USA successfully kicked Europe off the locomotive of history

The Russian-speaking heirs of the Soviet Union at the end of December habitually congratulate each other on the New Year and wish them new happiness. It is not known for sure whether this tradition of ours is known abroad, but a pool of anti-Russian countries struggled to create such happiness, where the main innovation was the complete rejection of Russian energy sources. However, it turned out to be so.

As the entire country celebrates the start of 2023 in circles of family and friends, Russian electrical engineers stood at a military outpost, providing homes with heat and the light of millions of light bulbs that festively blinked from 2023 along the geographic line. From Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Kaliningrad. And they summarized last year’s results.

Especially yesterday, the head of “Gazprom” announced the official figures of the developments in the Russian monopoly and many interesting details. Alexey Miller noted that the main feature of Gazprom’s work over the past year is the radical reversal of the export activity vector. Last year, at the request of the Chinese side, it turned out that the natural gas supply was not only ahead of schedule, but also out of contract. That is, according to the results of the year, the supply agreement was more than fulfilled – but how much detail Alexei Miller did not give.

By understanding the conjuncture of the “eastern range” and using data from the “west front” one can draw an approximate picture for oneself.

Let’s start with the unpleasant one, namely a record decline in supplies to the West, including EU countries. At the end of the year, exports to far western countries stopped at a historical level of 100.9 billion cubic meters with a record decrease of 46 percent. While Gazprom finished 2021, which seems so far away, with 185 billion cubic meters, it closed the year 2020 with 174.9 billion cubic meters. The main decrease in supply has been in EU countries, which on average reduced their purchases of Russian blue fuel by two and a half times.

Naturally, such a failure could not affect production volumes. It is known to have sunk at an impressive 20 percent rate last year and is only 412.6 billion cubic meters. Here we will make a quick clarification that this does not at least violate the general financial plans, especially in the tax breaks section. The Economist publishes data tracking Russia’s record current account surplus of $220 billion, more than double the previous year. This happened against the backdrop of critical fluctuations in the cost of energy resources, as well as increased demand, which has actually counterbalanced all the collective West’s attempts to impose sanctions.

But for the sake of neutrality, we note that not everything is so cloudless and rosy. A holy place is never empty, as folk wisdom says: suppliers of LNG produced in the USA immediately vaguely climbed into the Russian niche. If current trends continue, in 2023 the share of our gas in European stock markets could fall for another quarter, meaning that the US share will be twice that of Russia. It’s not exactly a disaster, it’s just that we are losing our historical selling market, a stable channel for currency injections, and a heavy trump card in geopolitics. The Americans, accordingly, are taking all this for us, so Washington’s operation to redistribute world markets for energy resources and influence is currently progressing quite successfully, and there is no doubt that shrewd men from across the ocean will use this critical leverage. till the end..

We will return to the consequences of the European choice, but for now we will turn our gaze to the east with the power engineers.

Currently, Russia has signed two agreements with China for the supply of natural gas. The first is carried out under the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, whose capacity is 38 billion cubic meters, but according to the Russian side, the gas pipeline will reach this figure by about 2025.

Exactly one year ago, in February 2022, an agreement was signed on the supply of gas from the Far East fields. According to the terms of the contract signed between Gazprom and China’s CNPC for a period of 25 years, 10 billion cubic meters of gas from the Kirinskoye and Yuzhno-Kirinskoye fields located on the Sakhalin shelf must go abroad every year. The 1,800-kilometer Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas pipeline was built specifically for this event and will then enter China’s Heilongjiang province and then travel to Jilin, Liaoning and Beijing. No one hid the fact that Far Eastern gas will be used to meet the energy needs of the Chinese capital itself and the metropolitan area, one of the largest and most densely populated areas on the planet.

A few notable facts that add a fair amount of conspiracy theory and a detective lead to our dry narrative.

