EDITORIAL
USA Kicking some Major Russian Keister
Last year, in a major new sign of the apocalypse for Russia, its hated rival the USA produced over 40 billion more cubic meters of natural gas than Russia did, knocking Russia out of the top spot in the world for at least the next five years.
If Russians thought that rising world oil prices were good for Russia, they’d best think again. Rising prices have made it dramatically more cost effective for Americans to exploit their vast holdings of oil shales, a byproduct of which is natural gas as well.
And Russia’s barbaric behavior in Europe and Central Asia has finally caused those nations to wake up and realize that Russia is not, and will never be, a reliable supplier. So they are turning their backs on Russia and looking for other energy relationships that are more dependable. As a result, Russian gas is going unbought and remaining in the ground.
Most Russians, benighted and ignorant because the Kremlin controls what they read, hear and know, haven’t the slightest clue that there is very little difference between the amount of oil and gas they produce and that churned out by the USA. Russia, Saudi Arabia and the USA are the top three oil producers, and there is really not that much difference between them, except that the USA, unlike either Russia or Saudi Arabia, consumes all the oil it produces and then some. With feeble industrial economies, Russia and Saudi Arabia serve basically as America’s gas tank. Instead of using what they produce to create jobs and build their societies, the backwards states simply export what they have and let it be used for that purpose by other countries.
And now, because of he so-called “leadership” of Vladimir Putin, Russia doesn’t even have its illusory “#1” status to brag about.
Putin’s ignorance and venality is grinding Russia into a fine powder, just as the same characteristics of Soviet leaders did in their time. If Russia can’t even outdo the USA in gas production, the funeral dirge has truly begun.
La Russophobe 
There will be no revolution in Russia. At least what we expect when we say revolution. Fascists will come to power in Russia and build totalitarian state which will not last for long and will collapse into several more or less developed states. Many Russians will die. There is high possibility of nuclear explosion by terrorists in Moscow. Or nuclear meltdown of nuclear power station near St Petersburgh. We will soon no longer see Russia as it is today.
There will be no civilized revolution in Russia because vast majority of Russians currently living in Russia are sons and grandsons of Stalins’s killers. Those who were not killers died in prisons or run away to other contries during 20th century. It does not mean that all of them covered in blood but it means that they are “oppressed” they are mentally slaves to killer’s ideology. They can’t be free.
There will be no freedom in the current form of Russia. It will become after several catastrophes when population shrinks to 30-40 millions. 21 century will be as bleak for Russia as 20th.
This is in general.
And what is happening right now:
Currently FSB (read cornered KGB) started secret program of eliminating of so called russian middle and upper middle class. There is cultivation of hate towards anyone more or less rich. Anyone who can’t be controlled must be eliminated. People with money, even comparatively small money, pose a direct threat of “orange” revolution. They will be made poor soon, by any means possible. Including imprisonment or killing.
This operation will last for several years but it will be quite fast. But after that triumph of KGB regime won’t last long. Ultra right radicals will come to power. But for very short time. After that total chaos and collapse. Then several states will be formed. And only then after many years of conflicts between those states, some of them will become democratic and more or less free.
There is a Russian saying “You have to live long in Russia to see some real change”.
(sorry for typos I don’t like to check and write very fast, i don’t have much free time)
[USA, unlike either Russia or Saudi Arabia, consumes all the oil it produces and then some. ]
Right on! We, Americans, consume an incredible amount of oil! That’s why we have caused the Global Warming and other environmental disasters for the rest of the World.
And that’s why our economy is in a recession, bound for a depression. And that’s why we have to act subservient to various Israel-hating woman-bashing Arab dictators.
And congratulations to you: this is the first time anybody has been so smart as to brag about the over-consumption of oil and gas. Bring on the SUVs and the gas guzzlers!
Actually, the Russians say they LIKE global warming because they live in a frozen wasteland.
And if you are suggesting Russians COULD use all their oil but the don’t WANT to so they can save the environment, you are truly demented.
Actually Russia supports women bashing Israel hating dictators and arms them with conventional weapons, and gives them nuclear technology…..
[Actually, the Russians say they LIKE global warming because they live in a frozen wasteland]
That’s correct. The global warming is good for people in Russia, Iceland, Alaska and other cold countries.
[And if you are suggesting Russians COULD use all their oil but the don’t WANT to so they can save the environment, you are truly demented.]
What I am suggesting is that all sane people in Russia, America and all other coutnries would prefer to be oil exporters instead of oil importers.
A stretch of coastline on the Texas-Louisiana border provides a startling glimpse of Europe’s energy future. There, where Lake Sabine empties into the Gulf of Mexico, a giant port was completed last year. Built at a cost of $1.5 billion (£900m), it was meant to be a vital new part of America’s energy infrastructure.
Giant tankers from places such as Qatar and Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East were meant to dock there to inject their cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) straight into the national pipeline network.
The Sabine Pass terminal was meant to take about one ship a day but since it opened for business 18 months ago only 10 ships have come in.
“This big shiny new terminal was one of the ones built as the answer to declining US gas production and increasing demand,” said Steve Johnson president of Waterborne Energy, a Texas energy consultancy. “Now it’s in mothballs.”
It is much the same story at America’s eight other LNG import terminals. They are running at only 10% of capacity.
