Saturday, 17 October 2015

Weekend Update – War on Russia Update.



“If you agree to work for us, half the time you won't know the purpose of your duties . . . and when we do explain, we might not be telling the truth.”

James Alan Gardner, Trapped

In under reported news, under reported outside of Russia that is, egged on by the American War Party,  Poland’s attempt at replacing Russian supplied natural gas with LNG supplies from Qatar, is impoverishing the Poles not the Russians. Who’d have thought it? More of the madness only made possible as another unintended consequence of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money.

But don’t expect this article to get picked by western main stream media anytime soon. It simply doesn’t fit the crude anti-Russian western propaganda fed western media since America’s botched coup in Kiev delivered the Crimea, and much of eastern Ukraine, back to Russia. Who could have known?

According to recent western MSM, four of Russia’s cruise missiles “crashed in Iran” though America can’t supply any proof. Turkey shot down one of Russia’s jets, but again neither Turkey nor America has any proof. 

According to the western press, those wicked Russians are bombing civilians, those good Americans are bombing hospitals, while those good Saudis are specialising in Yemeni weddings. Welcome to our crazy 21st century world.

Below, Poland’s solution to winter. Might as well import a million tons of sand from Libya and drill for their own oil and gas.

Turning down Russian gas has already caused Poland huge losses

source: http://www.vz.ru/economy/2015/10/13/772080.html

“We are independent in the gas issue”, – happily announces Poland having finally built a terminal for receiving liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, the new marine way of delivering gas from Qatar instead of saving financial resources will entail even much higher costs than earlier. Warsaw is already paying – now, that it has not yet received one single cubic meter of gas.

“Poland has achieved her strategic goal: we are independent in the gas issue” said the Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz at the opening ceremony of the new LNG terminal in the city of Swinoujscie, obviously referring to the cherished dream of the Polish government – giving up Russian gas.

“Now we can get 90% of gas from other sources. Next year, provided we work hard, we will become 100% independent from gas supplies from the East”, Kopacz said. According to her, the terminal will allow Poland to purchase liquefied gas from anywhere in the world and get it by sea. “This independence will enable us to negotiate gas price”, the Polish Prime Minister added.

The project has taken 10 years to be carried out. It was initiated in 2006, with subsequent signing a contract with the contractor Saipem (a subsidiary of the Italian energy giant Eni) in 2008 and getting down to construction works in 2011. Initially scheduled to have been completed by 2013, the construction of the terminal was delayed for 2 years.

The terminal will open not earlier than in mid-2016. Prior to the commercial launch it is necessary to obtain and deliver technical or buffer gas which will develop the pressure required for pumping commercial gas. The first two shipments of LNG from Qatar arriving at Swinoujscie in mid-December 2015 and February-March 2016 are going to be used in performing start-up works, maintenance tests etc., which will further postpone the terminal coming into full-scale operation for several months.

Assuring that the new LNG terminal will render Russian gas no longer necessary, the Polish Prime Minister is stretching the truth. The reality is that the country’s energy is still highly Russian gas dependent. In 2014 Poland consumed 15.5 billion cubic meters (bn cu.m.) of gas, with only less than 28% (4.4 bn cu.m.) of it covered by domestic production; the rest 70% (11 bn cu.m.) was imported. In its turn, 80% (8.4 bn cu.m.) of that imported gas was supplied by Russia and only 20% of it came from Germany, Czech Republic and Norway.

The storage capacity of the new terminal, intended to be further extended by 50%, at the present constitutes 5 bn cu.m. which amounts to a third of the annual demand of Poland.

Now Warsaw has provided itself with a new sea route for gas delivery, but at what cost? Qatar, the only supplier Poland has concluded a contract with so far and only for the delivery of 1.5 bn cu.m. of LNG, will allow to utilize not more than a third of the terminal capacity. The remaining two-thirds have not yet been contracted – probably, owing to the disappointment in LNG which turned out to be too expensive.

The contract with Qatar, under which Poland undertakes for 20 years to purchase around 1.5 bn cu.m. of LNG from Qatargas per year on “take or pay” terms, is extremely unfavorable for Polish consumers. The price of Qatar gas is 2.5 times higher than the one offered by Russia – 700 and 265 dollars per one thousand cu.m. correspondingly, as the analyst of “Alpari” Anna Kokoreva told us. Paradoxically though it may seem, last year Poland asked not Qatargas but Gazprom for a gas price discount.

Thus, 8.4 bn cu.m. of Russian gas would cost Poland 2.2 billion dollars, whereas the same amount of Qatar gas – 5.9 billion dollars. Preferring Qatar to Russia would be a great folly, would it not? Nonetheless, Warsaw will have to purchase that 1.5 bn cu.m. so that not to violate the contract. Moreover, it has already been paying for it.

