 |
| You'd think Putin would slow down as he runs out of toes... |
Puton (and certain web knuckleheads gargling his junk) are playing checkers.
The rest of the world is playing chess.
(Fortune) A gamble by Kremlin-backed Gazprom to blackmail Europe into paying for gas in rubles shook markets but may have backfired, as Brussels vowed to end its Russian energy dependency.
The stunt was all the excuse EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen needed to justify her decision last month to strike new import deals for liquified natural gas from reliable allies including the United States.
"It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us," she told reporters on Wednesday. "But Russia is only hurting itself."
Von der Leyen meanwhile warned Moscow it could expect further reprisals as the 27 member-bloc was hard at work on a sixth package of sanctions -- purported to include an embargo of Russian crude oil.
"The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe is coming to an end."
Gazprom cutting off supplies in spring has far less effect than it might have had in winter, and gives Europe all summer to come up with alternative supplies, while simultaneously cutting Russia's throat by depriving them of actual hard currency in exchange, just at the time they need the money to pay for Puton's military debacle.
Like we told the Internet Retard Platoon yesterday.
Listening to idiots with the foresight of gnats is always its own reward. They're so proud of saying A will lead to B, they forget to check what happens from B to Z.
And when you cut supplies of something as if you run a monopoly, but you don't run a monopoly, all you do is invite all your competitors to give you a sharp shove in the back, over the cliff. Like every OPEC member has done to their fellows since ever. So here.
GAZPROM demands rubles: Big Oil gains customers.
Well-played.
26 comments:
I'm not sure some of theeuropean nations can switch sources as easily as they suggest.
For natural gas the options are LNG by ship or NG from Russia by pipeline or NG from donestic offshore by pipeline.
Drilling new domestic wells is a great ideabut unlikely to solve the issue by fall.
Switching to LNG is a good way to ignore russia but looking at available terminals, i'm not seeing enough capacity in existing facilities. They take at least a decade to build new facilities so unlikely to be ready by fall.
So while I agree the plan is a good idea i'm not seeing the ability to have enough new capacity by fall. Unless europe plans on a much lower population.
Exile1981
Your wrong, Aesop. You've been wropng for weeks. I don't know why your support the thug appointed in charge of the Ukrainian government. It's a mystery to me.
The so-called borders of Ukraine were set up by Stalin in the 1930s. Just before he let the Bolsheviks, who were not Russians, set up starvation in Ukraine.
When the Bolshevik run Soviet Union finally collapsed, the impoverished Russians were forced to accept the Stalinist boundaries of Ukraine. That began to change in 1994 when Russia recovered their territory of Crimea. Now, Ruasia is recovering their territory of Ukraine. Rightfully so.
Those who opposed Russia:
George Soros (he funded the non-Ukrainian takeover of the Ukraine government)
George Bush and the Bush Crime Family
Willard Mitt Romney
Nancy Pelosi
Virtually all of the Democrat Party in the US congress
Most of Hollywood
Israel
Do you see a pattern here?
Wake up, Aesop.
Putin reminds me of an old Mountain Dew commercial from the early 90's, where the Steven Segall knockoff gets knocked out by a thrown can of soda.
Or the guy talking a big game before the shooting match, with lots of hints about some kind of Sooper Seekrit Blackops background, and derps into a disqualification because he can't load his gun properly.
Great! They have five months to get their collective asses rounded up and get their gas storage facilities stocked with fuel. Should be interesting come late September. There’s not enough LNG tankers in the world 24/7/150 days to take care of all of Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
T. Rose
LOL, a POLITICIAN said What?
You mean the same Politicians that told the EU folks to wear sweaters and take cold showers to "Take that Vlad". LOL. Have you heard what the prices of food, electricity and fuel is doing in Europe already?
Time will tell. Current world fleet of LNG tankers already deployed all around the world to include Asia and China (two of the largest importers) cannot supply the Russian Natural Gas that GERMANY used last year. Bloomberg and Barrons. Maybe Aesop can show his work and prove them both wrong? Extra points if Aesop can show how ALL of the EU's Russian Natural Gas is replaced with other suppliers?
Yes, pipelines are that effective. Thus, the Sockpuppet shutting OUR Pipelines was that bad for America, eh? How is 5+ dollars a gallon gasoline doing Aesop?
The ONLY builder of LNG Freighters in the world currently are China and Korea. Korea has a 2 year back log so those will not be online this month.
I suspect that Putin knows quite well the current ability of suppliers and SHIPPERS of LNG and is "Chuckling Sovietly".
The REAL question would be if Europe stops buying Russian gas and oil where will they get it from?
