If you read the article, you can see the latest developments on the subject. I won't post it here because it's too long.
World Energy Market
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Nowhere close to monopoly.
For yellow cake:
The spare capacity in US + Canada + France amounts to about double of Russia's entire capacity.
LEU capacity, again there is plenty on western shores:
This is all about removing any Russian presence in western supply chains, rather than any Russian monopoly.
Besides past all of that, any (western) country can look into heavy water reactor design which can use natural uranium ore as fuel too.
Putin Is Pushing Germany’s Economy to the Breaking Point
In Germany, some industrial furnaces have been running without interruption for decades. If they cool down suddenly, the molten materials harden and the system breaks.
That’s the kind of concern sweeping through Europe’s largest economy as it faces an unprecedented energy crisis.
What started as vague foreboding over reduced supplies of Russian gas is now very real. After President Vladimir Putin slashed flows on the main link to Europe by 60%, experts in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration this week worked out the scenarios and none of them led to sufficient reserves to make it through the winter.
“That was the sobering moment,” Klaus Mueller, who heads Germany’s network regulator known as BNetzA, said Friday in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio. “If we have a very, very cold winter, if we’re careless and far too generous with gas, then it won’t be pretty.”
The risks extend beyond beyond a recession, and a winter of freezing homes and shuttered factories. For decades, Germany has prospered off the back of cheap gas. The answer to the growing economy’s needs more often than not was a new pipeline to Russia.
That era is now over, and companies from BASF SE to Volkswagen AG are coming to terms with the new reality.
There will be quick fixes — like reviving polluting coal plants and switching fuels in industrial processes — but structural issues loom as the transition to affordable renewable power will still take years.
Firms making metals, paper and even food could be forced to downscale or close German production sites, accelerating a steady exodus of manufacturing jobs and leaving lasting damage to the country’s economic landscape.
“Companies will move production to where there’s competitive pipeline gas, and this won’t be in Germany,” said Wolfgang Hahn, managing director of Energy Consulting Group GmbH. “You can’t correct 20 years of policy errors in two or three years.”
The latest figures show that it would take 115 days to reach the government’s target of filling gas reserves to 90% capacity by November. That time frame assumes flows remain at the current level, which is unlikely given the Kremlin’s increasingly aggressive posture toward Europe in retaliation for sanctions imposed over Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In response to the grim prospects, Germany — which still relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas supplies — elevated its threat level to the second-highest “alarm” stage on Thursday. If the squeeze gets tighter, Germany could start rationing supplies.
The moment of truth is likely to come next month, when the Nord Stream pipeline goes down for scheduled maintenance. Germany worries it may never come back.
“I would have to lie if I said I didn’t fear that,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Thursday in an interview with public broadcaster ZDF.
Germany’s vice chancellor drew a parallel between the gas squeeze and the role of Lehman Brothers in triggering the financial crisis. If energy suppliers continue to pile up losses by being forced to cover missing Russian supplies at high prices, there’s a risk of a broader collapse.
Uniper SE, Germany’s largest Russian gas importer, has already warned it may face difficulties fulfilling supply contracts to local utilities and manufacturers if Moscow prolongs or increases gas cuts.
The crisis has already spilled far beyond Germany, with 12 European Union member states affected and 10 issuing an early warning under gas security regulation. Europe’s increased demand for liquefied natural gas will also hit poorer nations around the world as they struggle to compete for cargoes.
“We are worried” that Russia will cut off gas supplies to Europe, Estonian President Kaja Kallas said at the EU summit in Brussels on Friday. “We need to be prepared to have different energy mixes, united purchases of liquefied gas and do these things together.”
Scenarios from BNetzA, which would manage Germany’s gas distribution in the event of rationing, take into account a series of emergency measures, including two floating LNG terminals that will come online this winter, auctions of excess fuel for industry and a 15 billion-euro ($15.8 billion) government program to buy gas on the spot market.
“Storage sites in Germany need to be filled as soon as possible,” said Sebastian Bleschke, head of INES, the association of German storage operators. “For some sites, the window of opportunity is closing.”
Bavaria-based Wiegand Glas shows the difficulty of unwinding Germany’s gas demand. The company’s 11 glass-melting furnaces — like all those in the country — operate 24 hours a day for more than a decade. Even if Wiegand idled production, the furnaces would need 75% of normal gas consumption to prevent the molten glass inside from seizing up and destroying the furnace.
“But then we have to carry the energy cost while we have nothing to sell, so this is not really an option,” Chief Executive Officer Oliver Wiegand said in an interview. If the highly-specialized furnaces break, rebuilding would be time-consuming and expensive. “It would take a decade to build up to normal production again,” he added.
Economists are trying to pin down the scope of the risk, but it’s a challenge. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said 75% of what the bank got wrong in its inflation prediction last year was due to energy prices.
