16 ms·

Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

132 points by Ambolia 5y ago

Ambolia 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20220303142751/https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-gas-flows-via-yamal-pipeline-germany-decline-sharply-data-2022-03-03/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220303142751/https://www.reute...
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
So what happens if Iran blockades Hormuz right as the world is pivoting away from Russian oil?
- machiaweliczny 5y ago
  26000km/h surprise rocket I guess
baybal2 5y ago
GOOD RIDDANCE! Finally, Russia did what full force of 90% vote of German parliament cannot do: defeat the Russian gas/oil lobby in Germany. Germany is the country with most expensive electricity in Europe, and gas deals from this mafia is a near instant cash.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  I agree it is a good thing - but it happened too early to be painless to Europeans. Or, to put it in other words, we should have been prepared for it a long time ago.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It does not have to be painless. That's fine, it's a minimal price compared to what's happening to Ukrainians.
    - causi 5y ago
      That's been my argument to friends and family this week. If an extra dollar per gallon is what it takes for fewer Ukrainian children to die then that's what it takes.
      - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
        I don't mean just the cost of energy but also potential blackouts. But as you say, it's a price worth paying.
        chess_buster 5y ago
        There will be no blackout due to gas issues. Power generation from gas is not a problem. Heat generation from gas could become one though. Luckily Germany will likely mandate a switch to electricity driven heatpumps for all buildings soon.
        rightbyte 5y ago
        Direct electricity radiators in the short term will be used instead of gas to heat, so ye, there might be blackouts.
        littlecranky67 5y ago
        Not even that. I am a German myself, and I can tell our heating habbits are on a luxurious level. It is very common in Germany to heat the full house/appartment 24/7 to a comfy level just so you can walk around in light/comfy closes. It is common to not wear thick closes at home and especially not in bed etc. Gas is also used for the water boiler, and it is considered "standard" to shower every day. Now, if I go back to the generation of my grandparents and to some extend even my parents when they were in their childhood, that was unheard of. You would only heat the main living room during cold winters, and the family would gather. For sleeping you wore pyjamas plus socks etc, and you took a tin with hot potatoes to bed. Showering was not a thing, you would wash daily and maybe bathing on Sundays. Now that annoys me a little about the whole "Germany needs gas from Russia urgently!" narrative. If you cut out gas for heating/boiling (not electricity), not a single german will die this winter, or next winter. We will lose a lot of comfort, and might have to change our habbits, but we do not have siberian grade winters where having no heating means having to freeze to death.
- eleitl 5y ago
  It's not Russia, so far. However, if Russia stops all fossil flow it would implement the Morgenthau plan. Not just for Germany. It is good news for USD vs EUR.
  - monkeynotes 5y ago
    I don't understand this comment. A quick look up of the `Morgenthau plan` seems to indicate it was focussed on removing Germany's military power by crushing their industrial output and various other economic restrictions. Russia cutting off oil doesn't seem to be synonymous with the intent of Morgenthau, it may have a similar side-effect but it's not the same as far as I can see.
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  I'm not sure about this...with Russian gas gone wouldn't Germany pay a lot more for energy? I think the best solution is to build nuclear power plants but that is more about long term.
imwillofficial 5y ago
I read that as “Russian gas flows via YML pipeline” I was like How?!? Some crazy ansible run book dictating PLC config?! No, just need another cup of coffee.
- ellisv 5y ago
  I read the exact same thing. Thought their pipeline was on Kubernetes.
  - chatmasta 5y ago
    Same. We must have some shared PTSD.
    - ngc248 5y ago
      Dontcha know, with the new release of kubeflow, all this is possible :)
throwthere 5y ago
For reference, Yamal was only re-opened a week or two ago. I don't think you can read too much into it closing again (yet). Yamal can give 33 billion cubic meters a year and Nord Stream 1 can give 55 billion. As far as "bids" remaining, it could be something as benign as not having any demand at the price, or currency/volatility issues.
- stefan_ 5y ago
  There were already all kinds of "supply interruptions" in 2021 and escalating prices. The fossil fuel people digging their own graves.
skadamat 5y ago
I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was to their military / political thinking. If others are interested, this video has a great overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE
- tartoran 5y ago
  Gas and oil is all they have to trade and they have a lot of it.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    If only they used the profits to build a great economy with more to offer. They have no shortage capable and even brilliant people, but they've got a management problem at the national level.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      See also: Louisiana. It's understandable that there are a ton of chemical refineries near the mouth of the Mississippi because it allows for easier transport of refined goods to other countries. Less understandable when they're everywhere else in the state, except for the part where local governments give quarter-century and longer sweetheart tax break deals for these companies to come in, pollute the local environment, and pay no taxes on the real estate they're operating on. One of the main reasons that the education and social services systems in the state are so horrendously poor is because there's no tax revenue. And even by those standards, Russia is a kleptocrat's wet dream.