“We have had so much new production come on stream that all of a sudden the role of these terminals has changed dramatically,” said Johnson. “They are getting the world’s leftovers.”
The reason is shale gas — a new and abundant source of natural gas, trapped in rock formations. Oil companies have known about it for decades but always dismissed it because it was too expensive and difficult to extract. In the past few years new technologies that pump water underground to fracture the rock and free the gas have been perfected. The breakthrough has opened a new frontier for the energy industry and turned long-held assumptions about the world’s dwindling supplies on their head.
Suddenly, America is awash with gas. Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, said it had created a “a revolution in the gas fields of North America”.
Now the revolution is starting in Europe with projects in Hungary, Poland, Britain and a planned EU/USA sponsored one in the Ukraine. And that’s just for starters. 16% of Russia’s GDP is based on gas exports. Domestically Russian consumer’s waste 50% of the gas they use through poor infrastructure, In future Russia’s largest company Gazprom will be forced to rely on new markets in the east, problem is china knows about Russia’s dilemma and will want to pay a much lower price than the one Russia enjoys from the EU.
Another problem for Russia is that 70% of its known gas reserves are tied up in the perma frost of the Yamal peninsula, this is waiting for $200 billion worth of investment to unlock its trillions of cubic meter potential, but where will the investment come from certainly not Gazprom who already have debts of $59 billion, and I doubt the USA or EU the world’s main investors will be that interested now they see the future for them is in shale, a real dilemma for Putin !, maybe Russia’s mates in Venezuela or Nicaragua will chip in a few dollars.
I can hear the knell of the Apocalypse already. hahahahaha.
“in a major new sign of the apocalypse for Russia” Really ? You must be running out of material.
As for who we’ll be soliciting investments from, why that’s easy : China. The fossil fuel giant is desperate enought for fuel to keep itself going that it’s promised Volodya as much investment as he needs to develop new gas and oil pipelines and extraction centers leading to china. Analysts at Gazprom estimate the Southeast Asia market will be bringing us some $250 billion dollars annually by 2012. Thus, no worries. But the precious Americans can continue to poke around in thier shale all they want. It neither interests or worries us. We have bigger fish to fry.
Well, all those previous declarations about “apocalypse for Russia” may have been wishful thinking, but this time it’s already happened:
America is awash with shale gas and with oil. So much so that the gasoline here in USA costs $1 dollar per gallon (4 liters), and Saudi Arabia just declared bankruptcy and voluntarily became a colony of Israel.
See for yourself:
http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=11798317
Gas prices are on the rise again
Jan 10, 2010 1:46 PM PST
According to Triple-A the national average for a gallon of regular gas jumped eleven cents from last week. It’s now at $2.74.
Ah Arthur, the shale gas is a “natural gas/LPG/CNG” equivalent, not petrol.
The price of natural Gas (what Russia cut off to Ukriane the other year) is coninuing to slump, and this is expected to continue for all of 2010 at least.
In the long-term, prices of oil and gas are tightly bound to each other. Thus, when new gas deposits are discovered, the price of gas initially goes up. However, as new gas burning and processing facilities are build, people and corporations will start substituting gas for oil, thus driving the price of gas up and the price of oil down, until the prices per unit of energy converge. Here are basic tutorials for you, Andrew:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V7G-45F5Y43-15&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1170417511&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9d96d6e2329f55332189136c0ce3a9f4
Modeling fuel-switching between natural gas and fuel oil in US manufacturing
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ101/Ishdorj/Lecture/ch3_supply_and_demand_part2_post.ppt
Econ 101: Microeconomics
Equilibrium: Putting Supply and Demand Together
Using Supply and Demand
Why did Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait cause the price of oil to rise? Immediately after the invasion, United States led a worldwide embargo on oil from both Iraq and Kuwait. A significant decrease in the oil industry’s productive capacity caused a shift in the supply curve to the left. Price of oil increased
Why did the price of natural gas rise as well? Oil is a substitute for natural gas. Rise in the price of a substitute increases demand for a good. Rise in price of oil caused demand curve for natural gas to shift to the right. Thus, the price of natural gas rose.
Andrew,
Did you really think that we would continue to pump gas into the Ukraine just to have it stolen ?
Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A, RDS.B) signed an agreement in November 2009 with PetroChina Co. (NYSE:PTR) to jointly develop shale gas on the Fushun-Yongchuan block located in the Sichuan province. The potential of this project is impossible to determine, but clearly the technology to develop unconventional resource plays in North America can be transferred to other continents.
China has the potential just like the USA to produce it own gas from shale and Iam happy to say we Brits are helping the Chinese achieve this ambition. In years to come we can expect substantial revenues heading into our British coffers from all our shale projects.
Why don’t you Brits help North Koreans too? They are good Commies, just like China.
Well Arthur as long as they honour the contracts, unlike the Russians, as BP/Shell found out to their cost,
In the future maybe we can.
Spreading British influence always gets the thumbs up from me.
Well, R John, as an American, I am also happy when the Brits prosper: a happy chihuahua is an obedient chihuahua.
Spreading US/British influence gets a double thumbs up,
Yep, it sure does, whether it’s at the expense of hundreds of thousands of dead innocents, indebted third world countries, international laws blatantly disregarded, or any number of such jolly things.
Yep, that’s a pretty accurate description of Russian behavior.