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Chinese energy major quits West – report

Samizdat | April 13, 2022

China’s state-owned oil and gas corporation China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is reportedly preparing to exit from the US, UK and Canada due to mounting concerns about sanctions, regulations and rising costs.

Relations between China and Western countries have soured over the past several years. Beijing’s ties with Washington were shattered after former US President Donald Trump launched a large-scale trade war, hitting a wide range of Chinese goods with import levies. Tensions have been mounting recently after China refused to condemn Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

CNOOC, China’s top offshore oil and gas producer, is currently seeking to leave the West by selling “marginal and hard to manage” assets in the three nations, according to unnamed industry sources quoted by Reuters.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, told the agency that the company’s top management found it “uncomfortable” to manage its Western assets because of regulations and high operating costs.

CNOOC, which entered the three countries by a $15 billion acquisition of Canadian energy major Nexen in 2013, was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after Trump’s anti-China campaign was launched. Prior to that the company had been listed on the NYSE for two decades. Joe Biden’s administration removed the firm from the blacklist about a year ago.

In the US, the Chinese energy major owns onshore assets in the Eagle Ford and Niobrara shale basins and also has offshore stakes in the Stampede and Appomattox fields in the Gulf of Mexico. In Britain, the company operates three sites in northeast Scotland, and has oil sands and shale gas assets in Canada.

“Assets like Gulf of Mexico deepwater are technologically challenging and CNOOC really needed to work with partners to learn, but company executives were not even allowed to visit the US offices,” a senior industry source said, as quoted by media.

“It had been a pain all along these years and the Trump administration’s blacklisting of CNOOC made it worse,” he explained.

Moreover, the latest sanctions imposed by the US on Russia may hit CNOOC’s assets, the sources also said. The company, which is getting ready to list on the Shanghai stock exchange in April, is reportedly planning to purchase assets in Latin America and Africa.

CNOOC reportedly produced some 1.57 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2021, of which 62,000 were from sites in Canada and 80,000 were from sites elsewhere in North America. Altogether, its assets in the US, UK and Canada produce nearly 220,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to Reuters’ calculations.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia will find buyers for its oil – Putin

Samizdat | April 13, 2022

Russia can easily redirect exports of its vast energy resources away from the West to countries that really need them, while increasing domestic energy consumption, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

“When it comes to Russian oil, gas and coal, we will be able to increase their consumption on the domestic market and stimulate the deep processing of raw materials,” Putin said speaking at a meeting on the development of the Russian Arctic.

“We will also increase the supply of energy resources to other regions of the world where they are really needed,” he added.

The statement comes amid the latest ban on Russian oil imports imposed by the US, Canada, Britain and Australia in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. The ban on energy imports was part of broader anti-Russian sanctions that are aimed at cutting the country’s economy off from the global trade and financial system.

Putin attributed the current energy crunch in Europe to the refusal by countries to “cooperate with Russia normally, thus, hitting millions of Europeans.”

“Of course we are also facing problems but this opens up new opportunities,” he said.

Putin added that “hostile countries” had destroyed supply chains in Russia’s Arctic regions and some nations were not fulfilling their contractual obligations, creating issues for Moscow.

On Wednesday, Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov said Moscow was ready to sell oil and oil products to “friendly nations” as traditional importers are shunning Russian energy supplies, forcing the country to reduce crude production.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

India key to alternative payment mechanism for Russia

By Paul Antonopoulos | April 13, 2022

The war in Ukraine has focussed attention on Russia’s global exports as sanctions on the country have led to sharp rises in various commodity prices. As Russia is a key supplier of not just oil and gas, but also wheat, metals and fertilizers, the problem is further aggravated due to Russia’s exclusion from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) mechanism, which means that payments for trade with Russia are not permissible in dollars.

Indian exporters have payments of around $400-500 million pending in Russia due to the war in Ukraine and the subsequent economic ban on the country and its exclusion from the SWIFT mechanism by the western powers. In 10 months of FY22, India’s exports to Russia totalled $2.85 billion against $7.90 billion of imports, according to Bank of Baroda Economic Research data.

