Tag Archives: Energy

Kyiv Video: I moderated the EU-Ukraine debate: “Thinking Beyond Tomorrow–Energy Transition” – Ukraine Gas Investment Congress, 22.10.21

Posted on November 16, 2021 | 2 comments
Ukraine-EU Debate: Energy Transition – Beyond Tomorrow

I moderated this very lively & frank panel at the Ukraine Gas Investment Congress (UGIC) in Kyiv on 22 October 2021. [The high-level event participants are listed below].

I thoroughly enjoyed this lively debate, and learned a good deal. It’s an hour long; but I think it is well worth a watch, especially as the debate gets going.

PANEL PARTICIPANTS

* Torsten Wöllert, Minister Counsellor; Energy, EU Delegation to Ukraine

* Olga Bielkova , Director on Government & International Affairs Gas Transmission System Operator (GTSOU)

* Oleksiy Ryabchyn (Rye ab chen), Advisor to the Chairman of the Board, Naftogaz of Ukraine

* Sergiy Nahorniak, (Nach hor niak) MP and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency Verkhovna (Ver kavna) Rada Committee on Energy and Housing and Communal Services

* Steve Freeman, Head of Energy Transition, Digital and Integration Schlumberger

* Dr. James Watson , Secretary General, Eurogas

* Moderator: Dr. Thomas O’Donnell, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin; and Energy and International Affairs Analyst

It was a respectful but clearly exasperating confrontation, a between contradictory imperatives pitting:


a) Ukraine’s necessity to boost its domestic natural gas production in the interests of its national security and independence, and the people’s social-economic needs,

against

b) The demands from Brussels and especially from highly developed Western-EU Member States insisting that Ukraine abandon all fossil fuels (including gas) ASAP,

Green-Deal-inspired insistence by Brussels for rapid gas-abandonment imposes the difficulty or outright banning of financing for increasing Ukraine’s domestic gas production. Many EU-zone financial institutions cannot any longer finance “upstream” projects (E&P: exploration and production), including the World Bank, whose representative pointed out earlier at the Congress that his institution is now outright banned from making such investments.

Nevertheless, no one on my panel, or throughout the Congress disagreed that, for the foreseeable future, investments in new upstream natural gas exploration and production are precisely what Ukraine urgently needs. The constant threats from Moscow, of Putin, his energy ministry and Gazprom to end transit of Russian gas to the EU via Ukraine would make the present “virtual reverse flow: method by which Ukraine obtains much of its natural gas, so vital for electricity generation but especially for citizens winter heating, will become impossible.

This is whey how to raise financing for domestic new gas E&P was precisely the urgent topic of this Congress organized by Naftogaz, the state natural gas company.

What is Ukraine to do? Is this fair?

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UPDATE: Gazprom begins “tepid” filling of EU gas storage. Transparency lacking from EU’s main supplier during crisis.

Posted on November 10, 2021 | Leave a comment
Este informe y mi entrevista están en español. Euronews 8.11.21

First: My Euronews 8 November interview is also in Hungarian  – Italian – Spanish (posted here) and English (yesterday’s post)

1. Factual Update:

The interview was on Monday with no evidence of Gazprom filling EU storage on the date promised. Today, Wednesday, Gazprom has begun filling at least two of five promised EU storage sites.

To the best of my knowledge, from various sources who follow the industry and/or politics of this closely:

