Recorded Thurs AM, 03Oct24. Warsaw Old Town, Castle Square.
Will Israel hit Iranian oil infrastructure? And, what part of it? To what effect on markets, and geopolitics, (i.e., Mideast, OPEC, Russia and Ukraine war)? A video report.
MAIN POINTS (see transcript):
1. What if Israel hits Iran oil infrastructure in retaliation for missile strikes on Tel Aviv on Tuesday night? 1.a. The difference effects of hitting Iranian refineries vs oil export terminals In itself, neither target would make big difference in the market. The market would immediately jump, of course, but in principle the effect would be small. 1b OPEC+ and Western Hemisphere have plenty of spare capacity.
2. Consider Saudi market tactics … reportedly they want to now go for share over price support, as price support is failing after well over a year of output cuts (about 6 mb/d). Note: Shortly after this recording the Saudis repudiated the WSJ that reported the switch in tactics to defending share. Likely they’ll now want to wait and see what happens to Iranian exports, or if this Israel-Iran tit-for-tat gets out of hand.
My assessment of how threats posed to the 3-Seas-Region Member States executing a pragmatic energy transition incorporating nuclear energy emanate both from the role of Russia’s Rosneft, and equally from the activities of seven anti-nuclear Member States led by Germany, and
Detailed research on Russia’s nuclear energy dangers contributed by colleagues in Poland and Ukraine. Their research includes:
Appendix A: Some facts and policy recommendations on Rosatom activities, based on research by Warsaw colleagues at The Polish Economic Institute (PEI), Dr. Adam Juszczak, and Mr. Kamil Lipiński (p. 6);
Appendix B. Rosatom may be assisting in circumventing sanctions., from research by colleagues at DiXiE Group, Kyiv, Ukraine, especially Mr. Roman Nitsovych, and Ms. Olena Pavlenko (p. 7);
Appendix C. Why sanction Rosatom: Link between “peaceful” Rosatom energy & Russian nuclear weapons, based on research by CGS Strategy XXI , Kyiv, Ukraine, in particular Mykhailo M. Gonchar, Founder and President, and Chief Editor of the Black Sea Security Journal (p. 11.)
I highly recommend their three Appendices.
I should note that what I wrote in the main body was likely unexpected. I wrote that, for accomplishing a pragmatic, nuclear-power-inclusive energy transition in the 3-Seas Region (i.e., the EU’s Central and Eastern Europe, Baltic, and Balkan Member States), the continued dependencies on Russia’s Rosatom are not the only threats. The threat from the Group of Seven anti-nuclear states, led by Germany, is clearly equally or more disruptive to the Region accomplishing a pragmatic energy security-and-transition policy. I’ll quote a bit of the report on this point:
In an Easter Sunday interview in 20+ Polish papers [POLISH & ENGLISH below], I said White House reasons for Ukraine not to hit Russian refineries don’t make sense. The “elephant in the room” alarming DC is that Ukraine can now disrupt Primorsk, UST-Luga and Novorossiskya oil ports, needed for 60% of Russian exports.
This would not only deny Moscow vital oil revenues needed to wage war, it would also spark a spectacular global oil market shock. I explain that the USA and allies can urgently prepare for this, while the Ukrainians are still maintaining strategic patience.
Berlin Energy Roudtable. L to R: Ben Aris, Tom O’Donnell, Morten Frisch & Andriy Kobolyev (video link from Kyiv) 24 October 2023, Haus der Bunderpresskonferenz – PHOTO GALLERY BELOW(Divan staff)
On 24 October, I was honored to moderate a great roundtable in Berlin with three European energy experts, sponsored by Der Divan Kulturehaus. SUGGESTION: While listening, open up that speaker’s file below. You’ll find Ben Aris’ data-slides on Russian price-cap failings, Andriy Kobolyev’s proposal to tax Moscow’s oil & Morten Frisch’s slides on EU renewable shortcomings & continued oil and gas needs.
Al Jazeera asked for an online commentary within an hour of Putin’s announcement. These were my initial thoughts.
I also spoke to AJ Arabic, and a couple hours later, on Germany’s Deutsche Welle’s English language service elaborated on these points (see video, next blog post).
The question is where will the EU-USA-g7 western alliance go from here. If they stepwise lower the cap, and also work hard to get new oil online (from OPEC and the USA), they can gradually keep lowering Russia’s market share. However, as I indicated, the coming recession – esp. in Europe – and the uncertainties of Chinese demand as it exits COVID shutdowns in early 2023, complicate calculations of whether the globala oil market will be short or long on supplies and if the price will spike or not. I said this will be “a chess game.”
