Topic: Russian Gas ban - A problem for Europe or suicide for Russia? - page 34. (Read 14450 times)

After the implementation of the oil price ceiling, internal Europe is becoming chaotic because of the plan to impose the gas price ceiling, Germany is opposed because doing so will cause more severe consequences for the manufacturing industries, while other countries argue that it will save their people from today's record high gas prices.
Britain and France have just announced that there will be no gas shortage this winter, which may be true, but finding new supplies for next winter will be a difficult problem if Russia is excluded.

European economy has already lost it's competitiveness in the manufacturing and heavy engineering sector. Many of the factories and chemical plants have been shut down (BASF in Germany for example). And the problem here is that once the market share it lost, it takes many decades to win it back. EU officials are refusing to accept the reality. They are still dreaming about replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy overnight. And at the same time, they are hell bent against the most viable form of renewable energy (Uranium).

To use liquefied gas, it is necessary to modernize the entire gas transport ecosystem, and this will require 5-10 years and billions of investments. And the Chinese will buy Russian gas and resell it to Europe, earning good money.

There are indeed expectations that prices will jump to record levels at the beginning of next year, 2023, with the increase in global demand and the decline in Russian supplies, for which no alternatives can be found until the year 2025 at least. Expectations indicate competition between Europe and Asia over gas deals, in preparation for the strategic reserves for the coming winter.
The rise in gas prices will cause a rise in the cost of living in Europe in particular, and the European economy will lose its competitiveness with the rise in production costs.

I would not go down the path of confrontation.  As Mahatma Gandhi said - if you follow the commandment "An eye for an eye", then all people on planet Earth will become blind. 

If I were faced with attempts to pressure myself, attempts to confiscate assets in Cyprus, then I would only become more attentive and cautious. 

I would take this as a signal that the world is entering a period of ideological and economic instability. 

At such moments, more than ever, balanced and wise management decisions are needed.

A plot to destroy Russia? Yes, in Russia they are now shouting that they were deceived: Ukraine allegedly pretended to be weak and defenseless, so they decided to attack it and seize its territory.

Can't this be considered a Russian invasion?
On February 24, having previously attacked Ukraine with rockets and artillery, eight Russian armies of approximately 200,000 people in tanks, armored vehicles, and other military equipment moved to Ukraine from three sides, including from the territory of Belarus, and in a short time were already near Kyiv . Putin expected to seize the territory of Ukraine in three days, kill its leadership, destroy the Ukrainians who physically disagree with the occupation of the country, and install his puppet regime there. If this is not an invasion, then what should be considered a military invasion?
Maybe Russia did not intend to seize the territory of Ukraine? So she has recently declared four regions of Ukraine as her own and annexed them to the Russian Federation. This is the most common classical war of conquest by Russia against Ukraine in order to destroy its statehood.

Now Ukraine has destroyed almost all of this Russian invading army, which is why Putin announced the mobilization of another 300,000 people in September, but even these waves of "live meat" are now being successfully crushed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and by spring Ukraine will be able to completely clear its territory of living occupiers. The rest will fertilize its black soil.

Russia was wrong to turn gas into a political weapon, but who was the first provocateur, who froze Russia's foreign exchange reserves in European banks, confiscating billions of dollars worth of billionaires' assets Russia?...What I find most humiliating for the west is that they even banned the Russian football team from the WC, football is considered a sport that is not politicized, and there are thousands of crap bans they impose on Russia. I believe they have run out of options to punish Russia.
If someone attacked you, would you stand still and let them hit you, or would you find a way to attack them back?

Just to remind everyone. This is the 10th month that the European customers are paying inflated prices for their natural gas. The prices were as low as $100-150 back in 2020. Now the Dutch TTF prices are going at $1562 per thousand cubic meters. Given the fact that the EU imports almost 200 billion cubic meters every year, this represents an addition of $250 to $300 billion in a calendar year. And the joke is that the winter season has just started. I am expecting a big spike in gas prices by January-February.

I don't think so because they have to buy nuclear fuel from Russia again. Even US is buying it from Russia and that's not something they can diversify by going to Qatar or something like that like oil and gas. If anything it looks like by reopening their nuclear facilities they become even more dependent on Russia!

That only looks feasible on paper. Not to mention that in reality a lot of industries depend on Gas itself. For example you can't produce fertilizers without gas and that is not something you can substitute!

