Russia-Ukraine War Politics Thread Mk. 2

[Marduk]

We were talking about the United States, where else do you think that 8% comes from? You were the one who cited the EIA figures in your opening post.

And again, how is that comparable to the 35% for Germany?

So is Germany, so why does the U.S. get a pass but Germany doesn't?

Because 8% of import (most supply is domestic anyway, so that would be even less than 8% of supply) doesn't make USA particularly reliant on that supplier, while than 35% of import for Germany does, which is why all these odd schemes to change the supplier slowly over the years now are necessary.

Indeed I said that, and I've explained three times now that Germany had underlying logic to do what it did while the U.S. didn't; it makes no sense to attack the former while giving the latter a pass. I have no reason to feel ashamed for holding a consistent ethic in applying standards, I would rather avoid in engaging in flagrant hypocrisy as you are here.

USA? So, any evidence that it was US government buying the Russian oil?
Or are you yet again indirectly complaining that USA has free market and doesn't have time travel to check which countries is it going to sanction in the future?

To move oil by ship:

The price for shipping oil using tankers varies. The cost for oil tankers in 32,000-45,000 DWT is US$43 million, while the 80,000–105,000 DWT costs $58 million. 250,000–280,000 DWT oil tankers rakes in $120 million for shipping oil. Moreover, tankers cost $40K-$70K per day for shipping 250k-2000k barrels. So, mathematically, the cost comes down to $1.00/barrel/1000 mi. after including all costs.​

To move oil by pipeline:

Gas can be transported by pipeline or liquefied and then shipped by sea on special liquefied natural gas carriers. The cost of transporting 1000 cubic feet of gas 1000 miles by pipeline is approximately $.50. The cost of transporting 1000 cubic feet of LNG a distance of 1000 miles by sea is approximately $.30. However, the cost of liquefaction and regasification is approximately $1.40 per 1000 CF. Thus, for natural gas, transporting the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil a distance of 1000 miles costs $3.00 by pipeline and $10.20 if it is liquefied and transported by sea. By contrast, the cost of transporting a barrel of crude oil is approximately $.10 per thousand miles.​

So, oil tanker is $1 per 1,000 miles vs .10 cents per thousand miles via pipeline. With this in mind:

Moscow to Berlin: 1,137 miles
Ras Tanura to Hamburg: 8,763 miles

Russia wins out no matter how you slice it in economic logic.

Sorry, but those are only theoretical average costs of shipping (they can vary individually by the need to use certain ports or canals, whether its a regular route or not and so on), i would also like to remind you that Russian oil and gas are generally not extracted anywhere near Moscow of all places, but in much further away places, some with absolutely terrible conditions for building and maintaining infrastructure, as such, it's yet again an attempt to bamboozle everyone with a quarter answer.

Secondly, shipping, especially for oil, as your source gives, is an absolutely miniscule part of the total price, the price sometimes varies by more in one month than the cost of shipping.

There is no difference in these terms in this usage; imports are supplies, and supplies are from imports. If I said something like total supply, sure, but I didn't. If you feel otherwise, please explain why with citations as you asked me to do above.

Why the decision to choose the imprecise term prone to misinterpretation over the precise one?

No, the people arguing Germany was bad for choosing its most economical option are, especially when they fail to castigate the United States for also importing from Russia. The amount does not matter, the end result is still lining Russian pockets if that this the thing you are opposed to.

Absolutely not, the amount absolutely does matter, the scale is what makes one strategically reliant on a supplier, small amounts don't, relatively large ones do, and of course the money involved are also proportional to the amount.

Sure, but the degree of dependence wasn't my argument, however.



In which case, defer back to the numbers I provided on transportation costs, if you are wanting to insist on measuring things on numbers.

Yeah, theoretical transportation costs, not the actual total price paid, sure, whatever.

The numbers have already been provided, by both myself and you, I'm not sure why you are attempting to spin this as a gotcha when they were never under debate. What was, from my very post and explained to you multiple times now, was the consistent application of condemnation and the equally economically illiterate refusal to consider the numbers, as you put it, as they pertain to Germany's needs.

Because yet again you said something absolutely and measurably untrue that just so happens to help grind your axe.

If Germany was wrong for importing oil from Russia, so was the United States. The degree of dependence does not matter, because the entire argument is made on a moral judgement, not an economic one. If you want to make an economic case, defer back to transportation costs.

The degree of dependence absolutely matters, no one gives a shit about all the countries that bought some small amount of oil from Russia back when it was not sanctioned, the condemnation of Germany was for its long running policy of making itself dependent on Russia as its main supplier over a long time, to a point where it could be threatened by the possibility of losing that supplier.

Second, condemnation of Germany ignores the costs and resources available to them. They don't have coal, gas, uranium or oil of their own,

And there you go again, with axe grinding over facts, i just caught you once ignoring Germany having the seventh largest coal reserves in the whole world (which is more than some notable coal producers like Poland, Ukraine and South Africa) for the sake of making up an argument, yet you come back to trying push this open lie on people.

and their own geography plus material constraints limits going Green. This meant they would always need to import this from somewhere, and that somewhere, on the most efficient basis, was Russia. I've covered the transportation costs of Oil, would you like me to do the same for Natural Gas?

So fucking what? Germany is not the only country in the world in that situation. How do you think all the other countries without major domestic energy resources (as in most of EU countries that weren't having Russia as their dominant supplier) do it?

And stop trying to mislead people with average transport costs as opposed to total import prices.
Or better yet, try arguing on the point of end consumer energy prices in Germany, that's gonna be more interesting.