Is this even a real proposal? Nowadays, after becoming so unreliable a supplier of gas to Europe, in fact having weaponized Russian gas deliveries, it is difficult for anyone to take this proposal seriously. Erdogan may have many significant problems; however he and Turkey are not so naieve as to do what Germany and Austria forced the European Union to do, i.e., become overdependent on Russian gas, especially given the deep energy crisis Europe is currently going through.
But, also consider this (as I explained towards the end): This proposal of sending Nord Stream gas, originating in Northern Urengoy province, above the Artic Circle, would also require a big, new pipeline laying project, running at least from perhaps near the Ukrainian border south towards the Black Sea and then onto Turkey. This would have a significant cost. And, by the time this could be finished – in perhaps five or more years – the world will have moved on. By that time, new LNG and natural gas production potential in the USA, Qatar, Australia, Algeria, Norway, Israel (sent to Egypt for liquification) and likely many others’, will have been developed and be on the global market. On this time horizon, there would be plenty of diverse sources of gas fully able to replace Russian export capacities.
I also explained the history of the South Stream Pipeline …
Jun 17, 2022 Today, Gazprom announced a further cut in exports of gas via Nord Stream 1 to Germany and on into Europe. Earlier this week, they had cut 40%, now it is 60% of the 55 billion cubic meters per year (bcm) that normally flows in this pipe.
I explained that the Gazprom excuse – -that it could not re-import some compressor parts it had sent to Siemens to repair in Canada due to sanctions — appears as a convenient, manufactured excuse.
I pointed out that a one-off sanctions waiver from the USA, EU and/or Canada for the reimportation of these very specific parts could likely be easily arranged – and if the gas did not again flow fully, Gazprom’s ruse would be clearly exposed.
However, as I said, this is more accurately understood as simply another step in the weaponization of the over-dependence of the European Union (and esp. of Germany, Austria and Italy) on Russian gas imports, a game which Mr. Putin began in earnest in August of 2021.
ABOVE is English audio — BELOW is Arabic video. Recorded live; Al Jazeera, 21 May 2022.
I told Al Jazeera that Finland is well prepared, having worked since 2017 with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – the Baltic states – and with Poland to connect them all together with new pipelines, also to access LNG, storage and soon, new supplies from Norway.
Finland has also rented a regasification ship, from a US firm, to receive 5 billion cubic meters per year of LNG, whch will be plenty to supply both itself and Estonia in the wake of Putin cutting off Gazprom supplies of natural gas. Finland refuses, as did Poland too, to pay Moscow in rubles and so are being punished by Putin.
Re: Urgente Pedido de Entrevista Periodística – Corresponsales Clarín y La Nación – Argentina
De Maria E… … Fri, Apr 29, 11:50 PM
Dr. O ´Donnell, … Estas son las preguntas para la entrevista del domingo:
1¿Alemania tiene otra posibilidad que no sea seguir comprando el gas ruso? ¿Cuáles serían sus otras opciones?
Repuesta: Antes que nada, muchas gracias por esta oportunidad de hablar con su audiencia argentina.
Pues, debo señalar que hay dos problemas diferentes: el suministro de petróleo ruso a Alemania y Europa y el suministro de gas ruso a Alemania y Europa. Me preguntas por el gas. El gas es mucho más difícil para Europa y para Alemania que el petróleo Hay dos casos: una reducción gradual o parcial de gas o un corte inmediato.
Un corte gradual se puede manejar bastante bien. Ahora Putin está tratando de dividir y conquistar Europa cortando el suministro de gas a Polonia y Bulgaria.
Un recorte inmediato, ya sea por parte de Putin o debido a las sanciones de la UE, crearía una gran crisis energética en Europa. Sin embargo, es importante entender que, al final, Putin está en una posición mucho más débil.
Si Putin corta todos los suministros de gas a Europa, ahora no hay suficiente gas en el mercado mundial para compensar. Pero Occidente, y especialmente EE. UU., la administración Biden, se ha estado preparando para esto al menos dos meses antes de que Putin invadiera Ucrania, incluso antes de que Europa creyera las advertencias de EE. UU. de que Putin atacaría Ucrania.
Dr. Thomas W. O’Donnell, Berlin 27.01.22 (Polish original 22.09.22)
Photo from interview in Bankers.pl (in Polish-language)
Printed in Polish by Banker.pl as Komisja Europejska może uznać energetykę jądrową za “zieloną”2021-09-22, from a written interview with Artur Chierskiwsky (PAP, Brussels) Here’s the unpublished English.-Tom O’D. [Edit:: Headline word “betrays” was initially miswritten “belays”].