Liquid gas is always a lot more expensive than normal gas they buy and transfer through a pipeline. We are talking about a competitive market. An industry that has to buy gas at a much higher price is not capable of competing with other foreign industries that are buying it super cheap prices (eg. Germany vs India/China).

Obviously, when they lost a large portion of their market they will face problems in the long run. I say long run because this year their income was so much higher compared to last year!

I agree ! But this does not change the reality Look at the "women's riots" - teachers, salary 10,000 rubles. Nurses - 8,000 rubles, pensions 9,000-12,000 rubles - that's all they say and complain LIVE citizens of Russia! This is not my fantasy!
My aunt lives in Novosibirsk. The only thing she is happy about is that her husband has a pension of an employee of one law enforcement agency, not bad ... But she also howls that medicines have risen wildly in price, utilities are growing, prices are rising, there is a catastrophic lack of money ... This despite the fact that for former employees of law enforcement agencies there really are BENEFITS for utilities ...
Oh yes, and like the classic "sovka" - in her opinion, this is all because of us, because of Ukraine, but they have nothing to do with it )))

Yes, I agree - in Moscow and St. Petersburg - the standard of living is not bad enough, although not for everyone .... But you move away from these cities - and you see complete degradation and despondency ... Yes, 10-15 years ago, on the wave of megacens for oil and gas, they created the appearance of a "successful country" for people, they bought cars on credit and apartments on mortgages ... But now the debt on loans and mortgages is hundreds of billions of rubles! Read financial sector reports! Debt load - more than 50% of income! Incomes are falling, prices are rising, the economy is collapsing! And this is still with artificially curbed inflation, but this process will end in 2023, you will have a chance to verify my words ...
I propose a simple option for checking the income of citizens - we take data for 2021 (2022 is classified, by the way - do not tell me why? ), namely, for example, what kind of average Russian region. We take the number of pensioners, and the annual amount of pension payments. We divide the amount by the number and by 12, and we get the weighted average, OVERAGE, pension indicator. Believe me, it will be far from 20,000 rubles, but less And then you make an adjustment - you specify taking into account the number of former military personnel, the police, the National Guard and others, and their pensions, and your average will fall ... to 11 thousand. This will say that there are quite a few people with retirement incomes of 800-900-10,000 rubles ... By the way, this is why the data was classified so that beautiful fairy tales on TV would not contradict the Ministry of Statistics / Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation

Now I will explain where you are wrong, or trying to deceive yourself

Look, for example, there is a certain company A. It produces ... Well, let's say chips. It doesn't matter, because the essence does not change. So. This company was accused and proved that it is a criminal. financial and criminal criminals, a dishonest business partner who constantly violates contractual obligations, throws suppliers, terrorizes partners, and the head of the company is an inadequate maniac. And the judicial system imposed restrictions - blocked some of the accounts, severely restricted export activities, and imposed restrictions on the sale of this company's products. And generally prepare cases for freezing assets and declaring the company bankrupt, and many employees and the owner are a criminal under many articles, both economic and criminal. Company A has no warehouses for long-term storage. The market turns away from them, especially since the product is not unique, and there are many more manufacturers on the market. Yes, company A once monopolized one area, and was the "exclusive supplier" there. But after the investigation began, the region found alternative suppliers of chips. Now the question is - will company B, from a neighboring country, buy chips from company A "at a slight discount"? Moreover, company B is very pragmatic, and its goal is exclusively its own superprofits and ensuring survival in a very difficult market, plus it itself has big internal problems, including financial ones?
Why would company B buy chips from company A, at a "small discount", if company A is now collapsing, and its management wants to somehow manage to earn at least some money? At least at the level of cost, even lower - the main thing is to have time to "pull out" at least some money, because the day after tomorrow - and this will not happen.
Answer - under what conditions will company B buy deposits of unrealizable, illiquid and soon spoiled chips from company A? Only without prevaricating, and not inventing fantastic stories?

Yes, the lack of gas from Russia will lead to a partial de-industrialization of Europe. 

Most likely, this will speed up the process of introducing energy-saving technologies.  In addition, the problem can be partially solved by introducing austerity in energy consumption.  Additional LPG supplies from the US may be required.  In any case, this problem will be solved. 

