Jan 25 (Reuters) – The United States, the world’s top natural gas producer, is in talks with major energy-producing countries and companies over a potential diversion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe if Russia invades Ukraine, senior Biden administration officials said on Tuesday. Gas prices in Europe and Asia were already far higher than in the United States due to tight supply and high demand, before recent fears of conflict hitting the flow from Russia, the world’s second biggest gas producer and Europe’s main supplier. However, getting additional LNG cargoes to Europe swiftly will not be easy, as the world’s suppliers are already producing as much as they can of the gas that is super-cooled into a liquid form for transportation. Such an effort would have to involve rerouting vessels already on the water or ready for departure. LNG is sold worldwide to companies operating in countries generally looking to diversify energy sources away from coal. China, Japan and South Korea were the three largest importers of U.S. LNG in 2020, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) figures. Global LNG exports are expected to rise to around 53.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2022. That is still a fraction of overall worldwide natural gas consumption of roughly 400 bcfd, most of which is delivered via pipelines. If prices jump in one part of the world, like what happened in Europe in December, LNG buyers can easily send spot cargoes to the area, and in some cases can divert long-term deals, so long as the contracts with their customers allow for such a diversion. Exporting gas on vessels is not as easy as filling a tanker with crude oil. Gas liquefaction facilities, as they are called, generally take two to four years to build. There is only one facility under construction in the United States that could add more liquefaction capacity this year – Venture Global LNG’s Calcasieu Pass in Louisiana, which analysts expect could add about 0.9 bcfd by year-end. The three biggest producers of LNG in 2021 were Australia at around 10.5 bcfd, Qatar at 10.1 bcfd and the United States at 9.8 bcfd, accounting for more than half of the world’s supply. They are all exporting at or near capacity. For 2022, the United States, is expected to export an average of around 11.5 bcfd, which is about 12% of the country’s expected record gas production of over 96 bcfd, according to EIA projections. Global prices are trading about seven times higher than the U.S. gas benchmark, with European futures at more than $30 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu), compared with just $4 in the United States. Asian futures are lately around $26 per mmBtu, after peaking at an all-time high near $49 per mmBtu last month. In December, European futures hit record levels near $60 per mmBtu on Russian supply, resulting in LNG exporters redirecting cargoes towards Europe. The United States sent about half of its LNG exports in December to Europe, up from 37% earlier in 2021, according to data from Refinitiv and the U.S. Energy Department. NN: I hate to shit in their mess kit. But reality is their is no replacement for Russian oil and natural gas. Their are no pipelines… No ships and no natural gas processing plants. And the wells are not even in to supply the extra product. Putin and his Grennieweinnie friends saw to that… If they go for broke maybe 5 years from now they can START to significantly replace Russia oil and gas…. But that assumes no increase in global energy demand. In other words Europe is fucked royally… In fact they fucked themselves. For years i have been warning tha Europe was becoming Putin’s bitch
German ministry wants to halve dependence on Russian oil by summer -Spiegel
U.S, EU strike LNG deal as Europe seeks to cut Russian gas….. “in 10 years”
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The United States will work to supply 15 billion cubic metres (bcm) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European Union markets this year, as Europe seeks to wean itself off Russian gas supplies, according to a factsheet provided by the White House. U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will on Friday announce the formation of a task force on Friday to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Commission will also work with EU countries to ensure they can receive about 50 bcm of additional LNG until at least 2030, the factsheet provided by the White House said. It was not clear whether it referred to amounts additional to last year’s 22 bcm of U.S. exports to the European Union. The bloc has already stepped up efforts to secure more LNG after talks with a number of supplier countries, resulting in record deliveries of 10 bcm of LNG in more than 120 vessels in January. That month, U.S. deliveries rose to 4.4 bcm, around double the normal amount for January. About 10% of EU gas needs are met by domestic production. Russia typically supplies some 41% of the rest of the bloc’s needs. NN: UNHOOK my dick. What bullshit. Europa imports 10500 million cubic feet a year from Russia. SO the US promises 10% of Russian demand this year…. Its a drop in the bucket.. Now for the facts. the US does not have the gas pipelines nor the CNG terminals to do this…. Its total bullshit. As far as freeing the EU from Russia natural case by 2030…. Well the cold hard truth is the EU does not have 8 years to accomplish this feat even if they could