The thing is the contract had obliged Poland to start purchasing Qatar LNG in 2014, given that the LNG terminal had been planned to be built by 2013. However, the construction lagged but Qatar still insisted that the contract obligations should be met. In the end the parties agreed upon Qatar selling the contractual LNG to other buyers at a lower price with Poland compensating the price difference, told us Alexei Grivach from the National Energy Security Fund. So it happened that Poland cannot physically accept the gas from Qatar yet but has already been paying for it. The first two tankers from Qatar scheduled on December and early next year are delivering technical gas under a different contract signed this September.

Thus, the project on Qatar gas supplies has already proved ruinous for Poland. Warsaw will need decades to recoup the cost of the LNG terminal construction that amounted to 977 million dollars.

As it was stated above, Poland has no choice but to buy the 1.5 bn cu.m. of LNG from Qatar. Unless the domestic consumption increases, gas supplies from Russia will supposedly be reduced by the same amount. In this case we are only talking about the diversification of sources of gas supply to the country, not about the outright rejection of Russian gas – Warsaw will merely reduce the share of the Russian gas import from 80% to 60%. Such a diversification will come at a dear cost – Poland will have to overpay 652.5 million dollars for the purchase of 1.5 bn cu.m. of Qatar gas at 700 dollars instead of the Russian one at 265 dollars. To pursue so economically unreasonable a policy will be nothing but a sheer madness.
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And below, the latest western propaganda from Friday. Like we should all cheer ISIS and Al Qaeda winning. No word yet when if ever there will be an independent international investigation into the USAF bombing of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan.

Russia 'reducing air strikes against Syrian rebels' as intervention fails

The air strikes appear to have failed to give an advantage to pro-Assad military forces despite daily launches

By Louisa Loveluck 9:00AM BST 16 Oct 2015
Russia is reducing its air strikes against Syrian insurgents, as the intervention fails to hand a swift advantage to pro-government forces.

Moscow’s daily strike rate peaked on Tuesday with warplanes flying 88 sorties against 86 targets. But in a statement on Wednesday, the Russian defence ministry said it would be reducing the frequency of strikes in order to support a stuttering regime offensive.

"The intensity of our military aviation operations decreased slightly in the last 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement. "As a result of active offensive operations by the Syrian armed forces, the front line/front-line with the terrorists is changing.

Russian warplanes have at times launched more air strikes per day than than a US-led coalition targeting jihadist groups in Syria has managed in the space of a month.

The statement said air force jets had hit targets in the provinces of Damascus, Idlib, Hama and Aleppo and Deir Ez-Zor.

Those claims could not immediately be verified – although Moscow has repeatedly claimed to be hitting targets linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), munitions have mostly struck rebel groups fighting around the western heartland of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.

On Thursday morning, Russian warplanes accompanied pro-regime troops in an attack on rebel-held towns north of Homs, a long-held enclave of opposition to Mr Assad.

Video footage from Al Ghantu showed several bodies being dug from a shattered air aid shelter. Reports suggested that 60 people, including 30 women and children were killed in Homs.
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In the “you couldn’t make it up” department, scruffy US “diplomats” stand out in Europe.

How CIA spies move freely through Europe on fake passports

Leaked documents show US agents can easily enter the EU but are concerned about tightening security next year

Secret CIA documents advising undercover American spies on how to move through Europe on fake passports have been published online, revealing growing concern that tighter EU rules could blow the cover of US intelligence agents.

Two documents released by WikiLeaks show that CIA agents are currently able to freely enter and travel through the 26 countries of the Schengen Area with only a “minimal” risk that EU border guards will grow suspicious.

There is little chance of being detected when first entering the Schengen Area because European border guards are focused on “illegal immigration and criminal activities, not counterintelligence”, the CIA documents concluded.

However, US spies are worried about an EU plan to force travellers to give their fingerprints and have a photo taken when they first arrive at Europe’s border. The CIA said the new system, due to come online in 2015, “would increase the identity threat” for its agents travelling undercover.

Under the current rules, CIA agents travelling on fake US passports can enter any one of the Schengen countries without a visa and then move across Europe from Portugal to Finland without being asked for their documents.

---- On one of the few occasions a CIA agent was challenged it appears he was stopped because he looked too scruffy to be a US diplomat travelling on a diplomatic passport.

"Overly-casual dress inconsistent with being a diplomatic passport holder may have prompted the referral," the CIA noted.
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In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results far much less.

J. K. Galbraith.

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