Posted on 09/02/2023 9:28:45 AM PDT by delta7
European countries are buying more liquified natural gas from Russia than they did before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, revealing a weak spot in the energy sanctions targeting Russia that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.
In the first six months of 2023, EU countries bought 40% more Russian LNG than they did in 2021, amounting to $5.7 billion in revenue for Russia, according to an analysis this week by the advocacy group Global Witness. This makes Europe the biggest customer for Russian LNG; only the U.S. sells more LNG to the bloc.…
After the invasion, European countries quickly cut their dependence on natural gas delivered via pipeline from Russia, which until then had supplied about half of the continent’s principal fuel for electricity production and industrial facilities. But they’ve effectively swapped one fossil fuel import dependency for another that will be harder to kick…
Many European countries are accelerating plans to expand their LNG import infrastructure, while also speeding construction of renewables. Last winter, Russian gas cuts caused record-breaking energy price spikes that the continent is still recovering from: In Germany, the bloc’s top industrial economy, manufacturing activity has contracted for 14 consecutive months largely because of energy costs. This week Germany’s chancellor rejected a call from industry groups for greater energy subsidies, arguing that the government’s plan to boost LNG imports, especially from the U.S., is a better long-term solution.
But a greater reliance on LNG inevitably leads back to Russia, which is seeking to triple exports from its Yamal LNG facility in Siberia. That’s a problem for the bloc’s stated goal to completely eliminate its consumption of Russian fossil fuels by 2027. And it has made LNG a focal point for Ukrainian activists, who are calling for a ban on imports from Russia (and also bemoaning the EU’s weak enforcement of existing sanctions on refined oil products).
These figures are really horrifying,” said Svitlana Romanko, director of clean energy advocacy group Razom We Stand. “These countries are spending a lot of resources to help Ukraine, so I can’t explain why they’ve become so addicted to Russian LNG.”
That viewed is shared by Spanish Energy Minister Teresa Ribera, who has called the volume of Russian LNG imports “absurd” even as her country has become the top importer, and EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, who has backed a plan, currently stalled in negotiations, to block EU companies from signing new deals with Novotek, Russia’s LNG export company.
But even though European countries are ahead of schedule in storing gas for the winter, there is still a pervasive fear among policymakers of a repeat energy crisis once temperatures begin to fall, dimming the prospects for an LNG ban anytime soon.
“I’m sure they want to cut LNG imports from Russia entirely,” said Ben Cahill, a senior energy fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “but for now they don’t have the luxury of doing so.”
Notwithstanding Europe’s rising LNG purchases, Russia’s overall fossil fuel revenue is down significantly since the full-scale invasion, which has provided an opening for China to snap up Russian products at a discount. China is now the top buyer of Russian coal and crude oil, and the number-two buyer of LNG.
China’s LNG buying habits may also indicate that Beijing had advance knowledge of the invasion, something it has vehemently denied, Rice University energy researchers argued in a recent Foreign Policy article. In the months prior to the invasion, China went on an unusual LNG shopping spree, they reveal, drying up the global LNG market just before Europe would be desperately seeking alternatives to Russian pipeline gas. “China bought all the LNG it could when [its] political and corporate leaders anticipated that natural gas and LNG prices for Europe were going to spike, contributing to an even worse supply-demand balance and almost certainly higher prices for Europeans,” they wrote.
Vlad continues to fill his pockets making billions while the West goes bankrupt, EU goes into a very, very deep recession. Thanks Boomerang Joe.
You can thank Merkel the Russian Spy
In addition to the increased purchases of Russian LNG the Europeans continue to buy the continuing flow of Russian natural gas that is moved via Ukrainian pipelines. Of course the purchases of Russian natural gas from Ukrainian pipelines can yield TEN PERCENT (OR MORE) FOR ALL THE VARIOUS “BIG GUYS”. Russian natural gas through the Nord Stream Network could have been done GRIFT FREE at much lower prices.
You can thank Merkel the Russian Spy
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How about thanking the West and senile Joe for blowing the NordStream pipeline?
Gazprom plans complicated by second-quarter net loss
State-controlled Russian gas giant Gazprom slipped into the red in the second quarter of the year, sparking concerns in Moscow that the company will struggle to carry out expensive plans to divert natural gas exports to China from Europe....
The reduction coincided with a steep decline in its domestic gas production as a result of low export flows to Europe....