    - bobthepanda 5y ago
      The resource curse tends to be the rule, not the exception.
      - MandieD 5y ago
        Norway seems to have avoided it the past few decades by following the advice Tony Montana didn’t: don’t get high on your own supply. They dampen the effects of easy oil money by putting most of the profits into their sovereign wealth fund and, unlike just about every other oil producing country, taxing fossil fuels even harder than countries like Germany and Denmark (which tax them pretty hard).
jotm 5y ago
I am quite afraid of Russia shutting off the gas and oil supply. I hope Europe doesn't give up on sanctions then, at least not right away. Betting on Russia needing the income more than we need the resources. Power will go out completely around here and partially in many other regions, but we can live through that. Having solar (plus wind and batteries) is a major boon, and this would undoubtedly drive demand through the roof once people have no choice. Sadly, there isn't enough supply for everyone, especially power hungry industrial sites, and trucks/cars still run on fuel. Solar concentrators would be easy to start producing locally, but they don't run well in cold temperatures and cloudy weather, plus they still need batteries of some sort.
- sharken 5y ago
  A benefit is that we can seize the opportunity to get away from relying too much on oil and gas. Time to get started.
- exabrial 5y ago
  I am certainly empathetic to having power and lights go out... In the midwestern USA, we survived last year with rotating blackouts during an unexpected winter storm that reached deep into Texas to parts that haven't seen snow in 50 years, and some parts ever receiving snow on recorded record. That being said, people are dying because of cheap power and gas. I know it's easy for me to say halfway across the world from behind a keyboard, but I really hope you guys elect to have your power shut off (If that's what it takes) to help the people of the Ukraine. Russia knows Europe is energy dependent on it, and it's the one area we haven't totally cut them off on. It's a small sacrifice that would save a hundred thousand lives. In the midwest, the grid operators had a plan to divert available power to critical places first like hospitals, traffic lights, etc. It was freezing hold and I had power for 45m every 2 hours for a few days. I survived, there were places I could go, life went on.
  - bluejekyll 5y ago
    While what happened in Texas is good for empathy, it’s not exactly the same. The power outages there were due to a poorly regulated electrical market where the power stations froze in predictable ways. Notice that it was only Texas utilities that experienced the most major issues.
bdz 5y ago
You can find the live European Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory info here https://agsi.gie.eu https://agsi.gie.eu
haughty 5y ago
What i didn't realize until very recently was that natural gas can be liquefied and sold on an open market like a barrel of oil. With that in mind, these pipelines are not as critical. Additionally, pipelines operate by contracts which offer very generous discounts years in advance; Liquefied gas, on the other hand, is a commodity and is sold at market prices. Seems logical to assume that Russian gas will still be sold, and that there will be buyers. Russia will be offering substantial discounts on it as well.
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  It is more expensive. The reason why Lithuania and Poland built LNG terminals is not because it is economical or fun compared to pipelines. It is a pure sunk cost. The reason is to secure their supply incase Russia wants to exert influence through the gas supply like it did with Ukraine until 2015 when Ukraina started buying all gas from the EU instead. They therefore cap the price they pay to what is available on the open LNG market, if the regular supply does not come through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_disputes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
- jcranmer 5y ago
  While natural gas can be liquefied, the infrastructure for LNG is much less mature than for gas pipelines. You still need to have the LNG terminals to be able to import the gas (and also at the export terminals as well). Historically, LNG import terminals are concentrated in East Asia, which is generally too far away from major gas producers for a pipeline to be worthwhile to build but the energy consumption was high enough to warrant investing in such infrastructure. The US also built several LNG import terminals, but then the fracking boom caused so much natural gas to be produced that several of these were converted into LNG export terminals instead. One of the side effects of the costs of building LNG infrastructure is that natural gas prices are very heavily regionalized: natural gas is far cheaper in the US (where it's pipeline delivery) than it is in Japan (with LNG imports).
  - haughty 5y ago
    Thanks, this explains a lot; Do you think it's reasonable to assume that due to pipeline closures and Russian isolation, gas prices will keep rising? I'm reading up on this selfishly - as i purchased some natural gas stocks like $OVV and $AR as the conflict was unwinding. Is LNG route open for Russia? Seems like it's their only option at this point. And Pipelines are simply not safe as it should be easy to sabotage them for the enemy combatants. I also noticed that in EU there are rumblings about legislation that would force Gas companies to be taxed at a higher rate to continue to pave the way for green energy. Not sure what are the prospects of this in the US.
pftburger 5y ago
Looking at the data, I am wondering why the invasion is triggered now, as reserves are about to start being refilled, instead of earlier. From the graph (https://agsi.gie.eu/#/graphs/DE https://agsi.gie.eu/#/graphs/DE) it seems like the storage starts being refilled as the weather warms near the end of march. IE Putin looses some bargaining power. What am I missing?
- greendesk 5y ago
