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Conserve Energy: Extreme Cold Causing Gas Supply Shortage Due to frigid temperatures and an increased demand on interstate pipelines, Con Edison asks natural gas customers to help conserve supplies Posted on: December 24, 2022 - 9:49pm This message is being sent on behalf of ConEdison as it is of community wide interest. Please conserve energy as we face a heating gas shortage across the Northeast. Simple things can make a big difference. Set your thermostats lower than usual if health permits Postpone using major electric appliances such as stoves, dishwashers, and clothes dryers until other times Turn off non-essential lights,...

They never had a chance. Fumbling blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training. Now, they were piled onto the tops of overcrowded armored vehicles, lumbering through fallow autumn fields with Kalashnikov rifles from a half-century ago and virtually nothing to...

European natural gas inventories fell by -163 BCF over past week. EU nat gas storage 86% full. Current inventories at 3304 BCF.

Germany’s gas reserves are emptying at record speed: 1% per day as the current wind/solar energy lull means more gas gets burned for electricity, heating. Pleiteticker.de here reports how Germany’s natural gas reserves “are emptying at record speed” because wind and solar power have been on the scarce side over the past few weeks. This means gas turbines have had to jump in to pick up the slack in electricity production – not one the German government had hoped as it wrestles with the heightening energy crisis. “Germany is converting gas into electricity in record quantities,” pleiteticker.de reports. “Thanks to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday offered to resume gas supplies to Europe through the intact part of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. "The ball is in the EU's court. If they want to, then the taps can be turned on and that's it," he said in a speech at an energy forum in Moscow. Germany, however,,said it would not take Russian gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that has become a flashpoint in the Ukraine crisis. Asked if Berlin would rule out the use of Nord Stream 2, German government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said, "Yes."

If Europe was a school student, last week it sat its first exam in Energy Savings 101. It failed. And that doesn’t bode well for much tougher tests to come in January. Despite strong imports of liquefied natural gas to replace Russian shipments, Europe needs to reduce gas consumption — by a lot — if it’s going to make it through the winter. Extra supply won’t be enough. Conservation is absolutely paramount. The exact amount varies from country to country, but on average, the European Commission has suggested a 10%-15% demand reduction. Germany and a few other nations, which in...

A newly launched Ukrainian hotline offering Russian soldiers a chance to surrender — and stay alive — has been fielding thousands of calls from desperate draftees, according to Ukrainian officials. Andriy Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, said in a recent interview with Voice of America that thousands of enemy troops have reached out to the “I Want to Live” program via phone or online chat to give up their arms. Yusov said the hotline has been receiving offers of surrender at a rate of hundreds a day from soldiers already fighting in...

... Russia supplied around 40% of all the gas consumed in the EU in 2021. Germany is especially reliant on this supply of cheap gas. Gas only generates about 15% of the country’s electricity but many rely on it for heating and it is vital to heavy industries such as petrochemicals that use a lot of energy. Drastic measures are now necessary to secure alternative supplies, reduce gas demand and prepare for the possibility of shortages this winter. The EU’s Save Gas for a Safe Winter program aims to reduce overall gas demand by 15% across the bloc this winter...

German Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck expressed concern over the looming energy crisis this winter, telling German media that the situation was extremely tense and there is a possibility that Germany may run out of gas. Habeck spoke on Friday, appealing to Germans to reduce their consumption of natural gas ahead of this winter a day after the German government launched a new price break programme to help Germans with the rising costs of energy.

Europe's largest economy is sending recession signals. Germany's key future indicator, the IFO survey of business confidence, pointed down for the fourth month in a row as high inflation fed by astronomical natural gas prices undermines consumer pricing power and imposes heavy costs on businesses. ... High energy and commodity prices are weighing on demand and putting pressure on profit margins, said Carsten Brzeski, chief eurozone economist at ING bank. Companies can no longer pass through higher costs to consumers as easily as in the first months of the year. Company order books are shrinking, while businesses that use a...