German economic institutes warned in April that an immediate halt to Russian imports of oil and natural gas would cause a 220 billion-euro hit to output over the next two years. While it could be more benign now as storage levels tick up, predicting the outcome of an unprecedented situation is difficult, said Stefan Kooths, an economist at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, who was involved in the forecast.
The Bundesbank estimates that Germany’s economy will shrink more than 3% in 2023 if Russian energy supplies stop. That would be the worst slump outside of the recessions sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the global financial crisis.
The outlook is already grim. Manufacturing orders at factories have fallen for the past three months, costs are rising and confidence is crumbling. The Ifo Institute's closely watched measure of business expectations unexpectedly dropped this month.
For now, companies are bracing for a prolonged reduction in energy. BASF, Europe’s biggest chemicals maker, may cut output because of the rising cost of gas, which is used as a feedstock in production and to generate electricity. BMW AG, the world’s biggest luxury-car maker, may buy electricity rather burn gas in its own on-site power plants.
“We could switch some production from gas to oil if needed, but it would be five-times less efficient,” Hagen Pfundner, head of the German operations of Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG. “That would not be a durable solution.”
Germany is preparing consumers and businesses for tough times ahead. BNetzA’s Mueller warned that households could face doubling or tripling of their gas bills and called on people to save money and energy. Habeck appealed to Germans sense of solidarity to fend off Putin’s energy attacks.
Responding to the suggestion of a state bonus for saving gas, he said: “If someone says ‘I’ll only help if I get 50 euros more,’ I’d say ‘you’re not getting it, dude.’”
Putin Is Pushing Germany’s Economy to the Breaking Point
(Bloomberg) -- In Germany, some industrial furnaces have been running without interruption for decades. If they cool down suddenly, the molten materials harden and the system breaks. Most Read from BloombergRussia Defaults on Foreign Debt for First Time Since 1918Hyundai Quietly Climbs the EV...
Nowhere close to monopoly.
For yellow cake:
The spare capacity in US + Canada + France amounts to about double of Russia's entire capacity.
LEU capacity, again there is plenty on western shores:
This is all about removing any Russian presence in western supply chains, rather than any Russian monopoly.
Besides past all of that, any (western) country can look into heavy water reactor design which can use natural uranium ore as fuel too.
If Russia wants to end the Uranium mine exports of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to western countries and their allies by acting in partnership with China (Russians may have bad relations with Kazakhs, but China is on good terms with Kazakhstan), no one can overcome the contraction that may occur in the market.
Don't look at anything as impossible. The Russian-Chinese alliance is not going to sit back and watch the US encircle them.
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Again I see Australia and Canada in this table.
The world can segregate into camps more inevitably, but thats different from being monopoly (on nuclear supply chain)....it will be a duopoly and some third parties.
Do you think Canada and Australia can meet the uranium needs of the whole world without sufficient raw materials?
We're not just talking about Europe or the USA here. It will be here in Japan. And they have to do this without buying uranium from Central Asia.
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Yes certainly. Look at the reserves versus production ratio for all these countries listed in the table.
Very low.... as nuclear energy demands quite a low profile of what Earth has in raw uranium ore spread around.
Can subtract kazakhstan, uzbekistan alongside Russia and add these numbers to canada and australia (and others)....it wont make much a dent on the % of total reserves extracted per year.
The critical tiers are yellow cake production and LEU enrichment (much more so).
The last tier is reprocessing (essentially recycling) what you already have in operation too.
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Fingers crossed for this to happen. Let's see who will guarantee the debts of EU countries.
JPMorgan Sees ‘Stratospheric’ $380 Oil on Worst-Case Russian Cut
Global oil prices could reach a “stratospheric” $380 a barrel if US and European penalties prompt Russia to inflict retaliatory crude-output cuts, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts warned.
The Group of Seven nations are hammering out a complicated mechanism to cap the price fetched by Russian oil in a bid to tighten the screws on Vladimir Putin’s war machine in Ukraine. But given Moscow’s robust fiscal position, the nation can afford to slash daily crude production by 5 million barrels without excessively damaging the economy, JPMorgan analysts including Natasha Kaneva wrote in a note to clients.
For much of the rest of the world, however, the results could be disastrous. A 3 million-barrel cut to daily supplies would push benchmark London crude prices to $190, while the worst-case scenario of 5 million could mean “stratospheric” $380 crude, the analysts wrote.
“The most obvious and likely risk with a price cap is that Russia might choose not to participate and instead retaliate by reducing exports,” the analysts wrote. “It is likely that the government could retaliate by cutting output as a way to inflict pain on the West. The tightness of the global oil market is on Russia’s side.”
World War 3 is coming at full speed, baby.
@Blackbeardsgoldfish
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Germany can be slow sometimes, but will adapt. Never underestimate the resilience of Germans or German companies
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I hope so, Germany going down means whole europe going down (and Turkey even further).Germany can be slow sometimes, but will adapt. Never underestimate the resilience of Germans or German companies
Deliorman
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Some people act like high fossil fuel prices are not affecting Turkey at all and are jerking off on the idea of German and other European economies collapsing without even thinking about the fact that 2/3s of Turkish exports are to Europe and that the Turkish economy is pretty well connected to that of Europe as well. If European economies go down- so will Turkey.
