#germany russian gas

[head-post]

Germany calculates risks associated with possible takeover of Rosneft refinery

German leaders are mulling over what to do with a crucial oil refinery in northeastern Germany, majority-owned by Russian oil company Rosneft, according to Politico.

The government is considering taking over the PCK refinery, located in the town of Schwedt, 120 kilometres from Berlin. This refinery alone meets half of East Germany’s fuel needs and provides 11 per cent of the country’s total supply. Given the importance of the refinery, its nationalisation would ensure the country’s long-term energy needs and avoid supply disruptions that could shock the country’s already faltering economy.

Berlin placed PCK under a temporary state “trusteeship,” but in this way the refinery would remain under Moscow’s control, making it virtually impossible for the Germans to secure oil supplies to the refinery in the future. Jacopo Maria Pepe, a senior analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, stated:

The problem is with this trusteeship. Rosneft is controlling this asset; if you extend it for another year, then… you might have a supply crunch.

Read more HERE

[tilos-tagebuch]

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🥨 Im Prinzip sind wir unabhängig vom russischen Gas. Aber es könnten sich "russische Moleküle" in den Gas-Mix einschleichen, weil wir unser Gas anstatt billig direkt in Russland einzukaufen, jetzt von Zwischenhändlern beziehen, die ihr Gas billig in Russland kaufen und es dann mit dickem Aufschlag an uns weiterverkaufen. Aber es sind keine russischen Gashändler, von denen sich der Starökonom Habeck auf unsere Kosten derart abzocken lässt. Für den ausgewiesenen Insolvenzfachmann ist das ein Grund, um stolz auf sich zu sein.

🇬🇧 Im principle, we are independent of Russian gas. But "Russian molecules" could sneak into the gas mix, because instead of buying our gas cheaply directly in Russia, we now source it from intermediaries who buy their gas cheaply in Russia, and then resell it to us at a thick mark-up. But it is not Russian gas dealers who let the star economist Habeck get rid of this at our expense. This is a reason for the distinguished insolvency specialist to be proud of himself.

[umormalik61]

Eight bombs exploded six, and top investigative reporters found out the details of the US bombing of "Nord Stream"

[jr0vj0t3if]

[could8963]

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

The second nail in Gazprom's coffin ( Второй гвоздь в гроб Газпрома)

Самый сок 2

Author: anti-colorados: The first liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker, Coral Furcata, approached the Seapeak Hispania tanker docked in Lubmin, off the coast of Rügen Island in the Baltic Sea, and received LNG(..) 

(Автор: anti-colorados Первый танкер со сжиженным природным газом (СПГ) – Coral Furcata подошел к танкеру Seapeak Hispania, стоящему в Лубмине, у берегов острова Рюген в Балтийском море, и принял СПГ. То есть, вчера терминал принял первую порцию газа.)

P.S. Germany finally, with great delay, did what it should have done in 2014. If Europe had reacted correctly against Russia's aggression in 2014, now the Kremlin would have significantly less money to wage war against Europe and the West...The factor of political corruption must be taken into account here, because many German politicians, political foundations, radical populist parties, etc. as if ecological environmental “protection” funds feed directly from Moscow's money. These corrupt politicians and bogus environmentalists not only blocked the construction of LNG terminals, but also delayed the development of renewable energy sources, especially hindering the construction of commercial wind and solar power plants...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the attempt to blackmail Europe by cutting off natural gas supplies have opened the eyes of at least part of the German and European public, and Germany is starting to do something about restoring its energy security. Hopefully Europe will NOT HAVE SO MANY IDIOTS ANYMORE who made the European energy market dependent on the Kremlin….