Here you go:

Russia has the world's largest uranium enrichment complex, accounting for almost half the global capacity, but it is a relatively small uranium producer with only six percent of the global supply in 2020. In fact, Russia mines less uranium than it exports to the United States and the EU—for instance, in 2020, it mined 2,800 tonnes while exporting 3,100 and 2,500 tonnes to the United States and the EU, respectively. This is possible because most of the uranium Russia exports is bought from Kazakhstan—a country that is landlocked and ships its uranium to Europe and the United States through Russia. Kazakhstan is the world's largest uranium producer with 19,500 tonnes in 2020.​

There are also other routes Kazakhstan can ship out its ore if need be, also the author of your source thinks Caspian Sea is land apparently.

And yes, the uranium Russia reexports from other countries is already accounted for in the 14% in my previous source, because as proven by the above quote, Russia couldn't possibly meet even the 14% with domestic mining. The much larger imports from Kazakhstan are separate for a reason.

 

[Bacle]

Looks like some Poles are helping out the Free Russian forces in Bilhorod; maybe Poland will get wish of it's folks marching on Red Square, in time, and this time with the help of the non-orc Russians.



The Polish volunteers are even calling themselves Hussars.

 

[History Learner]

And again, how is that comparable to the 35% for Germany?

Because 8% of import (most supply is domestic anyway, so that would be even less than 8% of supply) doesn't make USA particularly reliant on that supplier, while than 35% of import for Germany does, which is why all these odd schemes to change the supplier slowly over the years now are necessary.

You're attempting to have it both ways throughout this post by conflating a subjective moral argument with that of an economic one. If you're going to make the moral case that buying energy from Russia is wrong, the amounts do not matter because both are guilty; that's called having standards. If you're going to make the economic case, defer back to the numbers I've already provided that show economic logic in favor of Germany.

USA? So, any evidence that it was US government buying the Russian oil?
Or are you yet again indirectly complaining that USA has free market and doesn't have time travel to check which countries is it going to sanction in the future?

Rather, I pointed out it wasn't Germany's government importing the oil either and that German companies were taking the most economic choice available to them.

Sorry, but those are only theoretical average costs of shipping (they can vary individually by the need to use certain ports or canals, whether its a regular route or not and so on), i would also like to remind you that Russian oil and gas are generally not extracted anywhere near Moscow of all places, but in much further away places, some with absolutely terrible conditions for building and maintaining infrastructure, as such, it's yet again an attempt to bamboozle everyone with a quarter answer.

Rather, you asked for numbers with dollar values and I provided them. When you found the answer does not comport with the reality you were trying to spin, you're now claiming the citations don't matter on the basis they are only theoretical averages. In reality, if you had read the sources you would see they are observed averages in prices over the long run. If you feel otherwise, please provide your own citations.

If you want to recalculate distances, all you needed to do was ask. Let's go with the distance from the Urals: 1,787 miles to Berlin, still about a fourth of the distance from Saudi Arabia to Germany. How about Houston to Hamburg? 5,163 miles; so about 60-70% longer than shipping from Russia.

Either way you slice it, Russia was the best energy option for Germany.

Secondly, shipping, especially for oil, as your source gives, is an absolutely miniscule part of the total price, the price sometimes varies by more in one month than the cost of shipping.

Citation needed, but Urals Crude has typically always been cheaper than Brent Crude. Ural Crude never went past $81 in 2021 while year high for Brent Crude was $85 in the same year.

Why the decision to choose the imprecise term prone to misinterpretation over the precise one?

Because there is no difference in usage here and if you feel there are, please cite the definitions as I already asked.

Absolutely not, the amount absolutely does matter, the scale is what makes one strategically reliant on a supplier, small amounts don't, relatively large ones do, and of course the money involved are also proportional to the amount.

Okay, in which case refer to per unit and transportation costs which show Russia was the cheapest option for Germany. You've noticeably have yet to do that, and keep flittering between a moral argument and an economic one.

Yeah, theoretical transportation costs, not the actual total price paid, sure, whatever.

No, it was observed costs over years. If you feel otherwise, please cite your numbers. You asked me to do so and I did, you have not yet.

Because yet again you said something absolutely and measurably untrue that just so happens to help grind your axe.

But I didn't, if you feel otherwise, cite your own numbers.

The degree of dependence absolutely matters, no one gives a shit about all the countries that bought some small amount of oil from Russia back when it was not sanctioned, the condemnation of Germany was for its long running policy of making itself dependent on Russia as its main supplier over a long time, to a point where it could be threatened by the possibility of losing that supplier.

Which ignores that degree of dependence was based on sound economic considerations. Now that Germany has been cut off from it's cheapest source of fuel, the end results were to be entirely expected:

And there you go again, with axe grinding over facts, i just caught you once ignoring Germany having the seventh largest coal reserves in the whole world (which is more than some notable coal producers like Poland, Ukraine and South Africa) for the sake of making up an argument, yet you come back to trying push this open lie on people.

How many cars in Germany run on coal? What is the German capacity to do Coal liquefaction and from there, what is that cost as compared to imports of oil from elsewhere?

If you're wondering the answers to these questions, it's none, also none and about 20% more expensive as the Germans found out during WWII when cut off from oil imports. Defer back to what those higher energy costs mean for German manufacturing now.

So fucking what? Germany is not the only country in the world in that situation. How do you think all the other countries without major domestic energy resources (as in most of EU countries that weren't having Russia as their dominant supplier) do it?

