European gas imports

ALAMO wrote:Well, it i not exactly "siphoning", as the gas volume is extra.
Anyway, the pipe is technically big - bigger that TurkStream, what suggests it can be used to push much more gas through it. I suppose it is only the matter of th power of turbines at pumping stations.

No it is not. They did not increase capacity in Europipe II when they did Baltic Pipe. The whole rationale behind Baltic Pipe is that Germany would have enough Russian gas via Nord Stream that they did not need all that Norwegian gas anymore, so it could be diverted to the Danes and Poles.

lancelot wrote:
No it is not. They did not increase capacity in Europipe II when they did Baltic Pipe. The whole rationale behind Baltic Pipe is that Germany would have enough Russian gas via Nord Stream that they did not need all that Norwegian gas anymore, so it could be diverted to the Danes and Poles.

Well, I have never inspected the numbers as the issue was under my radar, but the general mood of how it was described here was about how much redundancy we will get.
So probably you are right, and things have been presented here in an over-optimistic manner.

You can bet that any evidence on the sites was eliminated by the explosions themselves.

Or NATO divers.

Take your pick

Which would be further evidence of collusion by the navies who claimed to have sent people to the area to investigate.

Russias position is relatively weak... in fact it is very similar to the situation with the airliner shot down by Kiev forces, but that does not really matter because we all know who did it.

It seems that even Patrushev is under the delusion that the US has the export capacity to replace Russia.
People can say that he would know more than some random internet clown such as myself, but I say not so fast.
The US imports 80 billion cubic meters per year from Kanada. Even though it exports some to Mexico this
shows no evidence of 150-200 bcm/yr capacity needed to replace Russia.

He is not saying that the US can supply the EU with all the energy it needs, he is saying they are sabotaging Russias capacity to deliver gas cheaply via pipes to reduce its capacity to deliver the gas the EU needs so that the EU would look to other sources of gas including US sources.

They are prepared to ruin the EU economy to sell a little of their products at prices vastly higher than Russia was selling them for just a few years ago.

You also missed 4) When winter hits the northern hemisphere and EU demand for gas goes up... demand for gas in the US will go up too and they might be buying some Russian gas for their own needs let alone having spare gas for Europe.

Russia should sequester more of its gas for future use. It has been too generous with exports. The current crisis
should be used to downregulate gas production and find other economic activity to replace it.

Demand is normally quite variable so the are able to slow down extraction when they don't need a lot.

A very quick analyses of industries in Germany that use this gas for the chemicals industry should highlight some near future gaps in the market they could perhaps look to fill themselves with their own cheap gas supplies, and of course constant boosting of supplies to Asia will continue to earn them top money.

To encourage rapid uptake of gas as an energy source in Asia they could offer to sell it at the rates they were selling it to Europe for...

I assume that no-one in the German, or any other Western Government wants to let the German population know that, if it gets really bad, in the middle of winter there is still an option to get gas.

But if it does get really bad Russia might decide to stop all gas supplies to countries that arm the terrorists in Kiev...

Same with the NSII and NSI pipes... Germany might have thought of them as being plan B if being a dick to Russia doesn't work and it starts to get really cold, but the reality is that in the situation of escalation it is a string Russia can decide to cut at any time... Russia does not need to blow anything up... they can just choose not to send any gas through the pipes.

Whilst Poland can keep its hands 'clean' by not using any, it could come to the rescue of Germany, a savior no less. Even the US could get kudos by allowing a temporary sanctions waiver (shutting it again in the Spring to punish the evil Russians) and hence saving German lives. Win-win. Now, how much reparations did Poland want from Germany? It could get lots of money to pay for all the US weapons its just ordered.

And Poland opens up the taps to be the hero and Gazprom say no dice.... your lot tried to destroy our economy which would mean dead Russians, you have been arming and supporting Kiev who has been murdering their own civilians and also Russians and Russian soldiers.... how about the rest of Europe feel some pain...

Baltic Pipe does not provide the EU with any more gas.

It taps off gas from Europipe II which brought gas from Norway into Germany. So the Poles and the Danes are basically siphoning off Norwegian gas that would have otherwise went into Germany for themselves.

So the Danes and Poles are cutting Germany out of transit fee earnings... how amusing...

