There’s No Stopping The World’s Most Politically Charged Pipeline — Irina Slav

The geopolitical tensions surrounding the development of Nord Stream 2 are unprecedented. To begin with, Russia has very poor relations with the Baltic states and Poland, nations who will almost always fight against anything they see as empowering Russia geopolitically. Then there is Ukraine, a nation that is strongly against the pipeline due to its fear of losing the transit fees that it currently charges Russia for exporting gas to Europe. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the United States sees this pipeline as a direct threat to its soft power in Europe as well as a threat to its growing LNG exports.

But for all the politics and attention that this pipeline is attracting, the simple truth of the matter is that Europe, and more specifically Germany, needs this natural gas. Germany plans to shut down all its nuclear reactors by 2022. Many have questioned the wisdom—and some even the sanity—of that decision, but it remains government policy. The generation capacity the is being lost in that sector will need to be replaced, in the short term at least, by natural gas.

Despite its green reputation, Germany is a country that generates a surprisingly large portion of its total energy from coal. Its total installed coal-fired capacity is close to its solar capacity, at 44.9 GW, versus 47.9 GW for solar. At today’s growth rates, it’s current solar and wind capacity will not be enough to replace the retired nuclear plants. The only other option, which would be boosting the share of coal in the country's energy mix, is a political non-starter in Germany. Natural gas is, therefore, the only viable replacement and Germany is fully aware that its gas consumption is set to soar in the coming years....

Oilprice
There’s No Stopping The World’s Most Politically Charged Pipeline

Irina Slav

Trump Loses More than Just the Battle Over Nordstream 2 — Tom Luongo

"This is one of the biggest stories of the decade." — Pepe Escobar at FB.

Gold, Goats 'N Guns
Trump Loses More than Just the Battle Over Nordstream 2

Tom Luongo

Tom Luongo — Trump Folds on Nordstream 2 Because … Logic

Since its first announcement I have been convinced the Nordstream 2 pipeline would be built. I have followed every twist of this story from my days writing for Newsmax.
And the reason for my confidence can be summed up in one word. Money. 

Nordstream 2 simply makes too much economic sense for any amount of political whining from the U.S. and Poland to stop it. Poland has no power within the European Union.
Germany does. And while I’m no fan of Angela Merkel getting another political weapon to hold over the heads of the Poles, their attempts to derail the project were always going to end in tears for them.

And so now Poland and the U.S. cried a lot of crocodile tears recently when President Trump finally acceded to reality and ended the threat of sanctioning five of the biggest oil majors in the world over doing business with Gazprom over Nordstream 2.

Nordstream 2’s investors are Uniper, OMV, Wintershall, Royal Dutch Shell and Eni. After all the permits were issued and construction begun the only thing that could stop Nordstream from happening was these five companies folding to U.S. pressure and backing out of the project by calling in their loans to Gazprom.

And when they were unwilling to do that, Trump had to fold because you can’t cut these companies out of the western banking system and starve them of dollars and euros without an extreme dislocation in oil prices and global trade.

Bluff called. Nordstream 2? Holding Aces.

Trump? Holding two-seven offsuit....

The whole post follows in this vein. Good read.

Gold, Goats & Guns
Trump Folds on Nordstream 2 Because … Logic

Tom Luongo

See also

Sputnik International
US Admission of Defeat on Nord Stream 2 Was 'Economically Inevitable' - Analyst