They don't, let's take Sweden for example. 8% of Swedish crude oil imports originate in Russia, whereas 30% of liquefied natural gas imports in 2021 originated in Russia. What happened to Swedish manufacturing since they joined sanctions?

And stop trying to mislead people with average transport costs as opposed to total import prices.

You asked for transportation costs, I provided them; you never asked for total costs. I've now included them in this post by showing cost per unit, and the end result is Russian crude is still cheaper than all alternatives. If you feel otherwise, please provide your own; if you're so confidant I'm wrong, then that should be easy to prove.

That you haven't speaks volumes about what you really think about your own argument.

Or better yet, try arguing on the point of end consumer energy prices in Germany, that's gonna be more interesting.

Not really, because then you have to take into account taxation levels at the local level or other factors. If you feel that's decisive, then please cite them. You keep doing this bit of hinting it's completely different but don't actually cite your data.

There are also other routes Kazakhstan can ship out its ore if need be, also the author of your source thinks Caspian Sea is land apparently.

My source is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and it doesn't mention the Caspian Sea at all, so you outright lied on that.

Next, what are those routes out of Kazahkstan that aren't Russia? Through China? Taliban controlled Afghanistan? How about Russian allied Iran? We both know the only route out is through Russia.

And yes, the uranium Russia reexports from other countries is already accounted for in the 14% in my previous source, because as proven by the above quote, Russia couldn't possibly meet even the 14% with domestic mining. The much larger imports from Kazakhstan are separate for a reason.

And yet, Russia provides 28% of U.S. enriched uranium. If they're only responsible for 14% of uranium, how exactly are they doing 28% of the enriched total Marduk? Almost as if Kazakhstan sends it to Russia to be refined before than re-exported to the United States, no?

 

[Marduk]

You're attempting to have it both ways throughout this post by conflating a subjective moral argument with that of an economic one. If you're going to make the moral case that buying energy from Russia is wrong, the amounts do not matter because both are guilty; that's called having standards.

We are not having a moral argument, because it's pointless if we don't share the same moral system, and chances are we don't.
We are having a international relations argument, based on duties, deals, understandings and shared or conflicting interests between countries.
And in that, trade of insignificant scale, is, well, insignificant, and trade of a scale so large that turning away from it would cause a crisis is a truly significant case.

If you're going to make the economic case, defer back to the numbers I've already provided that show economic logic in favor of Germany.

No, you have shown nothing, you tried to bamboozle me with average transport costs instead of the actual prices for the specific crude in the specific scenario.

Rather, I pointed out it wasn't Germany's government importing the oil either and that German companies were taking the most economic choice available to them.

Ignorance is bliss.
Who owns the pipelines? Who paid for them? Who operates them?
Check who owns the companies who do.
But here's an example of German refinery that was receiving Russian oil.

Germany's PCK Schwedt refinery faces output cuts without Russian oil

Germany's 233,000 barrel-per-day PCK Schwedt refinery is set to reduce output as it stops using Russian oil, which it now receives via the Druzhba pipeline, the chief executive of its minority shareholder Shell said on Thursday.

www.reuters.com

PCK Schwedt, majority-owned by Russia's Rosneft (ROSN.MM),

Not a private company, state owned company, and to add insult to injury, owned by Russian rather than German state. Clown world...

Rather, you asked for numbers with dollar values and I provided them. When you found the answer does not comport with the reality you were trying to spin, you're now claiming the citations don't matter on the basis they are only theoretical averages. In reality, if you had read the sources you would see they are observed averages in prices over the long run. If you feel otherwise, please provide your own citations.

Averages do not matter for specific route because a specific case may be well above or below average. On average, me and a dog have 3 legs each.

If you want to recalculate distances, all you needed to do was ask. Let's go with the distance from the Urals: 1,787 miles to Berlin, still about a fourth of the distance from Saudi Arabia to Germany. How about Houston to Hamburg? 5,163 miles; so about 60-70% longer than shipping from Russia.

Except most Russian oil and gas is not extracted in Urals, wtf is this comparison, but in Siberia, well east of Urals, and that distance is some of most infrastructure hostile territory in existence, which would not be conductive to having merely average costs.

Either way you slice it, Russia was the best energy option for Germany.

Cut the propaganda, you can repeat that a billion times and i will still not believe you.

Citation needed, but Urals Crude has typically always been cheaper than Brent Crude. Ural Crude never went past $81 in 2021 while year high for Brent Crude was $85 in the same year.

Again, that's average trading price, not the actual deals made with German companies specifically.

Because there is no difference in usage here and if you feel there are, please cite the definitions as I already asked.

I do not care for your headcanon of basic economic terms. Supply is a generic term that would by default refer to total of domestic and imported resource, while imports refer only to foreign sourced.

Okay, in which case refer to per unit and transportation costs which show Russia was the cheapest option for Germany. You've noticeably have yet to do that, and keep flittering between a moral argument and an economic one.



No, it was observed costs over years. If you feel otherwise, please cite your numbers. You asked me to do so and I did, you have not yet.



But I didn't, if you feel otherwise, cite your own numbers.



Which ignores that degree of dependence was based on sound economic considerations. Now that Germany has been cut off from it's cheapest source of fuel, the end results were to be entirely expected:





How many cars in Germany run on coal? What is the German capacity to do Coal liquefaction and from there, what is that cost as compared to imports of oil from elsewhere?

If you're wondering the answers to these questions, it's none, also none and about 20% more expensive as the Germans found out during WWII when cut off from oil imports. Defer back to what those higher energy costs mean for German manufacturing now.