  Putin’s and his inner circle’s plan was that it will take 1-4 days to take Kiev and two weeks to take most of Ukraine. Minimal resistance was expected. The window of opportunity with this expectation is from mid-December until end of February. They picked a date with this plan.
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    It's his turn for "They will greet us as liberators."
  - raducu 5y ago
    Plus China said no war during the Olympics. Plus COVID for 2 years..... Plus the russian asset known as the Orange Moneky lost the ellections in the US.
    - greendesk 5y ago
      The view explicitly expressed by Russian planners in multiple sources signified that this is their expectation. Public announcements that Kiev will be taken in two weeks by Putin is the best source. Claims for the commonality of the three nations (Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian) is what would cause this expectation. I am not saying it is rational to expect Kiev ti fall to several days. But I have to admit, Following the situation myself, I have had expected myself Ukraine to fold. I follow Easter European news closely.
  - hcks 5y ago
    > Putin’s and his inner circle’s plan was that it will take 1-4 days to take Kiev and two weeks to take most of Ukraine. This is being said a lot these days, but I haven't seen any proof of it. I'm not saying that proofs don't exist nor that it's wrong, just that I've been reading it everywhere, and haven't seen evidence. So I'd be happy if someone reading this could point out to some clues
jahabrewer 5y ago
Tangential: is the unit kWh/h a standard in the industry? It hurt my brain until I canceled the hours and got kW. (Yes I know kWh is a widely used unit of energy)
- throw_a_grenade 5y ago
  Gas in European pipeline systems is measured in kWh (not in m³ or kg), because it's the energy in the gas that we're after. Hence the funny unit.
  - Nacraile 5y ago
    Sure, but they why kWh/h instead of kW? If you're inclined to measure the quantity of gas in terms of its energy, why not measure its flow in terms of power? (of course kWh/h _is_ power, but why denote it so strangely?)
    - throw_a_grenade 5y ago
      This conveys the state of the mind, what's important. A more clear example is car mileage, which is expressed in l/(100 km), but can be shortened to area unit like mm² (and it even has a physical interpretation: https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/), but that's not what we need to know (how much mm² of petrol your car burns?). Similarly, we don't need power of the transfer of the gas, we need to know how much gas gets exchanged, because it's priced per kWh, so removing h from each side actually makes things harder in another equation.
eljlk34yl34 5y ago
sydthrowaway 5y ago
What are the real plans available to get abundant and cheap energy for the world, and why aren’t startups working on this?
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Solar + wind & thousands of startups are working on it.
  - sydthrowaway 5y ago
    Why not fusion
ed_balls 5y ago
Without natural resources Russia GDP would be lower than Polish. I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation of the world. Military dictatorship played the wrong game and didn't mange to reform the country (it seems to be a case for all countries run by military). This is Proxy war with US/Nato to get a trade deal in exchange for balancing China with military power (last card they've got). France and Germany were OK with this - cheap resources, you can move pouting factories to Siberia, production would be more competitive than Chinese. US and rest were not happy about this.
- HellDunkel 5y ago
  North stream 2 was in reach. If this is what they wanted why start this proxy war?
  - PartiallyTyped 5y ago
    Furthermore, gas is considered "Green" by EU and would have provided a steady source of income to Russia [1-2]. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/european-commission-declares-nuclear-and-gas-to-be-green/a-60614990 https://www.dw.com/en/european-commission-declares-nuclear-a... [2] https://time.com/6139049/europe-natural-gas-green-energy https://time.com/6139049/europe-natural-gas-green-energy
  - ed_balls 5y ago
    North stream 2 has very little to do with this whole conflict. Because mining is quite expensive in Siberia, Russian gas may not be price competitive as soon as 2030. Renewable energy is getting cheaper. At some point, natural gas turbines will use hydrogen produced with nuclear and renewables to balance the peaks.
- parineum 5y ago
  > I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation of the world. I think you're on the right track but slightly off. NG is "green" by EU standards and Russia does make it's money from NG sales to the EU. I think the piece you're missing is that Ukraine's current government is more friendly to the EU and Ukraine has massive, untapped NG reserves[1]. I have to think that the EU is eyeing Ukrainian NG in order to cut Russia out of it's economy. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine
olliej 5y ago
I'm surprised any gas was still flowing from Russia to the EU - it would seem like that would be the first thing they would have stopped in response to sanctions.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Most of it is still running because it's needed. Same goes for the exports to the US. In fact there is pressure in Switzerland to block the trading of gas since 80% is done here but it would hurt the EU so there is no way this will be done unless the EU decides that they also want to sanction this. The blocking of Swift also has an exclusion for trading of this gas.
  - olliej 5y ago
    Sorry, I may not have been clear: I don't know why Russia would not have halted the pipelines as retribution for the financial sanctions as it seems like one of the few resources they have that Europe needs. I'm sure there's an element of Russia needing those funds to fund its invasion, but it also seems like they could try to use oil supply restrictions to get the other sanctions lifted.
    - RedShift1 5y ago
      It seems to me that is only a card you want to play at the very end. There's also the possibility that when the tap closes the EU will adapt and then you've lost billions of revenue forever.
bob66 5y ago