Well, I have never inspected the numbers as the issue was under my radar, but the general mood of how it was described here was about how much redundancy we will get.
So probably you are right, and things have been presented here in an over-optimistic manner.

NS I and II were not just about bypassing unreliable Ukraine but also to allow for growth in use of gas over the next few years as nuclear and coal energy is rolled back...

Now it is just a rope around EUrope... the US doing this just makes it quicker and easier for the Russians to turn their backs on Europe... I mean without cheap gas supplies what other trade is likely... most of the "trade" with Russia was an opportunity for Russia to spend all the Euros it made selling Europe gas... take that away and relations almost become non existent... except for Brussels telling Russia they do everything wrong and why can't they be more civilised and european...

By Michael Hudson, from Martyanov's blog:  

The Euro Without German Industry

   The reaction to the sabotage of three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in four places on Monday, September 26, has focused on speculations about who did it and whether NATO will make a serious attempt to discover the answer. Yet instead of panic, there has been a great sigh of diplomatic relief, even calm. Disabling these pipelines ends the uncertainty and worries on the part of US/NATO diplomats that nearly reached a crisis proportion the previous week, when large demonstrations took place in Germany calling for the sanctions to end and to commission Nord Stream 2 to resolve the energy shortage.

   The German public was coming to understand what it will mean if their steel companies, fertilizer companies, glass companies and toilet-paper companies were shutting down. These companies were forecasting that they would have to go out of business entirely – or shift operations to the United States – if Germany did not withdraw from the trade and currency sanctions against Russia and permit Russian gas and oil imports to resume, and presumably to fall back from their astronomical eight to tenfold price increase.

   Yet State Department hawk Victoria Nuland already had stated in January that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward” if Russia responded to the accelerating Ukrainian military attacks on the Russian-speaking eastern oblasts. President Biden backed up U.S. insistence on February 7, promising that “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it. … I promise you, we will be able to do it.”

   Most observers simply assumed that these statements reflected the obvious fact that German politicians were fully in the US/NATO pocket. Germany’s politicians held fast turbines refusing to authorize Nord Stream 2, and Canada soon seized the Siemens dynamos needed to send gas through Nord Stream 1. That seemed to settle matters until German industry – and a rising number of voters – finally began to calculate just what blocking Russian gas would mean for Germany’s industrial firms, and hence domestic employment.

   Germany’s willingness to self-impose an economic depression was wavering – although not its politicians or the EU bureaucracy. If policymakers were to put German business interests and living standards first, NATO’s common sanctions and New Cold War front would be broken. Italy and France might follow suit. That prospect made it urgent to take the anti-Russian sanctions out of the hands of democratic politics.

   Despite being an act of violence, sabotaging the pipelines has restored calm to US/NATO diplomatic relations. There is no more uncertainty about whether Europe may break away from U.S. diplomacy by restoring mutual trade and investment with Russia. The threat of Europe breaking away from the US/NATO trade and financial sanctions against Russia has been solved, seemingly for the foreseeable future. Russia has announced that the gas pressure is falling in three of the four pipelines, and the infusion of salt water will irreversibly corrode the pipes. (Tagesspiegel, September 28.)

    Where do the euro and dollar go from here?

   Looking at how this will reshape the relationship between the U.S. dollar and the euro, one can understand why the seemingly obvious consequences of Germany, Italy and other European economies severing trade ties with Russia have not been discussed openly. The solution is a German and indeed Europe-wide economic crash. The next decade will be a disaster. There may be recriminations against the price paid for letting Europe’s trade diplomacy be dictated by NATO, but there is nothing that Europe can do about it. Nobody (yet) expects it to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. What is expected is for its living standards to plunge.

   German industrial exports and attraction of foreign investment inflows were major factors supporting the euro’s exchange rate. To Germany, the great attraction in moving from the deutsche mark to the euro was to avoid its export surplus pushing up the D-mark’s exchange rate and pricing German products out of world markets. Expanding the eurozone to include Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and other countries running balance-of-payments deficits prevented the euro from soaring. That protected the competitiveness of German industry.

   After its introduction in 1999 at $1.12, the euro sank to $0.85 by July 2001, but recovered and indeed rose to $1.58 in April 2008. It has been drifting down steadily since then, and since February of this year the sanctions have driven the euro’s exchange rate below parity with the dollar, to $0.97 this week.

