European Gas Rises Further as Russian Cuts Bring Rationing Risk

Yahoo Finance ^ | June 19, 2022 | Anna Shiryaevskaya

[Mount Athos]

European natural gas prices rose after rallying 43% last week as Russia’s steep supply cuts put governments on high alert amid a mounting possibility of rationing.

Benchmark futures rose as much as 8.1%, with shipments via the Nord Stream remaining at just 40% of capacity.

Supply is likely to remain curbed with Gazprom PJSC’s chief Alexey Miller warning there’s no solution for now for issues with the gas turbines essential for the functioning of the pipeline.

That’s forcing major European consumers to withdraw gas from the reserves they have been building for the winter when demand typically peaks.

The government has asked Germans to reduce consumption and plans to rely more on its coal plants to keep the lights on as gas supply remains uncertain.

Europe has been scouring the world for extra shipments, and boosting imports of liquefied natural gas to fill any shortfall. But a prolonged outage at the Freeport LNG plant in the Texas has made fewer cargoes available from the US, which the continent was depending on to fill storage sites. It’s also having to compete with Asian buyers for cargoes at a time when the global market is stretched.

“Europe will need to battle with Asia and Latin America for any incremental LNG supply to facilitate reduction of Russian pipeline imports. That means higher prices as we saw last week.”

Italy’s Eni SpA, one of the European buyers that have seen their Russian supplies curbed, will have its deliveries on Monday only partially confirmed. The country may trigger its emergency gas plan as soon as this week if Russia continues to curb supplies, a move that may involve asking companies to voluntarily limit energy consumption, according to people familiar with the situation.

[mewzilla]

Meanwhile, and is this a hoot...

‘The situation is serious’: Germany plans to fire up coal plants as Russia throttles gas supplies

Pootie made 'em do it!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[mewzilla]

In the US, we just blackout customers.

The US is the real target, isn’t it. And always has been.

[icclearly]

“Cut off NordStream 1 completely. Let the stinking Putinistas bathe in their gas.”

Way to go Mr. Rocket Scientest! Turn off the gas so Germany sinks like a ship hit by a rocket.

[Travis McGee]

The Kaliningrad blockade is the biggest development since the Ukrainian war began and no one is covering it

Lithuania announces that its goods transit ban to Kaliningrad will take effect today.

This blockade is in violation of long standing treaties & is a huge escalation.

The most vulnerable stretch of land in Europe & the only passage to the Baltics, The Suwalki Gap is now in play

https://twitter.com/catchwreck3/status/1538591196557221889

[Travis McGee]

Map to above Twitter post:

[rdcbn1]

The European socialist adventure has been underwritten by American economic subsidy . Without us paying the bills, they are bankrupt. We are bankrupt so we can’t even pay our own bills. The whole thing is a house of cards

[Travis McGee]

[mewzilla]

I’m starting to wonder if Deep State Frankensteins have lost control of their monsters...

[mewzilla]

Sanctions have been a joke.

I’m betting that so-called transit ban is, too.

[Clay Moore]

I hope they are enjoying the test drive of the New Green Deal that they voted for. Wait until it really gets rolling!

[Travis McGee]

Lithuania, The Mouse That Roared, could trigger WW3 in the 1914 style. See above.

Russia moves to break the Kaliningrad to Belarus RR blockade.

Poland is right there, crosses the border to support Lithuania and stop the Russians.

Russia hits Polish support targets in Poland.

WW3.

[DUMBGRUNT]

—”China always plays the long game.”

An old cliche:

The Americans have fancy watches, the Chinese have the time.

Slightly changed.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "Cut off NordStream 1 completely. Let the stinking Putinistas bathe in their gas."

As the BRICS coalition forms ever more clearly and contractually, Russia will likely be able to sell all its energy production through the other members. Like financial liquidity, petroleum is a fungible product. Sent here or sent there. Makes all the difference to the buyer, not the seller.

If the petrodollar weakens further as other exchange systems form, the reserve currency status of the dollar will also weaken. "Bathe in their gas" is not what will happen in the long term.

Europe's industry requires energy. Germany thinks restarting their coal generation will be the answer, and if so this will prove the green dream a con job, just like climate change and the event-manufactured pandemic.

Putinistas or Bidenistas, currently the sanctions are not working to make Europe or the US more energy independent or more productive.

[DUMBGRUNT]

So what exactly is your plan?
Allow Putin to overrun Ukraine, and he will behave?
Has that ever worked? Where?

“... At present their plight is lamentable; and it will become much worse. They bow humbly and in fear to German threats of violence, comforting themselves meanwhile with the thought that the Allies will win, that Britain and France will strictly observe all the laws and conventions, and that breaches of these laws are only to be expected from the German side. Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear-I fear greatly-the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely. It will spread to the South; it will spread to the North.”
Churchill January 20, 1940.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "The European socialist adventure has been underwritten by American economic subsidy . Without us paying the bills, they are bankrupt. We are bankrupt so we can't even pay our own bills. The whole thing is a house of cards."

The European socialist adventure has really been a corporatist adventure, welfarism on debt steroids. with a well-connected elite atop the crumbling system. Real populism and real local control over nations -- not "member states" in the EUSSR -- would move forward towards a solution. Socialism in all its forms has been an "elite and everyone else" structure, which shows that the current corporatist game is of the same structure, and merely different costume and stage setting. Ditto the WEF and UN.

[lodi90]

The “plan” is to project American weakness, leave a power vacuum and embolden our enemies to fill it. They are happy to oblige and we are already paying.

[Travis McGee]

I don’t have a plan, but I have a goal: Avoid the rush to Nuclear World War 3.

[Travis McGee]

[NorseViking]

Why WWIII. Do you think they are so unhinged? Poland obviously needs a lesson.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

One observes that the gap between contiguous national lands presents the same problem for Europe as the demands of a “unified” or contiguous land of Palestine and so a decades long problem for the Middle East. As the so-called “corridor” is closed in part — since today only to “sanctioned goods” — the political interests of both sides will harden. In the larger European picture, this is probably a short-term and last chance grasp at making Russia knuckle under to European Commission demands and sanctions. Not pro-Russian. I still think the Russia option to more fully integrate into BRICS makes their “hand” in this teetering deck of cards better than Europe as Germany flails over rejoining the “coal burning” community to merely keep afloat. There are more energy and border cards to play in this game, to be sure.