They don't, let's take Sweden for example. 8% of Swedish crude oil imports originate in Russia, whereas 30% of liquefied natural gas imports in 2021 originated in Russia. What happened to Swedish manufacturing since they joined sanctions?





You asked for transportation costs, I provided them; you never asked for total costs. I've now included them in this post by showing cost per unit, and the end result is Russian crude is still cheaper than all alternatives. If you feel otherwise, please provide your own; if you're so confidant I'm wrong, then that should be easy to prove.

That you haven't speaks volumes about what you really think about your own argument.

Not really, because then you have to take into account taxation levels at the local level or other factors. If you feel that's decisive, then please cite them. You keep doing this bit of hinting it's completely different but don't actually cite your data.

Again, you are very conveniently throwing separated average costs for transport and average trading prices instead of any actual manifestation of the supposedly very cheap Russian energy on the consumer end.
And no, you can't handwave that away with "but taxes!" as there are price listings that do not include taxes, like this.
Let's take a couple periods from before corona panic and the war:

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/observatory/reports/2018_01_01_without_taxes_1883.pdf

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/observatory/reports/2015_09_21_without_taxes_1770.pdf

This shows that Germany with its all its famed deals for cheap Russian oil has... fairly average fuel prices not much different, less than 5% divergent from EU average, and sometimes the the most anti-Russian countries of eastern EU have even lower ones.
So that leaves us with a clear missing link. Russian oil to have something about it that always made it more expensive before reaching the consumers in Germany as usable product, and it's either the miscellaneous costs like particular refining difficulties, or some kind of shady dealings that suck out the difference into some unknown party's pocket, which should be considered national security threatening kind of corruption.

My source is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and it doesn't mention the Caspian Sea at all, so you outright lied on that.

I lied about what? Quote me. Just because your source didn't mention something doesn't mean it can't happen.

Next, what are those routes out of Kazahkstan that aren't Russia? Through China? Taliban controlled Afghanistan? How about Russian allied Iran? We both know the only route out is through Russia.

What makes China a worse route than Russia?
What makes Georgia and Azerbaijan totally unsuitable?

And yet, Russia provides 28% of U.S. enriched uranium.

No, your source says "enrichment services" not enriched uranium, which can be applied to uranium provided and owned by anyone, regardless of its source. However, it is not a resource, it's the equivalent of oil refining, technically it can be done in other places, unlike extraction.
Much like you could take a tanker of your own crude oil extracted from Norway to a refinery in Germany, and buy refining services from it to refine your crude - you're not selling the crude to the refinery, and it never becomes German crude in the process.

Also, yes, it is being banned anyway.

US Will Eventually Ban Russian Uranium Imports

Former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz says the US will “eventually” ban the import of Russian uranium and enriched reactor fuel. Speaking with David Westin on "Balance of Power," Moniz also discusses the global transition from fossil fuels and the New START agreement. (Source: Bloomberg)

www.bloomberg.com

If they're only responsible for 14% of uranium, how exactly are they doing 28% of the enriched total Marduk? Almost as if Kazakhstan sends it to Russia to be refined before than re-exported to the United States, no?

Again, services, not the material itself.
And i yet again have to go back to the core issue. Scale. Money. How much is that worth.
And the answer is, not much really.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-imports-russia-nuclear/

How much would sanctions hurt the Russia economy?

U.S. and European customers of Russian uranium and enrichment comes to about $1 billion, according to von Hippel. That is tiny compared with the impact of sanctions on Russian oil and natural gas, but von Hippel said it would be a setback for Rosatom, which has estimated its foreign earnings to be around $8 billion.

So the total US and European uranium and enrichment business with Russia is worth less than 1% of the aid currently sent to Ukraine by USA alone - that's why the attention is focused on other areas to sanction.

Facts on trade with Russia

Despite growing political tensions, trade between Germany and Russia increased markedly in 2021 compared with the first pandemic year 2020. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that goods to the value of roughly 59.8 billion euros were traded between the two countries in 2021 –...

www.destatis.de

Goods traded between Russia and Germany are mainly raw materials, vehicles and machinery. In 2021, Germany imported in particular crude oil and natural gas to the value of 19.4 billion euros – that was a 49.5% increase and accounted for 59% of all imports from Russia. In addition, Russia delivered especially metals (4.5 billion euros, +72.1% on 2020), coke and refined petroleum products (2.8 billion euros, +23.0%) and coal (2.2 billion euros, +153.0%) to Germany.

For comparison...

That's one of the advantages of nuclear power. Fuel, whether cheap or expensive, is still a tiny part of the total cost, and can be stockpiled easily, so emergency purchases and stockpiling can always be done without crushing financial or logistical headaches.

 

[Allanon]

Too many people seem to think that Putin went crazy one day and invaded the Ukraine. The problem is that this situation has been brewing for a long, long time, and once again the Ukraine is shafted, just as it was during World War 2 and the Holodomor.

People here in America condemn Trump for so far refusing to call Putin a war criminal, but much as I am no fan of his must take his side on that one. He might, just might, become President in 2024 and if this war is still going on then how can he ever get Putin to negotiate if he has already declared Putin a war criminal, punishable by prison or even death? Putin would have absolutely no reason to sit down at the table and every reason not to.

People thought things would be dandy when the Soviet Union collapsed but actually for America and much of the world this is an even more dangerous time than the Cold War. In Finum Citius.

It will never end on this rotten world. Ever.