   The major deficit problem has been rising prices for imported gas and oil, and products such as aluminum and fertilizer requiring heavy energy inputs for their production. And as the euro’s exchange rate declines against the dollar, the cost of carrying Europe’s US-dollar debt – the normal condition for affiliates of U.S. multinationals –rises, squeezing profits.

   This is not the kind of depression in which “automatic stabilizers” can work to restore economic balance. Energy dependency is structural. To make matters worse, the eurozone’s economic rules limit its budget deficits to just 3% of GDP. This prevents its national governments supporting the economy by deficit spending. Higher energy and food prices – and dollar-debt service – will leave much less income to be spent on goods and services.

   As a final kicker, pointed out by Pepe Escobar on September 28 that “Germany is contractually obligated to purchase at least 40 billion cubic meters of Russian gas a year until 2030. … Gazprom is legally entitled to get paid even without shipping gas. … Berlin does not get all the gas it needs but still needs to pay.” A long court battle can be expected before money will change hands. And Germany’s ultimate ability to pay will be steadily weakening.

   It seems curious that the U.S. stock market soared over 500 points for the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wednesday. Maybe the Plunge Protection Team was intervening to try and reassure the world that everything was going to be all right. But the stock market gave back most of these gains on Thursday as reality no longer could be brushed aside.

   German industrial competition with United States is ending, helping the U.S. trade balance. But on capital account the euro’s depreciation will reduce the value of U.S. investments in Europe and the dollar-value of any profits they may still earn as the European economy shrinks. Reported global earnings by U.S. multinationals will fall.

    The effect of U.S. sanctions and the New Cold War outside of Europe

   The ability of many countries to pay their foreign and domestic debts already was reaching the breaking point before the anti-Russian sanctions raised world energy and food prices. The sanctions-driven price increases have been compounded by the dollar’s rising exchange rate against nearly all currencies (ironically, except against the ruble, whose rate has soared instead of collapsing as U.S. strategists tried in vain to make happen). International raw materials are still priced mainly in dollars, so the dollar’s currency appreciation is further raising import prices for most countries.

   The rising dollar also raises the local currency cost of servicing foreign debts denominated in dollars. Many European and Global South countries already have reached the limit of their ability to service their dollar-denominated debts, and are still coping with the impact of the Covid pandemic. Now that US/NATO sanctions have driven up world prices for gas, oil and grain – and with the dollar’s appreciation raising the cost of servicing dollar-denominated debts – these countries cannot afford to import the energy and food that they need to live if they have to pay their foreign debts. Something has to give.

   On Tuesday, September 27, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shed crocodile tears and said that attacking Russian pipelines was “in no one’s interest.” But if that really were the case, no one would have attacked the gas lines. What Mr. Blinken really was saying was “Don’t ask Cui bono.” I don’t expect NATO investigators to go beyond accusing the usual suspects that U.S. officials automatically blame.

   U.S. strategists must have a game plan for how to proceed from here. They will try to maintain a neoliberalized global economy for as long as they can. They will use the usual ploy for countries unable to pay their foreign debts: The IMF will lend them the money to pay – on the condition that they raise the foreign exchange to repay by privatizing what remains of their public domain, natural-resource patrimony and other assets, selling them to U.S. financial investors and their allies.

   Will it work? Or will debtor countries band together and work out ways to restore the world of affordable oil and gas prices, fertilizer prices, grain and other food prices, metals and raw materials supplied by Russia, China and their allied Eurasian neighbors, without U.S. “conditionalities” such as have ended European prosperity?

   An alternative to the U.S.-designed neoliberal order is the great worry for U.S. strategists. They cannot solve the problem as easily as sabotaging Nord Stream 1 and 2. Their solution probably will be the usual U.S. approach: military intervention and new color revolutions hoping to gain the same power over Global South and Eurasia that America’s diplomacy via NATO wielded over Germany and other European countries.

   The fact that U.S. expectations for how anti-Russian sanctions would work out against Russia have been just the reverse of what actually has happened gives hope for the world’s future. The opposition and even contempt by U.S. diplomats toward other countries acting in their own economic interest deems it a waste of time (and indeed, to be unpatriotic) to contemplate how foreign countries might develop their own alternative to the U.S. plans. The assumption underlying this U.S. tunnel vision is that There Is No Alternative – and that if they don’t think about such a prospect, it will remain unthinkable.