Well.... maybe - but not necessarily (Talk is cheap, but re-arranging long term energy deals is not uncomplicated). I would say it's more like Germany and the EU have at last decided it might be wise to stop digging.
Let's try to focus here. Global Peak Oil was 2005. Peak Fracking Oil/Gas was in 2018. Not to mention that EROI has been dropping the whole time. Peak Discovery was in the 1960's, and oil production lasts 40 years for conventional oil, four max for fracking. As per SRS Rocco Report, global production is averaging a 7% decline yearly, and the US is at 33% annually. Not "three" but rather "thirty three". Yes, that humping fast. Europe is hosed without Russian energy, and whatever she doesn't want, India and China will gladly purchase on favorable terms. Most oil producers are shifting east and dropping the dollar and the Euro. And Europe can easily replace Russian energy? Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar all have defense agreements with Russia, and have repeatedly blown off American requests for supplies. This is a new world, not the old American Empire ( and has been long before Ukraine ). Energy is civilization, and the West is almost out.
"Peak Oil" has been an annual event, every year since 1968, much like Global cooling/warming/cooling/warming/something.
IF Puton can continue grinding his forces up for six more months, and he's still alive and in charge that long, things may get interesting. Next winter. I suspect it's going to get worse for Russia, not better, but time will tell.
Meanwhile, Putin has now widened the war to Poland and Romania, and it's already blowing up in his face. He's managed to not only solidify NATO, but probably grow it, in two months, something we couldn't do in 30 years. Everybody in Europe except Russian puppet Belarus, Austria and perennially neutral Switzerland wants in, and even Switzerland has come off the fence and picked a side, and it isn't Russia's.
If the Chicoms and India want to go the other way, that's their affair, but neither of them will be trading with stable currencies either, and unlikely to replace what the loss of the European market will cost Russia.
Michael forgets that gasoline has been $8/gallon in Europe for years, and food prices are rising everywhere as a consequence of seventy years of fiatbux, everywhere. That's going to bring more starvation at the bottom of the totem pole, which is all of Africa, and countries with too many mouths to feed. That would be China and India. Who have both been political and economic basket cases throughout all recorded world history.
In the short term, NATO countries will stop financing Russia's war, and now Puton's given them a reason to blow up the pipelines on their own soil, and turn their backs on him forever. And when/if people get cold, you're going to see how flexible environmental standards get, when governments choose warm over green, at the head of the mob with torches and pitchforks. And the watermelon environmentalists (green on the outside, red on the inside) will be ID'ed permanently as exactly what they've been since ever: Useful Idiots for the hard-core humanity-hating Left.
With any luck, they'll start shipping the Leftists and Muslim refugee problem all the way to Belarus, and let them deal with that problem too.
And OPEC is depending on the Russian defense establishment? Great. How's that working out in Ukraine? They can't do much of anything, and they're begging Syria to pitch in. All we have to do is pull out of all those nations, and tell Iran the Persian Gulf is theirs, and the Arab states there will remember where their bread is buttered in about 0.2 seconds, and be begging the West to come back.
(cont.)
(cont.)
On a long approach (decades instead of days), Vlad could've been well along a soft-march to eventual dominance. By trying to grab it all overnight at gunpoint, the reactions he's provoking are literally burning everything he ever did or hoped to accomplish down to the ground, virtually overnight, and lines for the next century are being carved in stone right now, with Russia on the outside, forced to buddy up with the exact Mongolian hordes they've wet their pants about, and been at war with, for millennia.
That will go well. Not.
Half the Russian Army is tied down at the Chinese border, and has been, forever, and for cause.
Puton is simply another dictator, and the reason nearly everyone on both sides of the political aisle is opposed to him is because that's as plain as the nose on your face.
Look up the fortunes of Adolph lovers like Joseph Kennedy, the Duke of Windsor, and Charles Lindbergh after 1939, and get back to me.
What worries me is the combined insanity and desperation of Puton, and his eructations about nuclear war, combined with advanced Alzheimer's patient Poopypants, at the exact time we cannot afford someone bereft of mental abilities holding the nuclear keys.
If people don't see that as a reason to start digging deep, they're going to reap what they deserve.
And yet again, half of the problems and all of the urgency goes away the minute Puton gets a 9mm Q-tip one morning. The last guy to try running headfirst at the rest of the world was SoDamn Insane. He chose poorly. So has Puton, and he's taking Russia down with him. Which is why I suspect eventually (and hope), the dog scratches that flea off. But they rolled over for 70 years of communism, so I suspect they'll tolerate anything a lot longer than is healthy for them, or anyone else. Russia has always been a Turd World nation, and it's only their nukes which give them hope of returning to Second World status, which is some pretty thin gruel. Delusions of grandeur, and a generations-long desire for someone to tell them what to do, with almost all self-respect and autonomy bred out of them, destines them for a poor outcome.