Discussions on a Rupee-Ruble trade mechanism is an inevitability after Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT. As economic sanctions against Russia are used as a weapon of war by the western powers, the countries trading with the Eurasian Giant need to have an alternative mechanism for payments. Some experts have suggested to identify an Indian bank in which Russia would deposit rubles, while India will deposit rupees. Russia would use all the rupees it gets from Indian importers to buy goods; Indian exporters would use the rubles to pay for imports from Russia.

This is especially crucial for India as sanctions on Russia have adverse effects on Indo-Russian trade. Amidst the uncertainties, there has been a substantial depreciation in the Rupee (Rs. 77/Dollar), making Indian imports more expensive. However, India’s non-weapon non-oil trade with Russia is miniscule, and so the effect would be minimal.

None-the-less, the exclusion of Russia from SWIFT as part of sanctions meant that millions of dollars in payments for Indian tea, steel, chemicals and pharmaceuticals have been held up. Tea exporters say that the necessity of rupee payment has come if the dollar payment has become impossible. This is significant when considering that India is the largest exporter of tea to Russia, amounting to 43-45 million kilograms.

The rupee-ruble trade mechanism will likely open an alternative channel for the Global South to continue trading with Russia. This would be possible because many Russian banks are already present in India. Large Russian banks with a presence in India include VTB, Sberbank and Gazprombank. Russia’s state-owned development bank VEB is also engaged in such trade.

VEB and the Reserve Bank of India are in the process of finalising an alternative transaction platform to facilitate bilateral trade. Apart from facilitating India-Russia bilateral trade, the Rupee-Ruble platform might facilitate the Global South’s alternative financial transactions with Russia.

Increasing economic sanctions have created problems in other currency zones as well, particularly Iran, demonstrating why many countries are entering into currency swap deals to continue trading without depending on the dollar.

The post-World War western dominated financial architecture is a skewed global financial system. In view of this, the Rupee-Ruble mechanism may open an era of trade without dollars. The global financial system should not be leveraged as a weapon of war by any group of countries, otherwise it would lose trust.

The biggest problem for developing countries arises from the fact that Russia exports significant quantities of grains and has imposed a halt on grain shipments to its neighbours in the Eurasian Economic Union until the end of August. This is to “maintain stability on the Russian market”. The two largest buyers of wheat from Russia, Egypt and Turkey, have seen disruptions in supply due to closure of Black Sea ports as the war in Ukraine rages on. As Russia and Ukraine supply one-third of the total global supplies of wheat, the disruption in supply has pushed prices up.

What the West has not considered though is that the problem might be complicated further due to Russia’s exclusion from the SWIFT mechanism. In such cases, Rupee-Ruble trade will be another step towards the de-dollarization of the global economy as countries seek safety from potential sanctions and economic attacks from the West. As the Global South suffers from a war being waged in far off eastern Europe, it is inevitable that they will explore an alternative payment system as they do not want to lose their economic relations with Russia and will use the Indian model as a guiding principle.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Washington warns against ‘preserving’ ties with Moscow

Samizdat | April 13, 2022

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will issue a stark warning to countries “sitting on the fence” when it comes to sanctions against Russia in a speech to be delivered on Wednesday, saying that such “short-sighted” policies would not go unnoticed.

In a speech at an Atlantic Council event amid Moscow’s ongoing military offensive in Ukraine, Yellen will say that the US government remains fully committed to pushing Russia “further towards economic, financial, and strategic isolation,” according to an excerpt quoted by the media.

“And let’s be clear, the unified coalition of sanctioning countries will not be indifferent to actions that undermine the sanctions we’ve put in place,” Yellen will say.

In her opinion, the measures being imposed on Russia by the US and its allies are necessary because the future of the international order, “both for peaceful security and economic prosperity,” is now at stake. However, she will emphasize that some countries are still “sitting on the fence, perhaps seeing an opportunity to gain by preserving their relationship with Russia and backfilling the void left by others.”

Such behavior, the US Treasury Secretary will stress, is “short-sighted.”

The warning comes two days after US President Joe Biden called on India, which has not introduced sanctions against Moscow, not to increase its energy imports from Russia. In a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Biden offered assistance in the search for other sources of energy supply, explaining that it is not in India’s interests to increase its dependence on Russia.