   But unless other countries work together to create an alternative to the IMF, World Bank, International Court, World Trade Organization and the numerous UN agencies now biased toward the U.S/NATO by U.S. diplomats and their proxies, the coming decades will see the U.S. economic strategy of financial and military dominance unfold along the lines that Washington has planned. The question is whether these countries can develop an alternative new economic order to protect themselves from a fate like that which Europe this year has imposed upon itself for the next decade.  

https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/09/something-about-future.html

The Nord Stream 2 AG company has informed the Danish Energy Agency that a stable pressure now appears to have been achieved on the NS2 A pipeline. This thus indicates that the blow-off of gas has been completed on this pipeline.

kvs wrote:I rest my case, the US decider clowns are certifiably congenital idiots.

Certainly... but what about German politicians, being raped in the ass in front of the whole world and taking it with a smile this way? They simply can't get any lower

Wait for it. Give them a chance. They will get lower.

Before we go all out on blaming the US give this article a read, there are others in the frame as the 'winners' in this situation.

What Luongo is in effect postulating is that we are falling into a trap in blaming countries, that is so 19th and 20th century, now, in the days of rapid communications and movement, we should be thinking of extra national groups or factions as per the EU or in particular the group known as 'Davos'.

It is a long article but thought provoking so worth the time.

https://tomluongo.me/2022/09/29/the-curious-whodunit-of-nordstreams-1-and-2/

Another MoA post, this time laying bear the EU problem, forget LNG infrastructure, there just isn't enough gas without Russia's.



"1) The objective of the USA is to be able to export 50 Gm3 of natural gas per year to Europe in the form of LNG.

Even if it is achieved, it is largely insufficient to replace the 155 to 190 Gm3 that Russia supplies to the EU annually.

The plan proposed by Joe Biden for 2022 for example targets 15 Gm3, in association with all other producing countries.

It must also be taken into account that, counting on a future increase in its production, the US has signed a large long-term contract of 30 years with China that it will therefore have to honor.


2) This American production is based on shale gas, whose drilling is running out very quickly. To simply maintain the quantity produced, new, more expensive drilling is constantly needed.

Rather, quantities are expected to be reduced in the coming years.

3) No country in the world, alone or together, can replace the quantities supplied by Russia in the short term.

In the long run, the only solution outside Russia would be the world's largest gas field shared by Qatar and Iran. Qatar is counting on these reserves to increase from 185 Gm3 of current annual production to 300 Gm3 in a few years.

However, Qatar already has long-term contracts with several customers, which contracts the European Union refuses to sign, unlike China, Japan, South Korea or India, which therefore have priority.

Moreover, the banks, caught up in the ecological diktat, refuse to finance the investments necessary to develop these resources.

4) The approximate general scheme is as follows (rounded figures):

* 380~400 Gm3 is the annual consumption of the EU:
* 40 Gm3 is internal production;
* 340~380 are imported including:

* 155~190 from Russia,
* 100~110 from Norway,
* 20~25 from Qatar,
* 55~65 others including Algeria, USA,...


Norway is at its maximum production. If the other suppliers double their exports to Europe, this represents a maximum of 90 Gm3 more, still insufficient to replace Russian gas.


5) The other solution would be for Qatar to reserve almost all of its new production, 100 to 115 Gm3 to the European Union and for the UNITED States to terminate certain long-term contracts with Asian countries to supply Europe.

But for this to happen, Qatar requires the EU to finance investments to increase its production capacity, and to sign long-term contracts of at least 20 years, which it refuses.

6) THE main problem of the European Union is not the long term but the short term. Without Russian gas, the EU can spend the winter at great sacrifice, but it has no chance by the following winter. And it is not about LNG infrastructure but about lack of gas.


Unless, as now, they buy gas with China and India pretending not to know that it is Russian gas, paid more.


7) In the end, the Russian economy will be little impacted by this crisis. The cost of new LNG infrastructure and pipelines to Asia will be more than offset by current excess profits.

If some producers decide to terminate contracts to supply Europe as a priority, their former customers will naturally turn to Russia. The mere increase in China's need for natural gas is enough to replace the European market.
Europe is the only loser in this matter...

