Russia has just suspended LNG exports from its Arctic LNG 2 gas terminal - indeed, it's suspended liquefaction. Not a helpful state of affairs for Putin, when Russia obviously depends a great deal on sales of commodities (and, errr, of surface-to-air missiles - remind us, Ayatollah, how they are working out?**).
This is being reported as a result of sanctions, as follows: although it's possible to transload LNG at sea (from Russian vessels to non-sanctioned LNG carriers of other nations, e.g. UAE), LNG is many times more difficult to play games with than oil - which, frankly, you can transport in an old Coke bottle. Their sanctions-busting games on LNG have run their course, and they are giving up.
Maybe. But there's a counter-argument you'll hear. It's actually a lot easier to offload at a regasification port, and then have the cargo re-loaded onto another vessel. All that needs to happen, the argument runs, is for China (say) to offer this service for its usual modest fee. This being the case, the shut-in must be for technical reasons, most likely to do with the shortage of LNG vessels capable of taking on icy waters.
I'd throw another complication in for good measure. Russia is known to depend utterly on western technology for all manner of industrial purposes, some of which can't simply be rustled up by the Chinese (or Indians). Oil- & gas-field tech is one such area. For a relatively modern facility (i.e. not of solid old Soviet design) like and LNG liquefaction plant, I'd be wondering if they've run out of spares for something potentially quite basic.
We see this phenomenon at work further downstream: see this recent post for a note on how Russia's oil infrastructure is suffering for want of a basic piece of kit like the non-return valve.
So even if the LNG shipping aspect isn't an insuperable problem, sanctions might still be biting in other ways. How can they not - eventually? That said: how long can Ukraine wait?
ND
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** and, err, how they feel about having correspondingly less SAM cover in Crimea?
13 comments:
"Even though the plant started shipping liquefied natural gas in August using conventional tankers, whose owners are often unknown, none of the eight cargoes found a buyer."
Really?
Agree it sounds implausible. But, seriously, LNG is a lot more difficult to launder than oil. And there are very few co's - even Chinese ones - who want to run into US sanctions willy-nilly.
Something to do with 'new' EU sanctions, 'Admiral Winter' being a bit more icy and the notion that LNG tankers are not leaky old anonymous rust buckets but newish ships that need to avoid being impounded.
Add to this an oil leak is a minor inconvenience to the fishes, a gas leak is a much more serious threat to your expensive ship.
What will poor Mr Putin do? In few days he will know the flavour of the White House but I doubt either incumbent will be in a position to move quickly. So for Putin, check the movie archive, a quick kill over the winter and see how the land lies in the Spring. Perhaps a cosy chat with friends in the Middle East will discourage any tiresome fools interfering.
The trouble with these stories is that there have been so many outright (and obvious) lies told about how Russia is "on the ropes", "about to collapse in disorder", "running out of ammunition (!)", and so on, that even if there is some truth in this one, (and who knows?), it will simply be dismissed as more fabrications in the lying Western media.
Can China reload LNG in harbour?
My other favourite topic, I think Germany is in a lot more economic trouble than Russia, admittedly starting from a higher level.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/30/volkswagen-hit-by-fall-in-profits-sales-in-china-slump
Anon @ 10:09 - I'm not an expert on Chinese LNG regas facilities, but (a) regas facilities do not involve rocket science; (b) some (but not all) western LNG terminals can indeed re-load back onto ships
Anon : 10:29 - absolutely agreed Germany is in dire schtuck - its energy policy, which is what I know most about, is in absolute chaos. Perhaps most interesting, they have (on paper) bet the farm on building a hydrogen economy. Now, one should never underestimate the German capacity for astonishing hard work and their underlying wealth - BUT, right now, none of their early plans are working out at all, and using current tech, the economics of it look absolutely awful - in fact, totally prohibitive. Plus, a ghastly set of chicken-and-egg dilemmas.
Hydrogen tech isn't rocket science, either, so it's not clear to me where a great cost-reducing tech breakthrough could come from.
BTW, they are rapidly concluding that an interim or first phase solution might be provided by "green ammonia". Well, in some respects one could see how that might be easier: but there's a dreadful tech problem - ammonia is very very corrosive indeed at high temperatures; and that's what you need to crack ammonia into H2. There's a lot of uncertainty over what grade of steel might be required
Wot larfs, eh?
Repeat after me: the liquid hydrocarbons are near perfect transport fuels. Natural gas is a near perfect fuel for domestic and industrial heating, and peak-lopping power stations.
Open-cast coal is a pretty decent fuel for electricity generation.
Nukes, especially if people would agree to replace the absurd Linear No Threshold model of health damage from low doses of radiation, would make a fine tool for base-load generation.
What have I overlooked?
Politics
I’ve some industry contacts relevant here and the gossip is the impact is on the refrigeration side. A monumentally dull sector, until you know just how crucial refrigeration is to the modern world (I’d argue more important than gasoline, but I know I’d get pushback there so I won’t).
Compressors. Power control modules. Cooling towers. Refrigerants. Control systems. Sensors, especially on the high pressure side of the refrigeration cycle. Specialist refrigerant oils. I could go on. Most are manufactured by the Japanese and the American niche players (niche, but with huge turnovers from just these products) so they’ll take sanctions fairly seriously. Hard to hide orders via friendly third countries re-exporting. Lots of the sorts of installations for LNG are custom-build anyway, not catalog items.
@ ND
Politics, unlike hard engineering issues, can be dealt with by the use of rope and lamp posts.
Can't do hard engineering with rope + lamp post? As Archimides said, "give me a firm place to stand [and a long enough lever] and I will move the world". I'm sure he'd have rigged up a pulley system with your rope etc
Archimedes even would be challenged to regas LNG with a pulley system!
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