Pat H, I have to agree with for slightly different reasons.
Aesop who bravely told us not to fall for the Media Hype in regards, to COVID and COVID Foolishness, was correct almost always.
Yet, now he falls Hook, Line and Sinker for the same media's story about Ukraine. It is like I am reading two different bloggers. The On-Point Media Sceptic, and now the slavering "Yes-Man". I am truly alarmed by this change. I had hoped Aesop would come to his senses, but he has only gotten worse.
I want the other Aesop back, the one who wasn't beholden to the Current Narrative.
Skwab,
Enlighten us all.
Tell us all what's really happening. Since you seem to have the pulse of the whole world in your hand, and access to hidden fonts of knowledge about the real score.
Show all work.
Start, by way of historical frame-setting, by explaining that Germany really had the best interests of Czechoslovakia in mind when they annexed the Sudetenland, and that the German leader wasn't really that bad a fellow, and had legitimate grievances.
This should be good.
So, you think Putin is going to genocide Slavs and Jews by fighting neo-Nazis? He's reacting to communist subversion, and Russia needs lebensraum? Thirty-six Pentagon-financed bio-labs were minding there own business in Ukraine? Discuss.
1) He's doing exactly that now. Protecting ethnic Russian-speakers is the exact same pretext Hitler used to justify going into Czechoslovakia. A pretext is nothing more, and nothing less: Bullshit in service of another agenda. Much like your post.
2) He's been promulgating subversion, for exactly that lebensraum, to "resore the glorious Soviet Union", in space if not ideological motivation. Puton's another gas-blinded and back-stabbed corporal pissed that he missed his shot the first time around, and bitter about what happened afterwards. Like it was a template.
3) Thirty six bio-lads is not thirty-six bio warfare labs.
♫ One of these things is not like the other. ♫
There's thirty-six biolabs in Miami, or Cleveland, or Poughkeepsie, FFS.
the internet idiocy behind that got beaten to dead-horse molecules week ago. Try and keep up.
Russia held a lot more cards energy wise in February 2022. Now it is almost May. It is warmer, and Europe mostly just needs to keep the lights on through the Summer. Europe is short of natural gas even with the Russian Gas they are receiving. European Ammonia Fertilizer plants are off line due to no available Nat Gas for the Haber Process.
Where can Europe get natural gas? Is there any major new supply left in the North Sea? LNG from America or the Mideast? How about the Israeli Mediterranean NG Fields? They can ship it by pipeline, except F. Joe Biden* is blocking the pipeline from Israel. Senile Joe is blocking it just like his mis-Administration has blocked every fossil fuel pipeline domestic or foreign; except the for the Russian Nordstream II. That pipeline he not only likes, Pedo Joe removed the US Sanctions that were stopping its completion.
Like others said, Next Fall will be a new story. If the fertilizer situations world wide, and the wheat growing and harvesting seasons in Russia and Ukraine are so messed up? Electricity and heat in Europe could be a minor tragic story compared to Africa, Asia, and the Third World. If Bumbles the Clown screws up, there might not even be a Europe to freeze?
* In case you do not understand, I hate that senile, child molesting, doddering, racist corrupt, lying bastard.
I appreciate your allowing me to post and your response.
I think you are very wrong about Putin. He's protecting Russia and mankind from Globohomo degeneracy. Really. Do you want the whole world mutilating children?
Putin is protecting nobody from nothing.
Ukraine is the ex he dumped, and now he's the deranged stalker trying to get her back at gunpoint. He's done the same thing to two other breakaway provinces, and invaded Ukraine twice before this year, always wanting "a little bit more".
This time he's bitten off more than he can chew, because he believed the press releases about the Russian Army, and wasn't bright enough to know show from go.
He will repent at leisure, but it's the not-ready-for-primetime army that will pay for his stupidity.
Thinking that Putin is the savior from the "Globohomo degeneracy" is just plain stupid. Like "Biden is a better leader than Trump!" level stupid.
For one, Putin is an incompetent in waaaayyyy over his head, and will probably accomplish the exact opposite of what you think he will, in the same way that a Federal Task Force personally led by Veep Harris would.
Next, even in the absolutely unlikely event that he does pull this off, he has absolutely no intention of teaming up with China and launching that anti-Jew, er, Globalist Crusade so many people think he's going to do.
He ain't our buddy, ally, savior- none of it.
Aesop, Nice Strawman diversion.
I do not know what is going on over there. Point of fact, neither do you.