Another big international player – China – has also been the subject of US criticism for its ‘neutral’ position on the Ukrainian conflict. Last month, the US administration went even further by warning Beijing of “the implications and consequences” which would follow if China decided to provide any material support for Russia.

There are also increasing tensions in the EU. Hungary and Poland, which were staunch allies prior to the conflict in Ukraine, had moved away from each other even before current events due to their very different relationships with Russia.

The events of the past six weeks have apparently driven them even further apart, with Warsaw announcing that it would freeze bilateral relations until Hungary aligns itself with Kiev. The European Commission also warned Hungary against fulfilling Moscow’s request and paying for the Russian gas in rubles, saying it would violate the sanctions regime.

April 13, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

NATO Sanctions and the Coming Global Diesel Fuel Disaster

By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern Outlook – 11.04.2022 

Amid the ongoing global inflation crisis, NATO heads of state and mainstream media repeat a mantra that high energy prices are a direct result of Putin’s actions in Ukraine since end of February.  The reality is that it is the western sanctions that are responsible. Those sanctions including cutting SWIFT interbank access for key Russian banks and some of the most severe sanctions ever imposed, are hardly having an impact on the military actions in Ukraine. What many overlook is the fact that they are increasingly impacting the economies of the West, especially the EU and USA. A closer look at the state of the global supply of diesel fuel is alarming. But Western sanctions planners at the US Treasury and the EU know fully well what they are doing. And it bodes ill for the world economy.

While most of us rarely think about diesel fuel as anything other than a pollutant, in fact it is essential to the entire world economy in a way few energy sources are. The director general of Fuels Europe, part of the European Petroleum Refiners Association, stated recently, “… there is a clear link between diesel and GDP, because almost everything that goes into and out of a factory goes using diesel.”

At the end of the first week of Russia’s military action in Ukraine, with no sanctions yet specific to Russia’s diesel fuel exports, the European diesel price was already at a thirty-year high. It had nothing to do with war. It had to do with the draconian global covid lockdowns since March 2020 and the simultaneous dis-investment by Wall Street and global financial firms in oil and gas companies, so-called Green Agenda or ESG. Almost on day one of Russian troop actions in Ukraine, two of the world’s  largest oil companies, BP and Shell, both British, stopped deliveries of diesel fuel to Germany claiming fear of supply shortages. Russia supplied some 60 to 70% of all EU diesel before the Ukraine war.

In 2020 Russia was the world’s second largest exporter of diesel fuel behind USA, shipping more than 1 million barrels daily. Most of it, some 70%, went to the EU and Turkey. France was the largest importer, followed by Germany and UK. In France some 76% of all road vehicles—cars, trucks—use diesel. The EU diesel demand is far higher than in the US as most cars also use the more economical and efficient diesel fuel. In the first week of April the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proudly announced new sanctions against Russian energy that would begin with a ban on coal. The EU is the largest importer of Russian coal. Oil and gas she said would follow at a later date. That foolish move will merely boost costs of energy, already at record highs, for most of the EU, as it will force oil and gas prices far higher.

At the beginning of the Ukraine crisis global stocks of diesel fuel were already the lowest since 2008 as the covid lockdowns had done major damage to the demand-supply situation of oil and gas production. Now the stage is set for an unprecedented crisis in diesel. The consequences will be staggering for the world economy.

Diesel Moves World Trade

Diesel engines have the highest engine efficiency of conventional motors. They are based on the principle of compression developed in 1897 by Rudolf Diesel. Because of their greater efficiency and greater mileage per gallon, diesel fuels almost all freight truck motors. It fuels most all farm equipment from tractors to harvesting machines. It is widely used in the EU, almost 50% for auto fuel as it is far more fuel efficient than gasoline engines. It is used in most all heavy mining machines such as Caterpillar earth movers. It is used in construction equipment. Diesel engines have replaced steam engines on all non-electrified railroads in the world, especially freight trains. Diesel is used in some electric power generation and in most all heavy military vehicles.

A global shortage in diesel fuel, temporary or longer-term, is therefore a catastrophic event. Goods cannot be moved from container ports to inland destinations. Without diesel fuel trucks cannot deliver food to the supermarket, or anything else for that matter. The entire supply chain is frozen. And there is no possibility to substitute gasoline in a diesel engine without ruining the engine.

