World Energy Market
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Jagdflieger
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No not really - China was reluctant especially after 2012 (still Obama administration), to acquit towards it's trade practices - including the known technology transfer and patent issues. Furthermore it's disregard towards UN rulings regarding the SCS dispute, despite having signed UNCLOS.
So after years (almost a decade) of discontent by the USA, EU and many other countries towards China's practices and China's unwillingness to correct those issues - Dumb Trump came up with this trade-war which then continued into a general China bashing and pointing out China as being an aggressive nation ever since.
China was simply caught of guard because till then, they were only used to dealing with the foreign investors and their trade associations/institutions - and not with the respective governments of these investors.
As I stated already - i do not blame China for the stupidity and greediness of those investors - or the inactivity of their foreign governments, since both parties China and the Foreigners obviously thought that their previous action would benefit them equally.
Luckily for China there was a Dumb Trump at the helm of the USA who simultaneously was dumb enough to get the EU and other nations against him, respectively the USA.
Instead of taking these prevailing issues seriously - China however devised a policy based on continued dissatisfaction/disagreement between the USA and the EU.
IMO a big mistake on China's part - but the future will tell.
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In a book he wrote after leaving the presidency, Obama wrote that had it not been for the 2008 economic crisis, they would have entered a trade war with China. In other words, trade wars came to China only on a delayed basis.
xizhimen
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And now Biden wants to lift the tariff on Chinese goods and end the trade war because of the unbearable inflation in US... what US got after 5 years into this trade war?
Jagdflieger
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want to and will do - let's see.
hmm.. 100-150 million Chinese people without a regular income, since around 2018, (not just simply due to Covid)
Ever increasing China state debt due to subsidizing it's GDP figures - manufacturing index.
General increasing dislike towards China (especially in the EU)
A large migration out of China in regards to the supply chain
An almost complete still-stand in regards to China's micro-chip needs
AFAIK a total breakdown in regards to Huawei's US$ Billions telecommunication plans
etc.
Not bad actually, after just 5 years.
As to how much the USA has actually decreased it's economic prospects or living standard in the past 5 years? I would tend to say they are on the same level as in 2016, so just as good or bad as before, excusing both the USA and China for Covid related issues.
xizhimen
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Jagdflieger
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you can show as many "China state subsidized" figures you like - it doesn't change the above mentioned "problems" that China is and has encountered in the past 5 years. Because they do not show as to how much of these e.g. US$ 755 billion is payed for via China State Subsidies.Also if the USA has increased their import from China in 2019 from 541 billion to 755 billion in 2021 - then the US economy must be booming. So why lift the tariffs?
Interesting statistic though.
Jagdflieger
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South Korea - wow, I am surprised, thought that they would be far more oriented towards the Mid-east.
Sami1234
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Draghi in Algeria today, some Europeans are not happy especially Spain, they are lobbying inside the EU In favor of the more expensive American LNGs, Spain's government is now working directly for the favor of Americans and not for the benefit of its people mind boggling 
they are also buying more gas from Russia to resell it for neighbor countries.
This is how the Europeans want to get out of the dependence on Russian gas!!! Every government works for certain companies, and everyone wants to benefit from the crisis. The biggest loser is the one who pays the gas bill, the simple citizen.
they are also buying more gas from Russia to resell it for neighbor countries.This is how the Europeans want to get out of the dependence on Russian gas!!! Every government works for certain companies, and everyone wants to benefit from the crisis. The biggest loser is the one who pays the gas bill, the simple citizen.
Europe’s Energy Crisis Will Cost You $200 Billion — Probably More
It’s a falling chain of energy dominoes — one in which each tile is worth many billions of euros. A failed utility here, a nation’s supply there. When the dust settles, the total bill for rescuing the European energy market this winter will easily top $200 billion.
