Sanctions on Russia

George Robinson43 said:Let’s be honest here. This is the actual oil production in Saudi Arabia for 2022:
January: 10.16 million barrels
February: 10.2 million
March: 10.3 million
April: 10.42 million
May: 10.55 million
June: 10.62 million
July: 10.82 million
August: 11.3 million
September: 11.1 million
October: 10.8 million

The talk of production cuts only started because everyone was forecasting a recession, seeing orders drop from China, and wanting to prevent a price collapse.
November: 10.45 million

Biden requested 12 million per day, but he was told it wasn't necessary—meaning prices are headed down, and the Arabs were right all along.
I am almost certain prices would be under $60 if Americans weren't busy refilling the strategic reserves.

I suspect those figures you provided for Saudi Arabia are a bit on the low side.

A bit of Indian votaboutism

Standard: Despite everything, there hasn't been any open criticism, and India continues to import weapons from Russia—they've even ramped up energy imports. Is India actually profiting from this war?

S. Jaishankar: We have been importing arms from Russia for over 60 years; this isn't anything new.

Standard: But the war is.

S. Jaishankar😁: But why are we in this position? Over those 60 years, Western nations, including those in Europe, preferred selling weapons to military dictatorships in Pakistan. The only country willing to help us back then was the Soviet Union. Therefore, our military arrangement with Russia is a direct consequence of the West's tendency to favor military regimes in our part of the world.

https://www.derstandard.at/story/200...t-nicht-opfern

hollowdriver13 said:Wall Street is moving, but prices just keep sliding down

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas

70€/MWh

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urals-oil

$56 - Urals crude

The losses on the Russian exchange at the end of 2022

https://twitter.com/IikkaKorhonen/st...22901154287617

$65/MWh
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Morgan Wright5 said:I suspect those figures you provided for Saudi Arabia are a bit on the low side.

🙂
Actually, they might be slightly lower since I wasn't looking directly at the chart data! lol



The last time SA hit 12 million was back in 2020.

Carl Lee27 said:$65/MWh
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$64/MWh
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Inflation over in Europe also looks like it’s hitting its peak, and honestly, I think we're about to see it start sliding down pretty soon. Over in the USA, the peak happened way back during the summer, so now that growth is really starting to lose steam. Look at France—they hit 6.7% in December when everyone was bracing for 7.3%, and then you've got Germany coming in at 8.6% for December instead of that expected 9%.

The sheer volume of comments from our neighbors on this forum claiming that the West is going to get absolutely crushed in this economic showdown—and that we'll all have to make massive sacrifices just to fund, let's be honest, a totally pointless effort to help Ukraine—has been nothing short of surreal. And even though those people aren't hanging around here anymore, you can still find that exact same kind of doom-and-gloom chatter dominating their own boards. It's honestly hilarious. In the end, the actual sacrifices will be minimal, because to actually beat the Russians, you only really need about 0.1-0.2% of the GDP of Europe and the USA, especially since a huge chunk of that is just going toward surplus military gear and tech that’s basically thirty years old anyway.

Carl Lee27 said:$64/MWh
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Inflation over in Europe also looks like it’s hitting its peak, and honestly, I think we're about to see it start sliding down pretty soon. Over in the USA, the peak happened way back during the summer, so now that growth is really starting to lose steam. Look at France—they hit 6.7% in December when everyone was bracing for 7.3%, and then you've got Germany coming in at 8.6% for December instead of that expected 9%.

The sheer volume of comments from our neighbors on this forum claiming that the West is going to get absolutely crushed in this economic showdown—and that we'll all have to make massive sacrifices just to fund, let's be honest, a totally pointless effort to help Ukraine—has been nothing short of surreal. And even though those people aren't hanging around here anymore, you can still find that exact same kind of doom-and-gloom chatter dominating their own boards. It's honestly hilarious. In the end, the actual sacrifices will be minimal, because to actually beat the Russians, you only really need about 0.1-0.2% of the GDP of Europe and the USA, especially since a huge chunk of that is just going toward surplus military gear and tech that’s basically thirty years old anyway.

And let's not forget that NATO didn't even go into Ukraine. Lol.

Vladimir Putin might want to start praying for some cooler weather and an end to those lockdowns over in China, because honestly, even the most hardcore optimists couldn't have predicted such a massive downturn in such a short window of time. But the real question is how much of a difference that would actually make. Back in mid-to-late August, when things were peaking, gas was sitting around 340, and today we're looking at 65—that's a drop of more than five times the previous price. To be perfectly honest, I’d be shocked if it stayed this low for long; if I were placing a bet, I’d wager we see it slide down to 55 within the next two or three weeks.

Regarding oil, from what I understand about the current landscape, the Russians are footing the bill for deliveries to Asians, which is already taking a massive bite out of their margins. Heaven forbid this war drags on for another three or four years, but it’s truly difficult to fathom what the Russian economy would even look like by then. Even if the conflict were to wrap up tomorrow, they are facing a very grim outlook if those sanctions remain in place.

Jessica Rivera37 said:Vladimir Putin might want to start praying for some cooler weather and an end to those lockdowns over in China, because honestly, even the most hardcore optimists couldn't have predicted such a massive downturn in such a short window of time. But the real question is how much of a difference that would actually make. Back in mid-to-late August, when things were peaking, gas was sitting around 340, and today we're looking at 65—that's a drop of more than five times the previous price. To be perfectly honest, I’d be shocked if it stayed this low for long; if I were placing a bet, I’d wager we see it slide down to 55 within the next two or three weeks.

Regarding oil, from what I understand about the current landscape, the Russians are footing the bill for deliveries to Asians, which is already taking a massive bite out of their margins. Heaven forbid this war drags on for another three or four years, but it’s truly difficult to fathom what the Russian economy would even look like by then. Even if the conflict were to wrap up tomorrow, they are facing a very grim outlook if those sanctions remain in place.

