Russian NG or Oil if sold anywhere puts downward pressure on the markets. Russia has to sell. May be not to the EU entirely.
Russia is loosing a lot of money right now. Not entirely on NG and oil but in the war.
Can Russia borrow? Not really. They need to sell their resources. Screwing around as they are is just sending people elsewhere pissed off.
The cost of WTIC has dropped again taking of last week’s premium that had been based on the Gazprom news. I get it was a nothing at the end of the day. I hope that is not lost on Putin.
Oil still has a premium to lose. I have not yet thought of where the bottom is.
Oil still has a premium to lose. I have not yet thought of where the bottom is. Any ideas out there how low oil goes?
You can put a range on it, from pre-war levels down to the US cost of production. Before the war oil was about $80-90/barrel. That would need to be adjusted some for inflation. Cost of production in the first quarter was about $30. www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=53140
Global oil consumption this year is less than a percent lower than production. Projections for next year have consumption rising to meet or slightly exceed production which would make the higher price target more likely. A global recession would favor the lower price. www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php
syke6: Another indication of a shortage. Similarly, the BBC reported new recruits are being sent into battle with as little as three to seven days training. This weekend, US officials estimated about 85% of the Russian military is committed to Ukraine. Probably not a lot of gas left in Russia’s tank.
During the Chechen War they would sometimes get 4 hours of training and be allowed to fire 5-8 bullets from their assault rifle before helicopters arrived to dump the dead Russian soldiers and load the recruits up for the trip to the front line.
Basically meat for the meat grinder.
My basic training was 20 weeks followed by another six weeks of LI (Leading Infantry) training for those of us going to infantry units. Once actually in my unit (2nd Battalion RCR in Soest Germany) the training continued with regular exercises and platoon or company level training.
I loaded up on specialist courses in Canada before I turned 18 (done to keep me and 3 other 17 yo soldiers busy) and was allowed to join my unit in Germany. Included Machineguns, Mortars, Infantry Signals (radio) and APC driver mech. I had them talked into sending me on Para course until a young subbie showed up and swiped my spot …!
One of the not so deep secrets was that while the Soviets were reputed to have 40,000 tanks, they didn’t have anywhere near enough trucks and trained drivers to haul the fuel to keep them moving. Their plan was to overrun NATO fuel and ammo stores. Of course we knew that and the mantra was to not leave a drop of fuel for them. The T-62 was a main battle tank (up graded T-55) back then.
Anymouse <retired old former soldier … ASW aircrew, navy helicopter AESOp oh and trained military switch action programmer on the NATO AWACs before moving to civilian Logistics programmer at a silly high tax free salary>
While a US recession could be mild, hopefully, the rest of the global powers may face a deeper slowdown. I would not go with a rise in oil consumption forecast in 2023.
While a US recession could be mild, hopefully, the rest of the global powers may face a deeper slowdown. I would not go with a rise in oil consumption forecast in 2023.
Replaying to my own post here. Checking back after only a day, according to the Institute for Study of War’s daily update, Ukraine has started or is about to start an offensive in the south:
Ukrainian forces are likely preparing to launch or have launched a counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast as of July 23, but open-source visibility on the progress and tempo of the counteroffensive will likely be limited and lag behind events. Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Administration Adviser Serhiy Khlan stated on July 23 that Ukrainian forces have seized unspecified settlements in Kherson Oblast but called on Ukrainian civilians to remain silent on the progress of the counteroffensive until Ukrainian authorities release official statements.[1] Foreign Policy National Security Reporter Jack Detsch reported on July 22 that an unspecified senior US defense official stated that Ukrainian forces have recaptured unspecified “portions of Russian-occupied villages” in Kherson over the past week of July 15-22, indicating that Ukrainian forces have made some unspecified territorial advances along frontlines.[2]
And on topic for the thread (but probably not the board), in today’s NYT (soft paywall) there is an almost literally unbelievable story about the siege of the Azovstal steel plant.
While a US recession could be mild, hopefully, the rest of the global powers may face a deeper slowdown. I would not go with a rise in oil consumption forecast in 2023. — So that might put oil in the $30-40 range. — No, not $30 to 40.
With HIMARS, the weapon isn’t the launcher, it’s the missiles. Going after the launcher is pretty pointless. There’s plenty more where that one came from.
The limiting factor is the ammunition. The US manufactured around 9000 missiles last year. That’s about 1500 salvos. One HIMARS can shoot a salvo approximately every 6 minutes. In other words, 10 HIMARS could fire the annual US missile production in a day.
Russia is entirely reliant on its massive artillery force. This artillery in turn relies on a massive amount of logistical resupply. Russian logistics is entirely reliant on rail transport. Rail hubs are very vulnerable to HIMARS strikes.
Ever since HIMARS made its appearance, Russian artillery fire has shrunk to a small fraction of what it was previously.
The US manufactured around 9000 missiles last year. That’s about 1500 salvos.
The US is sending only short-range stock to prevent the weapon from being used against the Russian Homeland. It is feared that if the US supplied Ukraine with weapons capable of damaging Russian infrastructure, we would be crossing a red line and become an active participant (target) in the war.
How many of the missiles have been manufactured to-date (not just last year), how many of those have been of the short-range flavor and how many have been spent since manufacture - as well as what the maximum run-rate of replacement and stock required to be retained by US forces are metrics required to determine how many “shots” are available to Ukraine over the short term (as well as graphing resupply).
One of the not so deep secrets was that while the Soviets were reputed to have 40,000 tanks, they didn’t have anywhere near enough trucks and trained drivers to haul the fuel to keep them moving. Their plan was to overrun NATO fuel and ammo stores. Of course we knew that and the mantra was to not leave a drop of fuel for them. The T-62 was a main battle tank (up graded T-55) back then.
Anymouse <retired old former soldier … ASW aircrew, navy helicopter AESOp oh and trained military switch action programmer on the NATO AWACs before moving to civilian Logistics programmer at a silly high tax free salary>
Well … that one was popular.
Another interesting Cold War story. The Russians knew we were planning to blow all the bridges … We practiced the technique often and we first responders had cases of C4 and lots of Det Cord in the back of the APCs should one of our BUG Outs turn out to be the real thing (they didn’t inform us until we were in our designated blocking location).
The Russians came up with the clever idea to build a version of the T-55 with a snorkel kit that could cross the river driving on the bottom … up to 5 meters deep.
Generally it was a failure as it often sprung leaks drowning the crew and tank. Well waste not want not so they gave those ones to the Hungarian army … seriously!
… The tank can ford a maximum depth of 1.4 m without preparation and up to 5 m with a deep fording kit which consists of a snorkel mounted over the loader’s hatch cover. These snorkels take between 15 and 30 minutes to fit and on reaching the far bank are blown off. The operational snorkel is mounted over the loader’s periscope and, when not fitted, is carried disassembled at the rear of the turret, or at the rear of the hull.