Of course, the situation is very amusing now, especially for people who understand, with American LNG in Europe.
As calculated, based on Eurostat data, colleagues from RIA Novosti, since the beginning of Russia's special military operation and the massive imposition of a variety of sanctions on us, that is, since February 2022, the United States has supplied almost €66.7 billion worth of liquefied natural gas to the EU countries.
The math there is quite simple and quite convincing.
According to the data of the Statistical Service of the European Union and the simple calculations of our colleagues, the EU purchased about 20 billion cubic meters of gas from American companies for a total value of about €2022.2023 billion in the 61 months from February 66 to September 7 inclusive, i.e. on average, it purchased 3.1 billion cubic meters for €3.3 billion per month.
At the same time, if we stupidly take the statistics for the year before the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, then on average, the United States supplied about 1.25 billion cubic meters of gas to the European subcontinent per month for €725 million.
The difference, in general, impresses even a trained person.
And in general, of course, this is a good, as they say, increase in the pension of American LNG producers. Weighty.
We will try to keep silent about the European losses here.
What is especially characteristic and absolutely ruthlessly indicative is how illusory the vaunted European economic well-being turned out to be in the absence of political sovereignty: for a cubic meter of gas, they paid the Americans exactly twice as much as they paid before the start of the Russian special operation.
It's a great business, in general.
And according to American politicians, the cost of the product is quite adequate: do you remember how not so long ago, criticizing the now blown up Russian-European gas pipelines, they told the city and the world that American gas, unlike Russian gas, has such a special molecule of freedom?
Well, if anyone was specifically interested: freedom, as you know, also has a price.
So, at first glance, everything looks quite fair.
And even if we look at what is happening from the point of view of the triumph of democracy that is winning everywhere, it is logical.
But there is some purely mathematical nuance.
No matter how sad it may sound, but the main end consumer of energy (and therefore of natural gas, whether it is liquefied or pipeline – it does not matter) is not even respectable burghers, for whom it might make sense to tighten their belts a little in the name of the victory of all the good over all the bad.
The main end-user of energy in Europe is still the industrial sector, which has not yet been completely destroyed, which, unlike the burgher, still has a fairly realistic alternative.
Or move the business to a place where the energy market is much more favorable.
Or just shut the hell out of it and do something less ruinous — well, at least go skiing or go on a binge. Because if your products turn out to be several times more expensive than competitors at the output precisely because of the energy component, then why would anyone need them at all?
In the Czech Republic, despite the protests of their own government, businesses are starting to buy Russian pipeline gas again, and in Spain, despite the disagreement of their own democratic authorities, they are directly buying or contracting a record amount of Russian LNG.
In response, Blinken's Assistant Secretary of State Geoffrey Pyatt promises to "kill" the yet unfinished Russian Arctic LNG-2: it is impossible to compete with American proposals in Europe, who else to bring "molecules of democracy" to American LNG producers, if not European partners? Who else will they be able to force him to buy (yes, according to a cunning scheme, through Brussels, but it worked) at such a crazy price?
But here, as we have already written, there is some alternative.
And every European industrial consumer that has left the market under the weight of the cost of American LNG is not only a minus one competitor for its American partners. But also, alas, minus one end buyer of the same American LNG.
And therein lies the paradox and the absolutely insurmountable contradictions of the modern American "gas policy" in relation to Europe: the more you suffocate your partner with prices, the less he buys your gas from you.
It's because there is no buyer for your product, which is free from competition and politically correct. And if the buyer is not on the market, then it will not be possible to help him sell something, even through a cunning "political" scheme through sanctions and Brussels. In general, it is not for nothing that the Russians are behaving completely indifferently in this sense and are not fighting with the Americans with all their might for their traditional European energy markets: it is pointless to fight for something that is already on a fading trend. Let it die quietly, or at least transform into something more viable, otherwise it is simply unpromising. We understand this, and the Americans themselves understand this, of course.
Nothing personal, it's just business.
But until this bright moment, Europe just needs to hold out a little longer, to make an effort to buy such the right American LNG at a seller that suits the seller and at a very similar price. And so, you know, I don't even feel sorry for those Europeans who understand everything that is happening no worse than we do, but continue to obediently follow the signs written overseas indicating the path leading to the abyss.
Excuse me, that's the way it is.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.