Posted by: UncleTom | Oct 1 2022 12:54 utc | 33"

The US itself is under the delusion that it can replace Russia as a gas supplier. If they know otherwise,
then that implies that they are destroying the GDP of the EU. That does not serve US corporate interests since that is a reduction of
the US GDP as well. People have this ludicrous notion that by making the EU poorer the US gets richer. Total BS.

When you are trying to convince customers buying a rival product that is a fraction of the price of the exact same product you sell in a more expensive form then of course you have to lie... you have to pretend you have their interests at heart, you have to claim something bad will happen if they continue to buy the cheaper product from your rival, you have to pretend you can supply in the quantity they need... no problem... you need to make sure you get iron clad commitments from the customer that they will never go back to the other supplier no matter what... because you know you can fill the gap but you don't want start supplying and then stop... that would cost you money you invested in ramping up supply even though you will never match the other supplier for volume, price, and speed of delivery, and reliability of delivery.

The US is a salesman after a sale and he will say anything to get that sale... even knowing he will be doing damage to his customers lifestyle... he knows he will be improving his own.

I don't know but I suspect with most US gas supplies going to Asia that most of their tanker traffic moves from their west coast... on the Pacific, or there is a lot of traffic through the Panama canal... neither would be ideal for heading to Europe... if they get promises of lots of sales to Europe and Russian gas sales to Asia kills their sales to Asia because they can't compete then they are going to be spending money to adapt... but for how long before Europe realises in winter that the US uses more gas than it generates over winter and so they will be competing with Europe for extra sources and supplies.

Blood in the water mass shark attack would best describe the situation for the EU and they are swimming away from the boat (Russia) and towards the biggest shark in the water (US).

And I think it is hilarious... they are not going to get murdered by the Nazis they fund and arm but they wont be getting off scot free either.

1) EU companies moving to the US does not expand US domestic markets. VW already operates branch plants in the US. Most car
production is localized to the countries where the cars are sold even if the companies making them are foreign. So the news about
VW "moving" to the US is not significant.

You are right, it is not significant... but it is a great point to mention to Germans that all their industrial might might be leaving with the cheap energy.

As with muscles, the brain atrophies if there is no stress on it to figure out
problems. The decider class is not thinking hard at all since they don't have to. But this is sending the societies they manage
over a cliff.

What do you expect when most media coverage on politicians is banal and vapid... when was the last time you heard a politician get voted in on good ideas... I would say Trump... sensible relations with Russia (not friends but practical and not confrontational) and bringing US soldiers home from pointless wars that just cost money... he managed to get elected because Hilary was scary and screwed half the democrat party with all the bullshit about Sanders and I suspect more than a few Sanders supporters sabotaged her run... no you don't have to go and drum up support in these areas to get votes you are already going to win... and releasing dirt on her too and I suspect more than a few of them voted for Trump just to make sure she didn't win.

Only two choices and both are shit... just slightly different shades... white and orange... or should I say gray white and gray orange... old white rich people... the sort of people most common Americans can relate to.

Before we go all out on blaming the US give this article a read, there are others in the frame as the 'winners' in this situation

No one is going to be held to account for this... Russia will lose out on a little bit of income, the EU will run out of energy this winter, the US will sell more gas to the EU than it normally does in absence of cheaper Russian competition...

But I think Russia probably would have cut off the EU from gas... cheap or not... eventually.

It must also be taken into account that, counting on a future increase in its production, the US has signed a large long-term contract of 30 years with China that it will therefore have to honor.

Perhaps that is key... they want to cut ties with China but they need an alternative customer for that product... the irony is that they will essentially be shifting their expensive gas from a rival they call an enemy to a rival they call a friend...

Gents, the problem is quite a bit more severe than that, since the U.S itself, doesn't have remotely enough "Freedom gas" for itself, much less Europe.
So its gonna be LNG from elsewhere, who are just reselling Russian gas.

Like Saudi-Arabia importing russian oil in the summer to keep all their air conditioners running.

Gents, the problem is quite a bit more severe than that, since the U.S itself, doesn't have remotely enough "Freedom gas" for itself, much less Europe.
So its gonna be LNG from elsewhere, who are just reselling Russian gas.

But that is even better because that means Russia still gets income because it is still selling its gas but that gas is going to third parties who sell it on to Europe at a markup to make it all worth while for them to do... so Europe will pay even more for any gas they can get and are unlikely to be able to set up the infrastructure to receive LNG in time.

