Well, the first stage of the reformatting of European energy markets, which the evil tongues on the Old Continent have already dubbed “Putin’s transition”, and in our country it is customary to call it “gas for rubles scheme” in an abbreviated form from the economic authorities, can be considered quite accomplished.
And, despite the fact that the same Gazprom, as you know, in the last days of May stopped supplying gas, first to Gasum in Finland and GasTerra in the Netherlands, and then, a little later, starting from June 1 of this year, also to Shell Energy Europe in Germany and Ørsted Salg & Service to Denmark, it can be safely stated that the rate of injection after a series of refusals by European companies from paying for Russian gas under the new scheme has not generally decreased.
And, in a good way, they could not even decrease.
Just the laws of the market.
Yes, there is a certain volatility when pumping through both the first Nord Stream and the Ukrainian GTS.
This weekend (after very solid volumes on weekdays), since Saturday morning, the volume has decreased by almost 9% - from about 7 million cubic meters per hour to 6.4 million cubic meters through Nord Stream.
And by about 3.6% through the Ukrainian GIS "Sudzha".
But this speaks more of a normalization than a fall.
And it is not connected with the loss of volumes due to a series of failures from Europe, but more with a good week for the production of energy from renewable sources.
So, for example, wind generation in Europe doubled by the end of the week - from 5.6% on Monday to 12.2% on Saturday.
And yes, although so far this is less than the average monthly indicator in May, which amounted to as much as 14.25%, but in our case it is not of serious interest.
Recall
And that means you need to consume it right away.
Something else is more interesting here.
Gas is being pumped into European UGS facilities at a fairly good pace, and there are no exceptions to the payment scheme.
That is, the scheme turned out to be, on the whole, quite working and right now is being tested in practice.
After that, we have the right to expect a lot of interesting things in other sectors.
And not necessarily in terms of energy, by the way.
Although what is happening now, for example, in the oil industry, requires a separate and very detailed discussion.
There we are connected with a number of partners with separate and very mutually beneficial obligations, so the movements in this sector are much more intricate.
But in general, it can be stated that even Arab sheikhs, who are usually tightly tied to the dollar, are now seriously thinking about the transition to mutual settlements in national currencies.
And that, sorry, says a lot.
But there is also a grain market.
Everything is quite simple here: even if the grain robbery of Ukraine goes as planned (the Russian leadership does not pretend to anyone else here), it will never solve the problem of shortages in the food markets.
This means that the scheme of mutual settlements in rubles proposed by Putin and tested in practice is theoretically quite possible in this very sensitive sector of the supply of raw materials.
And then there's nickel.
Neon, which is now in short supply.
Yes, and much more.
But, to be honest, even in a rather narrow gas sphere, all the most interesting things are just beginning.
One short example.
As the German Welt am Sonntag writes over the weekend (and we have no reason not to trust them in this particular case), Russian retaliatory measures only (!) In relation to Gazprom Germania and its subsidiaries can lead to additional expenses for the German budget, German taxpayers and gas consumers in the amount of about €5 billion per year.
And here everything is also quite simple.
Since the German government transferred the German subsidiary of the Russian concern "Gazprom" under external management, "Gazprom", of course, already on May 11 stopped shipments to the address of the required Gazprom Germania and its subsidiaries.
According to the holy, as they say, the principle "do not get you now to anyone."
And now, in the office of the German chancellor, they suddenly felt sad: because of the need for Germany to urgently purchase gas, there are, to put it mildly, serious additional costs.
No, some of them can, of course, be passed on to energy suppliers.
And therefore, end users will pay for them.
This is just normal and does not particularly bother anyone: no one cares about ordinary burghers there for a long time, circumstances oblige.
Noblesse, sorry, oblige.
Well, they will wash a little less often, put on a tighter sweater and sleep under two blankets.
Not in Siberia, in general, they live.
There is something much worse here.
The federal budget of the federal republic, as it turns out, will also face a very serious and unplanned burden.
And in general (tell me, what a surprise!) gas storage facilities also require very high costs.
And time - a very significant thing in the current circumstances - is running out, flowing like sand through your fingers.
It is necessary somehow with all this beauty to be in time before next winter - otherwise it's just a disaster.
Previously, by the way, if they encountered such unforeseen difficulties, they always turned to the Russians.
Now, try it here.
And such seemingly ill-conceived little things in the European continental space will come out more and more.
Here, recently, the Austrian Chancellor also (don't you remember?) said something about gas storage facilities.
And there is also a very interesting point in Putin's decree, which speaks of the withdrawal, under certain circumstances, of equal volumes of exported gas from buyers after resale to unfriendly countries.
So here it's time for the Poles and Bulgarians to think.
And the Germans, who are so actively squandering Russian gas, also make sense, to be honest.
This point, of course, may or may not apply.
But the flight of fancy is limitless.
And the Germans (those who are more educated) know very well that “Russians always come for their money”.
Otto von Bismarck once spoke about this to them in a fit of frankness.
And Bismarck was rarely wrong about such things.
Does Germany not know about it.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.