From winter to summer, from extreme weather, the impact of the epidemic to the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian-Western game, the negative impact of energy shortages continues to be transmitted in Europe, and oil and gas shortages and soaring prices have forced European people to face the "life crisis". In Germany, daily bathing into the government recommends restricting entries. In Italy, the last heating season was halted half a month earlier.
The escalation of the situation in Ukraine has made Russian energy highly politicized in Europe. For European countries that rely on imports for more than half of their energy products, continuing to buy energy from Russia would be seen as "financing Russia.". After the United States and Europe increased sanctions against Russia, Russia issued a "ruble settlement order" at the end of March, which sounded the prelude to "cutting off" European natural gas. Immediately after, the European Union announced in early April that it would ban the import of Russian coal, "grit its teeth" to give countries a 120-day phase-out period, and brew a "hand" on Russian oil. The latest news is that the European Commission submitted a proposal for the sixth round of sanctions against Russia on May 4, which includes a complete ban on the import of Russian oil by the end of this year. French Minister for European Affairs Clement Boehner said on May 10 that EU member states could reach an agreement on a russian oil ban this week.
Before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russia Today reported that Russia provided 41% of the natural gas, 46% of the coal and 27% of the oil to the EU. Today, many European countries are scrambling globally to find supply-side alternatives to these energy products. In the short term, there are still many differences within the EU on the issue of embargoing Russian energy, and the United States vigorously promotes the "decoupling" of European and Russian energy but cannot fill the huge supply gap, and the market generally expects that energy prices will rise and fall in the short term. In the long run, the "energy war" can be described as a lose-lose situation for Europe and Russia, and Europe will inevitably suffer a major economic setback.
Europe all over the world looking for "gas"
Natural gas is an important link between the era of fossil fuels and renewable energy. Because of this, although the EU had previously planned to cut the demand for Russian gas by nearly two-thirds by the end of this year, the embargo on Russian gas was not in the EU's plan for the time being. Since Europe and Russia have not yet reached an agreement on the "ruble settlement order", the risk of "gas outage" in some EU countries has not been lifted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed new rules at the end of March, requiring "unfriendly countries" to russia to settle their gas in rubles from April 1. On April 26, Poland and Bulgaria became the first countries to be cut off from gas supply by Russia. The payment deadlines of EU countries such as Germany will arrive at the end of May, and although the "ruble settlement order" is strongly opposed by the EU, Hungarian Prime Minister Gail Gei revealed on May 1 that 10 EU countries have actually accepted Russia's ruble settlement requirements.
"The EU needs a more coordinated gas policy." Bloomberg quoted a draft EU document on May 3 as reporting that the EU must work to ensure "open, flexible, liquid and well-functioning global LNG markets," while African countries, particularly Nigeria, Senegal and Angola in the western part of the continent, have large amounts of untapped LNG resources. As part of a plan to reduce its energy dependence on Russia, the European Commission will adopt the draft document on enhancing external energy supplies later in May.
Recently, major European gas companies, including the Dutch Shell Group, have been in contact with African countries such as Algeria, Nigeria and Tanzania to varying degrees, hoping to reach energy extraction agreements with them. The Italian government has recently signed agreements with Algeria, Egypt, Angola and the Republic of the Congo to increase gas supply, as is the visit of the French foreign minister to Algeria in late April.
According to the BBC, about 18% of Europe's natural gas imports over the past 10 years have come from Africa. As more and more wells are put into operation, Africa's oil and gas production will increase significantly in the second half of this century, and the rate of extraction will increase. However, some analysts pointed out that natural gas infrastructure projects such as pipelines and terminals in many countries in Africa are not yet perfect, there are also restrictions on technology and operation, and the security situation in some sub-Saharan African countries is grim, and it is not easy to increase the ratio of natural gas storage and production in Africa in a short period of time.
The draft document also mentions that in terms of "open source" of natural gas, the EU will have to trade with major energy producers such as the United States, Australia and Qatar in the future, as well as cooperate with energy consuming countries such as China, Japan and South Korea. Although these countries are different from Africa, most countries also have limited practical capacity to increase natural gas production specifically for Europe due to factors such as supply chain and capital discipline. Among them, Qatar has expressed its willingness to increase natural gas supply to Europe, but most of its LNG is tied to long-term contracts. Qatar's energy minister Saad Kabi admitted that most of Qatar's LNG has signed contracts with Asian countries, only about 10% to 15% can be transferred to Europe, and Russia's gas supply to Europe cannot be replaced by any country at present.