[industrybuzz]

Sabotage Suspected in Baltic Sea

Natural Gas Pipe Explodes in Baltic Sea

Sabotage is suspected in the sudden explosions in two natural gas pipelines running between Russia and Germany. Early Monday morning, seismic monitoring recorded an explosion southeast of the Danish island Bornholm. That night, a second, stronger blast was recorded. Both were detected by seismic networks in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. While the second one gave off readings on the scale…

[reportwire]

Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

KYIV, Ukraine — STOCKHOLM — A fourth leak to the Nord Stream pipelines conveying natural gas from Russia to Germany has been reported off southern Sweden. Earlier, three leaks had been reported on the two underwater pipelines. Seismologists detected two explosions were detected before reports of the leaks which officials believe were “deliberate actions.” Some experts have said Russia is likely…

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Benjamin Levin

Killing Nazis at age 14

Benjamin Levin was a young resistance fighter who, as one of the notorious “Avengers,” spent World War II hiding in a Lithuanian forest, emerging only to kill Nazis or bomb their supply chains.

Benjamin was born in Vilna in 1927. His father Chaim was a successful businessman and the family lived a comfortable life. In 1941, however, Chaim was tipped off that Nazi Germany was about to invade Lithuania. As Jews, that meant the Levins’ days were numbered. Chaim quickly sold his business at a loss, used the proceeds to buy weapons, and went into hiding with his family.

At the time, Benjamin was a 14 year old juvenile delinquent who’d started smoking at age 8 and was member of a street gang. After the German invasion, he chose not to stay with his parents in their hiding place, instead joining the fierce resistance group known as the “Avengers” led by Abba Kovner. Benjamin was an immediate asset to the group due to his unique combination of exceptional bravery and diminutive size. His baby face and unassuming appearance enabled him to avoid attracting attention, even in enemy territory.

Hidden in a Lithuanian forest, the teenager and his fellow Avengers killed Nazis, bombed their transportation lines, and smuggled life-saving food and medicine into the Jewish ghettoes. It was later estimated that the brave band of guerrilla fighters had killed 212 Nazis. Their policy was “take no prisoners.” In 1944, the Jewish fighters helped the Russian army liberate Vilna, after which they marched through town looking for Nazi collaborators to execute.

Benjamin’s parents survived the war in hiding, but when they returned to Vilna to reclaim their home, their former neighbors murdered them on the spot. With nothing to keep them in Europe, Benjamin and his sister moved to pre-state Israel, where he joined the Jewish militant group Irgun, fighting the British occupation of Palestine. Benjamin was in charge of helping Jewish survivors in Europe relocate to Israel. Benjamin’s street smarts and people skills served him well as he traveled through Turkey and Syria with European Holocaust survivors.

The Soviet army did not appreciate Benjamin’s work rescuing Jews from behind the Iron Curtain, and in 1947 he was arrested and sent to a Siberian gulag. After a year, Benjamin was released from the gulag and hitchhiked his way to Southern Europe, where he reconnected with the Irgun in Italy. The organization arranged for him to enroll in college and earn a degree in mechanical engineering. He was assigned to the engine room of a ship that sailed around the world, collecting money, weapons and volunteers to fight for the Jewish state.

The ship was called Altalena, and headed to Israel with hundreds of Holocaust survivors on board, as well as Jewish volunteers from around the world, and a cache of heavy ammunition secretly donated by France. When the Altalena reached Tel Aviv and tried to dock, the ship came under fire by the Haganah, a rival military group. Under machine-gun fire, young Benjamin leapt off the ship and swam to shore, then snuck into the country unnoticed. He had been through so much in the previous several years, had lived so many lives and assumed so many identities, that he actually forgot his own birthday. Later, he decided to make Passover – the festival of freedom – his official birthday.

Benjamin met his wife Sara, a Hungarian immigrant, in Israel, and ironically she was serving with the Haganah when they fired on the Altalena. Together they had two children, and moved to New York in 1967, where Benjamin worked as a mechanic and owned a gas station. In the 1990’s, Benjamin was interviewed extensively by Steven Spielberg as part of the Shoah Foundation oral history project.

For decades, Benjamin was an in-demand public speaker at New York high schools, where he spoke about the Holocaust and his remarkable life. Toward the end of his life, Benjamin was unable to speak, but he insisted on continuing his school appearances, with his son Chaim – named for Benjamin’s father – doing the speaking for him. Chaim remembered how much Benjamin loved interacting with students, and described his father as having “an enormous amount of energy and joy and love.”