  • Gazprom began using its recently unused Yamal pipeline, flowing 30mcm/day (million cubic meters per day) to the Mallnow, Germany pumping station. This Russia-Belarus-Poland-Germany. pipeline, has a total capacity of  85 mcm/day (31 bcm/year – billion cubic meters per year).
  • Gazprom also applied to use its previously booked-and-paid-for but also recently unused capacity across Ukraine under the December 2019 transit contract with Naftogaz of 40 bcm/year (109.3 mcm/day). Of this, :Velke Kapusany, Slovakia station is receiving 92mcm/day, with SE Poland and Moldova receiving 18 mcm/day.
  • Gazprom is flowing via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline (directly from Russia into Germany via the Baltic Sea) 165mcm/day.  This would be 60 bcm/year if continuous with no annual maintenance downtime, but its annual nameplate capacity is 55 bcm).
  • I recommended the article “Gazprom makes slow start on boosting gas supplies to Europe: Markets react tepidly as volumes remain too low to stave off supply fears,” by Max Seddon in Moscow, David Sheppard in London, and Roman Olearchyk in Kyiv  (paywall, perhaps a few articles free/month)
2. My Analytical Points:
  • This is well below the total flow Gazprom was routinely sending in recent years via Yamal (31 bcm) plus via Ukrainian pipes (89.6 bcm in 2019, and 55.8+ bcm in 2020)
  • Thus, these are not yet “surge” supplies; it is not yet a concerted effort to urgently replenish the EU’s worryingly low gas storage levels before winter gets colder and in the likely event winter winds will drop significantly as they did last year, requiring still-more gas, for electrical generation. (This combination ran the then-nearly full EU and Ukrainian storages to very low levels, which have still not been replenished sufficiently for this winter.).
  • Such drama and uncertainty from Europe’s main energy supplier when it needs reliability and transparency is heghly problematic (though, of course, Europe and especially Berlin have been amply warned about this high degree of dependence on Gazprom)..
  • Oh, and note that the USA is evidently quite concerned about the Russian troop buildup on Ukraine’s border. However, the EU seems at a complete loss, absolutely absent from joining with the Biden Administration in dissuading Mr. Putin from some new aggression. 
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My Euronews TV: Putin said Gazprom’s would fill its critically low EU gas storage from 8 Nov. It isn’t. — Instead he is massing troops on Ukraine’s border.

Posted on November 9, 2021 | 2 comments

My interview with Euronews of 08.11.21, on Gazprom & Putin’s refusal to begin filling gas storage in the EU. This is the only way to diminish the possibility of a gas crisis, of serious heating and electricity shortages should we have another cold and windless winter.

Putin, as always, is “the decider.”

I said: No one knows his game. Will he send his ample gas supplies to Europe, now that Russian storage is filled as of 7 Nov.?

This is a serious issue of the reliability and transparency of Gazprom and Putin’s Russia – the supplier of about 40% of Europe’s imported gas,

The person who invaded Ukraine in 2014 now refuses to send gas across Ukraine. He now has the gas available it and Ukraine is even offering him a 50% discount on transit fees. This could significantly help to alleviate Europe’s looming winter energy crisis.

However, instead, Putin has now put large numbers of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders, de facto threatening the country in recent weeks. The Biden administration is alarmed. It sent CIA director Burns to speak directly to Putin in Moscow – a very unusual event. See CNN here.

This is a serious energy and security situation for Europe and for Ukraine. Shortfalls of winter gas in storage, and also coal in Ukrainian storage is a threat to citizens’ heat and electricity supplies.

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There’s no 2021-22 Nord Stream 2 option: Only way to avert EU gas crisis & for Gazprom not to waste its huge domestic-production-surge investment … is for Moscow to take Kyiv’s offer of 50% cut in transit fees, flooding the EU with gas from 7 November.

Posted on October 29, 2021 | Leave a comment
voice-of-europe-fire-novy-urongoy-gas-plant-gazprom-5augustPutin’s recent gas-Godfather-like statements that Nord Stream 2 could alleviate  the current European natural gas price and supply crisis is an obvious attempt to pressure the EU to rush Nord Stream 2 approval in ways violating the EU’s own rule of law.
 
As a Polish expert wrote in 2019,: “The amendment to the [European Union’s] gas directive explicitly confirms that EU law applies in the case of Nord Stream 2 (that is, to the section running through German territorial sea), including the rules on unbundling, third-party access, independent operators et al.: (Agata Łoskot-Strachota, “The gas directive revision: EU law poses problems for Nord Stream 2,” OSW, Warsaw, 21.02.2-19.).
 
However, Putin’s hubris should be taken with a grain of salt. In reality, his options in this regard are subject to current technical-economic constraints of the Russia gas sector, as my research had indicated in recent weeks.
 