It is unlikely that a country like Germany will cease to be a great industrial power.  Traditions are too strong.  In the 19th century, German was incredibly popular because all technical texts were published exclusively in German.  German was the language of engineers and technologists. 

But Russia will have serious problems. 

In fact, Russia has lost its main foreign economic markets.

In terms of war, it is true that Russia was the first to open fire, but what is the reason behind that we need to reconsider, so we cannot call it an invasion. If Ukraine does not naively listen to the temptations of the US and the West, nothing will happen, and behind it is a whole conspiracy to destroy Russia, not just as we see it. America is not a peace-loving nation as they always claim in their media, why not peace talks between Russia and Ukraine but negotiations between Russia and the US?

Russia is much richer compared to what they were in 2020. Urals crude is trading at $52 per barrel, which is almost 40% lower when compared to the benchmark Brent crude prices, but still higher than the $40 per barrel that they received in 2020. And any shortfalls from crude exports are covered by higher prices for LNG, coal, wheat and potash exports. The Yamal LNG plant has increased it's production to 21 million cubic meters and the additional volumes are being sold for around $1,500 per thousand cubic meters. Sakhalin 2 plant has also increased the LNG production beyond the nameplate capacity. Exports of coal and wheat are at all time high and these commodities are sold at close to market prices.

Looks like the answers to this puzzle are now in place. Russia is much poorer and unable to sell anywhere near the quantities they sold (at much higher prices) to Europe any longer. Europe continues to cut back month by month because Russia is clearly an unreliable trading partner bent on war under Putin. Oil and gas prices have dropped to pre-invasion amounts which means that Russia is not even making a decent profit on the stuff it can sell elsewhere. The Russian economy is in tatters, Europe continues on without much difference and the Russian army has been shown up as the pathetic sham we all see before us. Putin actually had people fooled he was a competent leader, until he decided to invade a neighbor and cause everything to collapse on him.

The reasons for cutting the gas are to play their trump card in the Ukraine talks to be held with Europe. I think Putin is following straight logic. He brings out the important trump card in his hand every time. The reopening and construction of nuclear facilities in Europe is on the agenda. If Europe reopens its nuclear facilities it will reduce dependency on Russia. Qatar's door may be stolen for LNG in the future. The demand for renewable energy is high but i think that sufficient production cannot be achieved for now. Russia, on the other hand, both reduces its revenues and cuts gas every time. If Trump becomes president again in 2024 then things will work out for Russia.

I agree that there is always a solution but there is also costs. For example the massive industrialization of EU and economical growth had a dire cost because they never had nearly as much energy to feed those industries. The cost was getting in bed with Russia. The cost of getting out of that bed is also de-industrialization and the almost all of that economy evaporating.

Why not? Money is money, besides both India and China are reliable customers which don't go with the US sanctions program.
Keep in mind that it is in their favor to buy Russian energy (even with small discounts) as long as they are putting their competitors in Europe out of business. This de-industrialization is mostly celebrated by them and of course US that are all sucking up all EU's industries like a vacuum.

I am a supporter of the state being run by merchants, not warriors.  

Gas pipelines should bring income to Russia, and the funds received should be directed to the acquisition of technologies and the development of complex technological industries in the country.  I believe that gas pipelines should not be used for political blackmail.  And even if you are provoked to such actions, then you cannot succumb to such provocations.  

Unlike warriors, merchants do not divide customers into good and bad.  From the trader's point of view, customers are divided into solvent and insolvent.  

India and China do not want to buy Russian energy without big discounts.  

Therefore, India and China cannot be called the right (good) clients.  

Europe has always been a solvent buyer of Russian gas.  Therefore, Europe is the right (good) buyer (client).

The countries of the European Union have introduced a cap on the price of Russian oil for sale at $60 per barrel. On December 5, sanctions also came into force on the refusal of Europe from oil products. But due to falling demand for Russian oil, Russia is forced to sell its oil much cheaper than the established price ceiling for it. So, recently, 90 percent of the oil from Russia was bought by Asian countries at a price of about $47 per barrel. It is predicted that Russia will be forced to drastically reduce oil production and, as a result of a drop in income from its sale, it has lost about 30 percent of income to the state budget.
In addition, the EU countries have also set the maximum price for the purchase of Russian gas.

After all the protests there is a silence and there is no change
nothing is going to change through protest - at the end we have to find alternative
so it's better to save our own energy and find out the way to help yourself.