“Does Putin care if India and Brazil are paying double what he had contracted with Germany for?”
That gas that used to go to to Germany, and much of the rest of Europe, was overwhelmingly transported through fixed pipelines. It can not be physically transported to other customers.
Russia has just activated a new LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) export terminal near St. Petersburg (Portovaya), that has been in the works for many years, and was originally planned to activate in 2019. However, that terminal’s capacity is only 4% of one pipeline (Nordstream).
The next LNG terminal they had planned was the larger Arctic-2 terminal in Yamal. That terminal was not scheduled for completion until 2030, but the financing was pulled and the partners withdrew this year, because of the invasion of the Ukraine.
So the only thing they can do with that gas, if Europe won’t buy it, is to flare it off, until they cap the wells. If the flow stops through one Winter, those wells and that pipeline are basically scrapped, and would require extensive rebuild.
I also understand that there is noway to pipe the volume of NG that went to Europe to China. One or more new lines would have to be built.
Do tell?
Russia will find markets at double the price, quadruple the profits, for all the gas they care to export. Do you really believe the West can just take a huge percentage of North American gas off the market and no one will make the effort to to access Russian gas? At a discount to boot. You’re flat wrong. From sanctions on, I’ve been right. It’s a boondoggle for Putin and Xi, a financial catastrophe for the consumers of energy.