Reportedly, the EU Commission plans to soon include nuclear power in its green finance taxonomy, finally making it eligible for favorable financing and carbon credits on a par with wind and solar.[1]
This could be spun two ways: as a victory for science over populist capture of climate policies, or as a tipping point in Brussels angst at the growing complexities and costs of the “100% renewables and no nuclear” model.
In reality, it’s some and some.
On the one hand, in March, the Commission received reports solicited from the Joint Research Centre (JRC), its scientific expert arm, finding that nuclear waste is “manageable”, posing no “significant” harm to the environment, and that nuclear energy has been demonstrated to be eminently safe.[2]
However, these assessments are not surprising. Had the Commission requested these years ago, they undoubtedly would have concluded similarly. Nuclear, public-health, risk-assessment and other expert bodies have been saying these things for years (full disclosure: my PhD is in experimental nuclear physics [3]).
The question then is, why is this scientific consensus only now becoming actionable for the Commission?
StraitTalk, 8 October. My comments (from Berlin) begin at 2:30, with Aura Sabadus of ICIS (in London) and TRT’s Ause Suberker interviewing (in Stockholm).
On Friday, 8 October, I was interviewed, with Aura Sabadus (@ASabadus) of ICIS-London, about Nord Stream 2’s impact on European energy politics on”Strait Talk” with TRT host Ayse Suberker. We discussed the geopolitical aims of Russian and German leaders for partnering on this pipeline.
I stressed, the issue is not whether Europe is dependent on Russian gas – it is and it will remain so for the foreseeable future for up to 40% of its imports. The issue is what route this gas takes to arrive from Russia into Europe.
Consider: Russia historically exported 80% of the gas it sends to Europe using massive Soviet-era pipelines transiting Ukraine, the remainder via a Belarus-Poland-Germany pipeline. However, for 20 years Continue reading →
For explanation of my proposal, go below to bold text on my August Tagesspiegel Op-Ed.
RAJA ME|
EU leaders will discuss the idea of creating a strategic EU gas reserve and decoupling electricity prices from gas prices, said the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
– When it comes to gas, we are dependent on imports – 90 percent. gas is imported. The economies in the world are growing, so is the demand. But the supply is not correspondingly greater. We are very grateful that Norway is increasing production, but it seems that this is not the case in Russia, noted the head of the European Commission, visiting Estonia. In her opinion, the solution to the problem are investments in renewable energy sources, which should make the Community independent of imports and stabilize prices.
– In the short term, we will talk at the European Council, not only this evening (Tuesday), but in two weeks’ time at the formal Council of Europe, how to deal with storage, the strategic reserve and we will look at the overall price structure on the electricity market. Electricity prices are high due to high gas prices and we have to consider the possibility of (them) decoupling because we have much cheaper energy from renewable sources, said von der Leyen
On Tuesday evening, an informal meeting of European leaders will take place in Slovenia ahead of the EU-Western Balkans summit scheduled for Wednesday.
According to unofficial diplomatic sources in Brussels, Poland wants the European Commission to conduct investigations into the manipulation of the natural gas market by the Russian company Gazprom, which are causing the increase in gas prices in the EU. This issue is expected to appear at the EU summit on October 21-22.
Back in April, American energy market analyst Thomas O’Donnell predicted that Russia would use gas supplies to build strategic domination. The EU’s response should be to create a kind of gas ‘central bank’ in Ukrainian warehouses and use this country as a buffer, he proposed.
Ukraine is a key element of the strategic gas reserve
– Shortly after the beginning of the Maidan revolution and the Russian aggression, Ukraine, with the support of the EU, quickly made technical modifications to the export pipelines to Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania in such a way as to enable a reverse. This quickly freed Kiev from having no alternative to buying Russian gas, said the expert.
– Moreover, the Kremlin cannot so easily promote favorable oligarchs – he envisaged adding that the implementation of this idea was only a matter of legislation.
– The EU could designate warehouses in Ukraine, Germany and France as the so-called strategic reserves that must always hold a certain minimum amount of gas. In the event of any aggression by Russia against Ukraine or other countries, these warehouses would be launched by a special EU-US committee or within the OECD, and Russian pipelines would be cut, the analyst suggested.
– Gas belonging to Gazprom, which stores huge amounts of gas in Germany and other EU countries, should in this case be nationalized – the expert believes.
Responding to the objection that such ideas sounded a bit fantastic, he explained that this is almost exactly how the international oil security system has operated for 50 years: in the event of a crisis, 90-day strategic oil reserves are deployed in each member state of the International Energy Agency.
