Posted on 08/16/2022 8:35:53 PM PDT by BeauBo
Russia slinked out of Afghanistan starting 1988. They could not finance their war due to low crude prices --- "The average price of a barrel of crude oil in 1988 was $12.58" "In the year 1988, the average retail price of gas in America was $0.90."
Russia is selling loads of oil under the counter. As the crude price collapses so will the Russkie invasion of Ukraine collapse. They will slink out, same as the USSR did out of Afghanistan. This is my hope. Time will tell.
Not that we did any better in Afghanistan. A complete waste of time territory, ruled by barbarism.
Is it senility or were you born this way?:)
Your point?
Don’t be so sure. The Russkies can sell every barrel of oil to the ChiComs if they need to.
Take anything from the Hoax News when it comes to “Muh Russia” with a grain of salt. So far, they have been almost entirely wrong.
EU currently on pace to fill nat gas storage to 92%.
I don’t foresee any disaster this winter.
Could be light rationing.
If Germany can complete 1-2 floating lng import facilities by the end of the year, they could be fine.
Gold and oil prices often move separately, in response to different supply and demand factors. Russia is a big producer of both though.
“On Tuesday, Gazprom said that its natural gas exports slumped by 36.2 percent to 78.5 billion cubic meters between January and the middle of August, as deliveries to Europe plummeted.
Natural gas production also fell, slipping 13.2 percent to 274.8 billion cubic meters between January 1 and August 15 compared to the same period of 2021, according to a Gazprom statement.”
“ The Russkies can sell every barrel of oil to the ChiComs if they need to.”
They can only sell to India and China at a discount. When the oil price drops, Russia always takes it harder, because they have the highest production costs of any major producer (fifties per barrel).
Russia has to rent its friends. Nobody is going to pay them more, if they can buy their oil cheaper elsewhere. Arguably, it was low oil prices that collapsed the Soviet Union.
Bust follows boom in oil prices, like day follows night. This time however, Russia is a pariah - now the most heavily sanctioned country on Earth. The wheels are already coming off the rest of its economy and Government finances.
If oil prices continue to drop back to the pre-COVID/pre-war norm (more like $60), they are going to have nothing but newly printed rubles to play with.
“Gazprom said that its natural gas exports slumped by 36.2 percent to 78.5 billion cubic meters between January and the middle of August, as deliveries to Europe plummeted.”
Gone for good.
Putin did that.
Russia is hosed.
“As the crude price collapses so will the Russkie invasion of Ukraine collapse.”
Central banks in the West have done their part, to destroy oil demand, and China has done theirs with COVID restrictions.
If oil prices drop back to their pre-COVID norms, Russia is in dramatically worse shape to endure it. Inflated oil prices are the only thing keeping their economy and finances from imploding.
Even at these high prices their economy and finances are declining badly. When that last prop gets kicked out, it would be collapse. Nothing left to fall back on.
Maybe this Winter.
Why the high lifting price? Because all Russian oil and gas comes from very cold and permafrost regions. No Rus boy will work them as roughnecks. The Russian Muslims and minorities will. (my theory) Same ones who fight Putin's Ukraine war.
This is why Putin went into Crimea 2014. He drove out Shell and another oil major that were doing exploration for Ukrainians. Stealing Ukrainian Black Sea oil is many times easier (much lower lifting expenses) than Russian permafrost regions oil and gas.
Thanks and I am for Bad Vlad to freeze them out into anti-Greenie rationality -— But then I repeat myself.
Bob what is your general take on greenies? I know it will be negative but please give some laughs for this morning. That I will agree with you on.
“Russia and Russians will be poorer for it, for a long time to come.”
And not just for oil and gas money. Hundreds of big name corporations have closed their Russian offices, campuses, factories, and retail stores. Thousands of smaller companies have done the same.
The result is that hundreds of thousands of Russians are now out of work and no end of Russian property owners are no longer getting rent money from foreign firms.
We are in a recession in the USA but Russia is in a depression with no end in sight.
The ripple effects of this ill-considered war of conquest is going to ruin Russia for generations to come. And if China invades Siberia this fall (which I and other China watchers expect) then Russia will also be stripped of the Far East mineral riches it stole from China in the 1800’s.
“if China invades Siberia this fall”
Russia is now such a pariah, that the West might tolerate it - a rare window of political opportunity.
That is kind of how Putin got away with his war crimes in Grozny - the West was so unsympathetic Muslims who engage in terrorism at the time, that they turned a blind eye.
First, a lesser point — I can’t see the full article: What German official(s) (name and position) has confirmed the 3 nuke plants will stay operational? The Duran is certainly a dubious source, but so is the WSJ if they do not document their source and / or it is not authoritative.
As for Euro gas supplies this winter, I think we need to run some math. Germany may be worst case? Ok, what % of Germany’s gas supply this winter do they need to receive from Russia this winter if they are not to dip into their reserve? I know they have reduced this but I’ve not seen recent numbers - could it still be as much as 50%?
