Why Europe still does not use the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline
As you know, from the very beginning of the year, the Yamal gas pipeline — Europe” is in fact in standby mode or even functions in reverse mode, thus distilling gas from Germany to Poland.
At the same time, representatives of Gazprom, with full responsibility, completed a partial booking for the whole of January (in the amount not less than 19 million cubic meters per day) to ensure export supplies to the West, but no applications have yet been received reported.
And at the same time, the activity of European companies has significantly increased, which, in fact, began to resell Russian gas to each other. This is exactly what the reverse movement of the gas indicates. This situation and its possible development will be discussed in the current material.
What does the downtime of the Yamal gas pipeline lead to? — Europe"
While gas supplies through the pipeline «Yamal — Europe» are on pause, only in the first ten days of January the losses of the Russian company amount to about $2 million. Let's imagine for a moment what a noise it would be if, through the fault of the Russian side, any European company received such a loss (well, that's right, a lyrical digression).
And if you look at other gas pipelines, then the situation there is not much better. Thus, transit through the Turkish stream has almost halved, as well as transit through Ukrainian territory. At the same time, gas reserves in gas storage facilities fell by less than 50%.
And in such a situation, European experts fear that there may not be enough gas for the entire winter period. And despite all this, the lack of applications from Europe looks, to put it mildly, strange.
What do Russian experts think about all this?
Russian experts believe that such a situation in Europe with Russian gas supplies has developed for two interrelated reasons:
- Unusually high spot gas prices and relatively warm weather. This eventually led to a collapse in demand for gas by almost 30%.
- These are political games.
At the moment, the Europeans are negotiating on the formation of the so-called European energy security and reducing dependence on Russian gas. And all this is used to the maximum by European corporations and all kinds of outbids.
You don't have to go far for an example. So the reverse through the Yamal gas pipeline — Europe" indicates that, in fact, the German side is distilling the physical gas that came from Russia via Nord Stream to Poland. And in fact, it simply resells Russian gas at a higher price.
At the same time, the Polish side may not be the last link in the resale. While the representatives of "Gazprom" and Moldova were actively negotiating new gas supplies, Warsaw offered Chisinau a free volume of gas, and also made an offer to Ukraine.
But sooner or later the gas in the storage facilities will run out, especially if the withdrawal greatly exceeds the filling. What else are inflated in Europe?
American LNG, can it replace Russian gas
Another reason for the lack of applications for Russian gas is the rather large consignment of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) that has arrived at European ports. So in December, 7.5 million tons of LNG were delivered to Europe (which is equivalent to 10 billion cubic meters of gas).
Yes, of course, this is a very large volume, but it came to Europe when the exchange price on the exchanges was at its maximum and the Americans were banal it is profitable to sell your LNG not to Asia, but to Europe, but the current exchange prices have again rolled back, and the Asian market for Americans is again more beneficial.
So as soon as LNG runs out and the Americans send their tankers to Asia, the Europeans will return to buying Russian gas again.
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