Russian domestic storage was announced to be at 97% full mid-last-week due to its continuing all-out Gazprom filling campaign, reportedly at the high rate of about 300 million cubic meters/day (mcm/d). The plan had been to finish by 1 November.. Thereafter, this maxed-out production has to immediately be choked off or be sent somewhere else – and indeed there is only one option; but it is not Nord Stream 2…
 
One caveat: a recently announced 7 November Gazprom export start date did not made sense. Where would the maxed out production flows go from 1 to 7 November?  However, an article yesterday by Bloomburg [possible paywall] clarifies “Gazprom said Wednesday that the Russian re-injection campaign would be a week longer than the original Nov. 1 conclusion.”  This is quite plausible – it is simply taking an extra six days to top off Russian domestic storage. 
 
So to reiterate points I have stressed over the past few weeks (e.g., at Naftogaz’ Ukraine Gas investment Congress closing panel in Kyiv last Thursday-I’ll put a video of this here soon- and in various interviews):
 
First, while Putin has relished playing the gas-mafia Godfather (e.g., at the St Petersburg gas conference two weeks ago), asserting that, if  Nord Stream 2 is rapidly approved, Gazprom exports could save Europe this winter, he has been merely posturing as the strongman decider. He wanted to appear to be craftily withholding extra, non-contracted gas supplies needed to fill  the company’s storage facilities in Germany and throughout the EU, all still now at worryingly low levels long after the traditional filling season ended at the start of October.
 

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Posted in Energy and Geopolitics, EU gas, Euroepen Union, gas crisis, Gazprom, gazprom, Germany, LNG, Naftogaz, Nord Stream 2, Renewables, Russia, Ukraine, Uncategorized

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My Kongres590/Warsaw talk: “Building a Joint Three-Seas-Initiative Nuclear Energy R&D-and-Training Center” [Polish & English]

Posted on October 16, 2021 | Leave a comment
Note: The Polish Interpreter’s voice dominates; however with headphones I could follow the English. Apologies, there’s no separate English audio.

“Cooperation in energy transformation and trade to increase the economic strength of the Three Seas Region …”

Kongres590 – Warsaw – 14 October 2021

  • Moderator: prof. dr. hab. Zbigniew Krysiak, Chairman of the Program Council of the Institute of Schuman Thought
    Panellists:
  • Dr. Thomas W. O’Donnell, (PhD Nuclear Physics; Lecturer in Berlin & Energy & Geopolitical Analyst),
  • Julius Zellah, (President of the Light for Africa Online Foundation)
  • Paweł Kotowski, (Deputy Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
  • Jarosław Malczewski, (President of the Polish Dairy Group),
  • Dr. Krzysztof Malczewski, (President of the B-2M Company)

Key points of my talk:

1. Poland has no previous experience in nuclear energy; and this is a difficult problem that needs to be tackled starting now. Also, any institute needs a sufficient scale to guarantee both high standards and employment security to those trained for industry, academia, safety, and planning.  It is for this reason that nuclear training in Poland’ should be done jointly, together with all 12 of the Three Seas Initiative members (i.e., the eastern EU member states, and this may soon include also Ukraine – many of which countries already have established nuclear programs). And, as part of the Three Seas Initiative, this means also in conjunction with the USA, in particular its Department of Energy with a vast network of nationl laboratories and obviously decades of nuclear experience to draw on. Continue reading →

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Posted in Ehergiewende, Energy and Environment, Energy and Geopolitics, Environment, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Germany, Renewables, Renewables, The USA, Three Seas, Ukraine, UMNERS, Uncategorized

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My Al Jazeera Live: EU Gas Crisis 2021: Too many windmills w/o wind, a cold winter & hot summer drained EU & Russian storage. While Putin fills his, EU goes back to coal & prices soar. [Arabic & English]

Posted on October 11, 2021 | Leave a comment
ENGLISH AUDIO: At 0:30 are the interpreter’s questions & my answers.

Video In Arabic – Audio above has English interpreter’s and my voice in English.