If that figure is 50%, then the balance (50%) comes from other sources (but by definition, not the reserve.)
The reserve is said to be good for one month of Germany’s usage. But is worst case a 50% wintertime import shortage (assuming some non-Russian supplier does not run low)? Then the reserve buys Germany TWO months time to keep developing other sources. A bit more, actually, as SOME additional emergency sourcing should come online during the two months, and, “some” additional conservation measures that are not too destructive can probably be put in place. “Hurtin’, but certainly not “hosed”, I’d say. So, in reality, the reserve plus other sources can probably string Germany out for close to 3 months without disastrous consequences. A bit less in a particularly cold and / or windless winter, somewhat more in a warm and / or breezy winter. But, playin’ it down the middle, it appears Germany should be able to pull through their coldest months.
It might get a little dicey, tho’. It is certainly expensive, but the Germans are also very wealthy.
“Bob what is your general take on greenies? I know it will be negative but please give some laughs for this morning. That I will agree with you on.”
Sorry, it took me a bit longer to get back.
In every society you have psychopathic people who simply want power over others, so as to make others suffer. These people will morph into whatever is needed to achieve that power - if it’s Fascist or Communist in the 20th Century, well, then that’s what they become.
Starting in the late 20th Century, they used the freedom of Western Society as a tool to seize power, and then promptly have moved to end those freedoms, so as to prevent losing power.
And in the 21st Century Communism is pretty much discredited, so now it’s being a Social Liberal that gives them the power, as we saw during the pandemic.
Carbon is life - control the carbon, especially if done on an individual level (the end-game of the Green agenda, by the way) and you have TOTAL CONTROL over the person. That’s what the Greens saw. So soon we’ll have “Green Ration Cards”, and a parallel “Green Currency” - if you behave (meaning support the ruling class by doing as told) and you’ll have a bigger carbon ration. (quite similar to China’s Social Credit System, but that approach is somewhat tarnished at this point)
And, literally, EVERYTHING will have a carbon price (based on energy consumed or carbon emitted in making and/or using the product) - even food, and for beef it will be very high...so you better behave at school board meetings and on-line, for example, if you want to have enough of a Carbon Ration to buy beef.
The Greens will run the above, and the people will be reduced to having less freedom than even slaves did in the US South. They are very, very, bad people and the West is now INFESTED with them as our “Greatest Generation” let this cancer grow unchallenged, without fighting it.
My point is that market forces really matter. Presidential power, not so much. Yes we enjoyed nice low gas prices a few years ago, and a lot of money was made from fracking in N. Dakota, Texas, and Pennsylvania to produce those low prices. However, as soon as Covid hit, people stayed home, and oil was a glut on the market, it was no longer profitable to run a lot of these new sources. Oil people stopped pumping, and stopped drilling new wells. Now travel is back but the supply is down, and oil companies are taking their time starting pumping again, new drilling, and using the 9,000 permits for leases I have seen as available. They have been keeping oil prices high and raking in record profits. I suspect they realize the party is over and they are starting to lower gas prices before people start blaming them rather than politicians.
When reports say Germany has one month of safety in natural gas supply, does this take into consideration the likelihood that shipments will continue to be delivered from the US and elsewhere throughout the fall and probably the winter. Or is only what they currently have on hand being considered.
I don’t know what the Green Party situation is in Europe, except that it is stronger than in the US , Here the Green Parties have sharp divisions between the Commie oriented supporters and fellow traveler types, and more traditional environmentalist liberal political types. I realize for some here that is a distinction without a difference. However, when 6 or 7 years ago there was a move to shut down or prevent construction of an LNG facility on Chesapeake Bay promoted by the pinko types, the protest didn’t seem to get any legs. When the Green Party presidential candidate had a sit down with Putin a few years ago, that information got a very mixed reaction.
“Usually” “Mostly” “Outliers” - unquantifiable?
There have been documented atrocities carried out by both sides in this war against COMBATANTS and CIVILIANS.
</end of conversation
“There have been documented atrocities carried out by both sides in this war against COMBATANTS and CIVILIANS.”
“</end of conversation”
That same statement about atrocities holds true about Americans and Nazis in WWII, but it misrepresents the scale and exceptional nature of the Holocaust.
Soviet communists often proposed that moral equivalence argument, as a rhetorical device, to cover for the exceptionally oppressive and immoral nature of their regime.
I guess that every victim in history has had some flaw, that could be highlighted in the same way, to obfuscate the moral difference between them and their victimizer. They were not perfect angels, so they are no different from devils.
This article (https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Germany-Will-Have-Less-Than-3-Months-Of-Gas-If-Russia-Halts-Supply.html ) cites a German Minister, who says that 95% full storage on November first (their goal), would last 2 1/2 normal months in the Winter, if Russia completely cut off supply.
There are significant variables - some controllable (like conservation, rationing, replacement, or alternative suppliers), and others beyond control, like weather or enemy attack.
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