That is why I said what I did. I see photo and video, cherry picked by propaganda makers.
I read stories crafted by expert wordsmiths to sway my emotions. (BTW Very few facts).
Is there an armed conflict? Most Certainly! Are there numerous Deaths of Innocent Civilians? Again, Most Certainly!
Am I being Lied To?
Yes, for an Iron Clad Certainty! You, also are being lied to. If not, "Show YOUR work" so that we may see the truth as you know it.
Dear Aesop, please don't confuse Peak Oil with Running Out Of Oil. Peak Oil only means that is the date that we peak in oil production. The US didn't run out of oil in 1971, they only stopped growing production, and that was enough to hurt the economy ( along with other things, obviously, but as Peak Prosperity points out so well, if you don't grow the economy, you ain't paying the loan interest ). Peak Oil isn't a scam like Gore Warming, unless you buy into Abiotic Oil theory. Hubbert forecast the US peak fifteen years in advance, and his global peak wasn't too far off. We will always have some oil somewhere to pump, but if it isn't enough to run the economy you built, it is close enough to not having any. We already passed the point.
@Skwab,
You (deliberately) overlook the obvious: If Russia was doing all that "winning" the Putin fanboys imagine, we'd be seeing it on the 'net 24/7/365. You can't stop the signal. It would be leaking out everywhere.
And yet there's nothing of the sort.
I was told with conviction by the Internet Fucktard Posse that the Moskva was sailing to port under its own power. Hours after Russian defense officials admitted it was already sunk.
They've attacked the steel plant in Mariupol about 20 times, and they still haven't won there either.
This is a conga line of retards who refuse to smell the coffee, trying to gainsay their way to victory because to admit anything less hurts their feelings. Reality doesn't work like that.
The agnosticism is noted, but misplaced, and ignores obvious facts.
Russia is getting kicked in the balls.
QED
Considering every attempt to get a competing pipeline into Europe has been torpedoed by the EU, how little capacity there is to move LNG, and how much NG is used on a daily basis in the EU for power generation alone, it's not shaping up to be a very good summer for Europe. If it's a mild summer to cut back on power demand for air conditioning, and assuming manufacturing doesn't bounce back to limit power demand from that sector, and you are still looking at Europe going into the fall with a very thin margin of safety.
@James,
Peak Oil is Hubbert's version of a Ponzi scheme.
Unless he can tell us, with his clairvoyant powers, how much oil there is on the planet, there's no way to tell us when we've gone over that peak.
Lacking that, it's a guess, based on incomplete data.
Oil = X.
Peak oil = ½X.
Given that, solve for X.
It's impossible.
Logic and math are a bitch like that.
It's like telling me we're halfway through the woods, when you don't know how big the forest is.
Theoretically, it exists.
Practically, it's bullshit.
CRebel,
Granted.
It's too bad there are no other options but Russian natural gas, which has only been a thing for 11 years, right?
Because Europe never did anything else in its entire history for energy.
Oh, wait, that never happened.
And that's where the Putin fanboys are wrong, bucko.
They assume it's Putin or starvation.
False Dichotomy Fallacy.
20 yard penalty, and loss of down.
Now try digging out from this on 3rd and 28 from your 2 yard line.
The professional class in Europe is just as out of touch and just as stupid as the US professional class in the US. This bumbling EU bureaucrat can claim Europe will get off of Russian NG until he is blue in the face, and on portable O2, but that won't change the reality on the ground.
Europe can't get off of Russian NG, not without freezing to death next winter. Europe was facing energy shortfalls before the Ukraine war kicked off, and now they are going to just do without 30% or more of their energy needs?
That is pure bravado and self delusion on the level of Baghdad Bob announcing all was well as M-1A1 canon fire echoed in the background. It will end just as bad for them as it did for Baghdad Bob.
I don't know what has gotten into you, Aesop, but your reflexive Putin hate is just sad, pathological even.
1) It is neither reflexive, nor pathological. He earned it. If he kills himself, we're good. I hold no brief for mollycoddling dictators with delusions of grandeur. Other people are free to make different choices.
2) There were no massive pipelines from Russia before 2011. I suspect Europe will rediscover other energy sources. How well and how fast that will work remains to be seen. Everybody running around headless right now seems to think the ripples in this pond only move in one direction, from Puton outward. That's retarded. Everybody involved gets a vote.
3) Actions have reactions. Always. China and India, on their best day, can't replace the loss of revenue to Russia, from European energy sales, and that affects more than just Putin.
4) Russia has no monopoly on energy, and never has had. Europe is an energy market. The loss of Russian supply creates a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. Look at the whole board.
Post a Comment