This may sound flippant, and it’s admittedly a rough estimate. But the calculus is conservative and based on what we know today. It doesn’t cover the worst-case scenario of both Russia fully shutting down natural gas supply to Europe and a colder-than-average winter.
Very few politicians seem to grasp with the magnitude of the coming crisis and its costs, with Emmanuel Macron of France and Olaf Scholz of Germany being among the only ones that appear to get it now. (The rest, in many cases, remain distracted by domestic politics.) The European Union has called for an emergency meeting of energy ministers later this month. But this should precede a larger heads-of-government summit focused on energy before the summer break.
The EU will have to decide on a big energy savings program, including a public campaign to support it, and make clear that nations will help each other by sharing the little gas that will be available. This means inviting the UK, Switzerland and Norway to the table in Brussels too.
As forward natural gas and electricity prices continue to climb, more European utilities and energy retailers will struggle. Consider Germany, where the one-year forward electricity contract surged last week to an all-time high of more than 350 euros ($352) per megawatt hour, up 750% from an average of 41 euros between 2010 and 2020. Natural gas prices for 2023 in Europe have surged recently, too.
The only chance of survival for the utilities is to pass the huge jump in wholesale prices onto their customers. But that only moves the bailout down the chain, as households and businesses would then face unaffordable bills and need government help.
Ultimately, taxpayers will bear the cost — either directly and immediately, via higher retail power and gas prices, or later, and over the years, via higher taxes to pay for the bailouts. European governments should be upfront about the costs: They can win the argument that this is money well spent to stop Vladimir Putin.
Let’s start from the utility side. Germany’s Uniper SE, the biggest buyer of Russian gas, has all but failed. It recently asked for a government bailout, and preliminary estimates put the bill at 10 billion euros. That’s likely to prove conservative. Electricite de France SA has failed as a reliable producer of electricity and needs help. Paris, which already owns a majority stake, will renationalize the rest, at a cost of at least 8 billion euros.
And Uniper and EDF are just the tip of the iceberg — two utilities among the dozens that serve more than 200 million households in the EU and UK. The majority perhaps will weather the storm. But many others are going to need help. At the very least, they will require state-backed loans and other government guarantees to buy super-expensive gas in the spot market to replace the loss of Russian gas. At worst, they will need to be nationalized, if only temporarily.
The state-backed loans aren’t trivial. Earlier this month, the Czech government gave the country’s state-controlled utility CEZ an emergency loan of 3 billion euros. That’s for a company that serves a country of little more than 10 million people. The German government, via its state-owned bank KwF, has already given 15 billion euros in loans to the country’s gas-market operator to buy gas and fill up storage ahead of winter. Whether those loans will ever be repaid is a question mark.
Now let’s look at the households. The UK is paradigmatic of the problem. In February, London announced a multi-billion-pound bailout to cushion the impact of a 54% increase in the country’s retail energy cap — a limit on how much utilities can charge families per year for electricity and gas. Back then, the price cap was rising from 1,277 pounds ($1,512) to 1,971 pounds per year, effective April 1. From October, the price cap is set to jump to about 3,300 pounds per year. The near 70% increase is set to be announced in early August.
Yet the median pre-tax annual household income in the UK is £31,770. That means a typical household will spend more than 10% of its income paying for electricity and gas — that’s the standard definition of energy poverty. Without government money, families will default on their bills, creating a debt problem for their energy providers. Either London bails out the families, or it has to bail out the utilities.
The likely size of the British government’s help? Earlier this year, a £693 increase in the price cap triggered a £9.1 billion handout. Back-of-the-envelop math suggests the £1,300 or so increase that’s coming would trigger a 17 billion-pound bailout.
Factor in just these known examples, and a $200 billion bill in European bailouts, nationalizations, state-backed loans and the like doesn’t sound that flippant anymore.