Until the ill-conceived global covid lockdowns of industry and transportation that began in March 2020, the demand and supply of diesel fuel was well balanced. The sudden lockdowns however collapsed diesel demand for truck transport, autos, construction, even farming. Unprofitable refineries were closed. Capacity declined. Now as world production returns to a semblance of pre-covid normal, diesel reserve stocks worldwide are dangerously low, especially in the EU which is the world’s largest diesel consumer, but also the USA.

Rationing?

At the start of this year world diesel stocks were already dangerously low and that drove prices sky-high. As of February, 2022 before impact of the Ukraine war, diesel and related stocks in the US were 21% below the pre-covid seasonal average. In the EU stocks were 8% or 35 million barrels below the pre-covid average level. In Singapore, the Asian hub stocks were 32% below normal. Combined all three regions’ diesel stocks were alarmingly low, some 110 million barrels below the same point last year.

Between January 2021 and January 2022 EU diesel fuel prices had almost doubled, and that, before the Ukraine sanctions. There were several reasons, but primary was the soaring price of crude oil and supply disruptions owing to global covid lockdowns and the subsequent resumption of world trade flows. To add to the problem, in early March the Chinese central government imposed a ban on its exports of diesel fuel, to “ensure energy security” amid Western sanctions on Russia. Add to that the recent Biden administration ban on imports of all Russian oil and gas, which in 2021 included an estimated 20% of all Russian heavy oil exports. At the same time the EU in its ever-ideological wisdom, is finalizing a ban on imports of Russian coal with bans on Russian crude oil, diesel fuel and gas reportedly  to follow.

On April 4 average price per liter of diesel in Germany was €2.10. On December 27, 2021 it was €1.50, a rise of 40% in weeks. Following the unprecedented USA and EU sanctions against Russia following the Ukraine military campaign after February 24, more and more Western oil companies and oil traders are refusing to handle Russian crude oil or diesel fuel for fear of reprisals. This is certain to escalate so long as fighting in Ukraine continues.

The CEO of the Rotterdam-based Vitol, the world’s largest independent energy trading company, warned on March 27 that rationing of diesel fuel in the coming months globally was increasingly likely. He noted, “Europe imports about half of its diesel from Russia and about half of its diesel from the Middle East. That systemic shortfall of diesel is there.”

On April 7, David McWilliams, a leading Irish economist formerly with the Irish national bank, sounded an alarming note. “Not only is oil going up, diesel is going up and there’s a real threat diesel will run out in Western Europe over the course of the next two or three weeks, or maybe before that… We import a significant amount of our diesel, it comes from two refineries in the UK where it’s first processed. Those refineries do not have any crude at the moment. So we are basically running the economy on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis.” He added: ‘We have not just an oil crisis, we have an energy crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen in 50 years.” According to him the reason diesel stocks are so low is that the EU countries found it far cheaper to outsource oil and diesel to Russia with its huge supply.

The situation in the USA is not better. For political reasons the true state of the diesel fuel crisis is reportedly being downplayed by the Biden administration and the EU. Inflation is already at 40 year highs in the US. What the unfolding global diesel fuel crisis will mean, barring a major turnaround, is a dramatic impact on all forms of truck and auto transportation, farming, mining and the like. It will spell catastrophe for an already failing world economy. Yet governments like the German “Ampel” (traffic light) coalition, with their insane Zero Carbon agenda, and their plans to phase out oil, coal and gas, or the Biden cabal, privately see the exploding energy prices as further argument to abandon hydrocarbons like oil for unreliable, costly wind and solar. The real industrial interconnected global economy is not like a game of lego toys. It is highly complex and finely tuned.That fine tuning is being systematically destroyed, and all evidence is that it is deliberate. Welcome to the Davos Great Reset eugenics agenda.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | Leave a comment

How Biden’s Huge Strategic Oil Release Could Backfire

By Irina Slav | Oilprice.com | April 3, 2022

This week, the Biden administration revealed that it will release as much as 180 million barrels of crude oil in a bid to calm oil prices, which have remained above $100 per barrel for an extended period of time. The International Energy Agency, meanwhile, is coordinating a smaller but international reserve release of some 60 million barrels and has called an emergency meeting to discuss how exactly to go about it.