This means a freeze this year and the knowledge for the rest of the year that winter comes every year... right now they don't know what winter will be like... but next winter they will know because they will have had a taste...

European countries that have elections over the next two years will be very happy, because the ones that don't will need serious rioting to get rid of their stupid governments... messy.

when Scotland leaves the UK next year, the rUK faces big problems as 65% of the UK's gas comes from Scotland's maritime waters as well as over 96% of the oil and we supply over 10% of there electricity, geological survey was done around the whole of Scotland's maritime boundary in the mid 1990s and they have found out our entire maritime boundary has vast reserves of oil and gas, the firth of Clyde alone was found to have more oil and gas than the entire Scottish and Norwegian sectors of the North sea, only Faslane was stopping oil and gas being extracted from the Firth of Clyde and the UK nuclear fleet will have to leave Faslane within 3 years thus weakening NATO in the process

Sean Foo with another very clear and succinct video, this time on the energy situation in Europe and how it's going to worsen.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=38ofBQG6xPk&t=1s

https://iz.ru/1406880/kseniia-loginova/gazovyi-kozyr-stanet-li-polsha-novym-energeticheskim-khabom-evropy

Gas Trump Card: Will Poland become Europe's new energy hub
October 8, 2022
Warsaw launches promised pipeline from Norway

Gas was delivered to Europe via a new pipeline. Blue fuel from Norway gets to Poland in transit through Denmark. In Warsaw, they are going to not only provide for their own needs, but also sell the surplus. Whether the Poles will be able to carry out their plans-Izvestia looks into it.

Annoy your neighbor
"The era of Russian dominance in the gas industry is coming to an end," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at the launch ceremony of the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline connecting Polish territory with the Norwegian shelf via Denmark. President Andrzej Duda echoed him: "From here, this gas can go to where it is needed."

In early October, the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline from Norway to Poland, which transits through Denmark, was launched. This was announced by the Polish operator Gaz-System. The volume of pumping is 62.4 million cubic meters. m per day, about 10 billion cubic meters per year.

Warsaw has repeatedly stated that this pipeline will replace Russian gas — since the end of April, after Poland refused to pay for blue fuel in rubles, Gazprom's supplies stopped. Despite this, by the beginning of August, Poland's storage facilities were 100% full.

In general, according to the Association of Gas Infrastructure Operators of Europe, European gas storage facilities are now more than 85% full on average. The share of Russian fuel in the total volume of supplies fell to 10%, while the share of other sources increased: 35% of supplies are made up of liquefied natural gas, 29% - gas from Norway, 12% - from North Africa, and another 10% - from the UK.

The European Union has repeatedly tried to find alternative suppliers. The idea of building the Baltic Pipe was reviewed more than once. Initially, the future gas pipeline was discussed in 2001 — when the Polish company PGNiG and the Danish oil and gas company DONG signed an agreement on the construction of the pipeline, where one-third would belong to the Poles, and two — thirds of the shares would belong to the Danes. However, then the project was considered unprofitable from an economic point of view.

After the Munich speech of Russian leader Vladimir Putin in February 2007, this idea was revisited, but then there were problems with the financing of the project, which was estimated at €1.6 billion. However, last spring they decided to return to the project.

Take gas away from Germany
Warsaw hopes to increase pumping through the Baltic Pipe and subsequently become a new hub in Eastern Europe. Thus, the Polish energy company PGNiG plans to supply 6.5 billion cubic meters of gas from Norway, using its capabilities by 80%, and in 2024 — 7.7 billion cubic meters. m. At the same time, PGNiG will still be the only company using the gas pipeline — the parties have signed transit contracts for the period from 2022 to 2037.

The maximum capacity of the Baltic Pipe is six times lower than Nord Stream. Analysts believe that the launch of a new gas pipeline is unlikely to affect global gas prices, as well as blue fuel quotes in Europe. However, it is quite noticeable that Warsaw prepared for the energy crisis better than other EU countries.

Previously, Germany was the buyer of Norwegian gas, while Poland is a new customer of Oslo. At the same time, the Scandinavian country does not produce new volumes. In addition, the source of the Baltic Pipe is not a field, but the main pipeline Europipe II, through which gas has long been supplied to the Germans. Thus, Warsaw starts to take away what was originally intended for Berlin.