And the problem can get a lot worse very quickly. Again, consider Uniper. Because Russian President Vladimir Putin has cut gas supply to Germany by about 60%, Uniper is losing about 30 million euros every day from having to buy the same gas in the spot market. That’s about 10 billion euros per year — roughly the cost of what the German government is currently planning to spend to keep it afloat. If Putin completely shuts down the flow, the utility’s daily losses will jump to about 100 million euros a day, or more than 35 billion per year. The government will have to provide that sum if it wants to keep people’s power on.
If the utilities are allowed to pass higher gas costs onto the consumers, Goldman Sachs reckons that European households will have to pay 470 euros per month for electricity and gas, up 290% from the typical cost in mid-2020. That’s clearly unaffordable to many, perhaps most, and a much bigger bailout will be needed to help consumers get by.
Next winter will be expensive. The only question now is just how much it’ll be.
And the doomsday scenario come to Germany. Russians will no longer sell gas to Germany
Exclusive: Russia's Gazprom tells Europe gas halt beyond its control
Russia's Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of 'extraordinary' circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters, upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Dated July 14, the letter from the Russian state gas monopoly, said it was declaring force majeure on supplies, starting from June 14.
Known as an 'act of God' clause, force majeure is standard in business contracts and spells out extreme circumstances that excuse a party from their legal obligations.
Gazprom's (GAZP.MM) had no immediate comment.
Uniper, Germany's biggest importer of Russian gas, was among the customers who said they had received a letter, and that it had formally rejected the claim as unjustified.
RWE (RWEG.DE), Germany's largest power producer and another importer of Russian gas, also said it has received a force majeure notice.
"Please understand that we cannot comment on its details or our legal opinion," the company said.
A trading source, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the force majeure concerned supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, a major supply route to Germany and beyond.
Flows through the pipeline are at zero as the link undergoes annual maintenance that began on July 11 and is meant to conclude on Thursday. read more
Europe fears Moscow could keep the pipeline mothballed in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine, heightening an energy crisis that risks tipping the region in recession.
TURBINE DELAY
Already on June 14, Gazprom had cut the pipeline's capacity to 40%, citing the delay of a turbine being maintained in Canada by equipment supplier Siemens Energy (ENR1n.DE).Canada sent the turbine for the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany by plane on July 17 after repair work had been completed, Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the situation. read more
Provided there are no problems with logistics and customs, it will take another five to seven days for the turbine to reach Russia, the report said.
Germany's economy ministry said on Monday it could not provide details of the turbine's whereabouts.
But a spokesperson for the ministry said it was a replacement part that was meant to be used only from September, meaning its absence could not be the real reason for the fall-off in gas flows prior to the maintenance.
"This sounds like a first hint that the gas supplies via NS1 will possibly not resume after the 10-day maintenance has ended," said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro.
“Depending on what ‘extraordinary’ circumstances have in mind in order to declare the force majeure, and whether these issues are technical or more political, it could mean the next step in escalation between Russia and Europe/Germany," he added.
Austrian oil and gas group OMV (OMVV.VI), however, said on Monday it expected gas deliveries from Russia through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to resume as planned after the outage. read more
Russian gas supplies have been declining via major routes for some months, including via Ukraine and Belarus as well as through Nord Stream 1 under the Baltic Sea.
The European Union, which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, aims to stop using Russian fossil fuels by 2027 but wants supplies to continue for now as it develops alternative sources.
For Moscow and for Gazprom, the energy flows are a vital revenue stream when Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin terms a "special military operation", have strained Russian finances.
According to the Russian Finance Ministry, the federal budget received 6.4 trillion roubles ($115.32 billion) from oil and gas sales in the first half of the year. This is compared to planned 9.5 trillion roubles for the whole 2022.
The grace period for payments on two of Gazprom's international bonds expires on July 19, and if foreign creditors are not paid by then the company will technically be in default.
