Sanctions on Russia

Melissa Rivera5 said:Doesn't really matter, honestly. They had to cut back on production because they haven't maintained anything and their equipment is just falling apart. Plus, they're even more corrupt than the Russians; they basically let the whole country—and all their gear—just crumble, even though they have the largest proven reserves out there.

If a deal actually lands and companies like Standard, BP, Shell, Eni, and Total are finally unchained in Venezuela to work their own fields, you'd see new wells, refineries, pipelines, and LNG facilities popping up like mushrooms after rain within six months.

brightheron64 said:They do.
But we also have to deal with the reality of sanctions, which haven't really been lifted just yet:

US moves to ease a few economic sanctions on Venezuela

Venezuela: The limited changes will allow Chevron Corp to negotiate its licence with the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), but not to drill or export any petroleum of Venezuelan origin, two senior US government officials told The Associated Press late Monday. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the formal announcement had not been made.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/20...s-on-venezuela

Forget about them being amateurs for a second; the real catch is that everyone else has hiked up their oil prices.

The Saudis have announced there should be enough oil to replace what comes from Russia, but I can't imagine anyone is looking to drop their prices anytime soon.
Just look at the landscape—opportunity is everywhere. You've got three major oil giants—Russia, Iran, and Venezuela—all under embargoes, Syria is still caught in war, and Libya has seen its production slashed in half... Why would anyone be foolish enough to just give away oil for next to nothing?

So, Chevron is already starting to nibble. We really need to strike an alliance with that South American nation. Throw some cash their way, maybe offer them some sort of associate membership in the EU, and we’ll have our fossil fuel problems solved.
The French are practically right next door anyway.

swiftjackal11 said:These Russians are absolute amateurs when it comes to business. If everyone is supposedly so dependent on what they're selling, why on earth were they selling it so cheap? 🤷

It’s quite simple, really: India isn't interested in picking up that oil unless they can snag a massive discount!
It would be sheer madness for Indians not to capitalize on this opportunity!

brightheron64 said:Honestly, it feels like you can't trust anyone's word anymore these days...

Just a few posts back, I mentioned India (citing the BBC). According to the latest from Bloomberg, Indians are being labeled as even more "greedy" than before...

India in Talks to Increase Russian Oil Imports from Rosneft
India has bought more than 40 million barrels of Russian oil between late-February and early-May, which comes to about 20% more than flows for all of 2021, according to Bloomberg calculations based on trade data. Russian oil arrivals into India for May were at 740,000 barrels a day, up from 284,000 barrels in April and 34,000 barrels a year earlier, according to data from Kpler.

Although India’s purchases of Russian crude aren’t illegal or in breach of any sanctions, the country has come under pressure from the Biden administration and EU to stop doing business with Moscow in order to cut off Kremlin’s access to oil revenue and funds. The Asian nation has reiterated that its volume of Russian imports are minuscule as compared to Europe’s purchases, and just a tiny fraction of the country’s total consumption.

Discounted Russian oil has provided some relief to India -- which imports more than 85% of its oil -- just as inflation skyrockets alongside surging prices of everything from food to fuel. The access to cheap crude is already boosting India’s oil imports, which grew almost 16% in April from last year. The share of oil from the Eurasian region, which includes Russia, expanded to 10.6% in April versus 3.3% a year earlier, according to oil ministry data.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/india-in...neft-1.1774979

By the way, Rosneft is basically selling to itself here, since they own Nayar Energy in India, which operates some of the biggest and most modern refineries in the country.

hollowdriver13 said:By the way, Rosneft is basically selling to itself here, since they own Nayar Energy in India, which operates some of the biggest and most modern refineries in the country.

So, the real question is, are Americans actually getting their hands on that oil, or is it all just moving between internal accounts?

brightheron64 said:So, the real question is, are Americans actually getting their hands on that oil, or is it all just moving between internal accounts?

Look, did I ever say they weren't getting it? Of course they are. My point is that people keep trying to spin this as some massive win for Russian foreign policy.
Honestly, Rosneft has to move that oil somewhere; you can't just stockpile it forever. It’s way easier to just sell it to a subsidiary. It would be pretty eye-opening to see what the growth percentages look like if the Russians weren't selling everything at a discount and if Rosneft didn't happen to own the refineries themselves, right?

hollowdriver13 said:Look, did I ever say they weren't getting it? Of course they are. My point is that people keep trying to spin this as some massive win for Russian foreign policy.
Honestly, Rosneft has to move that oil somewhere; you can't just stockpile it forever. It’s way easier to just sell it to a subsidiary. It would be pretty eye-opening to see what the growth percentages look like if the Russians weren't selling everything at a discount and if Rosneft didn't happen to own the refineries themselves, right?

Honestly, I don't think it's all about Russian foreign policy at all. Oil is a fundamental necessity, plain and simple. Even if Stalin himself rose from his grave, someone would still be buying Russian oil because the demand exists...