 

[History Learner]

We are not having a moral argument, because it's pointless if we don't share the same moral system, and chances are we don't.
We are having a international relations argument, based on duties, deals, understandings and shared or conflicting interests between countries.
And in that, trade of insignificant scale, is, well, insignificant, and trade of a scale so large that turning away from it would cause a crisis is a truly significant case.

In other words, an economic argument and which the facts I've already demonstrated support my case. This is why you haven't cited anything in response and deliberately side stepped much of my previous post because you have no counter to it.

No, you have shown nothing, you tried to bamboozle me with average transport costs instead of the actual prices for the specific crude in the specific scenario.

Rather, you asked for transportation costs and I showed them. When the numbers didn't agree with your world view, you changed your mind and said you wanted total cost. When I showed you total cost still showed Ural Crude cheaper than Brent on a monthly basis, you later admit in this post you don't care what the numbers actually are.

I've shown everything, the issue is this point is an article of moral faith for you and to accept anything less would undermine several of your core beliefs; this is what is called Zealotry.

Ignorance is bliss.
Who owns the pipelines? Who paid for them? Who operates them?
Check who owns the companies who do.
But here's an example of German refinery that was receiving Russian oil.

Germany's PCK Schwedt refinery faces output cuts without Russian oil

Germany's 233,000 barrel-per-day PCK Schwedt refinery is set to reduce output as it stops using Russian oil, which it now receives via the Druzhba pipeline, the chief executive of its minority shareholder Shell said on Thursday.

www.reuters.com

Not a private company, state owned company, and to add insult to injury, owned by Russian rather than German state. Clown world...

Okay? You seem to have forgotten your previous point was that the U.S. Government wasn't the one buying Russian crude in 2021, to which I replied neither was the German Government either. To respond to that you've shown...it was the Russian Government selling it? Beyond the fact that has nothing to do with your prior point, I didn't realize we were debating from who's control the crude originated in the first place?

Averages do not matter for specific route because a specific case may be well above or below average. On average, me and a dog have 3 legs each.

No, that's not how averages work Marduk. You're confusing what a median is with what an average is; the average takes both spikes and declines into account to give an approximate number. Likewise, previously, you didn't specify, you just asked for numbers in dollars value. For the benefit of myself and the audience, what metric would satisfy you?

Except most Russian oil and gas is not extracted in Urals, wtf is this comparison, but in Siberia, well east of Urals, and that distance is some of most infrastructure hostile territory in existence, which would not be conductive to having merely average costs.

Name your city then Marduk. Omsk? 2,834 miles. Novosibirsk? 3,237 miles. All are still much less than importing from Saudi Arabia or the United States.

Cut the propaganda, you can repeat that a billion times and i will still not believe you.

Yes, because it's an article of faith by you, not a belief in an objective truth. It's why you've moved the goalpost twice now.

Again, that's average trading price, not the actual deals made with German companies specifically.

Then cite those deals Marduk. If you're well aware of them, please share them with me and the audience.

I do not care for your headcanon of basic economic terms. Supply is a generic term that would by default refer to total of domestic and imported resource, while imports refer only to foreign sourced.

Beyond the fact your link doesn't cite any definitions for the terms, even dictionaries note the difference between the terms.

Again, you are very conveniently throwing separated average costs for transport and average trading prices instead of any actual manifestation of the supposedly very cheap Russian energy on the consumer end.

Rather, I answered the question you originally posed and you changed it after I answered to avoid admitting you were wrong. I then answered the refined question and at that point, as you revealed previously, it doesn't matter what the objective truth is to you.

If you feel I'm wrong, don't just claim it, show it. Prove to me that Russian crude is more expensive than Saudi crude for German consumers prior to 2022.

And no, you can't handwave that away with "but taxes!" as there are price listings that do not include taxes, like this.
Let's take a couple periods from before corona panic and the war:

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/observatory/reports/2018_01_01_without_taxes_1883.pdf

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/observatory/reports/2015_09_21_without_taxes_1770.pdf

This shows that Germany with its all its famed deals for cheap Russian oil has... fairly average fuel prices not much different, less than 5% divergent from EU average, and sometimes the the most anti-Russian countries of eastern EU have even lower ones.
So that leaves us with a clear missing link. Russian oil to have something about it that always made it more expensive before reaching the consumers in Germany as usable product, and it's either the miscellaneous costs like particular refining difficulties, or some kind of shady dealings that suck out the difference into some unknown party's pocket, which should be considered national security threatening kind of corruption.

The reason why those Anti Russian countries of the Eastern EU had lower prices than Germany is ironically because cheaper Russian crude made up a higher percentage of their imports than other countries:

Germany only imported 25-50% of it's needs from Russia, Poland was doing 75-100% of its needs; Polish fuel was cheaper as a result lol. Also, since you've been making a big point of the size of imports in the national total, why are we criticizing Germany when Poland was importing twice as much oil as Germany in percentage terms? Same for Lithuania and Estonia, too.

Poor Marduk, you really aren't good at this.

I lied about what? Quote me. Just because your source didn't mention something doesn't mean it can't happen.

You claimed the author thinks the Caspian Sea is land; the Caspian Sea isn't even mentioned in the article. If you have outside evidence the author believes the Caspian Sea doesn't exist, please provide it.

There are also other routes Kazakhstan can ship out its ore if need be, also the author of your source thinks Caspian Sea is land apparently.

Again, you're not very good at this.

What makes China a worse route than Russia?

Longer distance, you still have to go overland and then all around the rest of Eurasia to get it to Germany. More transportation time and costs, higher end unit price.

