A map showing some of the main pipeline routes between Russia and Europe. (CBC)
CBC: Missiles fly, but Ukraine's pipeline network keeps Russian gas flowing to Europe
Russia supplies 45% of EU's gas imports, earning $900M US a day. Neither side looks ready to sever ties yet
On the world stage, the words "energy security" prompt debates about diversifying supply and decreasing reliance on bad actors, but for Sergiy Makogon, their meaning is more literal: how to keep the network of close to 40,000 kilometres of natural gas pipelines that crisscross his country functioning in the middle of a war.
On the day CBC spoke to him last week, the CEO of Ukraine's Gas Transmission System Operator was busy rerouting a pipeline near the northern city of Kharkiv that was just hit by a missile and reassuring several workers at a compressor station seized by Moscow-backed separatist fighters in Eastern Ukraine.
He was also struggling to figure out a way to get gas to Mariupol, whose residents have been cut off from heat and electricity since airstrikes damaged a pipeline more than a month ago.
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WNU Editor: This is one of those situations where the contradictions of the conflict are playing-out.
Ukraine is demanding the EU to sanction and boycott Russian oil and gas and thereby deprive Russia of billions in energy revenues. But the Kyiv government can easily shut down this pipeline network if they choose to.
Update: This is one of the reasons why Germany wants the gas to continue to flow .... Costs to Germany of Russian gas freeze estimated (RT).
3 comments:
War in the 2020s.Fighting at the front business at the back. Wanna bet that even if it went to the nuclear level someone would still look to make a profit.'so if you nuke this region that's bad for business but this region we can all agree is expendable.No objections from anyone even the ones about to get nuked.'
"But the Kyiv government can easily shut down this pipeline network if they choose to. " Actually, no, they can't. There's a lot of elements at play keeping that pipeline open. There is nothing easy about closing it.
The fact that Germany stands to lose $238.2 billion which is almost half of the country's annual budget of $539 billion, means that destroying the pipeline would probably mean a complete loss of support from Germany and other western states for the Kiev regime.
They're more than capable of destroying sections of it. Just yesterday their inventory of missiles was listed to still be in the hundreds. But at this point in time the Ukrainian military won't do it. It'll be the nationalist paramilitaries who are already starting to feel betrayed who would wind up cutting the pipelines, but that's probably a ways off still.
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