Re:Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bid...
by haughty on Thursday March 03, 2022 @12:51PM
(#30544217)
Thanks, this explains a lot; Do you think it's reasonable to assume that due to pipeline closures and Russian isolation, gas prices will keep rising? I'm reading up on this selfishly - as i purchased some natural gas stocks like $OVV and $AR as the conflict was unwinding.
Is LNG route open for Russia? Seems like it's their only option at this point. And Pipelines are simply not safe as it should be easy to sabotage them for the enemy combatants.
I also noticed that in EU there are rumblings about legislation that would force Gas companies to be taxed at a higher rate to continue to pave the way for green energy. Not sure what are the prospects of this in the US.
Re:Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bid...
by jcranmer on Thursday March 03, 2022 @01:23PM
(#30544682)
In the near term (days to weeks, maybe a few months), I would expect gas prices to be more likely to rise rather than fall. I can't speculate well about longer term because there are too many variables in play: while peak demand could be relatively well-forecasted based on climate change legislation, the supply side of the equation is difficult to forecast.
> Is LNG route open for Russia?
I am not an expert on these affairs, but I believe Russia doesn't have a lot of LNG export capability at the moment, and LNG export terminals are not something quickly built. It's more likely to me that Russia shifts its gas exports away from Europe and into China via existing pipelines, rather than investing in LNG export capabilities.
Re:Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bid...
by fulafel on Thursday March 03, 2022 @01:13PM
(#30544555)
Europe does have lots of LNG terminals, but no idea about Russia's export side. Here's a 2015 map of the European terminals: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Existing-and-planned-LNG...
(Some regions are sparse because don't really use gas outside specialized industrial uses)
Historically, LNG import terminals are concentrated in East Asia, which is generally too far away from major gas producers for a pipeline to be worthwhile to build but the energy consumption was high enough to warrant investing in such infrastructure. The US also built several LNG import terminals, but then the fracking boom caused so much natural gas to be produced that several of these were converted into LNG export terminals instead.
One of the side effects of the costs of building LNG infrastructure is that natural gas prices are very heavily regionalized: natural gas is far cheaper in the US (where it's pipeline delivery) than it is in Japan (with LNG imports).