So, closer to the end of this week it became known that the Russian "Gazprom" began to take gas from another European UGS facility under the name "Katarina", pleasant to the German ear, which, as you understand, is located in Germany. Moreover, formally the largest supplier of blue fuel in Europe unsealed this storage facility solely in order to compensate for the noticeable drop in supplies on the German market through the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline going through Poland. Again, formally caused by an accident at one of Gazprom's enterprises in Yamal.
In fact, since the Russian gas giant flawlessly fulfills all its long-term contracts (and by the way, the "Polish corridor" is traded by auction and does not have long contracts - the Polish side itself insisted on this), he simply does not see the point in increasing the volume of supplies to EU now. This is also because there are much more urgent tasks on the domestic markets: among other things, yes, gas injection into our own UGS facilities as part of annual winter preparations. We have it, you know, long. And cold. And with gas it is somehow more fun, even not all bears go to sleep, some of them play balalaikas on the streets of Russian cities, drinking vodka with honey, - you honestly wrote about this the same free Western journalists who, laughing , explained how, having forced the Russians out of the market,America will happily flood Europe with its "shale" LNG. And Nord Stream 2 will not be completed, because it will never be completed.
Well, yes, as it turns out, something went a little wrong again.
But it’s not only with LNG, it’s also somehow not very convenient with shale oil.
All the same, the Russians are to blame - or their bears, which only at first glance seem to have nothing to do with it: read the free Anglo-Saxon press, they will explain everything to you for certain ...
Now let's get serious.
As a matter of fact, the background of what is actually happening there, in Europe, we have already analyzed in some detail in previous materials, so we just state that there is now a rigid reformatting of energy markets.
There are several reasons for this.
First, the LNG market has collapsed in Europe.
Yes, yes, the same one, repeatedly promised as "the most growing" and almost triumphantly all others "displacing".
Moreover, it collapsed even in relation to itself in crisis and "lockdown", that is, in relation to the last year - and the reason is extremely simple.
We have written about this more than once: no matter how much gas costs in Europe (at the largest gas hub of the European community - TTF hub in the Netherlands - the price level “at the moment” closer to the end of last week for the spot position “with delivery on the next day” was already and to $ 570 per 1,000 cubic meters), in the premium markets of Southeast Asia it will still cost even more.
Everything is simple here.
There, in the East, LNG stupidly has no competition in the face of pipeline gas (even Russian, Algerian, even Martian), which is cheaper than LNG purely technologically - common truths that for some reason have to be reminded every time.
And while gas prices on the European spot markets and on the markets of Southeast Asia do not equalize, given the current volume of the global gas market, LNG, as a much more mobile commodity, will inevitably tend to go exclusively to the southeast.
There are, of course, exceptions (for example, some long-term European contracts for Yamal LNG), but they only confirm the rule: money, sorry, to money.
And gas money in this respect is no better or worse than others.
Thus, what is happening now in European markets can be explained very simply: own production is falling, and LNG supplies in general have dropped sharply. And Gazprom, although, in general, also lowered its European volumes, but, as they say, “in the amount of permissible volatility”. And he fulfills his contractual obligations just flawlessly. In addition, its prices do not correlate so much with the spots on the Dutch hub, since the base is calculated according to a completely different, oil formula.
But Gazprom is far from the entire European market, and the rest of the suppliers, whose contracts are mostly tied not to the oil formula, but just to the spots, prices very confidently creep up.
By the way, since the SOE itself also has contracts, let's say, "different" (there are also ones tied to spot prices, through coefficients, we also wrote about this), the Russian gas giant is certainly satisfied with the rise in prices for its products - it would be stupid if it were different.
Especially considering the fact that he doesn't need to do anything specifically for this.
Everything happens in a completely natural way and as if by itself.
Another, no less obvious, reason for what is happening is systemic changes in transit.
Judge for yourself: after - now it is already clear - the inevitable launch of Nord Stream 2, Germany will have at its disposal transit capacities, which are quite comparable to those previously used in Ukraine (the actual capacity of Nord Stream 1 is 58.8 billion cubic meters. year, the peak - almost 62 billion cubic meters, add here the design 55 billion cubic meters of Nord Stream 2), while quite justifiably considering themselves "monopolists" in sitting on the Russian pipe. And it is somehow very naive to assume that German concerns will not want to take advantage of the opening opportunity. And we are just quite satisfied that they are pragmatic and civilized enough not to try to twist their hands with the supplier, but, like all normal people, are going to profit exclusively at the expense of the consumer.
Well, in addition to this, several very specific and applied tasks are being solved: here, as far as we understand, for example, certification and commissioning of the completed construction of Nord Stream 2 with subsequent various legal and other "approvals" is just a headache for German concerns.
Our headache, in turn, was the purely technical implementation of the project - as they say, “in hardware”.
And we, though, to put it mildly, not without difficulties, nevertheless brought this task to mind.
Well, it will be much easier for pragmatic Germans to solve their part of tasks now: I would not want to be in the place of that madman who, in such conditions, when European UGS facilities are half empty at best, and prices on the Dutch TTF hub are confidently moving towards “More than $ 600 per thousand cubic meters”, the Nord Stream 2 certification would have to be frozen. They will definitely not understand, it is better not to even try.
And the funny thing is that the Russians in this situation will definitely have nothing to do with it: yes, this is what is called the "perfect warning."
But only this, as well as, by the way, the actual replacement of Ukraine by Germany as a key transit country for "Russian gas" - we repeat, not a Russian, but a purely German project.
Simply, excuse me, by definition: Russia, in fact, is the "supplier" of this rather specific, but still, product.
And it would be quite wrong for her to play on transit (intermediary, in essence) markets: at one time, by the way, in Europe, Gazprom was even rather strongly “put on display” on this matter.
But now this time has passed and we are not even talking about it.
And the fact that the Germans, realizing their own interests, willingly or unwillingly, help us to realize theirs, this only indicates that we have that very long-term strategy in the energy sector, in the absence of which our opponents are from the “market”, so to speak, camp, why it is Russia that is constantly accused.
And this is very easy to assess right now.
Because this kind of complex systems have only one evaluation criterion: they either work or do not work.
This can only be verified in practice, theoretical modeling, as a rule, faces a lot of insurmountable problems “on the ground”.
In our case, the test criterion is extremely simple: the first result of the "reformatting" should be the commissioning of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into commercial operation, the first branch of which is already gradually filling up the so-called.
technical gas.
Then the practical tasks of filling European UGS facilities with the required amount of energy raw materials will necessarily and relatively inexpensively be solved.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.