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Nord Stream sabotage

bernorange

By bernorange
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Nord Stream sabotage  

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  1. 1. Who done it? Super cereal question

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19449

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I mean I get that y'all believed Trump when he said Putin was a genius.  And I even accepted that y'all thought the Russia invasion of Ukraine was validated by security concerns of Russia.  I didn't agree or entertain the notion, but I saw how you accepted the talking points of Tucker and the Soviet Media Machine.  

But now you've got U.S.N. Frogmen UDT's sabotaging underwater assets to covertly support Ukrainian Nazis in an attempt to bolster Joe Biden's mid-term election efforts, on which he does not appear on any ballots?  Is that what we're going with?  There was a game show host that was involved in some shit like this awhile back, was it Chuck Barris or Donald Trump?  

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wildcat09

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Bern's slide into being just a shitty poster is downright depressing. Here's the actual quote his nonsense tweet from financialjuice is apparently "paraphrasing":

Quote

“There’s an investigation ongoing and we should wait for the result,” Habeck said, adding that he wouldn’t trust comments by Kremlin officials saying that Russia had nothing to do with the incidents. 

 

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13414

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I agree with an investigation to determine who did it but I don't think it matters much in near-term politics or diplomacy except the the course is now set for the European winter.

I don't really understand why Russia would do it. Seems like it removes Europe's incentive to help the war come to an end. And if Russia only did it to punish the rest of Europe, they could have done that with a switch. Including the ability to switch it back on for $ later on.

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babysdaddy

babysdaddy 2718

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2 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I agree with an investigation to determine who did it but I don't think it matters much in near-term politics or diplomacy except the the course is now set for the European winter.

I don't really understand why Russia would do it. Seems like it removes Europe's incentive to help the war come to an end. And if Russia only did it to punish the rest of Europe, they could have done that with a switch. Including the ability to switch it back on for $ later on.

Agreed.  Not following as much as I should but I'd like someone that has been following it to explain possible rational reasons for that don't make me feel like a tin foil hat fuk boy

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bernorange

bernorange 8348

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26 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Bern's slide into being just a shitty poster is downright depressing.

This thread is super cereal.  SUPER CEREAL.  It's right there in the poll question.  Unfortunately, Immamac fucked the whole essense of the thread.  Original poll answer choices made it sufficiently clear that this thread was meant to be fun.  A foreign concept to a lot of folks right now, but whatever.

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wildcat09

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1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I agree with an investigation to determine who did it but I don't think it matters much in near-term politics or diplomacy except the the course is now set for the European winter.

I don't really understand why Russia would do it. Seems like it removes Europe's incentive to help the war come to an end. And if Russia only did it to punish the rest of Europe, they could have done that with a switch. Including the ability to switch it back on for $ later on.

Because Russia keeps doing stupid things that it has convinced itself are secretly brilliant.

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Pods

Pods 7530

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2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I agree with an investigation to determine who did it but I don't think it matters much in near-term politics or diplomacy except the the course is now set for the European winter.

I don't really understand why Russia would do it. Seems like it removes Europe's incentive to help the war come to an end. And if Russia only did it to punish the rest of Europe, they could have done that with a switch. Including the ability to switch it back on for $ later on.

Russia had already tried doing it with a switch. They cut off NS1 August 31 and blamed it on sanctions, but didn't get the response they wanted. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/06/energy-crisis-why-has-russia-cut-off-gas-supplies-to-europe.html

Quote

“Problems in pumping arose because of the sanctions imposed against our country and against a number of companies by Western states, including Germany and the U.K.,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday, according to Russian state news agency Interfax.

Asked whether pumping gas via Nord Stream 1 was completely dependent on the sanctions and that supplies would resume if these were lifted or relaxed, Peskov replied, “Of course. The very sanctions that prevent the maintenance of units, which prevent them from moving without appropriate legal guarantees, which prevent these legal guarantees from being given, and so on.”

Europe is permanently weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels and European stockpiles are currently 87% full, so Russia wasn't going to sell much gas through that pipeline anyway. 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/european-gas-swings-stockpiles-fill-090041303.html

 

Quote

Gas storage sites on the continent are about 87% full. Four more US liquified natural gas cargoes signaled northwest Europe as a destination, with three set to arrive in early October, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19449

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2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Here's the actual quote. 

 

I feel better being so grey now that Jason Bateman is finally getting a little salt & pepper.  

