Posted on 08/23/2022 6:37:53 PM PDT by elpadre
MOSCOW. Aug 22 (Interfax) - Germany, Europe's leading gas market, has reaching its minimum target of stocking 80% of underground gas storage (UGS) capacity. However, the EU's primary economy intends to continue active gas injection ahead of the coming winter.
The gas transit request via Ukraine was unchanged from previous days and months.
UKRAINE TRANSIT
Gas Transport System Operator of Ukraine or GTSOU has accepted a request from Gazprom for Monday to transport 41.6 million cubic meters of gas through the country, data from GTSOU show. The request for Sunday was 42.2 million cubic meters.
Capacity was requested only through one of two entry points into Ukraine's Gas Transport System, the Sudzha metering station. A request was not accepted through the Sokhranivka metering station.
"Gazprom is supplying Russian gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine at the volume confirmed by the Ukraine side via the Sudzha metering station at 41.6 mcm on August 22, with booking via the Sokhranivka metering station declined," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters.
GTSOU has declared a force majeure in regard to accepting gas for transit through Sokhranivka, claiming that it cannot control the Novopskov compressor station. Ukraine has also said that if gas continued to be fed from Russia to the Sokhranivka station, amounts would be reduced accordingly at the exit points from Ukraine's gas transport system. The route through Sokhranivka had provided transit of more than 30 mcm of gas per day.
Gazprom believes there are no grounds for the force majeure or obstacles to continuing to operations as before.
(Excerpt) Read more at interfax.com ...
more:
“..As for the U.S., extensive gas exports are reducing resources available for pumping gas into storage facilities there. This factor is supporting prices on the U.S. domestic market. The current level of gas reserves in UGS facilities is only 4.96% above the five-year minimum. This gap is only narrowing during this summer’s injection season, according to the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration. Current inventory lags 13% behind the five-year average. The situation with filling UGS facilities has improved slightly owing to a halt in exports through the Freeport LNG terminal following an accident...”
“Current inventory lags 13% behind the five-year average”
Part of that is attributed to a hot Summer, where more gas-fired electricity was consumed for cooling this year.
US natural gas storage is toward the low end of the five year average as we head toward Winter, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at a 35 year low.
There is a very strong chance that Russia won’t cut off the gas to Europe this Winter, because they need the money.
“..because they need the money...”
that plus the business sector of Russia may not be supportive of the war. They probably prefer the old status quo with the give and take of normal business life, both domestic and foreign.
Who needs who the most: Does Europe need Russian energy more that Russia ‘needs the money’?
Majority of Russians support the SMO against Ukraine, to included the business sector. Fact.
“Majority of Russians support the SMO against Ukraine, to included the business sector. Fact.”
In Russia, it is against the law, and punishable by years in prison to support Ukraine. Fact. They no longer have the legal right to a different opinion.
In fact, Russians are even forbidden by their dictator, under penalty of imprisonment, from even calling it an invasion or war, and have to debase themselves by subserviently using the tortured phrase Special Military Operation (or SMO), for what was obviously an invasion, and is now a war.
Sounds much like the BS that takes place here in the US when people have opposing views to that of the prevailing narrative(s) huh?
“Sounds much like the BS that takes place here in the US when people have opposing views to that of the prevailing narrative(s) huh?”
No, not at all. In Russia expressing opposing views is now explicitly against the law, and people are swiftly imprisoned for it - over 15,000 in just six months.
Russia has been forced back into Soviet/Facist style dictatorship and oppression.
Russians have lost their freedom and dignity, as they also now have to give up all of the hard earned economic gains of the whole generation since the collapse of communism. Putin is also destroying its Military power, in a conflict already more deadly and destructive to it than Afghanistan was to the Soviet Union (when the Soviet Military was four times as big as today’s Russian Military).
Putin and his mafia clique are destroying Russia, root and branch, while they eat caviar in their palaces, and have their super yachts repositioned to avoid the sanctions that they have brought on the Nation.
There is no upside for the Russian people in this disastrous war, that Putin launched to steal more wealth for himself, because his earlier theft of his $200 Billion personal fortune was not enough to satisfy his insatiable greed.
Putin has long been a serial killer, who showed sociopathic lack of empathy for those he had assassinated. Now he has now graduated not only to mass murderer by the tens of thousands, leveling cities - but he is bringing death to the very nation of Russia, changing it into a gulag of oppression and deprivation for those unable to leave.
“Who needs who the most: Does Europe need Russian energy more that Russia ‘needs the money’?”
Both will be hard up this Winter.
By next Winter, it will likely be very clearly Russia that needs the money more. They are heading into financial crisis for this Winter, but will likely falsify their official reporting to conceal that for a while.
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