It was my pleasure to be with Thierry Bros of Sciences Po University, Paris, and Peter Zalmayev, Ukrainian security analyst and executive director of Eurasian Democracy Initative on David Foster’s Roundtable on TRT World, London, broadcast 9 June 2021.
I discussed Biden’s apparent reasoning for waiving Nord Stream 2 sanctions:
First off, the German government of Angela Merkel simply would not cooperate otherwise. Allowing her pet energy project to go forward was the price she had demanded for trans-Atlantic “unity” before Biden’s summit with Putin.
(Aside: My research in Berlin and elsewhere has convinced me that, at no point from the late-Trump administration through Biden’s six months in office, did the German side actually engage in any meaningful “negotiation” or discussions with the US side to seek to find some compromise or to initiate a moratorium on construction. Not until Biden waived sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, and decided not to sanction any German firms inolved in construction did Merkel show any real interest in discussions. She emphasized her change of attitude on negotiating with Biden about: “what now are also the necessary commonalities in the relationship with Russia” in comments during a German national broadcast interview immediately following Biden’s sanctions waiver. Until this waiver, she had held up any real discussion of the pressing issues of trans-Atlantic unity-in-general, whcih urgently needed attention.
Secondly, as the EU and NATO allies all realize, Biden has to have this summit with Putin for a number of reasons. As I indicated on the show, the summit is needed to discuss:
Here are four issues on the Biden-Blinkin sanctions decision I discussed with EuroNews and other news media in the last few days:
-1- Regarding Biden’s waiving of sanctions on the company Nord Stream 2 AG and its head Matthias Warnig (former Stazi officer):
These sanctions would be unlikely to stop NS2, though it would cause difficulty for the firm and the European oil and gas firms that are partnering with it.
I am not surprised, however, in light of the upcoming Biden-Putin summit. It should be noted that the Russian side (e.g., their ambassador here in Berlin) has made clear, publicly, that sanctions would kill the Biden-Putin summit — which both sides need on many hot issues (see my comments of yesterday, on Iran negotiations, and US necessity to withdraw on-the-ground forces from the Middle East, and to focus on “Great Power Competition” vs. especially China, and Russia).
-2- As for effect of the new sanctions on the pipeline’s construction, and what options the US has:
Venezuelan protest, 31 January 2019. Photo credit Deutsche Welle, German public broadcaster.
I was very happy to be interviewed for the Latin American “Energy Analytics Institute” (EAI), a Houston-based consultancy and news service. I’ve followed its work for years.
With Biden in and Trump out, everyone is debating how to deal with Maduro and his chavista regime that’s brought such misery and ruin in Venezuela. It’s not only the USA’s new LatAm team of Biden, Blinken and Nichols, but the EU, Norway, the OAS, the Lima Group, who are all looking for a new strategy. And so has the Venezuelan opposition, plus an increasingly important actor: the growing and doggedly persistent civil society organizations. Increasingly suffering forced-isolation from abroad, this array of social, cultural, media, medical, educational, nutrition, economic and political resistance groups do largely self-sufficient work to replace basic necessities and social-services, which the chavista government and ruined private sector can no longer provide.
However, in this brief Q&A what was addressed was not strategy per se; but a key underlying issue to understand in framing a strategy: the interests of both Moscow and Beijing as key obstacles to removal of the chavista regime. Read at EAI site (free) or Read below – Tom O’D.
China, Russia, Venezuela: Q&A With Thomas O’Donnell
(Energy Analytics Institute, 13.Feb.2021) — China and Russia continue to push around their might in Venezuela. Thomas O’Donnell with the Hertie School of Governance & Freie Universität-Berlin weighs in briefly here.
Energy Analytics Institute: What might China and Russia be willing to do this year to assist Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro?
Thomas O’Donnell, PhD: Beijing’s original (and perhaps still) plan for Venezuela was deep vertical integration mirroring PDVSA-Citgo Petroleum: new Faja upgraders, a pipeline to Colombia’s Pacific coast, dedicated ships, dedicated domestic Chinese refineries, etc. All very rational and lucrative for both sides. China became alarmed with Hugo Chavez’ unreliability and incompetence within a few years and with Maduro’s incapacity to reform within a year or so. The entire “oil-for-loans” history was a fallback strategy for Beijing – at least secure an oil stream with minimized risk. I have no doubt the Chinese Communist Party wants a new Caracas regime it can work with.
For explanation of my proposal, go below to bold text on my
The Global Barrel 