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EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

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Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#161

Post by The_Colonel »

yogthos wrote: post #158
The_Colonel wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just basic economics. India and China have a bigger leverage, it would be stupid of them to not use it. I mean, what's the alternative explanation of why India increased the Russian oil imports tenfold? It's not because of good will, it's because India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. Why does Russia sell oil cheaper to India? Because it won't find another such big customer.

Basic economics say that Russia is a major commodity exporter and that as long as there is global demand for these commodities then Russia will have no problem selling them. It's like you don't understand how basic supply and demand works. India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.

> India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.

You're contradicting yourself. India is selling at a market rate, so if there's a profit to make, it's coming from the Russian side. Pick one - either India has a big markup or Russia sells with only small discount. Both can't be true.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#162

Post by yogthos »

The_Colonel wrote: post #155
yogthos wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only person with an agenda here is the one who keep using ad hominem attacks instead of providing any actual arguments. The reality is that the economic war has gone on for nearly two years now, and so far there is no sign of Russian economy collapsing. The sources I've provided come from mainstream western publications which are openly hostile to Russia, and they explain in black and white why the economic war h…

A person without an agenda would surely link also links which provide a different POV: * https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/01/ukraine-russia-sanction... * https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2023/number/1/ar... * https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-sanctions-one-year Nobody claims the sanctions are perfect. Sometimes there are holes which need to be plugged. There are some other areas which should be sanctio…

It's pretty weird to claim that providing articles with the information that supports the points I'm making is an agenda. The problem with the claims in the articles you linked make is that they're at odds with the reality we're currently observing. There has been no evidence that Russia's war in Ukraine has been negatively impacted by the sanctions, and the predictions we hear every month that Russia is going to run out of weapons are not coming true either. Meanwhile, economy in Russia appears to be doing just fine because the void that western companies left is being filled by companies from China and India.

The whole premise of your argument seems to be based on the notion that countries can't have an economy that's independent from the west. This is an absurd idea given that the west accounts for only 20% of world's population. Majority of the world sharply disagrees with the west as studies commissioned by EU and US clearly show:

https://ecfr.eu/publication/united-west-divided-from-the-res...

https://usrussiaaccord.org/acura-viewpoint-krishen-mehta-the...

And here's how NYT puts it:

> A year on, it’s becoming clearer: While the West’s core coalition remains remarkably solid, it never convinced the rest of the world to isolate Russia.

https://archive.is/2023.02.23-211202/https://www.nytimes.com...

What ultimately matters is the relative damage the sanctions are causing to Russia and Europe. There is clear evidence that there has been sever economic impact on Europe as a result of the sanctions, and there is no evidence that there's a greater crisis in Russia than in Europe right now. It's also important to note that Russia has already made it through two major crises in the 90s and in 2014 while Europe has not experienced anything similar in recent history. What remains to be seen is whether Europe or Russia will be able to handle the decoupling better.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#163

Post by yogthos »

The_Colonel wrote: post #157
yogthos wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's April gas exports to Europe up 7.5% from March, and as statistica link shows, Europe is nowhere close to cutting off Russian gas. The whole narrative that EU is independent from Russian fossil fuels is just fake news. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-april-gas-ex... https://www.statista.com/statistics/1306522/key-importers-of...

> The whole narrative that EU is independent from Russian fossil fuels is just fake news. I agree with you on that one. It's a longer project to become independent of Russian energy completely and we're not there yet. But the level of dependence dropped sharply since last year.

Not nearly as sharply as people claim, what's happening in practice is that Europe is just buying repackaged Russian fossil fuels through resellers. I find it amazing that people can't understand that you can't just make huge volumes of oil and gas appear out of thin air. Europe would have to drastically change its whole energy infrastructure to become actually independent of Russian energy. This will be a decades long project of creating alternative energy production.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#164

Post by yogthos »

kstenerud wrote: post #159
yogthos wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just factually wrong I'm afraid https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/14/energy/russia-oil-exports-iea...

"That's just factually wrong I'm afraid" This kind of response is incredibly rude. So it looks like their production has since gone up, a lot (after dropping mid last year). Profits are still down because nobody's paying full price. https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/31/russian-oil-exports-are-...

I'm not sure what's rude about stating that the statement you made is factually wrong. Furthermore, the west doesn't really have good data on the volume of sales Russia is doing because these transactions are happening outside of SWIFT.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#165

Post by yogthos »

The_Colonel wrote: post #161
yogthos wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic economics say that Russia is a major commodity exporter and that as long as there is global demand for these commodities then Russia will have no problem selling them. It's like you don't understand how basic supply and demand works. India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.

> India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe. You're contradicting yourself. India is selling at a market rate, so if there's a profit to make, it's coming from the Russian side. Pick one - either India has a big markup or Russia sells with only small discount. Both can't be true.

You're the one who said that India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. So, using your logic India is selling oil to Europe at a markup. If Russia is selling to India at a small discount, then India is still making money directly at the expense of Europe.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#166

Post by barbazoo »

ghostwriter wrote: post #135
barbazoo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long term, Otto will be happy about this.

