Topic: Russia's economy is 'imploding' on export decline, economists claim - page 11. (Read 3115 times)

Oil tankers can cause major environmental damages if there's an oil spill. There's only a handful of companies willing to insure oil shipments, and they're British or Swiss. There's always a black market, the islamic state was known to smuggle oil in Syria, but if you want to sell a lot of oil at market price, you've got to do it right, with a registered and properly insured tanker. Serious buyers will require that.

About inert gases. An alternative could be supplies from Ukraine Only one of the companies producing such gases can put on the market: Neon - 70,000 m3, Xenon - 480 m3, Krypton - 6000 m3, Argon - 12,000 tons . I will clarify - Ukraine provides about half of the world's demand for neon
For other gases, Russia supplies no more than 30% to the market. I do not think that this will cause global problems. Temporary - I agree. But Russia will always lose this market as well. Understand that imposing restrictions from the normal world in relation to terrorists is just a search for replacement. And the restrictions on the part of terrorists on the sale of their resources, which were in demand by the world, is a loss of the market. Like it or not, it's a fact

More interesting news:
FT: UK to ban insurance for ships carrying Russian oil
The UK and the EU have agreed to a ban on insuring ships carrying Russian oil. It is reported by the Financial Times. Thus, Russia will be deprived of access to the vital insurance market of Lloyd's of London.

This means that Moscow's ability to export crude oil will be severely limited, and Russian suppliers will have to look for an alternative to British insurance in other, smaller markets. The ban on insurance of oil ships has become part of the sixth package of EU sanctions, writes the Financial Times. As the newspaper notes, such a decision will also increase pressure on global oil markets.

Do you know what that means?

Saying usa and EU are peace promoter in the world is biggest lie joke. The point where world stands today is because of usa and EU wars which they started just for there own gains. USA and EU are doing dirty tactics once again by supping arms to ukarine and imposing sanctions on Russia while they live happily in there own countries.

OK.. that means that the manufacturers are now at the mercy of China. Either they will pay 20x or 30x more, or they will shut down the factories. Already there is an acute shortage of microchips in the market and automakers are in a very tricky position. Any further reductions or delays will be catastrophic to the industry. Back in 2021, the automotive industry lost around $210 billion as a result of microchip shortage. And for this year, the losses may be even more. These numbers are absolutely startling. The Western nations started a trade war to satisfy their own ego. Now they will suffer as a result of it.

There is no denying that the sanctions will have an effect. Not the immediate one that would stop the war (as most people wanted), but something that would be felt sometime after but would be more long-lasting. However, that does not come without cost to the ones perpetrating those sanctions, and that shows the true cracks of global capitalism and how dependency comes at high risk whenever things like this happen. So we are all gonna feel this one sooner or later.

Freezing accounts and economic sanctions by the US and the EU against Russia are hostile actions, friends and partners do not act like that.

China and India will buy all free energy resources from Russia, and Europe will freeze next winter and be left without industry.

That a country exports more than it imports could suggest a lot of things. Yes, it could be seen as a good arrangement. But it could also be seen as bad.

In Russia's case, the economy is largely dependent on crude oil, petroleum, gas, and coal that it exports to other countries. In this arrangement, partners are everything. The moment these partner countries say, we're not accepting your products anymore, is also the moment the economy suffers.

And the way Russia is behaving right now, it is losing a lot of country friends, most of which are trade partners. China could increase its demand and it has already done so in the face of sanctions imposed on Russia, but is it enough to make up for the entire EU's demand?

The greatest example of this could be the war against Nazi Germany in where about 10 million Russians died, and 5 million Nazis died, and yet Nazis lost. Imagine losing 2x more people and still "winning" the war. That should be good enough of a reason for anyone to see what is the situation is like for Russia. They could have attacked, the dollar could be 300 ruble per dollar, the people would be starving, and yet Russia would have still go on.

This doesn't show how "powerful" they are, it just provides a proof that Putin is a bad person, and historically they have been ruled by bad people who did not cared about their people (even though it worked out for the better in ww2).

As far as I understand, Russia controls 30% of the supply of neon and another 40% was controlled by Ukraine, and the remaining 30% is controlled by China. Now Ukraine does not control anything and the price of neon has increased nine times. In principle, it is possible to replace the dropped supplies, neon is a by-product of steel production, but this is not instantaneous, energy-intensive and not environmentally friendly.

That one was a tit-for-tat measure. As a result of sanctions, there are restrictions on the import of microchips to Russia. And in retaliation, Russia banned the export of inert gases (they supply 30% of the global output), without which the microchip manufacturing can't proceed. There is already an acute shortage in the microchip market, and this latest move is going to make it much worse. Apart from Russia, Ukraine also used to be one of the leading suppliers of inert gases. But their output is also down, as a result of war.

As always, Putin and his mafiosi will keep on living the good life, but Russian people will suffer more and more. What strikes me the most is the food. What Russians eat is just terrible. All processed food sold in Russia would be just illegal in the EU, made with chemicals, and tasting awful, and if you go to the market in Saint Petersburg, they sell food from EU where you can read that the expiration date was 2 years ago. I'm really happy not to live there, and to be able to afford quality olive oil, and fresh organic food.