Germany is nationalizing Uniper, its biggest importer of natural gas, as part of an €8 billion ($7.9 billion) plan to prevent an energy shortage this winter. Europe has been hit by soaring natural gas and electricity prices as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its throttling of gas supplies. The German government will hold around 99% of Uniper after injecting new capital and buying out its Finnish parent company Fortum (FOJCF), German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told journalists in Berlin on Wednesday. Uniper provides 40% of the country's gas supply and is crucial for large companies and private...

European natural gas inventories rose by +73 BCF over past 7 days. EU nat gas storage 87% full. Current inventories at 3316 BCF. 21.3% higher than 1 year ago. EU goal is at least 80% full by Nov 1st for winter. Current projection is for EU to reach 93% by Nov 1st.

Sir Isaac Newton vs. the EC There are plenty of formal peer-reviewed industry papers and articles published in specialized international oil & gas journals regarding theoretical “huge volumes” of supposed European nat-gas “reserves”. Supposedly, such reserves would “solve” the absolutely unnecessary self-inflicted European nat-gas crisis. Furthermore, there are lots of curious back-of-the-envelope ´calculations´ plus added blah blah blah with the very same prognosis in mind. And even some European Commission members are on record describing a highly optimistic outlook on how long ( months ! ) would Europe´s natural gas reserves ´easily´ last after Russia stops delivering its traditional and...

The first statement made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday was not verbal, but visual. Clad in bright blue and yellow alongside other senior politicians, she showed support for Ukraine's battle with Russia, making clear even before the speech began that the war would top the agenda. With Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska in Strasbourg for the occasion, von der Leyen pledged Europe's "unshakeable" commitment to Kyiv, sending a defiant message to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. "Putin will fail and Europe will prevail," the chief...

European natural gas inventories rose by +76 BCF over past 7 days. EU nat gas storage 85% full. Current inventories at 3243 BCF. 20.9% higher than 1 year ago. EU goal is at least 80% full by Nov 1st for winter. Current projection is for EU to reach 92% by Nov 1st.

European countries can withstand Russia’s gas cuts this winter as supply headaches may have been “successfully solved”, according to analysis by a leading US bank. Goldman Sachs said the price of gas was likely to more than halve this winter as efforts by EU countries’ to avoid big shortages this winter prove effective.

One of the German diplomats who snickered when then-President Donald Trump said Germany would “become totally dependent on Russian energy” didn’t respond to a question on whether his views have changed as rising energy costs amidst the war in Ukraine seem to prove Trump right. Trump made the remarks during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in Sept. 2018. Trump said during the same speech: “Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation.” At the time, Germany and the United States disagreed strongly about the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2...

Russia expects the price of its natural gas exports will more than double this year compared to a year ago, according to an economy ministry forecast seen by Reuters. This year's average price is now seen at $730 per 1,000 cubic meters, up 140% from 2021 and up 39% from the Kremlin's previous forecast for 2022. European gas prices have skyrocketed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine as state-run energy giant Gazprom reduces flows via the Nord Stream pipeline. After this year, Russia sees its gas export prices retreating to $471.8 in 2023 per 1,000 cubic meters, $383.9 in 2024 and...

Up to 60 per cent of factories in the UK are now facing possible closure over a massive surge in their energy bills, a manufacturers’ body in the country has warned. Six in ten UK factories are now facing the possibility of winding up their operations over the rising cost of energy bills in the country, a group tasked with representing manufacturers, Make UK, has claimed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia had not lost anything as a result of its military campaign in Ukraine. Speaking at an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, he said all Russia's actions were designed to strengthen the country's sovereignty and were aimed at "helping people" living in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. "We have not lost anything and will not lose anything," Putin said. "In terms of what we have gained, I can say that the main gain has been the strengthening of our sovereignty." Putin conceded, however, that Moscow's decision...