Posted on 12/03/2022 10:41:52 AM PST by Mariner
So the west can tell all countries to not sell maritime insurance?
“Do you really believe that if the whole world turns to c*ap, the US will somehow be isolated from the consequences?”
Yes, from the serious consequences the US will be isolated.
NOBODY would attack us militarily.
And everyone would be eager to trade with us, to the extent we needed any trade at all.
But Europe would be screwed. Plundered and screwed.
The Russians will continue to sell their oil to India and China, who will sell it back to Europe at a much higher price.
Exactly Arrogance. Now they’re saying they are going to find a legal way to keep the frozen assets of Russian oligarchs to pay to rebuild Ukraine.
Excellent observations. Once the USSR ended and Russia emerged as a non-communist state, brought back the Russian Orthodox Church etc, the far left in the US and elsewhere has felt the need to weaken that nation into submission.
Any insurance company that wants to do any type of business in China, Russia, and India. There are thousand of tankers out there that can be chartered by anyone.
Of course it cannot. Excellent observation.
This back and forth gets crazier every day. What in the world are those who don’t have the oil thinking that they are in any kind of position to set caps on this essential product. If this isn’t the essence of crazy, I don’t know what it is.
Thanks. It was a rhetorical question as you observed.
Well some posters here think if Lloyds of London does not sell marine insurance to tankers carrying Russian oil, the tankers will stay tied to the docks. Simply not true-Russia will self insure.
Also, another thread mentioned Russia could move oil tankers through the Northeast Passage. It has the world’s larges fleet of nuclear powered icebreakers.
How stupid can the west be? Seriously? Price controls of sorts...yep don’t sell it if you can’t make the money you want/need. Save it for later or sell it elsewhere.
It dawned on me to pursue this a little deeper. Ultimately, if a shipping company wants to stay in business (and any significant oil shipping company is highly unlikely to be a fly-by-night operation), the people who build and repair tankers have to be able to (and want to) work with the insurers. And guess where supertankers are built? (Hint to fans of the anti-West: It’s not in the anti-West.)
Moreover, who owns most tankers? ALL TEN of the top tanker operators are HQ’d in Western or Western friendly countries.
Yes, Russia, China, and their friends, own tankers too, but, they are already maxed out.
And of course this doesn’t even get into the possibility that a newly-Russian-insured tanker will fall subject to a mysterious cigarette (probably delivered by MI6) while sailing over a deep trench... One or two such examples and nobody but the Russians will be buying Russian or Russian linked insurance.
The point of all this, I believe, is not to greatly reduce Russian deliveries, it is to reduce Russia’s profits, thereby setting the oil oligarchs in Russia against Putin. At the same time it relieves pressure on global oil prices (which actually helps poor importers even more than the Euro’s.)
Unless you have monstrous storage capacity (much greater than the US Strategic Reserve), you can’t “save it for later” for long at all. Shutting down production and pipelines (esp. in cold climates) to terminals is even more problematic.
Moreover, almost half of Russia’s gov’t is funded by oil and gas profits. Most of the rest of the profit goes to keeping the oligarchs happy.
Same pressure build up with Russia's gas production. It must flow to Europe. But since it isn't...... Russians have been flaring off at least 10 million dollars worth each day at the Nord Stream terminus. In the St Petersburg region. And the gas flare can be seen at night from Finland.
HUH? This has been coming for months. No way Russia has not already analyzed the situation.
I’ll bet that shows up nicely from space at night, although when I just now looked I only found (near) real time daylight imagery.
Good point. But they can sell to china and other nations for $5 more than the West is willing to pay.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.