Russian trade has shifted toward its eastern and southern neighbors, that's clear. But it is selling oil to countries like India and the tankers must use existing infrastructure. The news story I read in March this year was about Danish pilots onboard Russian tankers navigating the Danish Straights.
There is a price cap on Russian oil in effect since December 2022. The idea is not to prevent Russia from selling oil at all but to limit the profitability of that oil selling.
Sorry about sounding harsh.
Well, we're not availed pricing information I'm aware of, but I bet Russia's paying dearly for transiting their energy supplies across Ukraine through those pipelines, and charges dearly for the diesel they sell the Ukraine - if that is still ongoing. I am not apprised of the applicability of price caps to trade with the Ukraine, which isn't part of the EU, nor NATO.
I doubt the Ukraine pays any attention to such matters anyway, since arms sent to the Ukraine are turning up in the arsenals of cartels in Mexico, for example. Hopefully something will be done about that now that the pics from the Biden laptop will be public information.
With the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and the enemedia quite comfortable with committing sedition and treason censoring Americans, interfering with elections, and waging disinformation and propaganda campaigns against a sitting US President, we're getting awfully close to torch and pitchfork territory. Most Americans eyes glaze over when bombarded with such things, but Hunter's got a bunch of pics of underage girls coming out, and that's something that gets Americans' attention.
They do think of the children.
I appreciate your apology. Like I said, I should have slept before I snapped back at you. It's all on me.
Ukraine is a small market. The price cap on Russian oil exports is agreed upon by G7. It is enforced through shipping ensurers, most of which are very large corporations based in Western countries.
Urals is selling at a considerable discount compared to the other benchmarks:
Brent normally sells at a premium of about 2-3 dollars per barrel compared to Urals. Today, the difference is almost 15 dollars per barrel.
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/
You'd think that would really hit Russia hard.
However, I remember just a few weeks ago when Germany shut down it's last three nuclear reactors and raised electricity prices 45%. Yesterday I read that Germany is officially in a recession.
I don't recall reading that about Russia. Seems like the sanctions are hitting the wrong countries to me. Maybe blowing up Germany's Nordstream pipeline didn't hurt Russia as much as it did Germany. In fact, it seems Europe is buying record amounts of Russian oil, just not buying it from Russia, but paying extra to buy it from India and other intermediaries.
It's pretty hard to believe that the people that have outsmarted all the other geniuses in the world to control all the financial assets in the developed world could have made such fundamental economic mistakes that the sanctions they put on Russia have enabled Russia to grow it's economy while putting them into recession.
Maybe it's not an accident?
The oil price cap is actually significantly contributing to causing a budget deficit for Russia.
Blowing up NS2 did hurt Russia a great deal because Russia is deprived of a great deal of future market share in Europe. Europeans won't be buying any more Russian gas for two reasons. It has been replaced with LNG whose price is below the price of gas before the war. Secondly, the burning of fossil fuels has to be gradually shut down because of the climate and this is unrelated to the war.
Germany's decision to mothball three nuclear power plants against the position of the nuclear regulatory authority of Germany and public opinion is regrettable. However, that decision is unrelated to the sanctions.
The Russian growth figures are fake, by the way.
The IMF disagrees. Here's what they expect to happen.
IMG source - IMF.org
I'm not going to provide all the links and charts necessary to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that CO2 does not control climate. If you wanted to understand the science, you'd have actually looked at it. All I will say is enjoy the coming ice age.
That's what the above chart shows is about to happen. CO2 made by people didn't really get started until the 20th Century. We had nothing to do with all the climate changes in the following chart, and neither did CO2.
But, like I said, if you really wanted to know the facts, you would find them.
Well, according to the IMF the Russian economy contracted by 2.2 percent last year. For this year and 2024 they are projecting growth, 0.3% and 2.1%, respectively.
I really wonder on what basis. Hundreds of thousands of men have been mobilized and 1-3 million have fled the country, particularly the well educated who have marketable skills that command high salaries. Russia's economic growth is dictated by the price of energy mineral exports in particular. The ongoing mobilization and the emigration are causing labor shortages and increasing inflation. If the leading economies of the world are going to be in recession later this year and next year, I wonder what will keep commodity prices up. Russia is currently shoring up its budget by selling foreign currency reserves. They may run out in early 2024. After that, the ruble will weaken significantly and inflation will decrease purchasing power.
As to the climate chart, take note of the time scale. No one is denying that solar cycles are the main driver of the Earth's climate - particularly over long time scales.
The problem with the anthropogenic increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is that it is very recent, very significant and very quick. It has potential to catastrophically increase temperatures in a relatively short time compared to the very long cycles induced by the cyclical changes in solar activity. The Earth will be fine, particularly in the long run. What worries me and the community of climate scientists is the impact of the rapid change on the ecosystem and particularly agricultural systems that 8 billion humans rely on for sustenance.