Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 278 posts

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#221

Post by oceanplexian »

gorkish wrote: post #202
guerrilla wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because SOMEONE with money would do it until the prices adapt But they are. Your premise is wrong. This just headlined the Financial times 2 days ago[1]. This and the last quarter have been record profits for energy companies and that's not even counting local profits, which are also at record heights. 1. https://www.ft.com/content/0d84255c-84ba-4462-b80a-859335285...

Someone at some point is gonna have to start defining what the hell "record profits" actually means and why it's good for some companies to make "record profits" out of nothing but hype and bad for other companies to make "record profits" because they were smart about holding their previously money-losing gas investments until a more favorable economic condition. Gas is still trading worldwide at a price far below it…

People seem to forget that the same oil companies that are making record profits were nearly made insolvent by government lockdowns during COVID. Oil and gas prices were rising long before Russia invaded Ukraine. Of course they are going to raise prices, since the government artificially created so much volatility. The sanctions on Russia only made the situation that was already unfolding much worse.

Unfortunately, people complain that the government needs to intervene fix a problem that governments were responsible for creating, while using Russia as a smokescreen for the terrible government policies that got us where we are in the first place.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#222

Post by hackandthink »

Moissanite wrote: post #194
parkingrift wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

Germany lost momentum in transitioning to renewable energy when Merkel/CDU gained power in 2005.

Cheap gas was nice for people and politicians back then, in 2014 and would be nice now.

I do/did not support joining the war against Russia but reducing fossil fuel usage is the right thing anyway.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#223

Post by benj111 »

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…

The UK had relatively little dependence on russian gas though.

So you'd have to basically predict what did happen. Russia turning off the taps to the whole of Europe / Europe refusing to buy, and Europe scrambling to find alternative sources.

I don't think any of that was reasonably foreseeable.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#224

Post by pencilguin »

simion314 wrote: post #80
pencilguin wrote: post #29

Quoted post unavailable.

I would wait to gloat until winter is over, there is no rulle that if autumn is worm then the winter is the same, we could be hit with a super cold period of winter, add on top some sabotages from the Ruzzians and a lot of suffering might happen. I hope our countries are increasing the security checks on critical infrastructure.

It is anyway clear that, whatever the weather, Germany will not in fact freeze in the dark.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#225

Post by guerrilla »

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.

It depends on the country. Last I read here it was down 7%, other places down around 15%... Germany has had legislation since at least Sept. but I'm not sure where to find the results of that. My personal consumption is down 66% for October and I think my neighbor's is yet more. Also note, it's the warmest winter on record in many places in Europe.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#226

Post by yakak »

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.

Older people I know in Switzerland are definitely taking action, I've seen no action in businesses which use considerably more energy, though there are less businesses overall.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#227

Post by benj111 »

eecc wrote: post #48
dtech wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this or provide sources? At least in my countries the gas storage is now-empty gas fields that used to contain natural gas anyway, I have a hard time seeing how that could contaminate water sources.

The mild weather after a scorching summer is turning the continent into a desert. Without an exceptionally wet and cold winter the European water basins will be toast next year. The italian Pianura Padana has seen one of the worst droughts in centuries.

Surely cold and wet is to some degree contradictory.

Warm air holds more moisture.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#228

Post by guerrilla »

benj111 wrote: post #215
guerrilla wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So who's doing the price gouging? Oil producers? Distillers? Gas stations? Everyone? Yes, the entire supply chain, at least in my country. It's been news for quite a while. > Are prices being gouged, Yes and there's a lot of talk of intervention for that reason, even in the US.

Have you got figures to back up your assertions that the entire supply chain is price gouging? Or is this purely on the basis that you're experiencing high prices so anyone that passes on those price rises are defacto price gouging?

> Have you got figures to back up your assertions that the entire supply chain is price gouging?

This a false dichotomy. It's been in the news here pretty much constantly, especially in the financial press, to the point it's common knowledge. I'm neither digging up those articles nor translating them for you though. You'll just have to take my word on it (or not.)

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#229

Post by dirtyid »

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…

I assume those LNG tankers are just hanging around as "storage" waiting for the winter payoff?

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#230

Post by oezi »

shapefrog wrote: post #191
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…

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.

I never understood the Northstream strategy on all sides before the war and I don't understand the reasoning for blowing it up either.

For Russia to blow up its own pipeline takes away their ability to offer gas in exchange for money and political influence regarding the Ukraine conflict. Why should they want to give up this bargaining chip they worked hard for the last 20 years?

The only reason I can think of is that they believe there is no way for European to buy any gas anyway. Yet, this is in contrast to the European narrative to become independent of Russian energy over the next years but still continue to buy this energy now even if blood is sticking to it.

Thus Russia was either thinking that they don't need the money/foreign reserves anyway or that there goal of destabilizing Europe with high energy prices can't be achieved unless they turn off gas supplies entirely.

But even her the mere existence of the pipeline might have benefitted Russia because it did allow appeasers in Europe to argue for 'negotiations' with Russia. Since the pipelines were blown up, these appeasers have gotten really quite (at least in Germany) because it is clear that there is no way back with Russia.

Internally inside Russia it might be useful to portray Russia under Western attack but seems to me also projecting weakness.

In summary I don't consider it very plausible that Russia would blow up such a strategic asset.

Looking from the European perspective it also makes very little sense. Yes, everyone except the Germans hated that pipeline but the basic idea to have a pipeline directly to Russia as a carrot & stick worth 20 bn EUR of money transfer per month seems as plausible as ever.

And would any European country risk being found out to execute a bombing of infrastructure that is part of the German sphere of influence? For instance Poland? Kind of inconceivable. The US? Hard to fathom.

Which leaves only two possibilities: It was an operation by Ukraine to simplify European politics or Putin got so mad about the continuous failure that he acted irrationally once again.

Really though 3D chess it seems.

Post reply on HN