What makes Georgia and Azerbaijan totally unsuitable?

Prove the route exists in the first place. If it doesn't exist yet, then we know they weren't shipping it through them before the war either then.

No, your source says "enrichment services" not enriched uranium, which can be applied to uranium provided and owned by anyone, regardless of its source. However, it is not a resource, it's the equivalent of oil refining, technically it can be done in other places, unlike extraction.
Much like you could take a tanker of your own crude oil extracted from Norway to a refinery in Germany, and buy refining services from it to refine your crude - you're not selling the crude to the refinery, and it never becomes German crude in the process.

Also, yes, it is being banned anyway.

US Will Eventually Ban Russian Uranium Imports

Former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz says the US will “eventually” ban the import of Russian uranium and enriched reactor fuel. Speaking with David Westin on "Balance of Power," Moniz also discusses the global transition from fossil fuels and the New START agreement. (Source: Bloomberg)

www.bloomberg.com

Enrichment services of what, Marduk? What exactly besides Uranium was Russian enriching for the United States at 28% of total supplies? And no Marduk, only France, Russia, China and Canada have enrichment facilities. That's it, no other countries on Earth have mass enrichment capabilities. Uranium, surprisingly, is not at all like oil in terms of refining given the radioactivity.

If you feel otherwise, please show us these other enrichment facilities and while you're at it, can you prove they enrich Kazakhstan's uranium for them?

Again, services, not the material itself.

And i yet again have to go back to the core issue. Scale. Money. How much is that worth.
And the answer is, not much really.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-imports-russia-nuclear/

So the total US and European uranium and enrichment business with Russia is worth less than 1% of the aid currently sent to Ukraine by USA alone - that's why the attention is focused on other areas to sanction.

Facts on trade with Russia

Despite growing political tensions, trade between Germany and Russia increased markedly in 2021 compared with the first pandemic year 2020. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that goods to the value of roughly 59.8 billion euros were traded between the two countries in 2021 –...

www.destatis.de

For comparison...

That's one of the advantages of nuclear power. Fuel, whether cheap or expensive, is still a tiny part of the total cost, and can be stockpiled easily, so emergency purchases and stockpiling can always be done without crushing financial or logistical headaches.

And yet, Pre War we were still importing 14% of uranium from Russia, which was the point. That we banned it now is irrelevant, because your point was about Germany not banning Russian oil Pre-War.

 

[Zachowon]

Too many people seem to think that Putin went crazy one day and invaded the Ukraine. The problem is that this situation has been brewing for a long, long time, and once again the Ukraine is shafted, just as it was during World War 2 and the Holodomor.

People here in America condemn Trump for so far refusing to call Putin a war criminal, but much as I am no fan of his must take his side on that one. He might, just might, become President in 2024 and if this war is still going on then how can he ever get Putin to negotiate if he has already declared Putin a war criminal, punishable by prison or even death? Putin would have absolutely no reason to sit down at the table and every reason not to.

People thought things would be dandy when the Soviet Union collapsed but actually for America and much of the world this is an even more dangerous time than the Cold War. In Finum Citius.

It will never end on this rotten world. Ever.

Unless Trump can convince Putin to give up Crimea and all the land he invaded, Trump won't be able to bring peace.
Neither will China

 

[Marduk]

In other words, an economic argument and which the facts I've already demonstrated support my case. This is why you haven't cited anything in response and deliberately side stepped much of my previous post because you have no counter to it.



Rather, you asked for transportation costs and I showed them.

I didn't asked for average costs of a method, but of specific costs from Russia to Germany, not average figure multiplied by eyeballed number of kilometers, but the actual price paid.
So you demonstrated whatever i wanted, and i don't care, because it doesn't matter.

When the numbers didn't agree with your world view, you changed your mind and said you wanted total cost. When I showed you total cost still showed Ural Crude cheaper than Brent on a monthly basis, you later admit in this post you don't care what the numbers actually are.

No, Ural Crude trading price is not total cost paid by Germany, stop clowning around.

I've shown everything, the issue is this point is an article of moral faith for you and to accept anything less would undermine several of your core beliefs; this is what is called Zealotry.

If you can read minds get a job in CIA.

Okay? You seem to have forgotten your previous point was that the U.S. Government wasn't the one buying Russian crude in 2021, to which I replied neither was the German Government either. To respond to that you've shown...it was the Russian Government selling it? Beyond the fact that has nothing to do with your prior point, I didn't realize we were debating from who's control the crude originated in the first place?

However German government obviously had to allow Russian government to do this sort of operation in Germany.

No, that's not how averages work Marduk. You're confusing what a median is with what an average is; the average takes both spikes and declines into account to give an approximate number. Likewise, previously, you didn't specify, you just asked for numbers in dollars value. For the benefit of myself and the audience, what metric would satisfy you?

A metric applicable to the specific scenario we are discussing, not a worldwide average of costs. It is obvious that some trade routes in the world are more costly than average and some less, yet by using average, well, we don't know which one this is.

Name your city then Marduk. Omsk? 2,834 miles. Novosibirsk? 3,237 miles. All are still much less than importing from Saudi Arabia or the United States.

And i'm supposed to go with the implied assumption that running thousands of kilometers of a pipeline through the icy wasteland of Siberia is equal to the average cost per kilometer all over the world why exactly?

Yes, because it's an article of faith by you, not a belief in an objective truth. It's why you've moved the goalpost twice now.

I care exactly zero about your goalpost obsession.

Then cite those deals Marduk. If you're well aware of them, please share them with me and the audience.