Diesel Crisis In Europe Worsens As Austrian Energy Giant Limits Sales
The world’s biggest independent energy trades, who spoke at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland and unveiled a dire forecast for the diesel market: “The thing that everybody’s concerned about will be diesel supplies. Europe imports about half of its diesel from Russia and about half of its diesel from the Middle East,” said Russell Hardy, chief of Switzerland-based oil trader Vitol. “That systemic shortfall of diesel is there.” As a reminder, Russian supplies account for about 15% of Europe’s diesel consumption, according to the FT which carried their comments. Hardy said the shift to more diesel consumption over gasoline in Europe had helped to create shortages of the fuel. He added that refineries could boost their diesel output in response to higher prices at the expense of other oil-derived products to shore up supply, but warned that rationing was a possibility. Meanwhile, Torbjorn Tornqvist, co-founder and chair of Geneva-headquartered Gunvor Group said that “Europe is short of diesel” but added that “Diesel is not just a European problem; this is a global problem. It really is.” Tornqvist also warned that European gas markets were no longer functioning properly as traders faced huge demands from banks for cash to cover hedging positions. “I think it’s broken. It really is,” he said. “I never thought that somebody could say ‘ah, gas has fallen below 100 per megawatt hours is really cheap’.” Finally, the CEO of Trafigura Jeremy Weir, which has recently fielded billions in margin calls and has warned that commodity trading houses risk imploding absent a central bank bailout, put the final nail in the coffin warning that “the diesel market is extremely tight. It’s going to get tighter and will probably lead into stock outs” referring to when fuel stations run dry. Since then the European Diesel market has effectively frozen up. On Thursday the shortage finally spilled over – to use the term very loosely – on the street, after Austria’s energy giant OMV announced it was “limiting spot sales of heating oil and diesel until further notice”, Bloomberg reported. The move, the company explained in an email, was to ensure it can meet contractual supply obligations noting that “as a precaution, the spot business has been limited until further notice.” The company didn’t give specifics on where the limits are in place, however it is safe to safe that soon the limits will hit all of Austria which is exceptionally dependent on Russian oil; to wit, earlier on Thursday, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said that talk of immediate boycott of Russian energy is both “unrealistic and wrong,” adding that “it doesn’t work. Austria gets 80% of its gas from Russia.”
Underscoring just how bad the European diesel crisis will soon, get, Europe’s scramble for alternatives to Russian diesel flipped New York from a typical import region to an exporter. According to Bloomberg, in a rare reversal of normal trade flows, New York is sending two diesel cargoes to Europe — which relies on Russia for about a third of its diesel needs — even as regional inventories are at multiyear lows and prices hover close to record highs.
Related: OPEC Warns A EU Ban On Russian Oil Could Have Serious Consequences
The flip-flop is an example of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is rattling fuel markets around the globe, even though the U.S. is relatively less exposed to Russian exports. High pump prices in the U.S. have become a liability for President Joe Biden, and the burden is growing for truckers and farmers.
Two tankers, the Falcon Nostos and the Energy Centaur, are carrying more than 700,000 barrels of diesel from New York to Europe, according to Vortexa, Kpler, as well as shipping data compiled by Bloomberg. This is a reversal of recent trade flows, which saw cold-gripped New York Harbor import at least 4.5 million barrels of diesel from Europe and Russia since the start of the year for power generation and home heating.
Diesel exports from the Gulf coast to Europe are also picking up, with around 103,000 barrels a day heading to the continent so far this month, compared with 19,000 in February, Kpler estimates. This trade route is more common, although it has diminished in the last year or two, with Latin America absorbing much of the U.S. export diesel market.
But the flow of U.S. clean products will “redirect toward Europe if European buyers are less willing to lift out of Russia,” said Reid I’anson, senior commodity economist at Kpler. The transatlantic diesel pull is taking place even as Russian-origin cargoes continue to discharge at European ports. The U.K. has said it will phase out imports of Russian oil, including diesel.