It remains unclear whether part of the 180 SPR release in the United States will be a completely separate endeavor or if some of these barrels will be part of the IEA release. Earlier this year, the U.S. had agreed to release 30 million barrels as part of the IEA push. What is clear is that the success of these releases in calming down oil prices is quite unlikely.

The United States last year announced the release of 50 million barrels in an effort to bring down prices t the pump, which were eroding Americans’ purchasing power and weighing on the President’s approval ratings.

This pressured prices for a few days before they rebounded, driven by continued discipline among U.S. producers, equal discipline in OPEC+, and a relentless increase in demand for the commodity.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the U.S. banned imports of Russian crude and fuels. It also sanctioned the country’s financial system heavily, making paying for Russian crude and fuels too much of a headache for the dollar-based international industry. Prices soared again before retreating some, but remain firmly in three-digit territory.

As of mid-March, the Department of Energy said, some 30 million barrels of crude from the strategic petroleum reserve had been sold or leased. That’s more than half of the 50 million barrels announced in November, and it appears to have had zero effect on price movements.

But the new reserve release is a lot bigger, so it should make a difference, shouldn’t it? It amounts to some 1 million bpd over several months, per reports about White House plans in this respect. Unfortunately, but importantly, oil’s fundamentals have not changed much since November.

U.S. shale oil producers, the companies that a few years ago prompted talk among analysts that OPEC was becoming increasingly irrelevant, have rearranged their priorities. They no longer strive for growth at all costs. Now they strive for happy shareholders.

This has given more opportunities to smaller independent drillers with no shareholders to keep happy. Yet these have also run into challenges, mainly in the form of insufficient funding because the energy transition has had banks worrying about their reputations and their own shareholders.

Pandemic-related supply disruptions have also affected the U.S. oil industry’s ability to expand output. Frac sand, cement, and equipment are among the things that have been reported to be in short supply in the shale patch. Now, there’s a shortage of steel tubing, too.

Meanwhile, OPEC is doing business as usual, sticking to its commitment to add some 400,000 bpd to oil markets every month until its combined output recovers to pre-pandemic levels. Just this week, the cartel approved another monthly addition of 432,000 bpd to its combined output despite increasingly desperate calls from the U.S. and the IEA for more barrels.

OPEC has been demonstrating increasingly bluntly that its interests and the interests of some of its biggest clients may not be in alignment right now. It has refused to openly condemn Russia for its actions in Ukraine and has not joined the Western sanction push.

On the contrary, OPEC is gladly doing business with Russia. And Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two OPEC members that actually have the capacity to boost production beyond their quotas, have deemed it unwise to undermine their partnership with Russia by acquiescing to the West’s request for more oil.

In this environment, releasing whatever number of barrels from strategic reserves could only provide a very short relief at the pump. Then, it may make matters even worse. As one oil market commentator on Twitter said about the SPR release news, the White House will be selling these barrels at $100 and then may have to buy them at $150.

Indeed, one thing that tends to get overlooked during turbulent times is that the strategic petroleum reserve of any country needs to be replenished. It’s not called strategic for laughs. And a 180-million-barrel reserve release will be quite a draw on the U.S. SPR, which currently stands at over 580 million barrels. If oil’s fundamentals remain the same, prices will not be lower when the time to replenish the SPR comes.

This seems the most likely development. The EU, the UK, and the United States have stated sanctions against Russia will not be lifted even if Moscow strikes a peace deal with the Ukraine government. This means Russian oil will continue to be hard to come by for those dealing in dollars or euros.

According to the IEA, the shortfall could be 3 million barrels daily, to be felt this quarter. OPEC+ is not straying from its course. In some good news, at least, U.S. oil production rose last week for the first time in more than two months, by a modest 100,000 bpd.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

Energy Affordability: The Issue Everyone Is Ignoring

By Irina Slav | Oilprice.com | April 4, 2022

The U.S.-EU deal for the import of an additional 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas this year made headlines earlier this month, with both sides praising their own political prowess and quick action. What nobody talked about was how much this LNG would cost.