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Posted in AlJazeera, Alternative energy, Climate Change, Economic Crisis, Ehergiewende, Energiewende, Energy and Environment, Energy and Geopolitics, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Gazprom, Germany, Nord Stream 2, Nuclear power, Renewables, Renewables, Resource conflicts, Russia, shale gas, Ukraine, Uncategorized

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My TRT StraightTalk: Nord Stream 2: Europe’s Energy crisis, Putin’s lever, Ukraine’s plight, & Berlin’s complicity

Posted on October 10, 2021 | Leave a comment
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 →

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Posted in Belarus, Berlin, Energy and Geostrategy, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Gazprom, Germany, Global Oil system, Nord Stream, Nord Stream 2, Putin, Russia, The USA, Ukraine, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy

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“EU leaders will consider creating a strategic gas reserve” [TVPoland explains I proposed this in August: “Ukraine as a Central Bank of Energy”]

Posted on October 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

ursula_von-der-leyen_EU_gas_strategic_reserve_tvp_pap_03oct21For 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.

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Posted in Energy and Environment, Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Gazprom, Nord Stream 2, Poland, Putin, Russia, Ukraine, Uncategorized

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Reply of IEA’s Dr. Fatih Birol to my critical questions on Germany’s “100% renewables & no nuclear” at P-TECC in Warsaw

Posted on September 30, 2021 | Leave a comment
Video is set to Dr. Fadi Birol’s interesting answers to my two critical questions. However, I recommend going back and watching his entire talk – and others.

I was quite happy with the answer of IEA (International Energy Agency*) director, Dr. Fadi Birol, to two critical questions I posed, first on how the European Commission should include nuclear power in its “green financing taxonomy,” and secondly, against German over-reliance on variable renewables (I termed this “renewable fundamentalism”) which I said produces high “organizational entropy,” that is, unworkable and unaffordable, completely “reinvented” so-called “smart grids” with “grid scale stage” whose technology is not sufficiently developed all to cope with the problem of unavoidable wind and solar energy fluctuations, which become more massive as the percentage of installed renewables increases. This is a significant contribution to Germany’s (and the EU’s) present crises of energy supply and price security. (The video above is set to start at my two questions.)

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Posted in Alternative energy, Climate Change, Ehergiewende, Energiewende, Energiewende, Energy and Environment, Environment, EU gas, Euroepen Union, German Green Party, Germany, Nuclear power, Poland, Renewables, Renewables, The USA, Three Seas, Uncategorized

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Video overview of my class: Energizing Europe. A critique of the German energy-transition model

Posted on September 5, 2021 | Leave a comment
My talk starts at 1:30, after FU-Best program intro. My webpage for students in the course is here.

I recorded this last Fall, 2020, during Corona lockdown, to give an overview of my course for prospective students.

I’ve taught this course twice per year since 2016 – save this past year’s Corona shutdown. This is a longish video summary of 12 class sessions. It should give a good sense of my critical assessment of the German model of “Energiewende” – a policy of “100% renewables and no nuclear.” I analyze this model as a set back to the German and global fights to reduce CO2 emissions. Why?

Most succulently: If climate change is the huge problem the German Green Party says it is (and it is), if it really requires a “war on carbon emissions;” then why shut Germany’s nuclear fleet? These 17 (!) nuclear plants produced approximately as much carbon-free electricity as all the solar and wind Germany has so far installed. Obviously this is NOT a war on carbon, it is a war on carbon AND nuclear, with BOTH targeted at the same level of alarm.

At bottom, this “100% renewables with no nuclear” policy, the “Energiewende“, is a romantic, unscientific program to which Merkel surrendered within 48 hours after the report of the Fukushima failure due to a monster sunami having hit this nuclear facility on the Japanese coast.

This precipitous “atomic exit,” in my estimation, marked complete victory of Green populism over science-driven policy in Germany. This German model soon attained hegemony worldwide. However, it is now being seriously questioned by climate activists, as Germany has failed to meet its CO2 reduction and renewable generation targets at home, while its price of electricity is the world’s high-test amongst large industrialized countries. As I mention in the video, the Eighth Independent Monitors Report on the progress of the Energiewende made the rather alarming assessment that it will be impossible to ever supply Germany’s domestic market with electricity supplied by domestic renewable sources. Interestingly, this assessment has not been a point of discussion in the present German national election campaigning.

