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EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

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Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#181

Post by The_Colonel »

yogthos wrote: post #176
The_Colonel wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> The simple fact here is that China will want to secure resources from Russia that will not be affected by western sanctions going forward.

Now, that's not a simple fact. A simple fact is that China still didn't commit to the project.

> but at the end of the day Russia gets to offload its resources

Don't you think that the price is an important part here? If Russia "offloads" its resources at prices near break even, then the whole situation is a strategic loss.

> 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.

Even the poor data we have points to Russia being the bigger loser.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#182

Post by Kbelicius »

yogthos wrote: post #124
Kbelicius wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic only works if Russia could simply divert the flow of resources from Europe to somewhere else. They can't, not simply.

This has already happened.

No it did not. Neither by volume nor revenue.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#183

Post by Kbelicius »

yogthos wrote: post #127
Kbelicius wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of recent articles clearly show that the sanctions have been an utter failure in practice. None of your links actually say that. What they do say is that sanctions did not have the short term impact that some hoped/predicted. What all of them say is that in the long term Russia is most likely fucked. Your claim that the sanctions have been an utter failure is divorced from logic if we go by the links that yo…

IMF is literally projecting growth for Russia this year, but whatever you say buddy. Here is another article you might want to read carefully https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-economic-war-aga...

> IMF is literally projecting growth for Russia this year

That doesn't translate to "sanctions are utter failure ". Again, your logic is failing you.

> but whatever you say buddy

The articles you linked to are saying that, have you read them? Reading comprehension is a valuable skill to have.

> Here is another article you might want to read carefully

> The country has suffered harm from western sanctions, even if nothing like on the scale that we imagined we could inflict. But if the West is thinking that in future it can fight wars purely by economic means, without bombs or bullets, it is badly mistaken.

So even this new article that you linked disagrees that the sanctions were an utter failure...

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#184

Post by yogthos »

The_Colonel wrote: post #180
yogthos wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I mean if you're just going to keep repeating that then there's no point continuing this conversation. The Reuters link I provided clearly shows that Russia is projecting growth this year.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#185

Post by yogthos »

chrysler wrote: post #179
yogthos wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the real world Russia is making pre-war level profits of its energy exports. It's like you don't understand the concept of supply and demand, the need for the energy and other commodities that Russia was exporting hasn't magically gone away, and you can't just make these things appear out of thin air. The fact that so many people are unable to wrap their heads around is idea is just amazing.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#186

Post by yogthos »

The_Colonel wrote: post #181
yogthos wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> The simple fact here is that China will want to secure resources from Russia that will not be affected by western sanctions going forward. Now, that's not a simple fact. A simple fact is that China still didn't commit to the project. > but at the end of the day Russia gets to offload its resources Don't you think that the price is an important part here? If Russia "offloads" its resources at prices near break even,…

> Now, that's not a simple fact. A simple fact is that China still didn't commit to the project. Large scale projects take time to negotiate, the fact that you're desperate to make something more out of it says volumes.

> Don't you think that the price is an important part here? If Russia "offloads" its resources at prices near break even, then the whole situation is a strategic loss.

Except they're not selling at break even prices, this is just the fairy tale you keep repeating here.

> Even the poor data we have points to Russia being the bigger loser.

It doesn't show anything of the sort as numerous articles I've provided clearly state. However, you're clearly just going to repeat this like a broken record so I don't see any point continuing this discussion.

We'll see who's right soon enough.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#187

Post by yogthos »

The_Colonel wrote: post #167
yogthos wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sancti…

> 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.

You're literally doing what you're accusing me of in this thread. The fact that you continue to use ad hominem as a form of argument really shows which one of us has an agenda here.

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

We don't have to take their word as true, we can look at the fact that western media is now increasingly skeptical about the direction of the war.'

> An unconvential data measuring emissions suggest that Russian industry is in decline

That's really not showing much of anything, the graphs in the actual report show minor fluctuations, and don't even show longer term trends https://archive.ph/2XS6C

> 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.

I guess you're forgetting that this cuts both ways. Being cut off from a major commodity exporter is currently hurting western countries. That's why Germany is in a recession right now.

Meanwhile, your argument doesn't actually hold because Russia just needs to have enough trade partners to replace the trade with the west, and the west still needs the things it was getting from Russia. So, all that happens in practice is that Russia sells to other countries, and they resell to the west. This is how supply and demand works.

> 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.

There are plenty of tidbits that suggest western economies are in a terrible shape and that western countries are experiencing an unprecedented cost of living crisis right now. As I've pointed out before, Russia has made it through much bigger crises in 1990s and in 2014. On the other hand, the west has not had a comparable crisis to what we're seeing now in recent history. We'll just have to see how the west copes with it.

> 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.

What the sanctions are actually achieving is creating a whole separate economy around BRICS that will be decoupled from the west. The whole scheme can only work when the west is at the centre of the world economy. That's no longer the case, and we're seeing countries moving off the dollar now at an accelerating rate.

Re: EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

#189

Post by chrysler »

yogthos wrote: post #185
chrysler wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

In the real world Russia is making pre-war level profits of its energy exports. It's like you don't understand the concept of supply and demand, the need for the energy and other commodities that Russia was exporting hasn't magically gone away, and you can't just make these things appear out of thin air. The fact that so many people are unable to wrap their heads around is idea is just amazing.

Nice move of goalposts from "better than ever" to "pre-war", that is, Covid-riddled era with low demand.

The hard facts are that federal revenue is down -22% while expenditure is up +26% and Russia is running a 30% deficit.

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