From my point of view, the more interesting news for today, although little noticed, is the restriction on the export of inert gases (argon, neon, etc.) from Russia. They seem to be used in the production of microelectronics or something. This is a non-obvious and rather strong lever of Russia's influence on the world economy.

I was reading in news that Gazprom has cut off gas supply to Netherlands and Germany. Moreover supply to shell will also be suspended as shell is refusing to pay in Russian national currecny. This conflict is now more about who will buy Russian oil and gas, little attention is paid to end this conflict.

^^^^ Gazprom has cut supplies only to Orsted (Danmark). They haven't cut any of their supplies to Germany or Netherlands. And in any case the exports to Danmark was minimal, as it is a very small country. Shell's contract to supply Russian gas to Germany stands cancelled, but it represents a small share of overall exports to that country. And as per the latest figures from Gazprom, they exported 61 billion cubic meters of gas to countries outside the former Soviet Union for the first five months of this year. This represents a decline of 27.6%, but due to the increased prices Gazprom has earned 10x more revenues when compared to the same period last year.

Well then. Here is the 6th package of sanctions and agreed. A particularly important section is the embargo on the purchase of Russian oil. No, of course this is not a total ban, it is a partial one (we will talk about this a little later, after other expected events). But even a partial embargo, and this is in "weight" terms, about $10 billion a year lost, is already good. This will act as a small cut tactic. This tactic allows without strong costs and effort, slowly but GUARANTEED, to bleed the enemy.
The second piece of news is from June 1, the suicide bomber, Gazprom Export, promises to stop gas supply, from June 1 (today), to the following countries - the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark.
The share of Russian gas in purchases of these countries:
Netherlands - up to 30%
Germany - approximately 50%
Denmark - below 10% (more precisely, I did not find the data). Denmark activates gas production in the North Sea.
The Netherlands and Denmark have active LNGs.
Yes, Germany will probably be the most difficult of all, but it's better than financing Russian terrorists and fascists. I am sure, rather quickly (no, not days of course), these countries will receive alternative gas, smoothly replacing supplies from Russia. Even now, Russia will start receiving less money to finance international terrorism, and in 1-2 years, this flow will dry up to almost 0 levels. No, Russia will continue to sell gas to China and India, but this will be a price at the cost level, i.e. will pay back, at best, only production, and there will be no more talk about profit. The main thing is that the process of refusing hydrocarbons from the hands of terrorists has been launched and is gaining momentum!

Those were because Russia was doing their countermeasure on all those sanctions, there is no way that they are going to sit still while wagering war on Ukraine doing nothing on their economy aspect. For now, it might not seems like it is taking any effect on their economy but there is no guarantee that their countermeasure will be effective for years as I expect that all those sanctions will last for atleast 2 years

I don't think that Russia is in much better position, it's just that their government doesn't really care how an average Russian citizen lives so maybe they are in better position as they don't have to worry about public opinion.


Sanctions won't work due simple reason that Putin doesn't give a fuck about his own people, and it's not like they can overthrown him on elections like in the west so in the end it's just a waste of time(and money). After all, we saw how sanctions worked in North Korea, Cuba etc. And it's not like Russians don't have a history of dictators making their life miserable so for them that's business as usual.

The war actually took another twist. Now US is looking like coming out to show clear sympathy for Ukraine and giving out more dangerous weapon. Who knows what Russia has in store in terms of weapons, the latter days will determine how it will all happen as Putin clearly warned biden to stay off. Russia however has clearly shown that survival is possible despite severe sanctions.

Another way of looking at it is the EU exports to Russia was cut by 50% which is also visible as inflation and soaring prices all around EU.

What crisis? You should seriously stop reading propaganda specially from BBC

There has been inflation in Iran but not a crisis and the inflation also had very little to do with sanctions. It was because of an incompetent government printing money non-stop. Otherwise prices were mostly stable for the past year ever since the previous president's term ended and new one took office. That is despite the increasing sanctions against Iran.

IMF puts Iran's economy as 20th largest economy, Iran's GDP is the 17th biggest in the world. And both of these are excluding the billions of dollars of trade that Iran doesn't publicize due to sanctions!
On top of that as the country with the second largest gas reserves and large oil supplies with the soaring energy prices the country's revenue has increased significantly.

I have already written about how Russia is in a much better position because it was preparing for war and sanctions even before it started tearing Ukraine apart by attacking Crimea and supporting uprisings in Ukrainian regions along its western borders. It's like playing poker games where you know all the cards of your opponents and you can only lose money if you're a complete fool.

Even if sanctions work, no government in Russia, if we look through history, cared too much for the common man and he has always been a collateral victim for some major goals. In other words, Russia has enough cannon fodder to be able to fight for a very long time, whether 50 000 or 500 000 Russian soldiers die for Moscow doesn't matter anyway - most of the soldiers are from poor and rural parts of Russia anyway.