Why It Didn’t End In Tears
Does Russia Need A Pipeline Through Belarus?
The great Belarus energy shut down is over and . . . guess what. The lights did not ‘go out all over Europe’ and ‘thousands of Germans’ did not ‘freeze in their homes’. The chance of that happening was, and is, zero.
While the scaremongering, Russophobic reporting was expected, bad-mouthing Angela Merkel should surely have been better informed.
Russia anticipated problems with Belarus and made contingency plans. As noted in the previous article, Russia’s Kaliningrad is in Europe too, and just as vulnerable to problems with Belarus as Germany.
A few months prior to the negotiations, Russia pumped extra gas into underground reservoirs in Germany, for use by Germany, Poland and the Baltic Countries.
When it comes to oil, Russia would have to supply Europe come what may, partly by reconfiguring routes, partly by tankers from one of its vast new oil terminals like at Primorsk. As CNN noted, if Russia isn’t pumping oil to Europe, it would simply run out of places to put it in a very short space of time. Meanwhile, EU countries carry 120 days of energy reserves by EU law.
But at the end of the day, isn’t it wonderfully hypocritical of Angela Merkel to speak of Europe? Germany has made its own bilateral deal with Russia for energy, with a pipeline circumventing Poland and the Baltic Countries. Germany’s former Chancellor Schroeder sits on the board of the exclusively Russian-German project. Screw the neighbours, is what Angela really says.
“if Russia isn’t pumping oil to Europe, it would simply run out of places to put it in a very short space of time.”
Heh - that’s an interesting perspective. The idea that there would just be nowhere to put the stuff hadn’t even occurred to me!
(By the way - the link to your article about how Russia piped extra gas to Germany doesn’t seem to work for me).
Actually EU countries are only required to have 90 days oil stocks, though most of them have more, especially Finland. They are only obliged to make public and transparent the EU 90 days stocks. The stocks are held as a mixture of oil products and crude, depending on how many refineries the country has. So crude oil disruptions don’t have such an immediate effect anyway, as the refineries would have some stocks.
Judging by my experience in Ukraine, where we were discussing how to set up the stocks, Russia probably won’t have any stocks on the pipelines, but it also may not have any empty tanks to deal with the oil that isn’t flowing out of the country.
Andy,
Thanks for the comment. I fixed the broken link. Yes, the logistical problems have not been reported at all - the media is too taken up with hype.
Varske wrote:
“Russia probably won’t have any stocks on the pipelines, but it also may not have any empty tanks to deal with the oil that isn’t flowing out of the country.”
Yes that is the gist of the CNN article:
“Probably there’s a bit of space here and there, but those routes are running pretty much to capacity. Every oil car they can get their hands on is being used to send oil to China.”
Thanks for the 90 day correction.
hm I didn’t know for this:
A few months prior to the negotiations, Russia pumped extra gas into underground reservoirs in Germany, for use by Germany, Poland and the Baltic Countries
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