132 points by Ambolia 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220303142751/https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-gas-flows-via-yamal-pipeline-germany-decline-sharply-data-2022-03-03/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220303142751/https://www.reute...

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

So what happens if Iran blockades Hormuz right as the world is pivoting away from Russian oil?

machiaweliczny 5y ago
26000km/h surprise rocket I guess

baybal2 5y ago

GOOD RIDDANCE! Finally, Russia did what full force of 90% vote of German parliament cannot do: defeat the Russian gas/oil lobby in Germany. Germany is the country with most expensive electricity in Europe, and gas deals from this mafia is a near instant cash.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
I agree it is a good thing - but it happened too early to be painless to Europeans. Or, to put it in other words, we should have been prepared for it a long time ago.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It does not have to be painless. That's fine, it's a minimal price compared to what's happening to Ukrainians.
  - causi 5y ago
    That's been my argument to friends and family this week. If an extra dollar per gallon is what it takes for fewer Ukrainian children to die then that's what it takes.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      I don't mean just the cost of energy but also potential blackouts. But as you say, it's a price worth paying.
      - chess_buster 5y ago
        There will be no blackout due to gas issues. Power generation from gas is not a problem. Heat generation from gas could become one though. Luckily Germany will likely mandate a switch to electricity driven heatpumps for all buildings soon.
        rightbyte 5y ago
        Direct electricity radiators in the short term will be used instead of gas to heat, so ye, there might be blackouts.
        littlecranky67 5y ago
        Not even that. I am a German myself, and I can tell our heating habbits are on a luxurious level. It is very common in Germany to heat the full house/appartment 24/7 to a comfy level just so you can walk around in light/comfy closes. It is common to not wear thick closes at home and especially not in bed etc. Gas is also used for the water boiler, and it is considered "standard" to shower every day. Now, if I go back to the generation of my grandparents and to some extend even my parents when they were in their childhood, that was unheard of. You would only heat the main living room during cold winters, and the family would gather. For sleeping you wore pyjamas plus socks etc, and you took a tin with hot potatoes to bed. Showering was not a thing, you would wash daily and maybe bathing on Sundays. Now that annoys me a little about the whole "Germany needs gas from Russia urgently!" narrative. If you cut out gas for heating/boiling (not electricity), not a single german will die this winter, or next winter. We will lose a lot of comfort, and might have to change our habbits, but we do not have siberian grade winters where having no heating means having to freeze to death.
eleitl 5y ago
It's not Russia, so far. However, if Russia stops all fossil flow it would implement the Morgenthau plan. Not just for Germany. It is good news for USD vs EUR.
- monkeynotes 5y ago
  I don't understand this comment. A quick look up of the `Morgenthau plan` seems to indicate it was focussed on removing Germany's military power by crushing their industrial output and various other economic restrictions. Russia cutting off oil doesn't seem to be synonymous with the intent of Morgenthau, it may have a similar side-effect but it's not the same as far as I can see.
hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
I'm not sure about this...with Russian gas gone wouldn't Germany pay a lot more for energy? I think the best solution is to build nuclear power plants but that is more about long term.

