Both of these should ring alarm bells….
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...gh-2021-11-18/
Putin says West not taking Russia's warnings on 'red lines' seriously enough
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...rather-winter/
An energy crisis is coming, but I’d rather be in Brexit Britain than the EU
Europe’s energy crunch has returned with a winter vengeance. We are back to warnings of power rationing and industrial stoppage, a looming disaster for the European Commission and the British government alike.
Vladimir Putin has tightened his stranglehold on gas,
driving up futures contracts for January by 40pc in barely a week. Prices are nearing the levels of September’s panic. The difference this time is that the underlying geopolitical crisis is an order of magnitude more serious…..
Mr Putin has already prepared the ground for the perfect energy squeeze. He took advantage of the world’s post-pandemic gas shortage over the late summer to withhold the top-up flows needed to replenish Europe’s depleted storage.
Other than short bursts of extra supply, almost as a tease, Gazprom has been delivering minimum contract volumes. Inventories are currently 52pc in Austria, 61pc in Holland, 69pc in Germany at a time of year when they should be near 100pc.
The Kremlin is now closing the trap. Energy analysts ICIS says Gazprom booked “nothing” for December through the Mallnow metering point on the Polish-Belarus pipeline. Europe is facing a supply-deficit of 32m cubic meters a day……
Whatever Mr Putin’s plans for Ukraine, possibly seizure of the Donbass and the Black Sea coast as far as Odessa, a parallel showdown with Brussels over the Baltic Nord Stream 2 pipeline looks certain to escalate.
German regulators have
suspended the certification process because Gazprom was trying to get around EU monopoly laws. They had no choice: a stitch-up had become impossible. “Poland would have issued an immediate injunction to stop it at the European Court,” said Prof Riley…..
Mr Putin will not back down lightly since Nord Stream 2 is central to his drive to alter the strategic balance of power in Europe, and overturn the post-Cold War settlement. The chances are that he will keep stoking the gas crisis until a frozen Europe begs for mercy, or tears itself apart.
Thierry Bros, a former energy security planner for the French government, said Brussels has stumbled blindly into a Kremlin ambush. “Putin set his master plan in motion last July and August. I didn’t believe it at first but now there can be no doubt. He told us we’d be getting more gas in October but it never came, and November has been worse, and now there’s going to be nothing through Mallnow,” he said……
The Government made a bet that the UK could always, and easily, obtain liquefied natural gas on the global market. But this country now finds itself in a bidding war for scarce LNG supplies with China, which is armed with $3.2 trillion of foreign exchange reserves and has ordered officials to secure energy as a matter of regime survival. The Asia spot price has just hit the once unthinkable level of $32 per MBBtu, if you can get it.
If the Government has not already created an “energy war room” with emergency powers, it should do so forthwith……
The UK could follow Japan and switch some gas plants to oil, currently trading at half the price of spot LNG ($180 equivalent). It could in extremis book LNG cargoes and hold the tankers at anchor as emergency storage. The Government could extend the life of the Hunterston B nuclear plant for a few months until we got through the worst.
Clive Moffatt, an expert on energy security, said it is already too late. “There’s no short-term fix to this. The grid is going to have to shut down industrial gas users. That is the only way to keep hospitals open and homes heated,” he said……