The Middle East will not be able to fill Europe's oil gap
The EU's sixth round of sanctions against Russia, which involves banning the import of Russian oil, was originally intended to be passed before Russia's "Victory Day" on May 9, and the EU hoped to hit Russia's financial resources, but it was opposed by Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, Greece and other member states. Under EU rules, any proposed sanctions would require the unanimous consent of 27 member states to take effect. Bloomberg quoted sources from people familiar with the matter as saying that in order to speed up the proposal "customs clearance", the European Union further relaxed the Russian oil embargo period for some member states at the Meeting on May 8, allowing Hungary and Slovakia to implement the ban before the end of 2024 and the Czech Republic before June 2024, but Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán had already made it clear that Hungary would need at least 5 years to completely get rid of its dependence on Russia's energy. Orbán said the Hungarian government did not want to confront the EU but must put its own interests first. According to the International Energy Agency, 58% of Hungary's crude and refined products will be imported from Russia in 2021. In fact, not only Hungary, but the entire European Union is highly dependent on Russian imports for oil. About a quarter of the EU's oil imports will come from Russia in 2020, accounting for almost half of Russia's total exports.
But so far, analysts generally believe that it may only be a matter of time before the European Commission's oil embargo proposal is unanimously agreed by 27 member states. In the process of changing the direction of public opinion, a country and an event have played an important role in promoting it. "One country" refers to Germany, which said on April 27 that it would no longer oppose the EU's ban on Russian oil. According to the Wall Street Journal, the "biggest opposition" Germany's position has changed, increasing the likelihood that EU countries will agree to a phased agreement on the Russian oil embargo. "An incident" refers to the group of seven (G7) leaders promised in May 8 in talks with Ukrainian President Zelenskiy that they would gradually reduce or stop imports of Russian oil, although the G7 has not yet given a timetable for the embargo on Russian oil, but the relevant measures have been clearly put on the table.
Before Germany changed its mind on oil, it allegedly reached an agreement with Poland to allow it to import oil from other exporters around the world through the port of Gdansk in northern Poland. Eu officials have also revealed that the EU will also seek to increase imports from other sources to make up for the oil supply gap, including the Gulf states, Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
The European Union has also repeatedly stated that it hopes that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) can fill the gap caused by the embargo on Russian oil. However, in the context of the global epidemic suppressing crude oil demand and insufficient spare capacity in oil-producing countries, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as the countries with the largest idle oil production capacity in OPEC, are not willing to increase oil production. Amena Buckle, a reporter for the U.S. energy information company "Energy Intelligence", analyzed that OPEC believes that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is a geopolitical issue that is beyond the scope of the organization. At the same time, OPEC also attaches great importance to relations with Russia, and they do not want to "take sides" on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
"If the U.S. can lift sanctions, Iran could supply the market with 1.2 million barrels of oil a day." CNN reported on May 9. But negotiations on the Iranian nuclear deal have been stalled since March this year, which means that the possibility of hoping for a "rescue" of Iranian crude oil in the short term is unlikely. CNN believes that although middle Eastern countries have nearly half of the world's proven oil reserves and spare capacity, political turmoil, insufficient infrastructure investment and regional conflicts have largely cut off the possibility of the region's oil-producing powers "saving" Europe.
The development of renewable energy is no longer just to cope with gas change
The Times of India pointed out in an article at the end of April: "There are facts that show that after the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Europe and the United States imported more fossil fuels from Russia than India." Observers believe this intuitively highlights Europe's awkward position in the energy scramble. Including the United States, which claims to help Europe break away from its dependence on Russia's energy, no one can replace Russia in the short term and become the "absolute party ahead" of European oil and gas.
Mick Wallace, a member of the European Parliament, said Europe should not expect the United States to "dirty gas" because "the United States bombs, invades, occupies and interferes with sovereign countries more often than any other country." Some analysts believe that once the Russo-Ukrainian war ends before Europe gets rid of its dependence on Russia's energy, the enthusiasm of the United States for Energy "support" for Europe will decline sharply.
Russia regards the supply of energy to Europe as a "trump card", and accordingly, the EU also regards the ban on the import of Russian energy as a sanctions "bottom card". This means that once the "hole card" is finally confirmed, a series of realistic options will be in front of the EU: how to spend the next winter? Will the energy transition continue? Is it to restart nuclear power, increase coal power, or bet on renewables? Many European energy analysts believe that from the perspective of resource endowments and energy dependence, the firm development of renewable energy may be a key measure for Europe to no longer be "stuck in the neck" of anyone on energy issues in the future.
Europe has indeed been vigorously developing renewable energy in recent years. According to the European Energy Think Tank, renewables will surpass fossil energy generation across Europe for the first time in 2020, with 38% of Europe's electricity coming from renewable sources. In addition, for the energy storage and power transmission problems faced by wind power and photovoltaics, Germany and other countries are also actively developing related technologies. In previous energy agreements with Qatar, Norway and other countries, Germany has also made green hydrogen energy a focus of cooperation.
The British environmental protection organization "E3G" pointed out that "energy security" originally referred more to expanding energy supply channels, but now, improving energy efficiency and developing renewable energy are also included in the relevant categories, which represents a change in the "paradigm" of energy security. Simon Taglia Pietra, an energy analyst at the Bruegel Institute, a European think tank, expects that European investment in new energy technologies and facilities will grow rapidly in the next few years, because countries recognize that "the development of renewable energy is not only for the climate, but also for geopolitics".
Beijing, May 11 (Xinhua) --
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Ma Ziqian Source: China Youth Daily
Source: China Youth Daily