Exclusive: Russia's Gazprom tells European buyers gas supply halt beyond its control
Russia's Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of "extraordinary" circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters, upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
@T-123456 @Jagdflieger @Nilgiri @MisterLike @Ryder @what @ZaferExclusive: Russia's Gazprom tells Europe gas halt beyond its control
Russia's Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of 'extraordinary' circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters, upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Dated July 14, the letter from the Russian state gas monopoly, said it was declaring force majeure on supplies, starting from June 14.
Known as an 'act of God' clause, force majeure is standard in business contracts and spells out extreme circumstances that excuse a party from their legal obligations.
Gazprom's (GAZP.MM) had no immediate comment.
Uniper, Germany's biggest importer of Russian gas, was among the customers who said they had received a letter, and that it had formally rejected the claim as unjustified.
RWE (RWEG.DE), Germany's largest power producer and another importer of Russian gas, also said it has received a force majeure notice.
"Please understand that we cannot comment on its details or our legal opinion," the company said.
A trading source, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the force majeure concerned supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, a major supply route to Germany and beyond.
Flows through the pipeline are at zero as the link undergoes annual maintenance that began on July 11 and is meant to conclude on Thursday. read more
Europe fears Moscow could keep the pipeline mothballed in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine, heightening an energy crisis that risks tipping the region in recession.
TURBINE DELAY
Already on June 14, Gazprom had cut the pipeline's capacity to 40%, citing the delay of a turbine being maintained in Canada by equipment supplier Siemens Energy (ENR1n.DE).
Canada sent the turbine for the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany by plane on July 17 after repair work had been completed, Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the situation. read more
Provided there are no problems with logistics and customs, it will take another five to seven days for the turbine to reach Russia, the report said.
Germany's economy ministry said on Monday it could not provide details of the turbine's whereabouts.
But a spokesperson for the ministry said it was a replacement part that was meant to be used only from September, meaning its absence could not be the real reason for the fall-off in gas flows prior to the maintenance.
"This sounds like a first hint that the gas supplies via NS1 will possibly not resume after the 10-day maintenance has ended," said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro.
“Depending on what ‘extraordinary’ circumstances have in mind in order to declare the force majeure, and whether these issues are technical or more political, it could mean the next step in escalation between Russia and Europe/Germany," he added.
Austrian oil and gas group OMV (OMVV.VI), however, said on Monday it expected gas deliveries from Russia through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to resume as planned after the outage. read more
Russian gas supplies have been declining via major routes for some months, including via Ukraine and Belarus as well as through Nord Stream 1 under the Baltic Sea.
The European Union, which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, aims to stop using Russian fossil fuels by 2027 but wants supplies to continue for now as it develops alternative sources.
For Moscow and for Gazprom, the energy flows are a vital revenue stream when Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin terms a "special military operation", have strained Russian finances.
According to the Russian Finance Ministry, the federal budget received 6.4 trillion roubles ($115.32 billion) from oil and gas sales in the first half of the year. This is compared to planned 9.5 trillion roubles for the whole 2022.
The grace period for payments on two of Gazprom's international bonds expires on July 19, and if foreign creditors are not paid by then the company will technically be in default.
Exclusive: Russia's Gazprom tells European buyers gas supply halt beyond its control
Russia's Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of "extraordinary" circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters, upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.www.reuters.com
Zafer
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I wonder if more Russian gas can flow to Europe through Türkiye.
Gas importing countries will need to hasten their efforts to find additional supplies. I wonder if Libya can come in to play on a fast track. Drilling for hydrocarbons by Türkiye is more beneficial then ever and that is not only for Türkiye. If more gas gets extracted from the East Med going forward it will make more sense to combine with existing gas and pump it to Europe.
Gas importing countries will need to hasten their efforts to find additional supplies. I wonder if Libya can come in to play on a fast track. Drilling for hydrocarbons by Türkiye is more beneficial then ever and that is not only for Türkiye. If more gas gets extracted from the East Med going forward it will make more sense to combine with existing gas and pump it to Europe.
Sami1234
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Sami1234
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