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Posted in Berlin, Climate Change, Energiewende, freie University-Berlin, German Green Party, Nuclear power, Renewables, Uncategorized

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My TRT TV-London: Cold War espionage in Berlin? Plus Russia’s “unique influence & penetration” of German society

Posted on August 29, 2021 | Leave a comment
Watch the Roundtable discussion

Is this a revival of Cold War espionage?

Aug 24, 2021 Roundtable (20.9K subscribers)
Following the arrest of a British employee at its Berlin embassy as a Russian spy, it’s been suggested that Russia has tried to infiltrate Germany in particular because of its role at the centre of Europe and because of its ties to Moscow. A former MI5 agent-recruiter, Annie Machon, plus UK academic expert Dr. Jenny Mathers at Aberystwyth University, and Dr. Tom O’Donnell, at Hertie School of Governance in Berlin are here to tell us if we’re witnessing a return to the Cold War ways of spying.

Some comments on the show: First off, my fellow panelists are experts on human espionage and Russian spy craft – which I am not – and were extremely informative In this discussion on David Foster’s Roundtable.

An overview and elaboration of my points: I stressed, besides a Cold-War-like level of Russian espionage in Berlin, there is a general openness in Germany to economic and political interpenetration and integration with Russia. In plain sight one sees everyday what I called the “unique influence and penetration” of German society as compared to any other EU or NATO ally.

I stressed energy-sector examples – most especially Nord Stream 1 and, now, Nord Stream 2 pipelines, built by German partnerships with Putin’s Russia, aiming to avoid Russian gas having to transit Ukraine to arrive in Germany and beyond. The degree of this open integration with Russia is unique in the EU. Consider: the Germany’s pre-Merkel chancellor, Schröder, heads the boards of both Gazprom and Rosneft; that an x-German Stazi secret-police officer is the CEO of Gazprom-owned Nord Stream 2 AG, and that overwhelming numbers of German experts “consult’ for Gazprom, including even the 2005-06 German Federal State Secretary for Defense(!) – who is a member of Merkel’s CDU/CSU party.

David Foster’s Roundtable, TRT-London
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Posted in Energy and Geopolitics, espionage, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Gazprom, geopolitics, Germany, Hertie School of Governance, KGB, Nord Stream, Nord Stream 2, Rosneft, Russia, Ukraine, Uncategorized

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My Warsaw Op-Ed: Nord Stream 2 deal marks a German win in setting allied strategy on Russia & Ukraine | Niemcy nie boją się Rosji. Boją się ryzyka płynącego z Ukrainy.

Posted on August 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

My Op-Ed on German motives for Nord Stream 2 appeared in the Dziennik Gazeta Pravwna 4 Aug. 2021 (no. 149 dziennik.pl, forsal.pl), derived from an English interview (below here) with Artur Ciechanowiicz (PAP, Brussels). [Polish Op-Ed link]

Read the Polish Op-Ed (PDF) “Germany is not afraid of Russia. It fears risks coming from Ukraine”

Here is my full English interview, expanded for clarity:

1) [AC] What are the consequences of the Nord Stream 2 deal between Washington and Berlin?

[T O’D] Stepping back a bit: this deal marks a victory by Berlin in its long and intensifying contest with its ally, the USA, over which of these two biggest transatlantic powers will decide the alliance’s strategy with respect to Russia and China. The two allies deeply disagree on this matter.

In the USA, both Democrats and Republicans have agreed since the Obama administration that “Great Power Competition” must be the strategy for the alliance versus Russia and China. The Americans strongly feel it is necessary to “decouple” from globalism’s deep trade and tech integration with China and Russia, that these states must either change their disrespect for global trade rules and moderate their increasingly aggressive geopolitical activities, or be isolated and forcibly contained.

Germany, with almost 50% of its GDP from global trade, deeply disagrees with this US strategy [i.e., German exports provide 46.9% of GDP, the USA’s only 11.7%]. Berlin likes global rules; but its unbalanced economy cannot afford trade decoupling and it broadly opposes forceful military containment of China and Russia. Instead, it wants only negotiations and occasional sanctions.