[flagged]

> According to WEF speakers, Otto will own nothing first, and then he'll be happy.

According to one WEF speaker if I'm not mistaken. Side question, how long are we gonna use that to spread FUD?

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#167

Post by The_Colonel »

yogthos wrote: post #162
The_Colonel wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person without an agenda would surely link also links which provide a different POV: * https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/01/ukraine-russia-sanction... * https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2023/number/1/ar... * https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-sanctions-one-year Nobody claims the sanctions are perfect. Sometimes there are holes which need to be plugged. There are some other areas which should be sanctio…

It's pretty weird to claim that providing articles with the information that supports the points I'm making is an agenda. The problem with the claims in the articles you linked make is that they're at odds with the reality we're currently observing. There has been no evidence that Russia's war in Ukraine has been negatively impacted by the sanctions, and the predictions we hear every month that Russia is going to run…

> It's pretty weird to claim that providing articles with the information that supports the points I'm making is an agenda.

The problem is that you're presenting the problem as very one sided while it's clearly contested at minimum. This + the fact you're Russian is making it easy to guess whose agenda you're pushing.

> There has been no evidence that Russia's war in Ukraine has been negatively impacted by the sanctions

It's difficult to get neutral data. We have data from Kremlin, but it would be dumb to take their word as true.

An unconvential data measuring emissions suggest that Russian industry is in decline: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/russias-economy-suffering-...

> This is an absurd idea given that the west accounts for only 20% of world's population

I guess you're intentionally "forgetting" that the west amounts to 50% of world's economy. Being sanctioned by half the world's economy has likely negative consequences.

> and there is no evidence that there's a greater crisis in Russia than in Europe right now.

We have only little evidence unfortunately, since as stated above, we simply lack reliable data. There are a few tidbits which might suggest that the economic picture is not that rosy - the emission study above, the Russian state deficits, dropping oil/gas revenues and even Putin admitting that sanctions can hurt Russian economy.

But to repeat myself, I'm ready to admit that the sanctions regime is not perfect. It's a reminder to work harder on new sanctions and to plug holes.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#168

Post by The_Colonel »

yogthos wrote: post #165
The_Colonel wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe. You're contradicting yourself. India is selling at a market rate, so if there's a profit to make, it's coming from the Russian side. Pick one - either India has a big markup or Russia sells with only small discount. Both can't be true.

You're the one who said that India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. So, using your logic India is selling oil to Europe at a markup. If Russia is selling to India at a small discount, then India is still making money directly at the expense of Europe.

I'm happy to admit that India is making money as middlemen, that's exactly how the price cap was supposed to work. But given India is selling at market price, it's cutting into Russian profits. Indian profit is the same as Russian loss, so it's really silly to claim that Russian discount is "small" while India makes "big" markups.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#169

Post by The_Colonel »

yogthos wrote: post #163
The_Colonel wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole narrative that EU is independent from Russian fossil fuels is just fake news. I agree with you on that one. It's a longer project to become independent of Russian energy completely and we're not there yet. But the level of dependence dropped sharply since last year.

Not nearly as sharply as people claim, what's happening in practice is that Europe is just buying repackaged Russian fossil fuels through resellers. I find it amazing that people can't understand that you can't just make huge volumes of oil and gas appear out of thin air. Europe would have to drastically change its whole energy infrastructure to become actually independent of Russian energy. This will be a decades lo…

Not all. Russia doesn't have any other customers for gas which it used to sell to Europe because of the lack of pipelines leading elsewhere. Its LNG capacity is very limited. Keep also in mind that Russia's gas has never actually been sanctioned and Europe is willing to buy it in the short term.

> This will be a decades long project of creating alternative energy production.

It will take years, yes. Europe kind of ignored this problem, now it will have to pay to get out of it. There's no other way, though.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#170

Post by lisasays »

usernew wrote: post #141
lisasays wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only difference between the people in charge of Ukraine, and the people in charge of Russia, is Ukraine doesn't have the military to go threaten the world - and if they did, they would. I don't buy this assessment at a all. Based on everything from their origins, to their voluminous public statements, to their actions, to their deportment and vibe -- not to mention the basic historical record of the two countries…

So, I will admit - my Ukraine-experience-based Opinion about Ukraine may be wrong. It is my opinion. Have you, um, been there, not like a tourist? Like rented an apartment, dealt with their government offices and low level officials? How about just managers and people in offices and on the street? "to their voluminous public statements" - I'm sorry - what??? My comment was literally about many of their public stateme…

Have you, um, been there, not like a tourist? Like rented an apartment, dealt with their government offices and low level officials?

If you only knew, comrade. If you only knew.

But you don't, and by this point you've adeptly demonstrated your behavioral tendencies. This combination of profound intellectually dishonesty and intentional baiting and button-pushing has no place on HN. You bore us, and will have to take your game elsewhere.

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