It is the bloody thing i asked you to cite multiple times to demonstrate how cheap the Russian resources are. But you gave me only average trading prices and average transport costs. And those aren't exactly convincing, because hardly anyone actually pays the average, various countries have sweetheart deals much below average, and some get worse ones.

Beyond the fact your link doesn't cite any definitions for the terms, even dictionaries note the difference between the terms.

So if you admit the terms are different, why do you interchange them?

Rather, I answered the question you originally posed and you changed it after I answered to avoid admitting you were wrong. I then answered the refined question and at that point, as you revealed previously, it doesn't matter what the objective truth is to you.

If you feel I'm wrong, don't just claim it, show it. Prove to me that Russian crude is more expensive than Saudi crude for German consumers prior to 2022.

LOL. I can guarantee you there are not many consumers buying crude in Germany
But if you want the prices for the stuff consumers buy, aka gasoline and diesel, here are prices from over a decade, by country, with or without taxes.

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/observatory/reports/List-of-WOB.pdf

Show me when does the supposed notable cheapness (as opposed to perfectly plausible cost mediocrity) of Germany's Russia focused energy strategy manifests.

The reason why those Anti Russian countries of the Eastern EU had lower prices than Germany is ironically because cheaper Russian crude made up a higher percentage of their imports than other countries:

Oh my....
>extra-EU28 imports
So it's not percent of imports, it's percent of imports minus the Baltic\North Sea sourced imports, so its useless.

Also, which year is this from? Considering the 28 rather than 27, it has to be from before Brexit, hence imports from British fields in the North Sea are also not included...

Germany only imported 25-50% of it's needs from Russia, Poland was doing 75-100% of its needs; Polish fuel was cheaper as a result lol. Also, since you've been making a big point of the size of imports in the national total, why are we criticizing Germany when Poland was importing twice as much oil as Germany in percentage terms? Same for Lithuania and Estonia, too.

Latvia imported 0-25% and even lower prices than Germany, or comparing to big industrial powers, France too, so guess what, it is possible.

Poor Marduk, you really aren't good at this.


You claimed the author thinks the Caspian Sea is land; the Caspian Sea isn't even mentioned in the article. If you have outside evidence the author believes the Caspian Sea doesn't exist, please provide it.

He did use the term landlocked in regard to Kazakhstan.

Again, you're not very good at this.

Still better than you.

Longer distance, you still have to go overland and then all around the rest of Eurasia to get it to Germany. More transportation time and costs, higher end unit price.

It's functionally irrelevant difference in terms of economics of nuclear power due to the generally small amounts of the fuel.

Prove the route exists in the first place. If it doesn't exist yet, then we know they weren't shipping it through them before the war either then.

What does it have to do with the viability of that route if Russia tries to use its own as blackmail?

Enrichment services of what, Marduk? What exactly besides Uranium was Russian enriching for the United States at 28% of total supplies? And no Marduk, only France, Russia, China and Canada have enrichment facilities. That's it, no other countries on Earth have mass enrichment capabilities. Uranium, surprisingly, is not at all like oil in terms of refining given the radioactivity.

If you feel otherwise, please show us these other enrichment facilities and while you're at it, can you prove they enrich Kazakhstan's uranium for them?

And yet again the lesson here is that you should not make such definitive statements (no other country on Earth, lawl) about things you have clearly no idea about. The very article you have linked yourself earlier mentions several more countries, and left out there are few more enrichment plants:

Urenco Group - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Urenco Group is a British-German-Dutch nuclear fuel consortium operating several uranium enrichment plants in Germany, the Netherlands, United States, and United Kingdom. It supplies nuclear power stations in about 15 countries, and states that it had a 29% share of the global market for enrichment services in 2011.[1][2] Urenco uses centrifuge enrichment technology.[3]

And yet, Pre War we were still importing 14% of uranium from Russia, which was the point.

Point of what? With 14%, and in less time sensitive material that nuclear fuel is, good luck convincing anyone that 14% is strategic dependence, especially to a point equivalent to energy blackmail used against Germany by Russia.

That we banned it now is irrelevant, because your point was about Germany not banning Russian oil Pre-War.

Oh, that's news to me that this was supposedly my point, please quote me.
My point always was that Germany shouldn't have made themselves so reliant on Russian resources that the possibility of them being cut off raises to the point of crisis many argue it causes, not that it shouldn't have bought a single barrel of oil from Russia before even the war sanctions.

 

[Bacle]

The Nova Kahovka Dam/Hydro Power Plant is gone. Likely Russian action to delay/frustrate any crossings down river, and to make it much harder to advance on the east bank of river down stream.

There is also a nuclear power plant up-stream, not sure how this will affect it's coolant water supply.

 

[mrttao]

The Nova Kahovka Dam/Hydro Power Plant is gone. Likely Russian action to delay/frustrate any crossings down river, and to make it much harder to advance on the east bank of river down stream.

There is also a nuclear power plant up-stream, not sure how this will affect it's coolant water supply.

Comments can't seem to decide who done it, and which side is more hurt by it.

One person notes that the water level is too high and it practically overflows even the area that did not collapse, suggesting this happened by itself rather than sabotage due to the dam overflowing.
And, it really does look like the water level was awfully high there.

If it really did collapse due to getting too much water, then I wonder if due to the war there was lack of operators (or at least qualified operators) which meant nobody was making sure to relieve excessive water pressure.
I am not ruling out sabotage though.

 

[Zachowon]

We can all agree, this will effect the trout population.