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Morgan has always been excessive fearmongering one along with rockerfeller back in the day (among the original American baron monopolies that arose after the civil war).
They do this to try bump up investment flow into their own futures and those of their buddies.
This is how they make the largest leverage gains when there is a period of fear/uncertainty/tension. Its disgusting.
Morgan still exists as the original entity, Rockerfeller was broken up by Teddy and FDR....but their remnants are somewhat like a hydra.
These two and others like them all played their part in financing and helping both the bolsheviks (the Morgan-Rockerfeller involvement in USSR 5 years plans can be looked into for example)....and also the 1930's Nazis (till Hitler betrayed and discarded them after using their loans and materials).
This is part and parcel of how/why they went huge into China and Russia from the 90s onwards too....throwing caution to the wind....even with the long term warning signs that were always there.
It is uncomfy psychology that most regular people do not get that exists between money and power.
Monopolies absoutely LOVE authoritarian regime thugs....and will find ways to maximise their captive markets....often in the guise of socialism.
Mystery as fifth Russian Gazprom-linked executive found dead in his swimming pool
Another top Russian executive linked to energy giant Gazprom has been found dead at his mansion, local media has reported.Yury Voronov, the head of a logistics company that held lucrative contracts with Gazprom, was found dead in a swimming pool at his home in a luxury suburb near St Petersburg.
He reportedly died of a gunshot wound to the head. Mr Voronov was the founder and CEO of the transport and logistics company Astra-Shipping, which worked with Gazprom in the Arctic.
According to Russian media outlet 47news, a grand power pistol was found near the swimming pool and there were several shell casings at the bottom. He was found at around 2pm on Monday.
Mr Voronov’s widow allegedly told the police that her husband had been drinking heavily recently due to a falling out with his contractors and business partners.
His death is at least the sixth linked to the Russian gas industry in recent months.
Leonid Shulman, head of Gazprom Invest’s transport service, was found dead near Leningrad on 30 January 2022.
Just a month after that Alexander Tyulakov, a deputy general director at Gazprom, was found dead in his garage on 25 February.
Mikhail Watford, a Ukrainian-born Russian billionaire who was not connected to Gazprom but did make his fortune through oil and gas, was found dead in his home in Surrey, England on 28 February. Surrey police did not treat the death as suspicious.
The bodies of former Gazprombank vice president Vladislav Avayev, his wife and daughter were found in Moscow on 18 April.
Igor Volobuev, former VP at Gazprombank, told CNN that he did not believe that the deaths were a murder-suicide, as police had suggested.
“His job was to deal with private banking, that means dealing with VIP clients,” he said. “He was in charge of very large amounts of money. So, did he kill himself? I don’t think so.
“I think he knew something and that he posed some sort of risk.”
A day later, a top manager at gas producer Novatek, which is partially owned by Gazprom, Sergey Protosenya was found dead along with his wife and daughter in Spain.
Mr Protosenya was found hanging in an apartment in Lloret de Mar, a seaside town in Catalonia, and his wife and daughter had died from stab wounds.
Their deaths have been investigated as a murder-suicide.
Mystery as fifth Russian Gazprom-linked executive found dead in his swimming pool
Yury Voronov, head of a company that held Gazprom contracts, died from a gun shot wound to the head
www.independent.co.uk
Russian Gas Threat Has German Bankers Fearing Default Spike
Germany’s banks would be forced to put extra funds aside to cover a potential spike in defaults if the country were to get cut off from Russian gas, several senior bankers said.
The scenario would lead to a recession in Europe’s largest economy and require lenders to back up corporate loans with more capital, BNP Paribas Germany head Lutz Diederichs said Monday at a conference in Frankfurt. He echoed comments made by Commerzbank Chief Financial Officer Bettina Orlopp published over the weekend in an interview with the weekly Focus Money.
Lenders are particularly concerned about planned maintenance work on the main gas pipeline connecting Germany with Russia as there is a chance that supplies won’t resume as before once the work is completed, said two top bankers who asked not to be named discussing the deliberations. The pipeline is slated to be shut down between July 11 and 21 for maintenance.
German banks’ provisions for the potential economic consequences emanating from the war on Ukraine have so far been lower than the large reserves they built at the height of the pandemic. But the country is heavily reliant on continuing gas imports from Russia, and a complete loss of access to the energy supply would deal a heavy blow to the economy.
Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing said such an event would force “a deep recession,” at the same event on Wednesday.
Russian Gas Threat Has German Bankers Fearing Default Spike
Germany’s banks would be forced to put extra funds aside to cover a potential spike in defaults if the country were to get cut off from Russian gas, several senior bankers said.
www.bloomberg.com
