My personal opinion: All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China. I bet they are ready to buy Russian oil and gas to compensate even if this costs them more than getting them from the open market. Why? Because this is a wonderful test drive to check how the West (sorry for the approximation) is reacting to a country theoretically supported by the West being invaded by another one. For me, the next one on the li…
Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
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Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#82My personal opinion: All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China. I bet they are ready to buy Russian oil and gas to compensate even if this costs them more than getting them from the open market. Why? Because this is a wonderful test drive to check how the West (sorry for the approximation) is reacting to a country theoretically supported by the West being invaded by another one. For me, the next one on the li…
First it's very short term thinking by China. Victory is assured for them if the boat isn't rocked too much and they continue the path of economic integration and economic growth. Their economy will be 2x the US economy and then they will be in a better position to assert their geopolitical interests.
Second consider the consequences to China of NATO expansion in the East, which the UK has started to discuss as a good idea in the last few days. That is not good for China's geopolitical position.
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#83A related report from the BBC (published a few days ago): Europe gas prices: How far is Russia responsible? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/58888451 Some key points in the BBC article: - Russia supplies about 40% of the EU’s natural gas imports. Most of the rest comes from Norway and Algeria. - Russia sends gas to Europe through several main pipelines - such as the Nord Stream, the Yamal-Europe and the Brotherhood (see th…
>This leads to the conclusion that Gazprom is supplying the volumes... under its long-term contracts - but it is not providing additional volumes beyond those contracts," says Jack Sharples, of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Question is, was gas ordered? I doubt anyone delivers without order. According to Gazprom the orders came only february 2nd.
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#84My personal opinion: All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China. I bet they are ready to buy Russian oil and gas to compensate even if this costs them more than getting them from the open market. Why? Because this is a wonderful test drive to check how the West (sorry for the approximation) is reacting to a country theoretically supported by the West being invaded by another one. For me, the next one on the li…
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany continues to buy the same amount of natural gas from Russia as before, except half of that gas will now have to continue to go through flaky, expensive, thieving middlemen. What a great plan.
1) No, this is not what will happen 2) Russia is already flaky, expensive, and thieving.
Can you include some links since you seem to be so certain? Both Nord Stream 1 and the land pipeline are still active, I'm not aware of any plans to stop those, maybe you are?
> 2) Russia is already flaky, expensive, and thieving.
It's most certainly not nearly as expensive as Qatar or US LNG. Do you care to list some links or did you just make this up? Also, when did it steal natgas from Germany, exactly?
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's been dead for a very long time. It's a carrot that Russia was never going to get. If Scholz is smart (which I doubt) he'll restart/keep open the nuclear power plants and cut taxes on gas/electricity for households to neutralise the price hikes.
Nuclear plants are not a real replacement to gas. First of all, a lot of gas gets used for heating - nuclear isn't useful there. Then it is used for providing flexible power, to ramp up and down as quickly as possible to follow the production of renewables. Only a small fraction of the gas goes into "base load" usage. So the government might look into the nuclear power plants to dampen the price level for electricity…
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is dead for all purposes unless the political climate changes radically. Whatever the Russian plans for a gas supplier to Germany were, they are limited to what the existing pipelines can deliver. I hope, we can reduce the dependency on Russian gas quickly, even if it means the additional effort of shipping LNG from the US or other sources. Mid-term it should be highest priority to get rid of fossil fuels as quick…
Germany doesn't care about Ukraine. They have to look like they do. Once the Ukrainian issue settles down again like it did after 2014 and everyone in the west moves on to other things, Germany will simply push the start button and gas will flow.
There is also the European perspective. The cornerstone of European piece policy has been the integrity of state borders. This is now violated, so this is of very grave concern.
Putin himself stated yesterday, that he considers the Ukraine a part of Russia, so there is concern that he won't stop anytime soon, unless stopped. Ironically, an occupation of the Ukraine makes him what he claimed to try to prevent - a direct neighbor to the NATO states. We can only hope he stops before attacking NATO.
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#88My personal opinion: All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China. I bet they are ready to buy Russian oil and gas to compensate even if this costs them more than getting them from the open market. Why? Because this is a wonderful test drive to check how the West (sorry for the approximation) is reacting to a country theoretically supported by the West being invaded by another one. For me, the next one on the li…
There's reasons to doubt this. First it's very short term thinking by China. Victory is assured for them if the boat isn't rocked too much and they continue the path of economic integration and economic growth. Their economy will be 2x the US economy and then they will be in a better position to assert their geopolitical interests. Second consider the consequences to China of NATO expansion in the East, which the UK…
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's reasons to doubt this. First it's very short term thinking by China. Victory is assured for them if the boat isn't rocked too much and they continue the path of economic integration and economic growth. Their economy will be 2x the US economy and then they will be in a better position to assert their geopolitical interests. Second consider the consequences to China of NATO expansion in the East, which the UK…
China has a very short window of time before their demography crashes.
Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's reasons to doubt this. First it's very short term thinking by China. Victory is assured for them if the boat isn't rocked too much and they continue the path of economic integration and economic growth. Their economy will be 2x the US economy and then they will be in a better position to assert their geopolitical interests. Second consider the consequences to China of NATO expansion in the East, which the UK…
China has a very short window of time before their demography crashes.