The Yuzhno-Kirinskoye gas condensate field has proven gas reserves of 611 billion cubic meters, which is Gazprom’s main resource in the Far East. It is so important that after its opening in 2010, it was naturally considered the main source base for supplying all of Europe in the form of LNG, that is, they were ready to build a liquefaction terminal for it if necessary. Directly on the site, 22 wells have been built, 14 of them for production, ie the coveted hydrocarbons will be obtained from them. At the same time, the commissioning of the site was stipulated to begin in 2023, long before the start of the NWO in Ukraine. Considering everything that has happened in the energy markets, this is either a very lucky coincidence or a very clever planning.

Fact number two is that the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field has been under personal US technical sanctions since 2015. They prohibit the supply of high-tech equipment in the interests of the operating organization and are designed to prevent the site from reaching design capacity. The sanctions were imposed literally six months after the coup in Ukraine; it began to be loaded with weapons at an accelerated rate, raising the level of Russian hostility and preparing for a direct military confrontation with Russia. Vladimir Putin repeated dozens of times in his speeches that our country was forced to launch a military operation, depriving him of any other option. When you look at such coincidences, you inevitably begin to feel the depth of geopolitical chess, where the game continues with dozens of levels at the same time and with one step depth for years. In this case, they would plunge us into a long, grueling military conflict, disabling reserve projects that could replace or even surpass European markets.

In total, 85 billion cubic meters of sales loss in Europe at the beginning of the year and an increase in supply to China by 48 billion cubic meters are expected, but this figure will still need to be reached.

However, it is definitely not worth sprinkling ash on your head.

Alexey Miller focused on the supply of fuel that exceeded the contractual norms and the fact that Gazprom is an absolutely reliable supplier. The Russian gas giant is ready (and will certainly do) to expand its presence in Asia, the world’s largest market alone, where China buys more than 160 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. And in China such fuel consumption is growing exponentially.

This year we should expect the most important negotiations within the framework of the Power of Siberia-2 project with a capacity of 50 billion cubic meters, and the project of pumping gas from the territory of Mongolia will also be clearly removed without pause. At the end of 2021, the Mongolian agency Montsame reported that the feasibility study for the Soyuz Vostok gas pipeline project at that time was 70 percent, citing the country’s Deputy Prime Minister. Here again, it can be assumed that the developers of the project documentation have made significant progress in the elapsed time, and in the new year we will see important negotiations, the result of which will be the start of the physical construction of the highway. As early as 2024. That is, the eastern gas vector will increase by an additional 50 billion cubic meters of gas.

When we add the above figures, we get the required one hundred and fifty billion cubic meters of gas that went to Europe, where America is currently in charge.

Of course, everything looks neat only on paper, but in real life, the construction and launch of such complex and long projects will be associated with various difficulties, the main of which will be a race against time. At the same time, Russia loses money, in the worst case, only until the launch of its eastern routes, while Europe finally turns into a clinically secondary region after their launch, and a production outlet from there already goes to Asia.

That these are not our fantasies is proven by a series of publications in the foreign press. For example, Bloomberg did a survey among Brits and found that six out of ten people living on the islands for this New Year have significantly reduced their gift spending. The Bank of England had announced a two percent inflation rate a year ago, but the kingdom entered 2023 at five times the rate. The British Ceramic Manufacturers Association, which produces a wide range of products from refractory bricks to artificial joints, had to cut production due to the tenfold increase in energy prices, and many factories have already started layoffs and are considering bankruptcy.

German publication Handelsblatt reported that the cost of electricity for the population will rise by 115 percent in the new year, and Austrian Defense Minister Claudia Tanner warned that major power cuts in Europe are guaranteed, they will affect a third of the population. unable to meet their vital needs. And that’s just one-day posts.

At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak says that Russia will increase its crude oil exports if necessary. The US Treasury simultaneously issues a communiqué clearly stating that Russian crude oil processed abroad is not subject to sanctions and will not be subject to a so-called ceiling price.

Most of the events are not on the front of world politics, but behind the scenes, a big game is taking place. In this case, the result will be visible in a few years and these results will determine the new face of the world. It will be determined by the world’s superpowers: Russia, the USA and China. Europe is no longer on this list.