Benjamin Levin died on April 13, 2020 at age 93. The last survivor of the Avengers, Benjamin died during Passover – his adopted birthday.

For heroically fighting Nazis and saving European Jews, and for educating generations of New York schoolchildren about the Holocaust, we honor Benjamin Levin as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[head-post]

Germany is well prepared for the winter season

For the second winter Germany remains without gas supplies from Russia. However, the Germans themselves are optimistic: for the gas shortage to become a reality, many things have to go wrong.

In the first year of the war in Ukraine, there were fears in Europe that there would be energy shortages during the cold winter months. At the end of August 2022, the Russian state-owned company cut off all gas supplies to Germany. But now, according to a survey commissioned by the German Association of the Energy and Water Industry (BDEW), only 14 per cent of Germans surveyed believe the coming winter could lead to supply shortages.

64% of Germans are confident that they will survive the winter without any major problems – even if the supply situation remains unstable. Moreover, 18 per cent believe that Germany will survive the winter without any problems at all. Only 4 per cent were indecisive.

Read more HERE

[samueldays]

You got your hot war in Ukraine, @crustacean-on-main, and so far I think it's been a disaster and a reminder not to wish for war, not to mistake edginess for truth, not to indulge in this level of contrarianism, because war is awful and the imagined salutary effects of war have failed to manifest.

(original post, didn't want to quote that whole long thread)

Like, I recognize the theory that people tell flattering lies and indulge in pleasant fantasy in times of peace, but they get serious when a war starts and suddenly real people have to fire real bullets to stop a real threat. In practice western culture does not appear to have gotten serious and is still telling itself flattering lies.

There's the absolute clown world '''experts''' who have been going RUSSIA IS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE, RUSSIA HAS RUN OUT OF RESERVES, RUSSIA'S INEVITABLE END IS ONLY WEEKS AWAY for two years and somehow not been tarred and feathered and banned from public speaking.

There's Germany shutting down its nuclear plants while dependent on Russian oil and gas to the point where sanctions on Russia had to have an "except for oil and gas" clause, rendering the sanctions mostly a nuisance to civilians, with various lesser stupid shit of the same ineffective civilian-kicking sort like the International Cat Fanciers Foundation refusing to certify Russian cats, or the mustard museum that removed the Russian mustard, or the orchestra that removed Tchaikovsky.

There was the US ambassador to Russia who didn't speak Russian, and the other US ambassador to Russia who was on Twitter being performatively ignorant and clueless about why Russians would support Putin.

[jr0vj0t3if]

[imanes]

calling the fact that Israel is absolutely gunning for the trillions worth of gas in Gaza in order to permanently bind western energy security to its genocidal settler colonial project a « conspiracy theory » is definitely dumb as hell sorry. everything is connected and yes the settler colonial project HAS to reinvent itself in order to continue being a good investment for the west. doesn’t negate the ideological foundations of Zionism it just adds context that is now more prevalent than ever. esp for Europe and Germany for example who was very dependent on Russian gas. ANYWAY. Idk why every time there are additional details that implicate capitalism in colonialism people are like uh sounds like Nostradamus shit to me. Energy security is one of the several but equally important drivers of violence all around the world.

Edit: and I’m not talking about the USA. The USA does enough harm with its fracking to ensure that gas remains available for domestic consumption but also for exports, to the EU for example. It’s wrapped up in some European countries’ own belief that they owe Zionism total loyalty but ideology only gets you so far as heads of state. Not to be like I live in the capital of Europe but energy diplomats are hard at work and that’s not just rumours -_-

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

First footage shows gas leaks in Nord Stream 1 and 2, as 200m circle of gas escapes pipes

The Sun

Norwegian Armed forces have released the first footage of gas leaks within Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The footage was taken from a helicopter over the rupture in the pipe. The Norwegian Armed forces released this statement with the footage: "After the three gas leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines have occurred in the Baltic Sea, exclusion zones have been established around the leaks for the sake of the safety of ship and air traffic. Nord Stream 1 has two leaks northeast of Bornholm, Nord Stream 2 has one leak south of Dueodde. The leaks were discovered by the Norwegian Armed Forces' F-16 interceptor response unit. The defence is supporting in connection with the authorities' efforts regarding the leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The frigate Absalon and the environmental ship Gunnar Thorson are on their way to carry out water monitoring at the exclusion zones, and the Norwegian Defense Forces are also supporting with a helicopter capacity. In addition, the patrol ship Rota was in the area last night.