Biden on chemical arms: We would respond in kind
Broadcast and cable networks carried Joe Biden’s press conference in Brussels, where he is meeting with NATO allies, and reporters keyed in on one possibility: That Russia would use chemical weapons in the Ukraine war. “We will respond,” Biden told reporters. “The nature of the respond will depend on the nature of the use.” The president declined to address what kind of intelligence leads the U.S. to think that Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering the use of chemical weapons, and he also did not go into specifics as to what kind of response that the U.S. and other NATO countries would take. “It would trigger a response in kind,” Biden said. “We would make that decision at the time.” Biden also elaborated on his phone call last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The president said that he indicated to Xi that would “would be putting himself in significant jeopardy” if China backed Putin’s action against Ukraine. Although Biden said that his comments to Xi were not a “threat,” he said that he noted that American corporations have left Russia following the invasion. That seemed to be a suggestion that China could face an economic cost. “China understands its economic future is much more closely tied to the west than it is with Russia,” Biden said. Biden will visit Poland and hinted that he would be meeting with Ukrainian refugees who have fled to the border. Biden took questions from six different reporters, including those from the Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Der Spiegel and CBS News. When he called on CBS News’ Christina Ruffini, Biden challenged the premise of her question: “Deterrents didn’t work. What makes you think Vladimir Putin will alter course based on the action you have taken today?” The president responded, “Let’s get something straight. You remember if you covered me from the very beginning. I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter. The maintenance of sanctions, increasing the pain, and the demonstration of why I asked for this NATO meeting today is to be sure that after a month, we will sustain what we are doing, not just for this month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. That’s what will stop him.” Biden also announced plans for the U.S. to welcome up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine. The Der Spiegel reporter asked Biden whether European leaders were concerned about his political fate and the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House. Biden, though, seemed to dismiss that it was a topic. “I don’t think you will find any European leader who thinks I am not up to the job,” he said. The White House has said that Biden intends to run again in 2024. “The next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” Biden said. NN: I do not think Putin is shaking in his boots. And i am sure that the US response to chemical weapons use will be another sick joke.
Oil, gas market to collapse without Russian energy – Novak
“Russia is the largest supplier of energy resources to world markets, the share of Russian energy exports is about 20% of the world level of trade.
It is obvious that without Russian hydrocarbons, the gas and oil markets will collapse. An increase in prices for energy resources can be completely unpredictable,” Novak told Russian lawmakers. He noted that gas prices in Europe that have recently broken all-time record of over USD 4,000 can rise even more, given that the EU abandoned the Nord Stream 2 project to its own detriment. As of now, the volume of gas in underground gas storage facilities is 26 per cent as compared to 30.6 per cent at the same period of the last year, the official said, adding that this year the risks of not filling UGS facilities are even higher. NN: Stupid is defined as a single source supplier…. And stupid becomes assign when said supplier is your enemy
Russia’s Proposed Ban On Uranium Exports Sends Stocks Soaring
https://youtu.be/DkMfFae-mME
- Russia is reportedly considering a ban on enriched uranium exports.
- Russia is the third-largest source of U.S. uranium, accounting for about 16% of total U.S. imports.
Several weeks ago, when Biden instituted a wholesale ban on Russian energy exports, he explicitly carved out Russian uranium suppliers for the simple reason that the US is very much reliant on Russia for its nuclear power plant needs – after all, Russia is the third-largest source of U.S. uranium, accounting for about 16% of total U.S. imports. This prompted us to ask back on March 9 whether Putin would place enriched uranium on the list of banned Russian exports, and why Uranium stocks soared late last week after U.S. Energy Department signaled more aid for current and future nuclear reactors. Well, moments ago the very thorny issue of Russian uranium came to a head when Russia news agency TASS cited deputy prime minister Novak, who said that Russia is considering a ban on Uranium exports.
- RUSSIA CONSIDERING BAN ON URANIUM EXPORTS: TASS CITES NOVAK
NN: Once again Putin outmaneuvers the US and EU. One of the ways Europe wants to lesson reliance on Russian gas is to turn back on the perfectible good abondened nukes…. WELL their is a problem… the major source of uranium for Europe reactors is Putin……
Fed policymakers lean into bigger rate hikes to fight inflation
March 22 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve officials are doing little to downplay rising market expectations the U.S. central bank will raise interest rates by half a percentage point in May to curb the surge in inflation, but they also are not dispelling fears the tightening cycle could blow a hole in the economy and labor market. “The Fed needs to move aggressively to keep inflation under control,” St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday, repeating his call for the central bank to raise its benchmark overnight interest rate above 3% this year. “Faster is better,” he said. Bullard, who dissented on the Fed’s decision last week to raise the federal funds rate by just a quarter of a percentage point from the near-zero level, has made this same point before. But his view appears to be gaining traction.
On Monday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank must move “expeditiously” to raise rates. When asked what would prevent the central bank raising rates by half a percentage point at the May 3-4 policy meeting, he responded: “Nothing.”
