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Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

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Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#241

Post by lobochrome »

Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

Now consider that Germany has a huge dependency not only on the supply side to China but also on the demand side for machinery equipment and vehicles. In addition, we have a huge dependency on the US for national security.

So we are dependent on Russia for Energy, on China for Manufacturing and industrial demand of our most important industrial sectors and are protected by the US from a National Security point of view.

The army is a national laughing stock, the car industry is begging to be disrupted, and chinese equipment and machinery companies have completed their IP theft programs and are now almost at par from an innovation level.

All while international media hailed Merkel and her useful idiots for their international leadership.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#242

Post by dathinab »

maratc wrote: post #163
Medowar wrote: post #15

More Background, why this is in fact important: Gazprom Germania is also a critical part of the german Gas-Market, because it owns the largest gas-Storage with 1/5 of total capacity in Germany, major Gas Pipelines and Platforms for trading the ressource. This is both through Sub-companies Wingas and Astora. It also has contracts with Gazprom in Russia with guaranteed Prices and Deliveries.

> It also has contracts with Gazprom in Russia with guaranteed Prices and Deliveries. Is anyone under an illusion that Gazprom in Russia will honor these contracts, now that their branch was seized? And if not, what methods are there to enforce these contracts? The Russians seized the planes, which can fly but need spares and checks. The Germans seized the pipelines and the storage. Both have some utility in the inte…

> Is anyone under an illusion that Gazprom in Russia will honor these contracts, now that their branch was seized?

In this case because both parties need it (for now) even through currently neither of them wants it. (Russia needs the money, Germany the Gas, if Russia could afford it they would already have cut of Gas to destabilize Germany. If Germany could afford it they would already have cut payments to force Russia to stop the war.)

Also I think some people misunderstand what sizing means in this context it doesn't mean "hey this is now ours" but is much more subtle and complex, and most important temporary by nature.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#243

Post by JumpCrisscross »

neilwilson wrote: post #234
tazjin wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So most of this stuff is not public, so there is no single source to point you to, but from what people have puzzled together on various forums the structure is approximately this (corrections welcome): ПАО Gazprom (the _actual_ Gazprom; ПАО is a Russian joint-stock company) owns another Russian company (Gazprom Export OOO; OOO is a Russian LLC), which in turn owned Gazprom Germania GmbH (GmbH is a German LLC). ПАО G…

The Luxembourg entities are not on the EU sanctions list[0]. That entity will essentially own Russia's Euro reserves from now on. It's not as if this hasn't happened before. The 'EuroDollar' came about after the invasion of Hungary in 1956. Russia has just invented the 'RuskiEuro', which is how the Bank of Russia will hold Euros for the duration - probably in settlement accounts at the National Clearing Centre in Mos…

> 'EuroDollar' came about after the invasion of Hungary in 1956

The first known eurodollar account was opened in France for China during the Korean War, in 1949 [1]. The phenomenon is a result of the Marshall Plan, which left lots of physical dollars overseas and thus outside U.S. jurisdiction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurodollar#History

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#244

Post by jonhohle »

Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

During the previous six years, it struck me as completely bizarre that there was any pushback for bringing manufacturing or energy production back locally. It doesn’t have to be nationalist, it’s just adding redundancy in case your trading partner realizes they have over powered leverage. No business wants to concede to a vendor that they are irreplaceable.

Edit: Likewise, watching Germany dismantle its nuclear infrastructure over the last several decades for… what reason exactly? Replacing a clean, cheap, on-demand energy source for dependence on foreign energy imports? Even if you think global trade is panacea, why throw out working critical infrastructure and replace it with something beyond control?

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#245

Post by chmod775 »

zekrioca wrote: post #205
ectopod wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are additional rules for critical national infrastructure. The gas company didn't follow them and this gave the government the legal right to seize the business.

Honest question: Then why did they (Germany) allow Gazprom to own critical infra. in the first place?

Honest answer: Because they were following the rules up until that point.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#246

Post by throaway1721613 »

Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

I think it's quite different. Gas can be understood as being sold by Country A to Country B (instead of business to business or business to consumer). Yes, there might be private firms involved, but Country A can stop the gas on a moment's notice if so desired. Also, there's likely no substitute for this gas in the midterm (months? years to get 3 new nuclear plants?). Finally, in terms of "responsibility", this was decided by the German government, not just by individual consumers / businesses that decided to buy more from Russia.