Meanwhile, another piece of news that grabbed headlines was the House hearing of half a dozen U.S. and international oil executives on allegations of price-gouging and not helping regular Americans “to relieve pain at the pump, instead lining their pockets with one hand while sitting on the other,” according to two legislators.

These two events are indicative of something that no politician in power would want to admit openly but is nevertheless happening: the cost of living in Europe and the United States is rising. And the root cause of this is not the war in Ukraine. It’s high energy costs.

It was the energy minister of the UAE who shone a light on the problem earlier this week. Speaking to CNBC at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Suhail al Mazrouei said that politicians are focusing too much on geopolitics and ignoring the issue of energy affordability, which is affecting both developed and developing economies.

If they continue to ignore this issue, he said, politicians risk seeing large parts of the world plunged into energy poverty, which would, in turn, lead to economic slowdown for much of the world and global stagnation.

Noting that OPEC+ was doing its best to provide a reliable supply of energy to global markets, Al Mazrouei said, “For that to happen, we need resources – financial resources – we need to invest and we need to decouple politics from energy availability and energy affordability.”

By “politics”, the Emirati official likely means energy transition agendas in Europe and the United States. These depend on lower investment in oil and gas production, and the European gas crunch was the first clear sign what the consequences of this approach could be, because, in all fairness, the European cost of living crisis began a lot earlier than the war in the Ukraine.

In November last year, for instance, six in ten Britons said they had seen an increase in their cost of living. This month, this has risen to eight out of ten as energy costs continue higher. From next month the number could rise further after the energy market regulator introduces the new energy price cap by close to $1,000 per household for some 22 million households.

In Germany, inflation is seen accelerating to 6.1 percent this month, from 5.1 percent in February, according to the Ifo Institute. Soaring energy costs are at the root of this inflation trend, with the Ukraine war now adding inflationary pressure on some food staples as both Ukraine and Russia are big producers. According to Ifo, Germans could lose more than $6 billion in purchasing power by the end of this month alone.

In France, the rising cost of living has boosted the election chances of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who is betting strongly on messaging that addresses the purchasing power concerns of French citizens who, like their fellow EU-members in Germany and Britons in newly “exited” UK, have been struggling with rising costs of living.

In the United States, the Fed is preparing for an aggressive push into rate hikes to rein in inflation, which has led several economists, among them Mohamed El-Erian, to warn that such an aggressive step could lead to a cost-of-living crisis. Meanwhile, the White House has announced yet another release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve in an attempt to cool prices at the pump.

Right now, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are happily blaming everything on Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. However, sooner or later, the dust will settle, and people will start asking why even though the war is over, energy is still more expensive than it was before. That would be one tough question to answer unless those who may have to answer it heed the warning made by the UAE’s Al Mazrouei.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology | Leave a comment

UK growth falters amid historic cost-of-living surge

Samizdat | April 11, 2022

The UK is facing the biggest decline in living standards since comparable records began in the 1950s, according to an independent forecast.

The London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) released a report on Monday, saying that the “cost of living crisis” has “well and truly” arrived in the UK. CEBR cites the recent uprating of the energy price cap – reflecting the global rise in energy costs – as the reason, saying that average UK households will be paying a whopping 73% more for their energy bill than compared to a year ago. In addition, petrol prices are up by 30% on the year and diesel prices are 36% higher, the report says.

According to the consultancy, in the coming months the consumer price inflation will far outstrip wage growth, jumping by a further 2.5% from its February level of 6.2%, which was the highest in 30 years. While most forecasts expect the UK economy to grow in each quarter of 2022, the energy price crisis will still see the households notably worse off, CEBR notes.

The Bank of England warned in March that inflation in the country is set to hit a 40-year high of 8.7% at the end of the year due to a rise in global energy prices over the past few months. The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, also said last month that Britain was heading for the biggest single shock from energy prices since the 1970s, with the economy set to suffer a growth slowdown.

April 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Unheeded US warning toward India highlights antipathy of non-Western countries

Global Times | April 7, 2022

The US warned India once again. White House top economic adviser Brian Deese claimed on Wednesday that the consequences of New Delhi’s “more explicit strategic alignment” with Moscow would be “significant and long-term.”

