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Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

economist.com

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Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#191

Post by shapefrog »

reitanqild wrote: post #140
Workaccount2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia would be insane (more than they already are) to attack that. It has nothing to do with Ukraine and would likely be considered an attack on a NATO ally. No benefit and lots to lose.

(Disclaimer up front: I don't know who cut NS1 and NS2, my bet is on russia, but I can see more than one alternative.) Which would explain the attacks on their own gas pipeline NS1 and NS2: - they are dumb and reckless enough to do that (they weren't used anyway, +plausible deniability) - it signals to NATO the idea that russia can destroy critical infrastructure without actually getting caught for an attack on criti…

Rounded to the nearest meaningful number 0.00 cubic feet of gas was going to flow through those pipes in the foreseeable future.

Blowing them up did everyone, on both sides, a lot of favours by ending the whole will they / wont they charade that was taking place on both sides.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#192

Post by shapefrog »

snapcaster wrote: post #170
reitanqild wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer up front: I don't know who cut NS1 and NS2, my bet is on russia, but I can see more than one alternative.) Which would explain the attacks on their own gas pipeline NS1 and NS2: - they are dumb and reckless enough to do that (they weren't used anyway, +plausible deniability) - it signals to NATO the idea that russia can destroy critical infrastructure without actually getting caught for an attack on criti…

Why would it have been Russia? Obviously we don't know who did, but my thoughts were that Russia would want that pipeline to be available as a bargaining chip to get the rest of Europe to pressure Ukraine to concede. How does blowing it up benefit them?

> How does blowing it up benefit them?

Destroy the european economy by starving and freezing people to death, make everyone in europe turn against ukrainian supporting politicians and cut off any support for the ukraine government.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#193

Post by csours »

GaylordTuring wrote: post #173

> Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it provided close to 40% of Europe’s gas. I’ve never understood why people say things like this when referring to the operations started in 2022. Wasn’t what they did in Crimea in 2014 an invasion?

When did WWII start? It depends on where you lived.

In 2014 they had a fig leaf of not using uniformed Russian military. It was a transparent fig leaf, but we all need our fictions to get through the day.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#194

Post by Moissanite »

parkingrift wrote: post #190
Moissanite wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20/20 hindsight. In a less miserable timeline, the absence of hostilities with Russia makes gas storage a non-issue, and any government putting money into gas tanks rather than renewable energy would have been (rightly) lambasted. I'm willing to tear chunks out of our inept leaders over many things, but this isn't one of them.

My friend… Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Two different US presidents warned Europe about Russian energy dependency, publicly. Who knows how many times this was brought up in private conversations. This was so easy to predict that even Donald Trump managed to put two and two together and make four. He brought it up, publicly, and German leaders literally laughed at his face. European politicians deserve no benefit o…

Meh; I take your point, but in 2017 there was definitely more emphasis on risks from climate than from Russia. Not saying that was a valid position, just that it isn't too surprising that politicians don't eagerly swim against the tide being set by the media and general public. The root of the problem is that those journalists and voters aren't capable of holding enough complexity in their minds to acknowledge both risks at the same time.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#196

Post by arikrak »

krobbn wrote: post #130

"Gas costs €35 per mwh for delivery today, but €110 for a guaranteed shipment in December and €142 for one in February, once heaters turn on." The market is in contago, if you can find a way to store the gas you can make money buying today and delivering in Dec/Jan/Feb. You could even take delivery in December if you can find storage and sell in Feb and lock in a spread of $32 today. This is the reason you're seeing…

Run the gas through generators and generate Bitcoin with the extra electricity, then spend it on gas futures?

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#197

Post by fbdab103 »

empedocles wrote: post #76
rowanajmarshall wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the UK has an appreciable percentage of Europe's LNG re-gasification capacity, while Germany has none, and imports LNG via Belgium and the Netherlands instead. The UK has storage, it's just sitting in ships off the coast.

Unlike oil, LNG boils off while sitting off the coast, so this is not a long term strategy.

At what rate? 1% per day/week? If it takes N weeks to criss cross the Atlantic to refill from the US, maybe it is worthwhile to lose X% off the top to sell when possible.

I have no doubt the energy companies have teams of analysts crunching the numbers on a daily basis.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#198

Post by MomoXenosaga »

csours wrote: post #193
GaylordTuring wrote: post #173

> Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it provided close to 40% of Europe’s gas. I’ve never understood why people say things like this when referring to the operations started in 2022. Wasn’t what they did in Crimea in 2014 an invasion?

When did WWII start? It depends on where you lived. In 2014 they had a fig leaf of not using uniformed Russian military. It was a transparent fig leaf, but we all need our fictions to get through the day.

Yeah Crimea invasion was basically Sudetenland.

Nobody really thought Putin would become completely unhinged.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#199

Post by [deleted] »

somedude895 wrote: post #182
kristo wrote: post #165

Don't discount the fact that many europeans are actively trying to conserve and refuse to heat their house until absolutely necessary. I have 65 yr old friends in amsterdam taking spongebaths because they don't want to support russia

Is that just an anecdote though? In Switzerland the govt has been running an energy conservation awareness campaign for about 6 weeks now and the stats say it's had zero effect so far.

[deleted]

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#200

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

nurblieh wrote: post #151
krobbn wrote: post #130

"Gas costs €35 per mwh for delivery today, but €110 for a guaranteed shipment in December and €142 for one in February, once heaters turn on." The market is in contago, if you can find a way to store the gas you can make money buying today and delivering in Dec/Jan/Feb. You could even take delivery in December if you can find storage and sell in Feb and lock in a spread of $32 today. This is the reason you're seeing…

Contango! Great word. For a fun explanation, check out Planet Money’s “Negative Oil”, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/22/842095406/episode-993-negativ... .

I was on hn when that happened last time. I felt like but could not convince someone to "buy" me an oil tanker for negative money, only for a short period but I could boast about "being an owner of an oil tanker once". Sigh. If only someone could help
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