imwillofficial 5y ago

I read that as “Russian gas flows via YML pipeline” I was like How?!? Some crazy ansible run book dictating PLC config?! No, just need another cup of coffee.

ellisv 5y ago
I read the exact same thing. Thought their pipeline was on Kubernetes.
- chatmasta 5y ago
  Same. We must have some shared PTSD.
  - ngc248 5y ago
    Dontcha know, with the new release of kubeflow, all this is possible :)

throwthere 5y ago

For reference, Yamal was only re-opened a week or two ago. I don't think you can read too much into it closing again (yet). Yamal can give 33 billion cubic meters a year and Nord Stream 1 can give 55 billion. As far as "bids" remaining, it could be something as benign as not having any demand at the price, or currency/volatility issues.

stefan_ 5y ago
There were already all kinds of "supply interruptions" in 2021 and escalating prices. The fossil fuel people digging their own graves.

skadamat 5y ago

I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was to their military / political thinking. If others are interested, this video has a great overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE

tartoran 5y ago
Gas and oil is all they have to trade and they have a lot of it.
- phkahler 5y ago
  If only they used the profits to build a great economy with more to offer. They have no shortage capable and even brilliant people, but they've got a management problem at the national level.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    See also: Louisiana. It's understandable that there are a ton of chemical refineries near the mouth of the Mississippi because it allows for easier transport of refined goods to other countries. Less understandable when they're everywhere else in the state, except for the part where local governments give quarter-century and longer sweetheart tax break deals for these companies to come in, pollute the local environment, and pay no taxes on the real estate they're operating on. One of the main reasons that the education and social services systems in the state are so horrendously poor is because there's no tax revenue. And even by those standards, Russia is a kleptocrat's wet dream.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    The resource curse tends to be the rule, not the exception.
    - MandieD 5y ago
      Norway seems to have avoided it the past few decades by following the advice Tony Montana didn’t: don’t get high on your own supply. They dampen the effects of easy oil money by putting most of the profits into their sovereign wealth fund and, unlike just about every other oil producing country, taxing fossil fuels even harder than countries like Germany and Denmark (which tax them pretty hard).

jotm 5y ago

I am quite afraid of Russia shutting off the gas and oil supply. I hope Europe doesn't give up on sanctions then, at least not right away. Betting on Russia needing the income more than we need the resources. Power will go out completely around here and partially in many other regions, but we can live through that. Having solar (plus wind and batteries) is a major boon, and this would undoubtedly drive demand through the roof once people have no choice. Sadly, there isn't enough supply for everyone, especially power hungry industrial sites, and trucks/cars still run on fuel. Solar concentrators would be easy to start producing locally, but they don't run well in cold temperatures and cloudy weather, plus they still need batteries of some sort.