What a bullying manner! This is an open threat by the US toward India on the latter’s own business. When it comes to the Ukraine crisis, the US is blatantly displaying its hegemonic mentality – either you are with the US, or against the US. This echoes exactly the same slogan of George W. Bush, made in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said Zhao Gancheng, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

The US is again telling the world: As a superpower, it has the right to define who you are.

Even if India has not “aligned” with Russia, and has kept a relatively balanced position during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US does not buy it.

“Remaining neutral makes no sense to the US. What Washington wants from New Delhi is completely standing by the side of the US,” Zhao said.

The US is afraid that ties among China, Russia and India may further develop due to the Ukraine crisis, although systematic cooperation of the three countries is not rare.

Moreover, the US expects that everything goes well in terms of the Quad summit, which is schedule to be held in Japan, tentatively by the end of June. Yet, if India does not make a statement in line with the US expectation, the summit may hardly take place. Constant warnings over “consequences” against India emerged from the US, revealing Washington’s anxiety.

Before Deese’s remarks, the US has already warned India more than once against constructing alternate payment mechanisms with Russia or buying more oil from Russia. Yet the threats turned out to be in vain, as India benefits from its ties with Russia, which can’t be substituted by the US.

Also, India’s response mirrors an increasingly obvious trend – the US has underestimated the antipathy the rest of the world holds for it. Not only India, but the majority of the general public in China and Latin American countries and other developing world have not taken sides with the US in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, even if the US believes it is standing on the moral high ground. They do not support sanctioning Russia. As Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to the US, put it, even if they don’t particularly like Russia, a lot of non-Westerners are supporting it only because they are confronting with the West.

Quite a few countries have long been bullied by the US. They have long developed a rebellious psychology. This time, the more sanctions Washington imposes on Russia due to the conflict, the more aversion the US will have to face.

The US has long believed it masters superior strength, values, and civilization, which in turn has given birth to its overbearing arrogance. As a result, when interacting with non-Western countries, the US either coerces them or issues warnings to them. Since Washington is accustomed to dealing with others from a position of strength, its relations with other countries have never been on an equal footing, Li Haidong, a professor from the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, told the Global Times.

That’s why the world has been witnessing the US talking about the so-called democracy while it makes dictatorial orders toward other countries.

The resentment from non-Western countries toward such hegemonic arrogance has long been lurking. It is now surfacing during the ongoing Ukraine crisis, along with the real status of the US in international society – It has imposed sanctions on Russia yet has failed to reach expected effects; It claims to be on the justified side, but most countries believe it is the US-led NATO that has turned Ukraine into a pawn, threw it under the bus, and worse, attempted to prolong the war; It pushed India, one of its closest partners, to take sides, but only gained India’s cold shoulder.

Since the outbreak of the conflict, Indian people seem to have been fed up with the US putting pressure on or threatening India. Many of them asked: What kind of a partner is this? New Delhi’s current balanced diplomacy is thus warmly welcomed by the Indian public. This is a sign of their repugnance toward Washington.

Today, the US would be self-defeating if it stubbornly believes that whoever it cozies up to would feel honored and dance to its tune. Gone is the time when US warnings work.

April 9, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Serbia says it was blackmailed over UN vote

Samizdat | April 8, 2022

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said that his country has been pressured under the threat of sanctions to back Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council.

Belgrade has close historical ties with Moscow but joined other Western nations this week in a vote against Russia in response to its ongoing military campaign in Ukraine. “Our initial decision was to abstain, but then we were subjected to countless and difficult pressure,” Vucic told RTS TV on Thursday.

“They said – do you know that a decision is being made whether Serbia will be exempted from the package of sanctions on [Russian] oil, and whether it will be able to import oil after May 15?” the president said. He compared the possible effect of sanctions on Serbia to “a nuclear strike.”

Unlike the EU, Serbia has not imposed any sanctions on Moscow. “The Republic of Serbia believes that it’s not in its vital political and economic interests to impose sanctions on any country,” Vucic said, while stressing that he wants to maintain good relations with the European bloc, as well as with Russia.