The commercial relationship between the USA and China is much different. First, it consists of thousands of businesses and millions of consumers: it's not so easy to stop the flow (you can ban some of it, but there are workarounds). For many of those goods, there will be substitutes. Finally, this wasn't something explicitly decided by the USA government.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#247

Post by lobochrome »

neilwilson wrote: post #234
tazjin wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So most of this stuff is not public, so there is no single source to point you to, but from what people have puzzled together on various forums the structure is approximately this (corrections welcome): ПАО Gazprom (the _actual_ Gazprom; ПАО is a Russian joint-stock company) owns another Russian company (Gazprom Export OOO; OOO is a Russian LLC), which in turn owned Gazprom Germania GmbH (GmbH is a German LLC). ПАО G…

The Luxembourg entities are not on the EU sanctions list[0]. That entity will essentially own Russia's Euro reserves from now on. It's not as if this hasn't happened before. The 'EuroDollar' came about after the invasion of Hungary in 1956. Russia has just invented the 'RuskiEuro', which is how the Bank of Russia will hold Euros for the duration - probably in settlement accounts at the National Clearing Centre in Mos…

I agree. And since the RuskiEuro will be backed by a massive amount of commodity it'll be fairly hard currency. Zoltan Poszar has been clear on this[0].

My gut feeling is, that the EU, without any commodities, has a single choice: kick the Russian gas habit immediately, and force Russia to kill their western gas fields. Then pray they collapse in the next few years.

If the EU keeps paying - Russia's new Gazprom central bank controlled RuskiEuro reserves will stabilize its economy and it will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Even if we kick the gas habit, this might still happen if Putin keeps his thumb on public sentiment enough.

[0]https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/news...

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#248

Post by blywi »

raverbashing wrote: post #104
pjc50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear canceled by the Green Party .. after Fukushima. Trading one tail risk for another. (Germany has oddly lagged in deploying renewables, though. Possibly due to lack of offshore sites, meaning that wind farms have to be deployed against the efforts of NIMBYs)

> .. after Fukushima. Trading one tail risk for another. We don't stop flying after planes get into an accident. We evaluate and improve our designs and controls But with nuclear with go with knee-jerk reaction for some reason

There's more to the story than that.

The last German government before Merkel came to power, was a coalition between the Green party and the Social-Democrats (SPD), this government decided to phase-out nuclear power in Germany in favor of renewable energy by limiting the running time of existing nuclear power plants.

The next German government was a coalition between conservative CDU under Merkel and SPD, and the nuclear phase-out remained untouched.

But when Merkel won the federal elections a second time and was able to form a coalition with the Liberal-Democrats (FDP) replacing of the SPD as a coalition partner, who had voted in favor of the nuclear phase-out, they decided to cancel the nuclear phase-out.

This happened in the autumn of 2010 and was a controversial decision for the public opinion. When Fukushima happened half year later it was widely seen as a confirmation of the inherent risks of nuclear energy and thus the Green party’s energy politics, not because Germany is especially prone to Tsunamis, but because it showed that it's impossible to rule out and plan for every possible dangerous situation in advance, and that even a high-tech country like Japan, on a comparable technical level to Germany, was not able to stop the meltdowns.

Elections in federal states shortly after Fukushima resulted in a landslide loss for Merkel's CDU and big wins for the Green party, the CDU losing one of its stronghold states [1] it had before held constantly for 58 years.

As far as I remember Merkel foresaw the public reaction and almost immediately after Fukushima voiced out in favor of reversing the cancelation of the nuclear phase-out, but could only get a solid backing in her party, after the losses in the federal state elections.

[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/-fukushima-strahlt-bis-baden-wu...

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#249

Post by dathinab »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #29

This doesn't make sense to me. Can i get an explanation? The German state seized a local German branch of the Russian Gazprom company. In order to secure its energy supplies... which come from Russia. Are they in essence capturing some reserves?

> Are they in essence capturing some reserves?

No,

sized here means "put under control of a trustee until the situation is resolved" it doesn't mean "take over ownership".

The reason that happens is because the persons(s) currently in control of Gazprom Germania did try to use that control to act against German law in a way which threatens national security.

This is also more about Gas infrastructure then Gas as far as I can tell.

My guess is that some Russian oligarch tried to move ownership to one (or potentially many) chains of "dummy" companies which obfuscate the actual owner and go through many other non-Russian nationalities. This e.g. would make many legal actions against Gazprom Germania harder as the new (dumy) "owner(s)" would not be from Russia or any other sanctioned state.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#250

Post by kmlx »

dathinab wrote: post #249
LAC-Tech wrote: post #29

This doesn't make sense to me. Can i get an explanation? The German state seized a local German branch of the Russian Gazprom company. In order to secure its energy supplies... which come from Russia. Are they in essence capturing some reserves?

> Are they in essence capturing some reserves? No, sized here means "put under control of a trustee until the situation is resolved" it doesn't mean "take over ownership". The reason that happens is because the persons(s) currently in control of Gazprom Germania did try to use that control to act against German law in a way which threatens national security. This is also more about Gas infrastructure then Gas as far…

> would make many legal actions against Gazprom Germania harder

what legal action? Gazprom is not under any sanctions…

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