.....CentroKredit said Gazprom may have to apply for some form of direct state financial support in 2025 or 2026 to maintain its operations and investments
.
A bidding war for energy is the future, as "green" and "net zero" ideologies have hamstrung the availability of energy, LNG being an expensive part of the overall picture. This is why Blinken called the destruction of NordStream an "opportunity." Note that such opportunity is not for the American people, but for American companies.
Bidding wars. I pay X. No, I'll pay X plus ten percent. No, I'll pay more....
Note: Nowhere in this game does the consumer reap any reward. This is a game for the well- and politically-connected. And now a part of "foreign policy." Such is become the nature of the government. Not "for the people...."
It seems the EU and USA have suffered more from Biden’s sanctions on Russia than has Russia. Could that be by design?? It also seems that most everything Biden has done since entering the WH has been designed to destroy this nation.
He wants to “transform the USA,” and said so numerous times. The best way to transform is to rid it of it’s current way of life. Take it down to zero and rebuild. Can he get it done before election 2024???
It seems the EU and USA have suffered more from Biden’s sanctions on Russia than has Russia. Could that be by design?? It also seems that most everything Biden has done since entering the WH has been designed to destroy this nation.
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No doubt. A few things I find MOST amusing:
1) The US puts sanctions on Russia to bankrupt and “ hurt” them. It instead back fires unleashing inflation, bankrupts the West, and disrupts world trade. Vlad makes even more money selling his energy and commodities at inflated prices.
2) The US fights a proxy war to deplete the Russian military, but it is the US and West depleting their war supplies with no industrial base to replenish….Joe’s Afghanistan debacle x 1000.
3) The US locks Russia out of Swift, causing China, Russia, India and Brics ( 65 percent plus of the world population) to develop their own system.
3) The US vows to fight Russia “ to the last Ukrainian”. Ukraine is utterly destroyed, in ruins. Not very well thought out. Post war- What will be left of Ukraine will be a rump state, welfare, begging nation requiring ( at latest estimates) $600 billion plus to rebuild….further bankrupting the US and EU IF they chose to take on the task of rebuilding…..hint: it is not sustainable.
3A) The amount of Ukie refugees thrust upon the EU countries ( 8-12 million) cost money, lots of money. Welfare ain’t cheap. I got news, most will NOT be returning to a destroyed Ukrainian economy and infrastructure. That event effectively bankrupts the EU.
I can go on, but to answer your question- If by sheer stupidity or design, America’s days of supremacy are over, a slow burn to “ irrelevancy “ in the new world’s pecking order.
Thanks to a corrupted, senile old man sitting in the White House. Thanks Joe.
Biden's sanction war with Russia has been a abysmal failure.
Biden’s sanction war with Russia has been an abysmal failure.
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The world knows this, which is why Brics, Russia, India, China ( and the 40 other countries applying to Brics for membership) are successfully developing mechanisms discarding U.S. hegemony. The die has been cast.
As Armstrong’s ECM models show, the cracks become undeniable by 2026/2028, by 2032 the US becomes totally “irrelevant “, with the worlds wealth finally moving to the East.
"Borees, why do glorious Kremlin trolls keep posting story about tiny volume of Russian LNG when Gazprom announced eet eez losing money? And links for stories go to web sites that noone in gas business ever heard of."
"Natasha, eet eez special cyber phase of SMO. We call eet Operation Totally Not Pheeshing. Oh boy are Plastic Americans gonna be surpised when they click on links!"
The war of attrition is not limited to military casualties alone, the West has clearly been “ attrited “ by Vlad far from the battlefield.
Fact is, the collective West and US are pissing money away, “ gaining” nothing on their “ investment “, going deeper into the debt hole, while Vlad generates money. Don’t argue with me, argue with the loads of revenue and profit Vlad is collecting…more than enough to finance his SMO.
Checkmate, again, and again.
I didn't. You don't qualify for an argument.
Gazprom is not a single gas producer in Russia. It is going to get bailout and Chinese money for Chinese projects, it uses the formerly Europe-bound gas for chemical industry.
Germany is also buying 5 times the volume of Russian chemicals it used to produce domestically a year ago, but now doesn’t. It is more added value and jobs for Russia and less for Europe.
A non-specific statistic like that sounds like something from a 1975 Kremlin speech about how a Five Year Plan target was met, Tovarishch.
I appreciate this reply because it indicates your meltdown.
Actually, meltdowns are a Russian specialty, like in April, 1986.
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