What if the war lasts longer???🤔
In my opinion, regardless of how long this conflict drags on, the Russi have completely burned their credibility. It's going to be incredibly difficult to trust them or expect things to ever return to the status quo once this is all over.

Best regards,

Carl Lee27 said:$65/MWh
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And Brent is sitting right at 77.

Looks like coal is the only thing taking a real dive as of 3 PM.☕

George Robinson43 said:🙂
Actually, they might be slightly lower since I wasn't looking directly at the chart data! lol



The last time SA hit 12 million was back in 2020.

That makes sense; based on how you phrased it, it seemed more like monthly production rather than a daily rate.

Natural gas storage facility in Germany at
Capacity (TWh): 246.1
Gas in storage (TWh): 230.1
Filling level (%): 93.5
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/i...tal%20capacity.

Looks good for this coming winter. But come summer, when they start refilling the reserves, prices usually drop lower.

anamoonaj As stated by wearytrucker22:
What if this war drags on indefinitely?🤔
I suspect that regardless of how long this conflict drags on, Russia has effectively burned its bridges. They’ve squandered whatever credibility they had left, making it nearly impossible to believe—or even expect—that things will ever simply revert to the status quo once the dust settles.

Propane.

Gas prices will eventually catch up with us—and when they do, the cost won't just be reflected at the pump; we'll have to factor in the massive price of rebuilding broken trust. At the end of the day, it all boils down to the bottom line. Russia will be paying for this war for decades to come, though perhaps through more indirect channels than most realize. Ultimately, someone's individual paranoia and greed is going to exact a heavy toll.

Nathan Thomas12 said:Right from the jump, I’ve been saying this: no developed nation ever truly made it without the West and the dollar—not even China.
Let's be real—no country is ever going to actually make it without the West and the dollar backing them up.
Those Kremlin suck-ups were all over us—full of hot air—insisting that Russia was totally self-sufficient and that the West had basically shot itself in both feet.
Of course Europe didn't freeze over.

That argument is only half-right. Historically, colonial powers built their wealth by exploiting colonies, not by relying on the West or the USD. They secured initial capital through extraction, then shuttered their domestic markets to protect themselves from cheaper foreign goods—though global trade wasn't nearly as interconnected or competitive back then. Once they outpaced everyone else, they opened their borders and demanded the same from developing nations, allowing them to continue looting resources via exports while ensuring their partners could never truly compete economically. It is virtually impossible to build an industrial base when your market is wide open to cheap imports from already established powers.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urals-oil

Urals is sitting at $50

Nancy Gomez26 said:That argument is only half-right. Historically, colonial powers built their wealth by exploiting colonies, not by relying on the West or the USD. They secured initial capital through extraction, then shuttered their domestic markets to protect themselves from cheaper foreign goods—though global trade wasn't nearly as interconnected or competitive back then. Once they outpaced everyone else, they opened their borders and demanded the same from developing nations, allowing them to continue looting resources via exports while ensuring their partners could never truly compete economically. It is virtually impossible to build an industrial base when your market is wide open to cheap imports from already established powers.

So, where did you pick up your economic history lessons—some underground anarcho-syndicalist zine?

Nancy Gomez26 said:That argument is only half-right. Historically, colonial powers built their wealth by exploiting colonies, not by relying on the West or the USD. They secured initial capital through extraction, then shuttered their domestic markets to protect themselves from cheaper foreign goods—though global trade wasn't nearly as interconnected or competitive back then. Once they outpaced everyone else, they opened their borders and demanded the same from developing nations, allowing them to continue looting resources via exports while ensuring their partners could never truly compete economically. It is virtually impossible to build an industrial base when your market is wide open to cheap imports from already established powers.

So many contradictions in your comment... it's just impossible to follow.

So, how exactly did the Asian Tigers pull it off?

Sam Alvarez4 said:So many contradictions in your comment... it's just impossible to follow.

If it was unreadable, how did you manage to read it in the first place?

Nancy Gomez26 said:That argument is only half-right. Historically, colonial powers built their wealth by exploiting colonies, not by relying on the West or the USD. They secured initial capital through extraction, then shuttered their domestic markets to protect themselves from cheaper foreign goods—though global trade wasn't nearly as interconnected or competitive back then. Once they outpaced everyone else, they opened their borders and demanded the same from developing nations, allowing them to continue looting resources via exports while ensuring their partners could never truly compete economically. It is virtually impossible to build an industrial base when your market is wide open to cheap imports from already established powers.

Hmm. So how does that logic account for Japan and South Korea? Or even China?

Nathan Thomas12 said:Hmm. So how does that logic account for Japan and South Korea? Or even China?

Try attempting to purchase a non-Japanese vehicle in Japan, and you will quickly grasp the reality of domestic market protectionism. On the other hand, look at the European Union; they still maintain those specific tariffs on Japanese imports—wasn't it around 5% on all vehicles arriving from Japan? Even the Japanese struggled to move units in the USA until they began establishing local assembly plants; only then did they qualify as "domestic products." That is their version of a "free" and "open" market: everything is permitted, provided it doesn't dismantle the local manufacturer. Ultimately, massive swaths of domestic production simply migrated to China because the cost differential was too steep to resist.
The situation with the Chinese person is a different matter entirely, given that the entire system operates under the rule of a single political party—which is essentially a euphemism for slavery. Anything falling outside their ideological framework is either imprisoned or forced into exile. Those who remain are compelled to follow the party line, receiving subsistence wages for maximum labor. No matter how brutal that appears by modern standards, it is still considered progress compared to their circumstances fifty years ago.