Also, i had to listen to another pro-Cruz guy last night go on and on about how the Biden administration did this.  Only lubed-tube being ripped open by Team Biden is your wife's cunt, Ted.  

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13414

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Interesting watch on speculating on motivations of any possible suspect of the Nord Stream sabotage.

cliff notes on his 2 theories of Russian involvement:

Putin - the elimination of Nord Stream can solidify his leadership position even more. How? If any group is considering a coup against Putin, then destroying Nord Stream lowers the benefits of a coup. A coup would presumably want peace and re-establish relations with Europe. The latter part is partially broken now.

Other Russian hardliners - the destruction of Nord Stream could also tie Putin even more to the capitulation of Ukraine. Just like above, a peaceful compromise with Ukraine/Europe now carry less benefits now without Nord Stream. Hardliners want to ensure Putin doesn't stray from that path. It wouldn't be the first time a subordinate acts to give their leadership fewer options.

 

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Tuco

Tuco 5076

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On 9/30/2022 at 7:31 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I agree with an investigation to determine who did it but I don't think it matters much in near-term politics or diplomacy except the the course is now set for the European winter.

I don't really understand why Russia would do it. Seems like it removes Europe's incentive to help the war come to an end. And if Russia only did it to punish the rest of Europe, they could have done that with a switch. Including the ability to switch it back on for $ later on.

The general theory is that gas market volatility is the main weapon Russia has in discouraging the Europeans from supporting the war.  The more people need to pay to heat their homes, the less likely they are to support continue sanctions, or, more generally, the less likely they are to re-elect their current leaders who made these decisions.  Throwing a WTF into the markets adds to the volatility.  The timing also roughly coincided with the opening of the Baltic Pipe, connecting Norway gas to Poland.  Maybe this was a veiled threat to demonstrate the vulnerability of that line. It's also conceivable that Putin was getting internal pressure to yield to the West's demands to reopen  the pipeline.  Blowing it up is a bit like "burning the boats." 

Still, I am not convinced.  The Nordstream 2 has been part of Russian foreign policy for a while.  This is from Wiki, quoting a banking team's review of the deal: 

Quote

Gazprom's decisions make perfect sense if the company is assumed to be run for the benefit of its contractors, not for commercial profit. The Power of Siberia, Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream are all deeply value-destructive projects that will eat up almost half of Gazprom's investments over the next five years. They are commonly perceived as being foisted on the company by the government pursuing a geopolitical agenda. A more important characteristic that they share, however, is the ability to employ a closely knit group of suppliers in Russia, with little outside supervision.

— Sberbank CIB, Russian Oil and Gas - Tickling Giants, 2018

To have the Russians damage it, and in turn damage any interest in investing in it, seems like an extremely desperate move for minor gains.  But so is wide=spread conscription, so who knows. 

My guess is that it is not that complicated to blow shit up.  It doesn't take a superpower to do it.  The country  that would have the biggest reward/risk ratio would probably be Poland.  They've opposed the pipeline for a long time and on national security issues.  And, if they get caught, so what?  Ukraine maybe has more motivation, but they would be crippled if they did something that pissed off the West.  Latvia, Estonia would have motivations similar to Poland.  But, it may also not be a country at all.  It may just be people with the right tools and expertise who had their own reasons - political or profit.  

I really doubt it was the US.  There is zero reason to get desperate at this point.  Russia is losing and there is no reason to throw in plot twists.  

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washparkhorn

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Saddam lit the oilfields of Kuwait on fire in a scorched-earth retreat.  
 

Finland has a strong historic claim to Vyborg (the Soviet Union captured the city in 1944). Vyborg is the starting point for the original Nord Stream pipeline, making it an attractive target for capture by the West. It would not surprise me if Russia decided to remove any incentive to recapture Vyborg and utilize Nord Stream 1. 

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956 Worldwide

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Making sense of Nord Stream sabotage requires accepting a few things:

- There is plenty of pipeline capacity to keep Europe in Russian gas without either of them and neither was functioning. 

- They were never designed to be money-making ventures, they were designed as geopolitical projects. 

- Russia dramatically, irreversibly, and of its own accord undertook a major geopolitical shift on February 24 and abandoned the strategy that produced NS1 and NS2. 
 

Once you understand and accept that, the motives are easier to see and there is no need for palace coups, Kremlin factions, Polish frogmen, or perfidious Albion/Washington. 
 