Jokes aside, this is gonna hurt the effort of both sides

 

[Bacle]

The current thought I'm seeing is this was done by local RU commanders under orders to blow the dam if certain conditions were met.

It also allows Russia to pull units out of the area to counter Ukraine elsewhere, while leaving skeleton units to defend the now flooded lowlands down stream.

Edit: This also means the tha canal to Crimea has been cut, and will be non-functional for at least a decade at best without serious pumps pushing water uphill.

Edit 2:


6 hours to max flood levels; that was not a small dam.




Models and maps of the flooding.

 

[Cherico]

The current thought I'm seeing is this was done by local RU commanders under orders to blow the dam if certain conditions were met.

It also allows Russia to pull units out of the area to counter Ukraine elsewhere, while leaving skeleton units to defend the now flooded lowlands down stream.

Edit: This also means the tha canal to Crimea has been cut, and will be non-functional for at least a decade at best without serious pumps pushing water uphill.

Edit 2:


6 hours to max flood levels; that was not a small dam.




Models and maps of the flooding.

If the cannal to Crimea is cut that means the people there cant grow their own food and they cant import it and that means an ethopean style famine.

 

[Bacle]

If the cannal to Crimea is cut that means the people there cant grow their own food and they cant import it and that means an ethopean style famine.

Maybe, however it also means that the Russian civies who were paid to move to Crimea now have no ability to stay there.

Any water left on the penisula is going to be allocated for the Russian troops in the area.

I also mean that Russia will have a much harder time putting out fires or operating sewer systems in Crimea, so it will put extra pressure on them.

However, allowing Ukraine to regain the dam intact mean they could use the canal as leverage against Russian troops in Crimea, which was probably a bigger worry for Moscow than just having the canal cut completely.

Edit: Russian sources are claiming that water pressure and damage from strikes on the road bed previously are what caused the collapse, not any incoming fire last night.

Russian troops DESTROY Ukraine dam then flee dressed as CIVILIANS

Incredible footage showed the moment the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River was blown up by retreating Russian soldiers.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Russians did blow part of the road-bridge a few months ago.

However my guess is still the local commander had orders to blow it, and had proper demo-charges placed before hand, to be activated as needed.

 

[AmosTrask]

I'm surprised the Russians did not blow the nuclear power plant as they have been "warning" Ukraine would do. Even as their engineering corps plant demolition charges and turned it into a mixed ammunition depo. There has been constant nuclear terrorism warning from the Russian Defense Ministry about Ukrainian bombers and saboteurs targeting the nuclear plants in the annexed territory for a year.

 

[mrttao]

American journalists are asking Ukrainian soldiers to cover up their Nazi insignia because it might undermine the war against Putin

The same journalists who would gladly call you a Nazi because you once voted for Donald Trump are here to explain how Ukrainians with Swastikas on their helmets and other Nazi insignia aren't really Nazis.

notthebee.com

 

[Marduk]

American journalists are asking Ukrainian soldiers to cover up their Nazi insignia because it might undermine the war against Putin

The same journalists who would gladly call you a Nazi because you once voted for Donald Trump are here to explain how Ukrainians with Swastikas on their helmets and other Nazi insignia aren't really Nazis.

notthebee.com

Yes, journos suck. They suck because, among other things, they play antifa, and turn edgyboys of a kind not unheard of in western armies into "literal nazis". We shouldn't be complaining that they aren't doing it zealously enough, we should be complaining that this is stupid in general, not doing it more strictly than the journos are.
Of course in the West that would be a massive scandal, but Ukraine is not a very PC country to begin with and is too busy fighting a war to obsess about stupid things.

 

[Scottty]

The idea that people can just pick-up and move to more politically favorable locations is kinda Right Wing cope for the fact that many Right Wingers do not actually do so because of finances and practical realities, while the Left is able to leverage a more...mobile-friendly social and economic paradigm with remote work and a DNC willing to pay people to move to places to run in elections or shift voting patterns.

"Just move" isn't an option for a lot of people, and the Right needs to understand this, instead of expecting people to just be able to 'leave' Blue areas at will.

I've seen that too, and don't much like it. This sort of atomistic conception of society seems to reflect the mindset of people who are "right wing" in the sense of "free-market absolutist" rather than in the sense of social conservatism or maintaining traditional values. Normal people have families, they are part of communities.

I remember years ago watching a video clip in which someone called out Ben Shapiro on this. The topic was that of people losing their jobs due to automation, and the little snot smugly suggested that those people should just move to another city to get a different kind of job.
The person who he was debating against, the man who was arguing for prohibiting automation for the sake of people's jobs, gave an impassioned response to that that pretty much won me over to his side of the debate.

 

[Bacle]

I've seen that too, and don't much like it. This sort of atomistic conception of society seems to reflect the mindset of people who are "right wing" in the sense of "free-market absolutist" rather than in the sense of social conservatism or maintaining traditional values. Normal people have families, they are part of communities.

I remember years ago watching a video clip in which someone called out Ben Shapiro on this. The topic was that of people losing their jobs due to automation, and the little snot smugly suggested that those people should just move to another city to get a different kind of job.
The person who he was debating against, the man who was arguing for prohibiting automation for the sake of people's jobs, gave an impassioned response to that that pretty much won me over to his side of the debate.

Yeah, the 'free-market' worshipers on the Right tend to be those who already have the means to do as they wish, and move at will.

The idea that maybe, just maybe, people cannot just up and move to new cities or states at will, or as politics demands, seems lost on a portion of the Right.

 

[Bacle]