Thanks to Cogitans Iuvenis for the links!
via Financial Times.
Officials are worried that Gazprom might stop gas deliveries completely while NS1 is closed for repairs. “The supply situation is tight enough without NS1 being shut down,” said one.
Carsten Rolle of the BDI, Germany’s business confederation, said that during previous periods of scheduled maintenance on NS1 Gazprom had made up the shortfall by sending Germany more gas through Ukraine, or via the Yamal-Europe pipeline through Poland.
“But there is a concern that they will not do that this year,” he said. “Already they have cut flows through NS1 by 60 per cent and not made up for it with increased flows through other pipelines.”
Markus Krebber, chief executive of German energy company RWE, said it was “very clear” that the decision to reduce gas flows was “political”, “because it’s not only the [gas] coming via Nord Stream 1 that [is] below contracted volumes, but also via other pipelines.”
Here.
The Germans are trying to blame the Russians but the reality is ... IT'S THE SANCTIONS! They were applied stupidly and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Quick question. What happens when the biggest economy in Europe goes belly up?
Russia continues to blame supply disruption on delays to the return of Siemens Energy turbines used at an NS1 pipeline compressor station. Siemens Energy says Canadian sanctions against Russia are preventing it from returning the vital technical equipment from a factory in Montreal.
They just didn't think it thru. They acted like children and didn't consider the ramifications of their actions.
Worse?
German citizens went with the mob and cheered for their own economic destruction instead of using their brain cells to think about what their leadership was clamoring for!
They deserve what they get.
If that isn't bad enough, the sanctions are also about to wreck the third world. I repeat. The "adults" in the room didn't think about what the knock on effects of their actions would lead to.
They failed to war game this thing. They didn't do a simple "what if" exercise.
As shown in FAO data, the price of basic food products has surged since the invasion of Ukraine after already having followed an upward trend since 2020 over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the past, similar surges in the price of food have led to unrest, mostly in developing countries, and even coincided with the Arab Spring in 2011, when populations in North Africa and the Middle East cornered by oppressive regimes and feeling the additional squeeze on their livelihoods due to high prices rose up and toppled several regional regimes. The current level of food prices is even surpassing the peaks observed in 2011 and 2008, when food and other prices rose dramatically, causing unrest in several African countries as well as in Bangladesh, Haiti, Indonesia and Yemen. The onset of the global financial crisis put an end to the price surge that year.
Here
It hasn't happened yet but its coming and coming fast. We will see several hotspots popup all over the world.
The flow of immigrants from the Middle East and N Africa into Europe will surge. The same will happen here in the US and I would bet that Australia will see the same too.
The people that escape will be lucky. Those that stay will probably face famine, war and sickness. The type of conditions that will spur the type of pandemic that Biden sorta hinted at during one of his rambling press conferences.
The world is screwed up folks.
Get your health, finances and relationships right. Get yourself sorted out while you can.
When things pop it'll be too late.
