As the first to report (we say this without any irony) with reference to sources in local government circles, the largest Japanese agency Kyodo Tsushin (later this data was replicated by other leading Japanese media, and a little later the news that Japan had already sent several tankers with surplus LNG to Europe, the head of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Koichi Hagiuda confirmed), in the event of an escalation in the situation around Ukraine, the Japanese authorities are ready to organize LNG supplies to European countries.
And for a number of reasons (which are discussed below), politically it is no longer funny at all.
Although purely economically and, excuse me, geographically, it’s very funny.
If only because sanctions against Russian gas in Europe have not yet been adopted.
Yes, and the war in Ukraine has not yet begun.
And tankers from Japan with Japanese liquefied natural gas, according to the Japanese Minister of Economy, Industry and Trade, are already heading to Europe with might and main.
Curious, agree.
At the same time, we recall that Japan, even in peaceful, as they say, times in the export of blue fuel in any of its forms (at least LNG, at least pipeline) was never noticed from birth.
And in general, it is fundamentally not engaged in the sale of gas.
Simply because it has minimal production on the sea shelf, which is seriously even somehow inconvenient to consider as a resource base.
And actually, it is the world's largest importer of liquefied natural gas, including, by the way, Russian.
True, there is not so much Russian gas there, only about 8%, and the main volume of supplies goes to Japan from Australia, Malaysia and Qatar.
But a lot or a little of 8% of the total volume of deliveries - that's it, sorry, depending on which side you look at.
And with this imported (by the way, as we figured out above) gas, supposedly Japan is going to save this Europe of yours from the evil Russians.
Somewhere we've heard something similar before, don't you think?
And then it seemed like it was about the infamous American “shale gas”, which they promised to simply “fill in” Europe.
And at that time, the promise was much more reasonable.
America still produces gas, whatever one may say.
Japan can only resell.
Let's try to figure out what's going on here.
And everything is quite simple.
LNG stocks in the tanks of Japanese energy companies are now about 10% higher than last year.
And it is these “one-time” volumes that can ultimately be used for emergency deliveries to the EU zone in the event of a military conflict on the territory of Ukraine.
Here, in fact, is the whole fuss.
Moreover, it is, in general, purely technically impossible to “save” European markets with such an insignificant volume by European standards.
There is no need to invent anything - just add two and two.
Nobody canceled the simplest rules of arithmetic.
And the European energy markets do not need someone to “rescue” them, especially in such an unobtrusive way.
Moreover, at such a, excuse me, horse price.
Somehow they will live without "saviors".
And here is what is called, and the most interesting begins.
Here, for example, is some news from a country that, unlike Japan, is a real gas producer.
Moreover, a manufacturer that means a lot for the energy sector of the European subcontinent.
Attention.
As the chief executive officer of the Norwegian oil and gas giant, Anders Opedal, said in an interview with the not-too-loved author of this column, but still abundantly cited in the world by the American agency Bloomberg, the largest oil and gas company in Northern Europe - the Norwegian giant Equinor - is already directly and immediately now producing gas in the maximum possible volume.
And under no circumstances, despite any "persistent requests from the United States", will it be able to increase its further deliveries to Europe.
Japan you say?
10% of the reserves of an import-dependent and absolutely energy-deficient state?
Oh well...
Now let's talk seriously.
Here, after all, the point is not even that it is at least rather ridiculous to consider options for replacing any energy carriers in one particular region against the backdrop of a global energy shortage.
And not because the LNG market is ultra-mobile.
This is not a pipe for you along the bottom of the sea: where they pay more, supertankers immediately sail there.
Whether you like it or not, the story here looks quite cynical: Europe does not buy gas at current prices, not because it is not on the market.
This is not true at all.
There is gas.
And the same Russian President Putin has repeatedly said: send applications, we will try to satisfy them immediately.
Alas.
They don't send.
Everything is much simpler: Europe is simply not satisfied with the current prices in the spot market, which are now set for the most part precisely due to free trading in futures for next month's delivery on the London ICE exchange.
And who will like it if these still virtual prices can affect all real technological chains.
And, as a result, it will have a disastrous effect on the final cost of European products in global markets.
And for the same German engineering, this is like death.
And in general, deindustrialization is the last thing the European subcontinent needs, especially in the presence of such competitors as the United States, Japan, which is ready to supply Europe with its expensive gas, and, excuse me, China.
Therefore, if you look at, for example, stupidly the volume of trading at the peak value of gas prices in Europe, when they were almost $2,000 or more, you will laugh very much: only individual, very small transactions were recorded at the peaks.
According to which the "exchange price" was fixed.
But seriously, no one in Europe simply bought blue fuel at such a price.
And he didn't even mean to.
By and large, it was such a "spot fiction", and nothing more.
History is an ironic girl.
The London Stock Exchange, of course, can set gas prices for Europe, but this does not mean at all that European enterprises will buy this gas.
And that is why tankers with American LNG turned around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
And European enterprises preferred to raise almost the last gas from their own UGS facilities: seriously purchasing volumes at such prices for European economies would be tantamount to a real suicide.
And why do you even think that “Japanese gas”, possible only at the level of a speculative one-time supply, the cost of which should at least include the price of re-export, will be more acceptable for the European economy than even rejected, in fact, by Europe for the same reason American "slate"?
No, in principle, probably, this is really possible, just like in that well-known indecent joke about sadists and masochists, when "the parties dispersed absolutely satisfied with each other."
And it is even possible, probably, to understand why this moral and economic compensation is needed for the eternally energetically humiliated and military-defeated Japan.
But for Europe, God forgive me, this is coercion to a real energy deviation, opening a direct path to the de-industrialization of the continent, and even at its own expense, excuse me, why?
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.