P.S. These are not bad news!   On the contrary, it is very good to see that a project threatening European security, which was persistently pushed together by A. Merkel and other idiots useful to the Kremlin, is failing. The both Nord Stream projects and the opportunity given to the Kremlin to blackmail the European energy market greatly stimulated Putler's aggressive plans against Ukraine and all of Eastern Europe...

[mariacallous]

Political insiders like U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips have been expressing doubts about Joe Biden for years. Yet Biden just keeps winning. Voters have elected him to national office three times in four elections. Those voters also gave him the biggest midterm win for a Democratic president in 60 years. Biden has earned those votes by delivering the strongest domestic leadership since LBJ, and the strongest international leadership since JFK. He is the best candidate we have in 2024, and the only thing holding him back is the doubters in his own party.

The very fact that Biden was able to beat Donald Trump and be sworn into office in a peaceful transfer of power met an important test. Peaceful, you ask? Certainly former President Trump's actions, and those of his mob, were not peaceful. But Biden sailed through all of the calamity with apparent calm, acting as though there was never any question that the Constitution and the rule of law would prevail. He was always confident in us.

The immediate task of the new president was grappling with a nation divided over COVID and the need to provide economic support to families struggling through the pandemic. The American Rescue Plan put billions of dollars into the hands of working-class Americans. The economy boomed, driven by demand from workers and families spending money on necessities. Child poverty dropped by 40%, and American families have seen wages rise at levels not seen since the 1960s. Today, the strength of the American economy is pulling the rest of the world forward, despite the global struggle with inflation.

It is easy already to forget the size and scope of the Biden infrastructure bill, which will modernize American communities and our economy for a generation and more. Roads, bridges, transit, the electrical grid, water infrastructure, broadband — the whole platform for growth in the nation will be built out and create millions of American jobs.

Perhaps most significantly, Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act will transform our energy economy and enable America to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. This will put us in the driver's seat for pushing other nations to meet their goals. There is no larger threat to our nation and the global economy than rising global temperatures, increased severe weather and the loss of a precious ecological and cultural heritage. The pandemic was a light breeze compared to the impending storm of global climate destruction, and the Inflation Reduction Act was a strategic move to allow us to lead in stopping it.

The Inflation Reduction Act could also be called the Chinese Divestment Act. Not only does the energy policy address our need to transition to renewable energy, but it creates enormous incentives for companies to invest in technology and manufacturing in North America. No other president in our lifetime would offer an American working family $7,000 to buy an electric car made in America. The Inflation Reduction Act is exactly the industrial policy this country has needed for so long.

Just a few years ago, Chinese economic power coupled with Russian weapons of war appeared to be a genuine threat to the American-led international order. Autocrats were rising while traditional Western democratic institutions were in disarray. Some people were comparing America to Weimar Germany and seeing similarities to the weakness of democratic nations in the face of fascism.

Russia's illegal and inhumane invasion of Ukraine came at exactly the wrong time — for Russia and China. Putin threw down an enormous challenge in front of the American-led alliance. We advanced as one against him. Biden worked with Europe to accept major economic pain as a price of confronting Russian aggression. The Biden response to Russian aggression simultaneously revived the democracies' power in the world and reminded us that autocracies are always fundamentally weak.

In just three years, Joe Biden's leadership has revived democracy, defeated a pandemic, raised millions of Americans out of poverty, revitalized American infrastructure, addressed global warming and weakened authoritarian nations. He also keeps winning elections and confounding all his critics. Congressman Phillips: What more do you want?

Ryan Winkler, of Golden Valley, is the former DFL majority leader of the Minnesota House.