sharken 5y ago
A benefit is that we can seize the opportunity to get away from relying too much on oil and gas. Time to get started.
exabrial 5y ago
I am certainly empathetic to having power and lights go out... In the midwestern USA, we survived last year with rotating blackouts during an unexpected winter storm that reached deep into Texas to parts that haven't seen snow in 50 years, and some parts ever receiving snow on recorded record. That being said, people are dying because of cheap power and gas. I know it's easy for me to say halfway across the world from behind a keyboard, but I really hope you guys elect to have your power shut off (If that's what it takes) to help the people of the Ukraine. Russia knows Europe is energy dependent on it, and it's the one area we haven't totally cut them off on. It's a small sacrifice that would save a hundred thousand lives. In the midwest, the grid operators had a plan to divert available power to critical places first like hospitals, traffic lights, etc. It was freezing hold and I had power for 45m every 2 hours for a few days. I survived, there were places I could go, life went on.
- bluejekyll 5y ago
  While what happened in Texas is good for empathy, it’s not exactly the same. The power outages there were due to a poorly regulated electrical market where the power stations froze in predictable ways. Notice that it was only Texas utilities that experienced the most major issues.

bdz 5y ago

You can find the live European Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory info here https://agsi.gie.eu https://agsi.gie.eu

haughty 5y ago

What i didn't realize until very recently was that natural gas can be liquefied and sold on an open market like a barrel of oil. With that in mind, these pipelines are not as critical. Additionally, pipelines operate by contracts which offer very generous discounts years in advance; Liquefied gas, on the other hand, is a commodity and is sold at market prices. Seems logical to assume that Russian gas will still be sold, and that there will be buyers. Russia will be offering substantial discounts on it as well.

Gwypaas 5y ago
It is more expensive. The reason why Lithuania and Poland built LNG terminals is not because it is economical or fun compared to pipelines. It is a pure sunk cost. The reason is to secure their supply incase Russia wants to exert influence through the gas supply like it did with Ukraine until 2015 when Ukraina started buying all gas from the EU instead. They therefore cap the price they pay to what is available on the open LNG market, if the regular supply does not come through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_disputes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
jcranmer 5y ago
While natural gas can be liquefied, the infrastructure for LNG is much less mature than for gas pipelines. You still need to have the LNG terminals to be able to import the gas (and also at the export terminals as well). Historically, LNG import terminals are concentrated in East Asia, which is generally too far away from major gas producers for a pipeline to be worthwhile to build but the energy consumption was high enough to warrant investing in such infrastructure. The US also built several LNG import terminals, but then the fracking boom caused so much natural gas to be produced that several of these were converted into LNG export terminals instead. One of the side effects of the costs of building LNG infrastructure is that natural gas prices are very heavily regionalized: natural gas is far cheaper in the US (where it's pipeline delivery) than it is in Japan (with LNG imports).
- haughty 5y ago
  Thanks, this explains a lot; Do you think it's reasonable to assume that due to pipeline closures and Russian isolation, gas prices will keep rising? I'm reading up on this selfishly - as i purchased some natural gas stocks like $OVV and $AR as the conflict was unwinding. Is LNG route open for Russia? Seems like it's their only option at this point. And Pipelines are simply not safe as it should be easy to sabotage them for the enemy combatants. I also noticed that in EU there are rumblings about legislation that would force Gas companies to be taxed at a higher rate to continue to pave the way for green energy. Not sure what are the prospects of this in the US.

pftburger 5y ago

Looking at the data, I am wondering why the invasion is triggered now, as reserves are about to start being refilled, instead of earlier. From the graph (https://agsi.gie.eu/#/graphs/DE https://agsi.gie.eu/#/graphs/DE) it seems like the storage starts being refilled as the weather warms near the end of march. IE Putin looses some bargaining power. What am I missing?

greendesk 5y ago
Putin’s and his inner circle’s plan was that it will take 1-4 days to take Kiev and two weeks to take most of Ukraine. Minimal resistance was expected. The window of opportunity with this expectation is from mid-December until end of February. They picked a date with this plan.
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  It's his turn for "They will greet us as liberators."
- raducu 5y ago
  Plus China said no war during the Olympics. Plus COVID for 2 years..... Plus the russian asset known as the Orange Moneky lost the ellections in the US.
  - greendesk 5y ago
    The view explicitly expressed by Russian planners in multiple sources signified that this is their expectation. Public announcements that Kiev will be taken in two weeks by Putin is the best source. Claims for the commonality of the three nations (Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian) is what would cause this expectation. I am not saying it is rational to expect Kiev ti fall to several days. But I have to admit, Following the situation myself, I have had expected myself Ukraine to fold. I follow Easter European news closely.
- hcks 5y ago
  > Putin’s and his inner circle’s plan was that it will take 1-4 days to take Kiev and two weeks to take most of Ukraine. This is being said a lot these days, but I haven't seen any proof of it. I'm not saying that proofs don't exist nor that it's wrong, just that I've been reading it everywhere, and haven't seen evidence. So I'd be happy if someone reading this could point out to some clues