Let’s flip the perspective for a second and imagine if oil was as common as water—would any sane person even bother trading with the Saudis?
Or, looking at it another way, if Americans were "dry" on resources, much like the Germans... do you really think there would ever have been embargos against Iran, Russia, or Venezuela...?

brightheron64 said:Honestly, I don't think it's all about Russian foreign policy at all. Oil is a fundamental necessity, plain and simple. Even if Stalin himself rose from his grave, someone would still be buying Russian oil because the demand exists...

Let’s flip the perspective for a second and imagine if oil was as common as water—would any sane person even bother trading with the Saudis?
Or, looking at it another way, if Americans were "dry" on resources, much like the Germans... do you really think there would ever have been embargos against Iran, Russia, or Venezuela...?

Look, it’s not even about whether we have enough physical supply here in the States; it’s mostly about the bottom line. It comes down to how much it actually costs to pull oil out of a specific field. You aren't going to go breaking ground on some offshore project where your break-even point is $60-$70 a barrel if the market is just bouncing between $45 and $60. At these current prices, a lot of those fields finally move back into the green zone financially.

hollowdriver13 said:Look, did I ever say they weren't getting it? Of course they are. My point is that people keep trying to spin this as some massive win for Russian foreign policy.
Honestly, Rosneft has to move that oil somewhere; you can't just stockpile it forever. It’s way easier to just sell it to a subsidiary. It would be pretty eye-opening to see what the growth percentages look like if the Russians weren't selling everything at a discount and if Rosneft didn't happen to own the refineries themselves, right?

The cost to pull Russian oil out of the ground is roughly $19 per barrel.
Because of that, the Russians have plenty of breathing room to sell at discounted prices and still walk away with a healthy profit.

The Arabs make even more since their extraction costs sit closer to $9 per barrel.

Americans don't have nearly that much cushion, given that the technological process for extracting shale oil carries a cost of about $30 to $40 per barrel, all while depleting the reserves incredibly fast and forcing us to constantly drill for new ones.

On top of that, Fracking causes significant environmental damage, which obviously doesn't sit well with the environmentalists, but let's be honest—who really listens to the greens when there's serious profit on the table?

urbanotter said:The cost to pull Russian oil out of the ground is roughly $19 per barrel.
Because of that, the Russians have plenty of breathing room to sell at discounted prices and still walk away with a healthy profit.

The Arabs make even more since their extraction costs sit closer to $9 per barrel.

Americans don't have nearly that much cushion, given that the technological process for extracting shale oil carries a cost of about $30 to $40 per barrel, all while depleting the reserves incredibly fast and forcing us to constantly drill for new ones.

On top of that, Fracking causes significant environmental damage, which obviously doesn't sit well with the environmentalists, but let's be honest—who really listens to the greens when there's serious profit on the table?

What you've laid out might just be the net cost of simple extraction in regions where Russians use basic pumpjacks, or where Arabs simply rely on gravity to flow oil from Ghawar.
And hey, that's fine.
However, from roughly October through April, Russians face heavy additional expenses once that oil leaves the Siberian soil. They have to battle paraffin wax. The oil is either stored or piped through environments where temperatures plummet to -20 or -40 degrees. When there's a huge temperature gap between the crude and the pipe walls or storage tanks, paraffinization kicks in. If you don't shell out a fortune for chemical inhibitors, your pipelines will clog, or worse, your entire supply in the reservoirs will solidify. That’s just one extra hurdle. We haven't even touched on how much more expensive it is to maintain all that equipment in -40 degree weather.

Terry Green3 said:If a deal actually lands and companies like Standard, BP, Shell, Eni, and Total are finally unchained in Venezuela to work their own fields, you'd see new wells, refineries, pipelines, and LNG facilities popping up like mushrooms after rain within six months.

So, Chevron is already starting to nibble. We really need to strike an alliance with that South American nation. Throw some cash their way, maybe offer them some sort of associate membership in the EU, and we’ll have our fossil fuel problems solved.
The French are practically right next door anyway.

🤣🤣🤣
Forget associate status—let's give them full EU membership right off the bat! That way their soccer team can play in the Euros, they can compete in Eurovision, and we could even offer them American citizenship if they end up coming over here to work as servers or maids...

Richard Wilson4 said:China basically runs half of Africa these days, including all the most critical ports.

And?
I mean, this guy is trying to weigh hundreds of US military bases scattered all over the globe against just a handful of Chinese ones--which is... yeah, kind of a stretch
Like, how many actual Chinese military bases are even in Africa right now?
If we're going by that logic—I guess you could argue that a few major US investment funds hold over $15 trillion in assets spread across more than 100 countries on this planet.

darkdriver said:And?
I mean, this guy is trying to weigh hundreds of US military bases scattered all over the globe against just a handful of Chinese ones--which is... yeah, kind of a stretch
Like, how many actual Chinese military bases are even in Africa right now?
If we're going by that logic—I guess you could argue that a few major US investment funds hold over $15 trillion in assets spread across more than 100 countries on this planet.

Ahh, good old Chomskyism...