The pipelines had already been abandoned as a tool of policy and had no real economic value (and never were meant to). Blowing them up caused a stir and frenzy among a European populace worried about winter. It sent a message to Poland and Norway that such a thing is easy to do. It allowed for the Kremlin to immediately produce a shitstream of disinformation blaming (Poles, America, Ukraine, Anglo-Saxons).  The plodding Western democracies are forced to play defense because they actually have to investigate. And now they also have to tie up assets to provide security for miles of Baltic pipeline.

This is a win all around for Russia and no mental gymnastics are needed once you move past the extremely Western and extremely incorrect bias that Russia behaves according to its economic interests.  

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Tuco

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It wasn’t a money making enterprise because it cost money to build. After that money was sunk (no pun intended), it would make money. I don’t know who bombed it, but let’s not build an argument on silly logic. Gazprom had already exhausted its cash on it.

I would be curious if there were any contractual shit that would kick in - insurance, force majeure relief, etc. that wouldn’t happen by just sitting idle.

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956 Worldwide

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7 hours ago, Tuco said:

It wasn’t a money making enterprise because it cost money to build. After that money was sunk (no pun intended), it would make money. I don’t know who bombed it, but let’s not build an argument on silly logic. Gazprom had already exhausted its cash on it.

I would be curious if there were any contractual shit that would kick in - insurance, force majeure relief, etc. that wouldn’t happen by just sitting idle.

It’s only silly logic if you treat Gazprom like a Western company.  It’s not. It’s a majority state owned enterprise in a nation led by a former KGB officer.  Look at it this way, if someone told you in the 1970s that some massive Soviet project made little sense economically and appeared to exist to create make work and for some political purpose, would you have trouble believing that? Putin’s understanding of state enterprises is not significantly different.

This is hardly my original contention.  Providing work for contractors is important (a key feature for decades of Soviet and Russian industry, the only question being who benefits most) and geopolitics (by far the most important) drove NS2 and even NS1 provided capacity that Europe didn’t need. 
 

https://www.ft.com/content/fc359642-e818-11e8-8a85-04b8afea6ea3

 

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/16/why-gazprom-corruption-is-bad-for-the-world-not-just-russia-a78012

 

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Tuco

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15 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s only silly logic if you treat Gazprom like a Western company.  It’s not. It’s a majority state owned enterprise in a nation led by a former KGB officer.  Look at it this way, if someone told you in the 1970s that some massive Soviet project made little sense economically and appeared to exist to create make work and for some political purpose, would you have trouble believing that? Putin’s understanding of state enterprises is not significantly different.

This is hardly my original contention.  Providing work for contractors is important (a key feature for decades of Soviet and Russian industry, the only question being who benefits most) and geopolitics (by far the most important) drove NS2 and even NS1 provided capacity that Europe didn’t need. 
 

https://www.ft.com/content/fc359642-e818-11e8-8a85-04b8afea6ea3

 

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/16/why-gazprom-corruption-is-bad-for-the-world-not-just-russia-a78012

 

For fucks sake, you can post all the fucking financial times articles you want, the reality is that a pipeline that connects a gas producing nation with a gas consuming nation 100s of miles away is a valuable asset.  It may not have the value it cost to construct it, but after it was constructed, it has value.  Everything else is just handwaving bullshit.  And it's not like it was just Gazprom.   

I get it.  You think it was the Russians blowing up their own shit.  Maybe they did.  But use more logical supporting evidence. 

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42 minutes ago, Tuco said:

For fucks sake, you can post all the fucking financial times articles you want, the reality is that a pipeline that connects a gas producing nation with a gas consuming nation 100s of miles away is a valuable asset.  It may not have the value it cost to construct it, but after it was constructed, it has value.  Everything else is just handwaving bullshit.  And it's not like it was just Gazprom.   

I get it.  You think it was the Russians blowing up their own shit.  Maybe they did.  But use more logical supporting evidence. 

Of course it has value, the relevant question is what value it has and to whom. The answer to the second part is that it has value to V.V. Putin and then down the ladder his group of flunkies and toadies, who are completely reliant on his system.

And it has economic value if you think that the current war is a bump in the road, that at any point in the foreseeable future Europe and Russia will get back to work on energy integration, and Russia will care about being a reliable partner.

It has an entirely different sort of value if you believe you’re locked in a millennia long struggle with forces of Satanism from the west, that the energy crisis will never end, and that you’re going to completely destroy the existing world order.