Those comments prompted a flood of bets in futures markets on half-point interest rate increases in May and June. Traders now see the federal funds rate rising to the 2.25%-2.5% range by the end of the year – short of Bullard’s view but higher than the 1.9% suggested by Fed forecasts last week. Powell said the economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs without damaging the labor market and argued the best thing the Fed could do to ensure continued labor market strength is to get inflation under control. But traders are now also building bets that the Fed will start cutting interest rates next year. “The fixed income market squarely does not believe Powell’s economic optimism: It is telling us that a soft landing, if the Fed goes down Powell’s path, will not only be challenging – it will be impossible,” wrote Roberto Perli, an economist at Piper Sandler. It’s shaping up to be a rocky start for the Fed’s first round of rate hikes in three years, and particularly for the way its policymakers are communicating it. Ahead of last week’s interest rate increase, Powell had said the Fed would proceed “carefully” due to high uncertainty about the impact on the U.S. economy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In his news conference following the release of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy statement and projections, Powell said the Fed must be “nimble” in responding to the evolving outlook. And this week the Fed chief downplayed worries over the potential dent to economic growth and focused far more sharply on the likelihood the war in Ukraine could worsen U.S. inflation, which has hit a 40-year high and is about three times the central bank’s 2% target. The changes, wrote NatWest economist Kevin Cummins, could reflect Powell’s ongoing personal “hawkish pivot” that began in late 2021. “In the near-term, Powell’s comments are obviously not the last word as for the size of the expected rate hike in May, especially since the May FOMC meeting is not for another six weeks and Fed actions will be driven by the data,” Cummins wrote. NN: The last time inflation was over 7% the Fed Funds rate was 14%. To say they fucked up big time is a understatement.
WHO slams ‘brutal’ end to COVID measures…… Air travel industry welcomes scrapping of Covid restrictions
The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge stated on Tuesday that some countries lifted COVID-19 restrictions “too brutally,” resulting in a current rise in cases. He listed the United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Germany, France and Italy as examples of countries where the number of coronavirus infections has particularly rebounded. Kluge said the WHO will “remain vigilant” in the European region, reassuring he is “optimistic” about the course of the pandemic. The region, which includes some central Asian states, has seen over 5,1 million new cases and 12,496 deaths in the last seven days
Air travel industry welcomes scrapping of Covid restrictions
Companies and trade organisations in the air travel industry have welcomed the end of remaining Covid travel restrictions. Heathrow Airport said it would be dropping the requirement for passengers to wear masks in its premises following the Government’s announcement that all measures, including passenger locator forms, will end on Friday. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Monday the changes will allow “greater freedom in time for Easter” and will mean “you can travel just like in the good old days”. The move has been welcomed with open arms by some, including Heathrow Airport, which said it would be dropping mask requirements on Wednesday. “We have worked hard to keep our passengers and colleagues safe during the pandemic,” she said. “We acted quickly to institute face coverings as one of our first lines of defence and we’re pleased that we’re now able to move away from a mandatory requirement as society learns to live with Covid longer term. “While we still recommend wearing them, we can be confident the investments we’ve made in Covid-secure measures – some of which aren’t always visible – combined with the fantastic protection provided by the vaccine will continue to keep people safe while travelling.” NN: the flying incubators are back… And once again they will infect millions and kill thousands…….
CDC Get vaccinated even if you had Covid
You should get a COVID-19 vaccine even if you already had COVID-19. No currently available test can reliably determine if you are protected after being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.
Getting a COVID-19 vaccine after you recover from infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 provides added protection to your immune system. People who already had COVID-19 and do not get vaccinated after their recovery are more likely to get COVID-19 again than those who get vaccinated after their recovery.
If you currently have COVID-19, you should wait to get your vaccine until your symptoms are gone (if you had symptoms) and you are done with your isolation period. If you are not vaccinated and were exposed to someone with COVID-19, you should wait until your quarantine is over to avoid getting others sick while you get your vaccine.
Note: CDC recommends that all people with HIV get a COVID-19 vaccination, as well as a booster shot when they are eligible. People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised—including those with advanced or untreated HIV—have specific COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, which include an additional primary dose, as well as a booster shot for those eligible. NN: the first line of defense is getting vaccinated unfortunately every 5 or 6 months… Its your body and your choice…. I believe in the war on Covid you should use ALL the weapons at your disposal. I believe setting the captives free, will be proven to be a colossal mistake by September.