So, Nord Stream 2 is an iconic example of this clash, this “leadership fight” between the USA and Germany over the transatlantic alliance’s strategy towards Russia. Berlin wants to maintain energy ties at all costs, while the USA has long advocated maximum European energy independence from Russia, and to constrain Russia (and defend Ukraine) by forcing Putin to continue having to send gas across Ukraine to reach his European customers.

Russia, for its part, wants to re-incorporate former-Soviet Ukraine [plus Belarus, Moldova and Georgia, and minimally keep them outside of the EU and NATO], and has wanted to avoid having to send its gas to Europe via Ukraine. Moscow’s transit dependence on Ukraine not only provided income for Ukraine, this constrained Russian subversion and military aggression there, for fear that the transit pipelines could be interrupted by either Ukrainian state or non-state actors.

For Germany, the “insecurity” of having to import Russian gas through Ukraine deeply alarmed Berlin. And so it made a strategic decision over 20 years ago to partner with Russia, to build new pipelines to bring gas directly from Russia to Germany [via Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2] and on to European customers long supplied with the same Russian gas but via Ukraine. The aim was to make Germany the new hub for distribution of Russian gas in Europe.

Given Berlin’s logic, the 2014 Russian war on Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea only made it more sure than ever of the dangers of relying on Russian gas imports that have to transit Ukraine, and it redoubled its efforts to complete NS2, notwithstanding this would undermine German relations with three consecutive US administrations and with many of its EU allies, esp. Poland and East-Central Europe – a region where its much-prized soft power has been sacrificed.

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Posted in Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Gazprom, geopolitics, Germany, international relations, NATO, Nord Stream, Nord Stream 2, Russia, The USA, Ukraine, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy

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My CGTN live: Merkel put Biden in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” bind on Nord Stream 2 deal

Posted on July 25, 2021 | 1 comment

My live interview (22 July 2021) on the Nord Stream 2 deal between Germany and USA. with CGTN (London office of Chinese state broadcaster. This was not edited, or I would not post it here.)

I explain the bind which Berlin had put the Biden administration in for agreeing to waive sanctions on Nord Stream 2 (NS2) in return for this bad deal. The German side was playing hardball. Berlin had made clear to Washington (well before Biden arrived in office) that the pipeline would be finished regardless of sanctions.

The German (and the Danish) side had already allowed Gazprom-owned North Stream 2 AG to continue construction in their territorial waters even when reputable insurance companies and the reputable construction-commissioning firms had abandoned the project due to the threat of US sanctions; and Berlin had made it clear to the US side that it would be completed regardless of any further sanctions. Sanctions on German firms could be circumvented by Berlin continuing to allow Russian firms to do any work that German firms were prevented from performing. And, sanctioning German firms, or NS2 AG, would cause outrage in every German political party except for the Greens, the only German party clearly opposed to the project. However, the Greens had made clear they did not think US sanctions on German firms was an appropriate measure for an ally to take.

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Posted in China, Energy and Geopolitics, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Gazprom, geopolitics, Germany, Nord Stream 2, Russia, Sanctions, The USA, Three Seas, Trump, Ukraine, Uncategorized

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EE UU v. Alemania: Sanciones y el oleoducto ruso Nord Stream 2 | Fui invitado en “El Fundo” de DW TV

Posted on August 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

capture.-dw-ns2-15aug20aAquí abajo se puedan ver la grabación de la tortulia del 15 de agosto entre dos expertos y yo en el programa “El Fondo” de la red alemana de Deutschewelle (DE.de TV) sobre “la lucha entre aliados” de los EE. UU. y Alemania en la que Washington ha amenazado con fuertes sanciones contra su aliado de la OTAN, Berlín, por su participación en el proyecto del gasoducto ¨Nord Stream 2¨ con Rusia.  Gracias a DW y su moderadora venezolana Silvia Cabrera.

El video: https://www.dw.com/embed/640/av-54570546 |  Descargar MP4 |  Enlace permanente https://p.dw.com/p/3gyI6

Tenga en cuenta que estas no son sanciones del presidente Trump, sino sanciones impuestas por el Congreso en contra de los deseos de Trump y con el amplio apoyo de ambos partidos. Hay mucha ira en el Congreso contra Rusia por sus malas actividades en Europa en materia de suministro de gas natural al continente por parte de Moscú de forma geoestratégica, pero también por su invasión de Ucrania en 2014, y sus extensas actividades contra las democracias del Oeste.