On October 6, Poland ordered the introduction of the second-highest threat regime to the country's energy infrastructure located outside its borders. We are talking about the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline. In Warsaw, they have in mind the possibility of a terrorist attack. This is a signal for the responsible services and authorities to be ready to respond in the event of such a need.

There are not enough volumes
— As for the Norwegian gas that currently flows through the Baltic Pipe, taking into account the lack of capacity, lack of resource base and the lack of additional fields that could be developed — the new pipeline will perform limited deliveries. And it will obviously not be able to compensate for Russian gas supplies — " says Natalia Eremina, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor at St. Petersburg State University.

According to the political scientist, the Polish economy is gaining additional trump cards in its regional rivalry with Germany.

— Now Germany becomes a country dependent on Poland. Warsaw once blocked the Druzhba gas pipeline, and now it offers Berlin to buy gas from it, although it is unclear how this will be done, given that the volume of gas is already small,and Poland itself needs it. In general, the country has built the appropriate infrastructure on the Baltic Sea, thus showing that it has long been implementing a plan that would give it independence from Russian gas. Once again, we see how politics has begun to dominate the economy, defeating it. But in general, the Baltic Pipe does not solve anything in gas supplies for the EU as a whole. It solves something for Poland, but even that is quite relative — " the expert said in an interview with Izvestia.

According to Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, Senior Researcher at the Primakov Institute of International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the new Baltic Pipe gas pipeline has good prospects.

"Especially now. At the same time, the capacity is insufficient to meet the needs of Poland. But the country also has other sources of supply. So, Warsaw is also going to buy liquefied natural gas. So in the aggregate, the country should have enough gas. As for resale, you should not expect large volumes of resale here, " the expert believes.

He noted that Poland will supply gas to Slovakia. Construction of the interconnector began five years ago at the expense of the European Union. Initially, it was expected to be put into operation at the end of last year, but later it had to be postponed until the summer of 2022. On the Polish side, the length of the open interconnector is 60 km, on the Slovak side — more than 100 km. Its capacity is 4.7 billion cubic meters of gas in the direction of Slovakia and 5.7 billion cubic meters of fuel in the direction of Poland.

— A small resale of gas by Warsaw is still possible. But in order for Poland to become a gas hub, there are not enough volumes in Europe. Gas can be purchased directly, and Poland will simply be the territory through which it will be transported. The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline was built exclusively for Poland and some other countries. When he thought about it, Poland was not yet going to give up Russian gas. The hub option would be possible if it were possible to combine all three sources, including Russian and Norwegian liquefied natural gas, " Polonist believes.

The expert noted that the Germans will be able to survive this winter, but it is very difficult to focus on gas from storage facilities.

— The amount of Norwegian gas that will be delivered to Germany — and we are talking about LNG-depends on how much gas Germany can pump and simply take into its storage facilities, as well as on the ability to charter tankers. The fact is that when the storage is 80 or 100% full, the gas is easy to extract. But when it is already 20-30% full, extracting it is quite problematic. And the Germans will definitely face this problem — " the political scientist believes.

Miller said that entire European cities will freeze in winter, 10.12.2022.

Miller said it is likely that entire European cities will freeze in winter.

The head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, said that during the winter peak of cold weather, entire European cities could freeze.

He added that the winter will be generally warm, but there will be several days of abnormally cold. During this period of time, entire cities, entire lands can be frozen, Izvestia reports his words .

He added that, according to forecasts, only 5% of gas will remain in UGSFs in Europe in March, while in Germany there will be enough gas in storage facilities for only 2–2.5 months. In addition, Miller pointed out that Gazprom predicts an abnormally cold winter for the heating period to pass.

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Russian Energy Week forum that European authorities are trying to blame Russia for their mistakes, but it is not her fault that Europeans are forced to stock up on firewood for the winter, as in the Middle Ages.

https://vz.ru/news/2022/10/12/1181931.html

Forget OPEC, even Norway is having issues.

A bit suspicious... they call US gas lower quality and mention US companies extract "impurities" from the gas before it is sent to Europe.

Sounds like these impurities are actually valuable and something European companies want to extract like they have presumably been extracting from Russian gas...

The US probably extracts the larger hydrocarbons from the natural gas before they liquefy it.
The gas Russia is exporting to Europe via pipe has those.

These hydrocarbons are useful for several purposes including making plastics or medicine.