Which speech got delivered from the Kremlin on Friday? 

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Humble Beast

Humble Beast 258

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7 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

even NS1 provided capacity that Europe didn’t need.

I’m trying to figure out how you could twist this statement to make it true. Do you mean it wasn’t needed when it was built?
 

Looking at last year European natural gas consumption in 2021 was 396.6 bcm. Nordstream delivered 59.2 bcm or about 15% of that. Now Europe will have to ration. That seems like a “need” to me. 

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956 Worldwide

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1 hour ago, Humble Beast said:

I’m trying to figure out how you could twist this statement to make it true. Do you mean it wasn’t needed when it was built?
 

Looking at last year European natural gas consumption in 2021 was 396.6 bcm. Nordstream delivered 59.2 bcm or about 15% of that. Now Europe will have to ration. That seems like a “need” to me. 

There is plenty of excess capacity via other routes.  Russia isn’t using its full transit contract via the Sudzha pipeline and Ukraine even during the war offered extra transit capacity that would easily offset NS flow. Russia also isn’t using the Yamal pipeline to full capacity. They refused to increase that flow back when they were claiming cuts to NS1 due to “technical problems.” (This is also why neither NS was ever “needed” and even the Germans admitted that the prime economic reason for building them was to circumvent transit fees). 

To deliver or not deliver gas is a political and not technical/economic question, it’s framed as technical and economic for low information audiences.  

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Tuco

Tuco 5076

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30 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

To deliver or not deliver gas is a political and not technical/economic question, it’s framed as technical and economic for low information audiences.  

I think everyone on this thread understands that currently the pipelines were not being utilized because of political reasons.  I think most people who understand basic economics understand that the demand for Russian gas (or gas in general) is not a fixed number.  The worse the infrastructure for delivering it, the higher the price, the lower the usage.  

 

8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

And it has economic value if you think that the current war is a bump in the road, that at any point in the foreseeable future Europe and Russia will get back to work on energy integration, and Russia will care about being a reliable partner.

It has an entirely different sort of value if you believe you’re locked in a millennia long struggle with forces of Satanism from the west, that the energy crisis will never end, and that you’re going to completely destroy the existing world order.

Which speech got delivered from the Kremlin on Friday? 

The speech that got delivered Friday set the Russian criteria for peace, that Kiev accepts the annexation of part of their country.  That's not going to happen, but that was the speech.  The speech also talked about how people can't heat their homes with greenbacks.  It also claimed that European leaders were betraying their people by trying to get off Russian gas, essentially driving them to de-industrialization.  So, yeah, the speech on Friday projected a vision that Russia gets the annexed provinces and then returns to supplying gas to Europe for political leverage and economic gain.  The millennia thing was discussing the history, importance, blah, blah, blah of the Russian people.  The Satanism thing was about the Western acceptance of gay and trans people.   

Link to the Kremlin transcript

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Humble Beast

Humble Beast 258

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43 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

There is plenty of excess capacity via other routes.  Russia isn’t using its full transit contract via the Sudzha pipeline and Ukraine even during the war offered extra transit capacity that would easily offset NS flow. Russia also isn’t using the Yamal pipeline to full capacity. They refused to increase that flow back when they were claiming cuts to NS1 due to “technical problems.” (This is also why neither NS was ever “needed” and even the Germans admitted that the prime economic reason for building them was to circumvent transit fees). 

To deliver or not deliver gas is a political and not technical/economic question, it’s framed as technical and economic for low information audiences.  

Low information? How about some numbers. 

Sudzha pipeline. 
 

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraine-can-substitute-ns1-capacity-through-its-network-gas-transit-chief-2022-09-05/

Running 36 mcm per day below max. 
365 days a year. 
13.1 bcm potential

Current Yamal flows

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-09-27/eastward-gas-flows-via-yamal-europe-pipeline-rise

 

At the current flows cited, 15.5 bcm annually. 
 

Capacity of 33 bcm  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamal–Europe_pipeline

potential added capacity for Yamal

17.5 bcm

 

17.5+13.1=30.6 bcm potential flows. 
 

Still 28.6 bcm short of NS 2021 volumes. 

 

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Tuco

Tuco 5076

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Zeus, you left out Texan LNG folks.  I mean, I don't believe it, but they do have a financial interest and I am amused by the vision of some Slim Pickens character getting suited up to blow up a Rooskie pipeline. 

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