<An Economist response, or is it a techie Sunday? The Oil Drum European gas supplies and a more than gentle cough from Russia>

110 comments on Monday Open Thread: The GasBuddy Price Map Edition

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westexas on April 24, 2006 - 5:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Speaking of a bidding war between importers. . .

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-04-24T072003Z_01_L247 50869_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-RUSSIA-EUROPE.xml

Russia should cut oil to Europe: Transneft

Excerpt:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's planned oil pipeline to Asia will help cut deliveries to Europe, which is currently being oversupplied with Russian crude, the head of Russia's pipeline monopoly Transneft told a newspaper.

"We have overfed Europe with crude. And every single economic manual says that excessive supplies depress prices," Semyon Vainshtok told the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta in an interview published on Monday.

"So far we cannot reduce supplies as all our exports are going to Europe. But as soon as we divert (flows) to China, South Korea, Australia, Japan it will immediately take away crude from our European colleagues," he added.

Vainshtok has repeatedly said that building a pipeline to Asia would help diversify Russian oil flows and cut discounts on the country's mainstay Urals crude blend in European markets.

His new comments are likely to come under much closer scrutiny after another Russian monopoly, state gas behemoth Gazprom, shocked Europe last week by saying it would supply gas elsewhere if its expansion in Europe was blocked.

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smekhovo on April 24, 2006 - 6:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Strange.
Urals used to be underpriced compared to blends of comparable gravity/sulphur content, but as of recently is so no longer.
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magwitch on April 24, 2006 - 9:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Particularly strange in light of that inversion in Texas WTI vs. UK's Brent Crude a few weeks back.  Great observation.

Just remember, it's not supply.

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totoneila on April 24, 2006 - 9:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello Westexas,

Great post! I encourage Russia to sell to the highest bidder no matter who it is: the more this happens, the sooner people will start conserving and Powerdown as best they can.  If this makes Europe, and even parts of internal Russia start to setup biosolar habitats 3-5 years earlier, so much the better for their environment and related biodiversity in the long run.  Fair higher prices, not corrupt political-driven preferential pricing schemes will make the great unwashed masses face the Peakoil 'music' sooner.

The difficult part to control in the future is my predicted rise of the detrito-terrorist.  No religious ideology, like Islam, is required, just an addicted desire to maximize detritus access vs adopting Powerdown.  Just as the Ukrainians stole transiting natgas last winter, and some other unknown party blew up a critical pipeline supplying Armenia, I forsee covert Europeans and/or Central Asians disabling Chinese pipelines to increase the flow to their respective country, and of course, the Chinese or some other country returning the favor some time later. Nigerian 'bunkering' is another example of theft that will bedevil oil companies worldwide postPeak.

Add this in to the enviro-terrorist, and the religio-terrorist: Gazprom and Rosneft will have their hands extremely full the further we go postPeak.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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110 comments on Monday Open Thread: The GasBuddy Price Map Edition

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