ways of influencing the aggressor either.

The efforts made by Europe toward Russia will, of course, be rewarded with something that Europe really needs and that Russia has, but perhaps the scenario that was created did not work out as you said because it did not go according to the desired scenario; it ended up happening to ourselves. Of course, this is beyond predictions. and this is not taken into account; this is all because Europe can look for other alternatives to meet its needs.

But for me, this is a lesson for all: war and the impact of embargoes do not always apply; no one benefits from this kind of method, and gradually it will make things difficult for everyone. It is to be able to find the best way for the common good. Remember,  when COVID hits, everyone can unite to solve it, and it can be done because there is cooperation and mutual understanding.

It is now completely obvious that Russia’s plan to blackmail European countries by cutting off gas supplies to these countries has completely failed. In the end, Russia only made things worse for itself. Europe, although experiencing certain difficulties, is quite successfully switching to other gas suppliers. But for Russia it is much more difficult to find markets for gas in such large quantities.

Russia hoped to freeze Europe. But this winter there are big difficulties with heating only in Russia. Near Moscow and in other regions, entire settlements are freezing in their houses and apartments due to problems with housing and communal services. People warm themselves in the streets near the fire.

Revenue of Russia's largest oil and gas companies almost halved.

Revenue of the largest oil and gas companies in Russia fell by 41% in January-September 2023, the Central Bank of Russia said in Thursday's Financial Stability Review.

"This was due to the deterioration of the price environment and a decline in exports amid tougher sanctions, restructuring of logistics chains and financial flows," the review said.

http://cbr.ru/Collection/Collection/File/46610/2_3_q_2023.pdf - report of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation 


Putin said there was no money for the program to support young scientists...
PS "Things were not going badly in the village. One could even say good. But every day things were getting worse and worse" 

This post is a great proof that you are delusional and have no idea what is going on in real world. EU countries were intensively buying Russian gas in 2022 and now all gas storage sites are full. Just take a look at the graphs. Can you see that huge dildo last year? That's what I'm talking about. But once  they will use up all that stored gas what will happen then? Exactly, they will continue buying like there's no tomorrow. I feel embarrassed just to have to explain this to you like to a toddler or to a retarded person. 

Due to the fact that Putin’s Russia itself began to blackmail European countries and reduce or even stop gas supplies to them, the Kremlin has driven itself into a dead end from which it can no longer get out. Having lost the European sales market, Russia cannot find other buyers for its energy resources, is forced to make large price concessions and becomes dependent on them.

Now Russia is under enormous pressure from China due to the fact that Russia has lost the huge European market for its energy resources and wants to increase their supplies to China fivefold. Taking advantage of this, China demanded new gas discounts from Russia and no longer wants to build the joint mega-project of the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline. But if the pipeline is not built, Russia will have nowhere to send huge volumes of gas. Therefore, she already has to reduce the volume of their production.

Russia's budget for next year provides that the average gas price will be $297.3 per thousand cubic meters compared to $501.6 for Europe and Turkey previously. The discount for China in 2024 will increase to 46%: Power of Siberia-1 gas will cost $271.6 per thousand cubic meters, and for Turkey and Europe - $481.7.

At the same time, it must be taken into account that the European market is lost for Russia, if not forever, then for a very long time. Russia is suffering big losses, selling its gas to the East very cheaply in a hopeless situation.

Source:
https://m.gazeta.ua/ru/articles/world-life/_putin-v-tupike-kitaj-davit-na-rossiyu/1165829

That's right, while the price has not yet fallen to historic lows
But for some reason you forgot to say that:
1. Gas prices in Europe have dropped below $300 per 1,000 cubic meters. Gas futures prices are at a two-year low. There's a surplus of gas on the market and industry in Europe and China has so far been unable to increase demand, Bloomberg said. The cost of contracts for June natural gas supplies at the TTF hub in the Netherlands fell below $300 per 1,000 cubic meters during trading. As of 12:50 Moscow time, the futures were at a low of €25.8 per 1 MW∙h. That's about 7.1% less than it was at the close of trading on May 24 and the lowest value since June 2021. The amount corresponds to about €272.2 per 1,000 cubic meters, or about $292 at the current exchange rate.
And about a year ago it was 5 times higher !
Or it's not interesting ? 

There was a small jump in price after one of the Dutch fields stopped, but now the volumes have compensated and the price went down again, now about 360...

^^^ You are saying that Russian gas industry has "collapsed". But the numbers doesn't add up. I will agree that the volumes have got reduced. Compared to 2021, there is a reduction of 24%. But the increase in prices have nullified any negative impact that comes as a result of this. Back in 2020, natural gas used to cost around $150 per thousand cubic meters. Now the Dutch TTF prices are around $400 per thousand cubic meters. Even if Russia exports half as much as gas as they did previously, they will earn the same revenues from their gas.

The failed attempt to freeze Europe in order to secure concessions on Ukraine has caused a collapse for the Russian gas industry that it has not seen in half a century of its modern history. Gas production in the Russian Federation has been declining for the second year in a row, and compared to pre-war levels, it has decreased by 24%, follows from the statistics of Rosstat. In May, according to official data, the country produced 48.2 billion cubic meters of gas, although in the same month of 2022 it was 57.5 billion cubic meters, and in pre-war May 2021 - 63.1 billion cubic meters.

Possessing the world's largest gas reserves, estimated at 67 trillion cubic meters, Russia found itself unable to sell it after the Kremlin first demanded that European customers pay for supplies "in rubles", and then successively cut off all countries that refused to accept the ultimatum from the pipeline .

In Russia, the extra gas simply has nowhere to go: about 90 billion cubic meters of annual production is left without buyers. China, according to the plan for the operation of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, will buy 22 billion cubic meters of gas this year: 7 times less than the European Union imported before the war. And Putin's proposal to increase pumping to 100 billion cubic meters, voiced at a meeting with Xi Jinping in the Kremlin, remained unanswered. Instead of a new Russian pipe, China gave the go-ahead to a gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan.

It is already quite obvious that the Kremlin has committed an irreparable stupidity with the gas war with Europe and will no longer be able to get out of its own trap.

I'm not sure what is so surprising about this fact. In case you didn't know Wagner is a private military company or mercenaries. And guess what? You have to pay mercenaries in order to hire them! Imagine that? So why you call it lies? It was clear since day 1 Putin was paying them.