The Brawl Street Journal
@TheBrawlStreet
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Energy shocks. Market consequences. Weekly research newsletter. Subscribe 👇
Joined October 2024
Europe starting to lose LNG cargoes to Asia. The LNG tanker BW Brussels, initially bound for France, has now diverted to Asia.
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Europe’s gas storage problem is much bigger than the current low levels. With well-known gas storage targets, Europe is playing poker with its cards face up, and investment funds can easily corner the TTF market (the benchmark for landed LNG in Europe) to the detriment of
Europe spent three years and hundreds of billions of euros solving its Russian gas problem. It succeeded. It replaced a pipeline dependency on a hostile state with a maritime dependency on a strait that a different hostile state just closed. That is the Hormuz LNG crisis in one
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Some analysts claim Iran could cripple the GCC states by striking desalination plants in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Quick sanity check: A 2014 study counted 7,499 desalination plants across the GCC with ~62 million m³/day capacity. Plant sizes
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As European LNG prices have roughly doubled in recent days, Putin lands the next punch. The situation is becoming dramatic after Qatar decided to shut down LNG production for at least two weeks. Qatar supplies roughly 20% of global LNG, meaning even a temporary disruption
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Natural gas isn’t just burned for power. It’s the feedstock for huge parts of the industrial economy. A good opportunity to take a close look at what natural gas supports downstream. The trade could show up here: Basic chemicals: ethylene, propylene, methanol, chlorine,
🇶🇦 Qatar's main Ras Laffan plant shut today, Wed March 4, and won't be able to restart turning gas into LNG for at least two weeks. Once restarted, it will take at least another two weeks to reach full capacity. Let’s see what one month without Qatar LNG does to LNG
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It paid off for Merz to play nice with Trump.
The US will indefinitely exempt Rosneft’s German units from sanctions, securing operations at PCK Schwedt (≈230,000 b/d), which supplies ~12% of Germany’s fuel and 90% of Berlin’s needs. Move aims to avert shortages amid Middle East turmoil. #Germany #Oil #EnergySecurity
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Massive bargaining chip for any peace deal.
🚨 BREAKING: 🇷🇺🇪🇺 Putin suggests Russia may stop supplying gas to EU markets. https://t.co/xEi1ubHQTE
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When it comes to geopolitics, I default to @TheBrawlStreet or @DoombergT… for everything else there’s Mastercard
It doesn’t have to be this way. Europe holds >65 years of natural gas, >250 years of coal, and vast uranium reserves. East Germany was once a major uranium exporter. Germany still enriches uranium. European energy scarcity is a policy choice.
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Some people say Trump acts erratically. Others just look at a map.
Chokepoints are now more valuable than gold. The most valuable real estate on the planet. Under Biden we lost the most important chokepoint in the world, the Suez Canal, to the Houthis. We lost Gibraltar when woke politicians in the UK and Spain refused to allow 🇺🇸 ships to
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There has been no displacement of fossil fuels in the last 100 years, and there will not be in the next 100 years.
Over 40% of global shipping by volume exists to move fossil fuels from one place to another. A huge share of the world's maritime infrastructure has been built around a system that is going to change dramatically as renewable energy and electrification displace fossil fuels.
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What’s the line of reasoning here? Step 1: Blow up LNG at sea, tighten the supply crunch, and damage the European economy, while asking Europe for more money to keep the war going. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Victory.
This is what the Russian gas tanker attacked by drones in the Mediterranean Sea yesterday looks like. Russians confirmed the destruction of the Arctic Metagaz, saying the tanker was attacked by Ukrainian unmanned surface vessels launched from the Libyan coast. Photo: Serhiy
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It doesn’t have to be this way. Europe holds >65 years of natural gas, >250 years of coal, and vast uranium reserves. East Germany was once a major uranium exporter. Germany still enriches uranium. European energy scarcity is a policy choice.
Europe remains one of the economies most exposed to volatility in global energy markets. The EU still depends on imported fossil fuels for close to 60% of its energy needs. Among large economies, only Japan and South Korea have higher levels of energy import dependence.
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@TheBrawlStreet Brawl, an excellent post focusing on the huge issue of extended wind and solar "droughts" over extended periods, but there are also huge issues with weather dependent wind and solar electricity generation that arise moment to moment. Wind and solar ("W&S") advocates love to
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With the Strait of Hormuz closed, European LNG prices have roughly doubled in days. The EU depends on imports for almost all the gas it burns—323 bcm consumed in 2024, just 33 bcm produced. That gap raises the obvious question: why doesn’t Europe produce more of its own gas?
Which is why Europe needs to drill for its own gas. Technically recoverable gas would cover the EU's entire gas demand for 65 years.
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Which is why Europe needs to drill for its own gas. Technically recoverable gas would cover the EU's entire gas demand for 65 years.
Gas prices up by around 50% today. A painful reminder that relying on imported fossil fuels is a risky strategy.
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Qatar LNG Halt → EU Energy Fracture Accelerates → Hungary April 12 Election Becomes Regime Flashpoint TTF already vertical, +50% on halt headlines. ~20% of global LNG offline. Gas is marginal for power on 55% of days, plus ammonia, fertilizer, chemicals. Inflation impulse:
🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: QatarEnergy stops LNG production (... if Qatar has shut down all its LNG production -- 14 trains --, as the statement's wording suggests, that's roughly 20% of the world's output. As a single company, QatarEnergy is the world's largest LNG producer...)
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