EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels • Hacker News Board

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#171

Post by yogthos » Wed, May 31, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

The_Colonel wrote: post #168

yogthos wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's absolutely not how the price cap was supposed to work since India is buying at a higher price than the cap and we've seen repeated complaints from western officials regarding this fact. Again, as many articles I've linked show, there is no sign that this is cutting into Russian profits in any significant way/ However, it absolutely is devastating European economy.

I'll reiterate my point since it clearly escaped you. The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking. There is clear evidence that European economy is suffering and countries like Germany are now in recession. There is no such evidence regarding Russian economy.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#172

Post by yogthos » Wed, May 31, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

The_Colonel wrote: post #169

yogthos wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ig…

Russia is already building pipelines to China on a massive scale https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/russia-to-invest-al...

So, by the time Europe actually manages to wean itself off from Russian gas, there will be infrastructure for Russia to direct gas to China and other countries. I certainly agree that Europe has no other choice at this point. How Europe manages its energy transition is a big question though since energy is needed to build out the alternative infrastructure.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#173

Post by The_Colonel » Wed, May 31, 2023, 8:31 PM UTC

yogthos wrote: post #172

The_Colonel wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ig…

Russia is already building pipelines to China on a massive scale https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/russia-to-invest-al... So, by the time Europe actually manages to wean itself off from Russian gas, there will be infrastructure for Russia to direct gas to China and other countries. I certainly agree that Europe has no other choice at this point. How Europe manages its energy transition is a big question though…

First, China has always paid significantly less than Europe for Russian gas.

Now, it looks like Russia is going to spend $100 billion on the pipeline to sell its gas cheaply. But wait, China isn't that eager to commit to the project: https://www.ft.com/content/541f8bcb-118a-419e-869f-3273fcc9c...

Maybe China is trying to bargain even better price? China can, after all, buy energy from other sellers, but Russia has nowhere else to sell its gas.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#174

Post by The_Colonel » Wed, May 31, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

yogthos wrote: post #171

The_Colonel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's absolutely not how the price cap was supposed to work since India is buying at a higher price than the cap and we've seen repeated complaints from western officials regarding this fact. Again, as many articles I've linked show, there is no sign that this is cutting into Russian profits in any significant way/ However, it absolutely is devastating European economy. I'll reiterate my point since it clearly escap…

> The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking.

2022 GDP growth:

* Germany +1.9%

* Russia -2.1% (according to Russia's agency)

Yeah, evidence absolutely points to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#175

Post by yogthos » Wed, May 31, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

The_Colonel wrote: post #174

yogthos wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely not how the price cap was supposed to work since India is buying at a higher price than the cap and we've seen repeated complaints from western officials regarding this fact. Again, as many articles I've linked show, there is no sign that this is cutting into Russian profits in any significant way/ However, it absolutely is devastating European economy. I'll reiterate my point since it clearly escap…

> The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking. 2022 GDP growth: * Germany +1.9% * Russia -2.1% (according to Russia's agency) Yeah, evidence absolutely points to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever.

now let's forward and see how things are going in 2023

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/economy/germany-recession-q1-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-25/germany-e...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-economy-minis...

Evidence absolutely does point to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever. I have to ask what your agenda is here given that you keep trying to pretend things that are obviously happening aren't happening?

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#176

Post by yogthos » Wed, May 31, 2023, 10:04 PM UTC

The_Colonel wrote: post #173

yogthos wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is already building pipelines to China on a massive scale https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/russia-to-invest-al... So, by the time Europe actually manages to wean itself off from Russian gas, there will be infrastructure for Russia to direct gas to China and other countries. I certainly agree that Europe has no other choice at this point. How Europe manages its energy transition is a big question though…

First, China has always paid significantly less than Europe for Russian gas. Now, it looks like Russia is going to spend $100 billion on the pipeline to sell its gas cheaply. But wait, China isn't that eager to commit to the project: https://www.ft.com/content/541f8bcb-118a-419e-869f-3273fcc9c... Maybe China is trying to bargain even better price? China can, after all, buy energy from other sellers, but Russia has no…

The simple fact here is that China will want to secure resources from Russia that will not be affected by western sanctions going forward. Russia will sell gas and oil to China at a discount, but at the end of the day Russia gets to offload its resources and China secures its energy.

Meanwhile, Europe is stuck buying LNG on the spot market at a far higher rate than it was getting via pipelines from Russia. I wonder who the bigger loser in all this is...

The whole context here is whether Russia is suffering economically as a result more than Europe. Given that Germany is already in a recession, it's pretty clear what the answer is.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#177

Post by nomel » Wed, May 31, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

vegardx wrote: post #140

nomel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If India doesn't buy Russia's oil to resell to Europe, Russia ends up with even less money than they have now. EU is buying through India, right? If Russia put fee's in place to discourage India from reselling, but EU demand didn't change, prices would have to increase, right? It's a two sided market, supply and EU demand, which makes this "If India doesn't buy Russia's oil to resell to Europe" seem impossible.

India sells refined goods to Europe. They buy crude oil from Russia because Russia has no market to sell it to, and have to sell it at a discounted price. If Russia puts any sanctions on where India can sell their refined goods they'll just buy crude oil elsewhere. Europe isn't the only market, and Russia isn't the only producer of crude oil. India is just making a premium buy using Russian crude oil. The biggest los…

> they'll just buy crude oil elsewhere.

Ahh thanks, that directly answers to my original question, which apparently wasn't appreciated. It makes sense now.

I'm wondering if there's some interesting metric that can be extracted from comment chains like this, where some semblance of a conversation continues with completely separate people.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#178

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 12:40 AM UTC

lisasays wrote: post #129

usernew wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this as an anti-GOP American who has lived a year an a half in Ukraine, has friends I currently financially support in Ukraine, and thinks Russia should be economically turned into North Korea: Belarus, the country, is "within spitting distance" of Kiev. There has always been tight integration between their armies, as well as open borders. There have Always been Russian soldiers close to Kiev, because that's wh…

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…

[deleted]

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#179

Post by chrysler » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 2:36 AM UTC

yogthos wrote: post #175

The_Colonel wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking. 2022 GDP growth: * Germany +1.9% * Russia -2.1% (according to Russia's agency) Yeah, evidence absolutely points to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever.

now let's forward and see how things are going in 2023 https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/economy/germany-recession-q1-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-25/germany-e... https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-economy-minis... Evidence absolutely does point to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever. I have to ask what your agenda is here given that you keep trying to pr…

>> while Russia is better than ever.

In same fairytale, that may be so. In the real world, oil and gas revenue is 40% of Russia's federal budget and down -52% YoY as of April, so that's more than -20% from oil and gas alone gone before taking collapse of other exports and explosion of military expenditure into account. At this rate, we'll see a replay of 1998 soon.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#180

Post by The_Colonel » Thu, Jun 01, 2023, 7:13 AM UTC

yogthos wrote: post #175

The_Colonel wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking. 2022 GDP growth: * Germany +1.9% * Russia -2.1% (according to Russia's agency) Yeah, evidence absolutely points to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever.

now let's forward and see how things are going in 2023 https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/economy/germany-recession-q1-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-25/germany-e... https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-economy-minis... Evidence absolutely does point to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever. I have to ask what your agenda is here given that you keep trying to pr…

That's some nice cherry-picking. German "barely a recession" projected at -0.1% over 2023 with most of the Europe growing is "getting hammered". Russia with -2.3% is "better than ever".