Belgrade previously said that getting cut off from Russian energy would damage its economy. On Friday, Serbian media outlets quoted its sources in Brussels as saying that Serbia will be exempt from possible sanctions on Russian oil and gas.

At the same time, Blic newspaper quoted EU spokesman Peter Stano as saying that the bloc expects Belgrade to follow its restrictions on Russia or impose its own sanctions on Moscow.

On Thursday, the UN General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the organization’s human rights panel. Serbia was among the 93 member states that backed the suspension.

The EU banned the imports of Russian coal, but has so far stopped short of banning the imports of oil and gas. European Council President Charles Michel, however, said on Wednesday that the bloc will need sanctions on Russian oil and gas “sooner or later.”

April 8, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Russia, Iran hold major economic forum to expand ties

Press TV – April 7, 2022

Russia has hosted a major economic forum attended by a large Iranian delegation as the two countries seek to expand their trade and economic cooperation.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency said in a Thursday report that representatives from more than 300 Russian businesses and companies had attended the gathering held earlier in the day at the conference hall of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation (TPPRF) in Moscow.

An Iranian economic delegation attended the meeting which authorities said was aimed at studying new capacities for economic and trade cooperation between Iran and Russia, said the report.

It said that more than 53 Iranian private businesses were represented in the forum where TPPRF President Sergey Katyrin highlighted the importance of the close cooperation between Iran and Russia in light of the current political and economic circumstances in the region.

Russia has been facing a raft of economic sanctions from the US and European countries since it started a military operation in Ukraine in February.

The sanctions are much similar to a series of bans imposed on Iran by the United States since 2018 when Washington pulled out of an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program and started a campaign of maximum economic pressure on Tehran.

Iran decided to increase its trade ties with Russia since US sanctions were imposed through signing an agreement with the Russia-led EAEU bloc of Eurasian economies.

Trade ties between Iran and Russia exceeded $4 billion in value terms over the Iranian calendar year to March. However, the two countries have insisted the figure could more than double because of new geopolitical situation in the region.

“The goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to increase our trade turnover to at least $10 billion in the short-term,” Iranian deputy trade minister Alireza Peymanpak said on Wednesday while addressing Iranian and Russian delegates in Moscow.

April 7, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

‘US can’t replace Russian coal supplies to Europe’ proposed sanctions fail to pass

Samizdat | April 6, 2022

The US coal mining industry is unable to expand production to replace Russian coal on the European market, the country’s biggest exporter said on Tuesday.

The comment follows a proposal by the European Commission to impose a ban on coal imports from Russia as part of a wider package of sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine.

“I don’t see any ability for the industry to expand production. It’s like looking at a sweet dessert that you just can’t reach,” Ernie Thrasher, chief executive officer of Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC., the US’ biggest exporter, told Bloomberg.

The US is among the world’s top five coal exporters, and sells most of its coal to India, Brazil and South Korea.

According to Thrasher, most of the US coal output has already been sold under long-term contracts and there are few spare tons to deliver to Europe. With coal being the dirtiest fossil fuel, there has been little investment in new capacity, he explained, adding that tight labor markets and supply-chain bottlenecks caused by the coronavirus pandemic would also make it difficult to deliver extra tons for export.

According to media reports, potential buyers from some EU countries have already approached Indonesia and Australia, the world’s largest thermal coal exporters. But those countries have limited capacity as well. The EU wants to move away from Russian supplies, which meet 70% of Europe’s demand for thermal coal.

Shares of US coal miners surged after the European Union announced its sanctions plan against Russia on Tuesday. Coal prices in the US have been on the rise, surpassing $100 a ton last week for the first time since 2008.

‘EU fails to agree new Russia sanctions’

EU policy makers failed to agree Wednesday on a new package of sanctions against Moscow, including a ban on Russian coal imports, Reuters reports, citing its sources. The latest round of economic restrictions was proposed by the European Commission earlier this week.

Persons familiar with the matter explained the fiasco citing “technical issues” that needed to be resolved, including on whether a coal import ban would affect existing contracts.

The sources noted that it was not clear yet how the issues will be resolved, but the EU hopes to reach a compromise at a meeting on Thursday.

April 6, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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