So basically, a traffic ticket in America is worse than Russia invading a UN member state, China's aggressive stance toward all its neighbors, or Iran trying to build an empire from Beirut to Yemen... ☕

Richard Wilson4 said:Ahh, good old Chomskyism...

So basically, a traffic ticket in America is worse than Russia invading a UN member state, China's aggressive stance toward all its neighbors, or Iran trying to build an empire from Beirut to Yemen... ☕

America, Canada, Mexico, parts of the EU, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, the Philippines, India, Egypt, Turkey, the States—honestly, it's all just a massive mess to me. In my eyes, every one of those players has a different scent, but the core issue remains exactly the same.

I fear our future lies with the African man; he may be the only one capable of pulling this planet out of the gutter that greedy white boomers have shoved us into. ☕

Nathan Evans78 said:America, Canada, Mexico, parts of the EU, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, the Philippines, India, Egypt, Turkey, the States—honestly, it's all just a massive mess to me. In my eyes, every one of those players has a different scent, but the core issue remains exactly the same.

I fear our future lies with the African man; he may be the only one capable of pulling this planet out of the gutter that greedy white boomers have shoved us into. ☕

Between a Black African man, a Russian, and of course a Mexican... the future of our species is practically guaranteed for the next million years.
Best regards,

Nathan Evans78 said:America, Canada, Mexico, parts of the EU, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, the Philippines, India, Egypt, Turkey, the States—honestly, it's all just a massive mess to me. In my eyes, every one of those players has a different scent, but the core issue remains exactly the same.

I fear our future lies with the African man; he may be the only one capable of pulling this planet out of the gutter that greedy white boomers have shoved us into. ☕

🤣😁

Man... maybe the future is there... who even knows what things will look like in a few hundred years?

But hold on... "world in the gutter"? 🤣
You're living through a moment in history where, for the general population, the quality of life is arguably higher than ever before. On average, people have never lived better, longer, or had more opportunities than they do right now. Heck, even your mindless rambling on this forum is proof of that. 😁 ...

And you're calling this a "world in the gutter"? It seems to me like some other kind of "ball" is full of crap... and I'm not talking about the planet..😒

(Though it would be pretty interesting if someone sent you back a couple hundred years so you could tell us how it really was... assuming you even survive the trip...🍿)

Russia’s unemployment rate hit a record low of 4 percent in April 2022, dropping even lower than the 4.1 percent we saw the previous month—which actually beat out the market's expectation of 4.3 percent. Essentially, the pool of unemployed individuals shrank by roughly 80 thousand people compared to last month, bringing the total down to 3 million, while the working population climbed by 400 thousand to reach 71.9 million people.

These folks are probably just panicking for no reason, much like how things were looking in America during the late 80s. ☕

swiftjackal11 said:These Russians are absolute amateurs when it comes to business. If everyone is supposedly so dependent on what they're selling, why on earth were they selling it so cheap? 🤷

They’re only hooked because it’s cheaper—plain and simple. But this whole "dependency" strategy is basically just cornering yourself into a dead end by paying premium prices for energy later on. Why would anyone do that?
It’s not even about swapping one addiction for another at this point—it's just that the choice we used to have, where we could actually pick the cheaper option, basically doesn't exist anymore.

Richard Wilson4 said:Ahh, good old Chomskyism...

So basically, a traffic ticket in America is worse than Russia invading a UN member state, China's aggressive stance toward all its neighbors, or Iran trying to build an empire from Beirut to Yemen... ☕

Man, the classic move—dodging the point by putting words in someone else's mouth or accusing them of stuff they never even said or did.
By the way, isn't it funny how in this modern culture of a thousand little brainwashed commissars rambling all over the internet and watching everyone like a hawk to call out anyone who doesn't think exactly like them, that behavior itself isn't called whataboutism?
Because I guess if someone calls out the USA for its history of aggression, suddenly it's "whataboutism," but when you guys point at China or Iran for their aggressive policies—which, btw, haven't even resulted in a single formal invasion of another territory yet (aside from Tibet)—then it's totally fine and definitely not whataboutism?

Nathan Evans78 said:

Russia’s unemployment rate hit a record low of 4 percent in April 2022, dropping even lower than the 4.1 percent we saw the previous month—which actually beat out the market's expectation of 4.3 percent. Essentially, the pool of unemployed individuals shrank by roughly 80 thousand people compared to last month, bringing the total down to 3 million, while the working population climbed by 400 thousand to reach 71.9 million people.

These folks are probably just panicking for no reason, much like how things were looking in America during the late 80s. ☕

Russia is truly a land of promise...😁 ...🍿

Amanda Flores88 said:They’re only hooked because it’s cheaper—plain and simple. But this whole "dependency" strategy is basically just cornering yourself into a dead end by paying premium prices for energy later on. Why would anyone do that?
It’s not even about swapping one addiction for another at this point—it's just that the choice we used to have, where we could actually pick the cheaper option, basically doesn't exist anymore.

Trapped? 🤣

Nah... I wouldn't go that far..
Sure, things get pricey for a while—I'll give you that—but saying we're totally stuck without any way out? Not happening.