Para Estados Unidos, este proyecto es una peligrosa colaboración de Alemania con Rusia contra los intereses y la independencia energética de la UE y especialmente de Ucrania, un país con partes de su territorio ocupadas por Rusia desde 2014.

De la propaganda del programa El Fondo de DW.de:

“¡Extorsión!” “¡Guerra comercial!” que traería gas de Rusia a Alemania. ¿Se dañará la relación entre Alemania y Estados Unidos? ¿Definirá Estados Unidos la política energética alemana?

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Posted in Energy and Environment, Energy and Geopolitics, EU gas, Euroepen Union, Gazprom, geopolitics, Germany, international relations, Nord Stream, Putin, Resource conflicts, Russia, Sanctions, shale gas, The USA, Trump, Ukraine, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy

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Decoding the Oil Price War 1: Moscow seized COVID crisis to hit US shale, force sanctions relief

Posted on April 9, 2020 | 1 comment

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The “Oil Price War of 2020” was launched at the worst possible time.  The COVID-19 pandemic was spreading to the world beyond China, promising to kill tens-of-thousands, and bring a global economic collapse.

However, this war was not preordained. Things could have gone otherwise from the start.  It was a decision, a sort of Pearl-Harbor-esque surprise attack, announced by Russian minister of energy, Alexander Novak, upon his arriving late to the OPEC-plus summit hall in Vienna on March 6.

If Moscow now abandons its all-out war on US shale, it will be because Putin has miscalculated.  He was willing to increase the pain for everyone else by exploiting the COVID-19 energy crisis in a half-baked attempt to get out from under the US sanctions.  However, the unanticipated repercussions might get too hot for Moscow.

The facts about why Putin decided to launch this oil price war are important to decode.  A key aspect to understand is that Moscow’s game plan was to blame the Saudis; and it soon began a disinformation campaign saying the Saudis launched the war.

We shall see, below and in future posts, how this blame-shifting is a stratagem designed to manipulate a section of US politicians and especially independent US oil producers, who traditionally hold strong, anti-Saudi sentiments (to be clear: they have good reasons to hold these anti-Saudi views), to preferentially sympathize with Russia against the Saudis and to lobby Trump and Congress to give Moscow relief from US sanctions.

Whether this Oil War strategy of Moscow can, at least in part, succeed in freeing Russia from US sanctions is not clear.  But, Moscow’s is highly motivated to succeed due to the significant constraints these sanctions are imposing on Russia.  They include sanctions in retaliation for its war against Ukraine, since 2014, which have undermined expansion of Russia’s domestic oil and gas sector; sanctions which have stalled Russian-German plans to finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; and sanctions on Rosneft’s efforts to sustain the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela.

Today, as explained below, I would say the odds are against Moscow’s success, with the plan bordering on adventurism.  The Saudi’s initial response, in so far as it specifically targets Russia’s oil business, is rational; however, by de facto joining the Russian oil price war on US shale,  the Saudis will also provoke a backlash from powerful US oil-business and political interests, which is likely precisely what Putin and Igor Sechin hoped to bait the Saudis’ Prince MbS into doing.

Considering the pain the world is already suffering, Putin and Sechin’s callous game to exploit the COVID-19 oil-market crisis must be seen for what it is.  Most especially, one should not acquiesce to Moscow’s disinformation campaign to shift the blame elsewhere.

In Vienna: Who started the price war?

For weeks, Riyadh had aggressively lobbied the 10 OPEC and 11 non-OPEC members of the OPEC-plus alliance to agree to a major production cut.  This alliance had been born in 2016, of a newfound, market-dictated, yet grudging, Russian-Saudi mutual recognition of the reality that only such a large-scale collective effort could begin to get control of a market in long-term oversupply.  By December 2019, their OPEC-plus group had Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy and Geopolitics, geopolitics, Global Oil Market, oil price war, Oil prices, Oil supply, OPEC, opec-plus, Russia, Saudi Arabia, shale oil, U.S. oil, Uncategorized, Venezuela oil

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