jahabrewer 5y ago

Tangential: is the unit kWh/h a standard in the industry? It hurt my brain until I canceled the hours and got kW. (Yes I know kWh is a widely used unit of energy)

throw_a_grenade 5y ago
Gas in European pipeline systems is measured in kWh (not in m³ or kg), because it's the energy in the gas that we're after. Hence the funny unit.
- Nacraile 5y ago
  Sure, but they why kWh/h instead of kW? If you're inclined to measure the quantity of gas in terms of its energy, why not measure its flow in terms of power? (of course kWh/h _is_ power, but why denote it so strangely?)
  - throw_a_grenade 5y ago
    This conveys the state of the mind, what's important. A more clear example is car mileage, which is expressed in l/(100 km), but can be shortened to area unit like mm² (and it even has a physical interpretation: https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/), but that's not what we need to know (how much mm² of petrol your car burns?). Similarly, we don't need power of the transfer of the gas, we need to know how much gas gets exchanged, because it's priced per kWh, so removing h from each side actually makes things harder in another equation.

eljlk34yl34 5y ago

sydthrowaway 5y ago

What are the real plans available to get abundant and cheap energy for the world, and why aren’t startups working on this?

KarlKemp 5y ago
Solar + wind & thousands of startups are working on it.
- sydthrowaway 5y ago
  Why not fusion

ed_balls 5y ago

Without natural resources Russia GDP would be lower than Polish. I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation of the world. Military dictatorship played the wrong game and didn't mange to reform the country (it seems to be a case for all countries run by military). This is Proxy war with US/Nato to get a trade deal in exchange for balancing China with military power (last card they've got). France and Germany were OK with this - cheap resources, you can move pouting factories to Siberia, production would be more competitive than Chinese. US and rest were not happy about this.

HellDunkel 5y ago
North stream 2 was in reach. If this is what they wanted why start this proxy war?
- PartiallyTyped 5y ago
  Furthermore, gas is considered "Green" by EU and would have provided a steady source of income to Russia [1-2]. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/european-commission-declares-nuclear-and-gas-to-be-green/a-60614990 https://www.dw.com/en/european-commission-declares-nuclear-a... [2] https://time.com/6139049/europe-natural-gas-green-energy https://time.com/6139049/europe-natural-gas-green-energy
- ed_balls 5y ago
  North stream 2 has very little to do with this whole conflict. Because mining is quite expensive in Siberia, Russian gas may not be price competitive as soon as 2030. Renewable energy is getting cheaper. At some point, natural gas turbines will use hydrogen produced with nuclear and renewables to balance the peaks.
parineum 5y ago
> I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation of the world. I think you're on the right track but slightly off. NG is "green" by EU standards and Russia does make it's money from NG sales to the EU. I think the piece you're missing is that Ukraine's current government is more friendly to the EU and Ukraine has massive, untapped NG reserves[1]. I have to think that the EU is eyeing Ukrainian NG in order to cut Russia out of it's economy. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine

olliej 5y ago

I'm surprised any gas was still flowing from Russia to the EU - it would seem like that would be the first thing they would have stopped in response to sanctions.

sschueller 5y ago
Most of it is still running because it's needed. Same goes for the exports to the US. In fact there is pressure in Switzerland to block the trading of gas since 80% is done here but it would hurt the EU so there is no way this will be done unless the EU decides that they also want to sanction this. The blocking of Swift also has an exclusion for trading of this gas.
- olliej 5y ago
  Sorry, I may not have been clear: I don't know why Russia would not have halted the pipelines as retribution for the financial sanctions as it seems like one of the few resources they have that Europe needs. I'm sure there's an element of Russia needing those funds to fund its invasion, but it also seems like they could try to use oil supply restrictions to get the other sanctions lifted.
  - RedShift1 5y ago
    It seems to me that is only a card you want to play at the very end. There's also the possibility that when the tap closes the EU will adapt and then you've lost billions of revenue forever.

bob66 5y ago