Quote:
Originally Posted by Taf
Gas and oil prices are not set by governments, but by bodies like OPEC and Putin's oligarchs.
Putin has a lot of Europe by the danglies over natural gas supplies.
|
And the evidence..............?
Europe gas prices: How far is Russia responsible?
Quote:
"A significant section of the mainstream European media has attributed this to Gazprom intentionally withholding supplies in order to force the German regulator and European Commission to approve Nord Stream 2," says Jack Sharples, of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
But he adds that this analysis "is questionable".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she was not aware of any instances where Russia had not met its contractual obligations.
"Russia can only deliver gas on the basis of contractual obligations and not just like that," she was quoted as saying.
|
Quote:
The UK's gas storage is currently at full capacity - but Russia only provides about 5% of the country's usage, so it's less reliant on Russian imports than other European countries.
Russia's own gas storage is also down.
Adeline Van Houtte, a Europe analyst at the Economist's Intelligence Unit, says: "Currently, the Russian domestic gas market remains tight, with output already near its peak and winter is looming... limiting gas export capacity."
There are several other factors affecting the situation in Europe, such as:
- cold weather at the start of 2021 depleting stocks
- rising prices in spring and summer put traders off buying to sell later in the year
- limited supply from Norway because of maintenance issues
- reduction in other energy sources such as wind power
- growing demand for gas elsewhere in the world
|
How is Russia responsible for any of those?
It doesn't mention a factor is that Germany scaled back nuclear and coal energy production, and tried to rely on unreliable wind power, and as a result had to rely on gas instead.