Russia celebrates Crimea annexation while Ukraine looks to West for support
http://world.einnews.com/article/196263645/Wh66pCqAZVExhtpQ?n=1&code=lCtThc8XIaCtSyaE
MOSCOW — Deep-booming fireworks
rent the sky in Moscow and in Crimea on Friday night to celebrate the
territorial expansion of Russia at Ukraine’s expense.
Earlier in the day, President Vladimir Putin, defiant in the
face of growing Western pressure, signed a treaty of accession moments
after it was ratified by the upper house of parliament. The deal gives
the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, but it has pushed a diminished Ukraine
further toward the West.
Video
President Obama said Thursday before leaving
for Florida that the U.S. government would expand sanctions on Russian
individuals and authorize future sanctions for sectors of the Russian
economy. The president predicted these measures could have an effect on
the global economy.
Photos of the day
World Down Syndrome Day, naked yoga, lost Rembrandt recovered, first lady Michelle Obama in China and more.
In Brussels, Ukraine’s leaders signed an agreement committing
the country to closer ties with the European Union and said they had
been promised more than $1 billion in additional economic aid. Russia,
meanwhile, has become the target of expanded sanctions.
The E.U., following the lead of the United States, added a dozen names
Friday to its list of Russian officials subject to visa and financial
restrictions. But efforts by eastern members of the E.U. to pursue much
tougher measures were rebuffed by leaders of bigger countries worried
about the consequences for their own economies.
Measures begin to bite
In Moscow, politicians joked about the sanctions. But the
measures were beginning to show some bite, and several hundred thousand
Russians could be feeling their effect.
MasterCard and Visa stopped handling transactions for Bank Rossiya, which was placed on the U.S. sanctions list
Thursday by President Obama, and for the much smaller SMP Bank, which
is owned by two brothers, Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, who are also on
the U.S. list. The Rotenbergs are old friends of Putin’s and have grown
rich since he came to power.
Also blocked was the credit card business of several small banks that rely on the two bigger ones to handle transactions.
“It
will not have a huge effect,” said Anton Soroko, a bank analyst in
Moscow. Bank Rossiya, the country’s 15th-largest bank, has about 470,000
individual clients. Most of them have direct deposit for their salaries
and use their cards only to withdraw cash from ATMs — a procedure that
is still possible, according to Natalia Romanova, editor of the Web site
banki.ru.
It remains unusual, she said, for Russians to use credit cards for point-of-sale purchases or to make purchases online.
Yet
the news of the suspended transactions caught people’s attention. Putin
said he would open an account in Bank Rossiya on Monday and have his
salary deposited there.
At a meeting of Russia’s national security
council, he joked about not associating too closely with some of his
aides who are on the U.S. and E.U. lists. He said Russia, for now,
should not retaliate any further than the entry bans for nine U.S. officials it announced Thursday.
But
later in the afternoon, the talk grew more menacing. Russia will not
let further sanctions go unanswered, said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry
Peskov.
“We will react every time, and we react based on
mutuality. We have responded to the first sanctions, and now we will
respond” to further sanctions, he said. “They will not go unnoticed.”
The Foreign Ministry promised a stiff response to the United States.
“The
U.S. administration decision announced on March 20 to expand the list
of sanctions against Russian officials, parliamentarians and businessmen
as a punishment for Crimea’s reunification with Russia causes
disappointment and regret,” said a statement attributed to Alexander
Lukashevich, the ministry’s press secretary. “We are certain to respond
toughly as already happened on more than one occasion earlier with
respect to earlier sanctions.”
Alexei Pushkov, head of the foreign
affairs committee of the Duma, or lower house of parliament, tweeted
Friday: “Economic sanctions make sense when their goal is to prevent
something. The reunification with Crimea is already a fact. There’s
nothing they can prevent. What’s the point?”
A sign of things to come?
Ukraine’s leaders, stung by the loss of Crimea and facing dire
problems at home, hope to capitalize on Western support. The interim
prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, signed an agreement at the Brussels
E.U. summit that could lead to broader cooperation.
It came four
months to the day after the ousted president of Ukraine, Viktor
Yanukovych, spurned a deal with the E.U. in favor of an arrangement with
Russia, provoking the long-
lasting protest that eventually brought him down.
lasting protest that eventually brought him down.
Ukraine
is still a significant way from formally joining the 28-nation E.U.
bloc, and such a move would probably draw a furious response from
Moscow. But Yatsenyuk said he believed that Friday’s signing of a
political association agreement marked a major push in that direction.
“We
want to be a part of the big European family, and this is the first
tremendous step in order to achieve for Ukraine its ultimate goal, as a
full-fledged member,” he said.
The signing of the deal with
Ukraine overshadowed, for a day, Europe’s continuing struggles over how
to penalize Moscow for its annexation of Crimea.
Some members,
particularly those in Eastern Europe, have pushed for tough sanctions,
fearing that without a stern response from the West, Russia will be
emboldened to reach for more territory. But other European nations,
including E.U. heavyweights such as Germany, have deep economic ties
with Russia and are reluctant to push too hard. About a third of
Europe’s natural gas comes from Russian sources.
Without unanimous support for broad financial sanctions, the E.U. focused on more modest steps.
On
Friday, it announced the addition of 12 individuals to its sanctions
list, which began with 21 names earlier in the week. The new names
appeared to be part of an effort to coordinate strategy with the United
States and included several Putin aides and officials who have been
sanctioned by Washington. Among them were Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime
minister.
The list also included Dmitry Kiselyov, a Russian news
anchor who was recently chosen to head the Kremlin’s new information
agency, Russia Today. Kiselyov responded to American criticism of the
Crimean referendum Sunday by warning that Russia was capable of turning
the United States into “radioactive ashes.”
Notably, Europe did
not go after Russian oligarchs or banks, as the United States did on
Thursday. But European leaders said they have prepared additional
penalties that would be triggered if Putin makes a play for other parts
of Ukraine.
“If there’s further destabilization in Ukraine, then
there should be further, wide-ranging measures taken,” said British
Prime Minister David Cameron, who did not give specifics.
Cameron
said the best rebuke to Russia would be a strong Ukraine, a sentiment
that other European leaders echoed. The E.U. also sought on Friday to
bolster other potentially vulnerable nations in Russia’s shadow,
signaling that the bloc would sign deals to tighten relations with
Georgia and Moldova.
Witte reported from London. Kathy Lally in Kiev, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
Russia
Obama Announces New Sanctions Against Russia
Topic: Sanctions Against Russia
Barack Obama
© AFP 2014/ Mandel Ngan
© AFP 2014/ Mandel Ngan
23:51 20/03/2014
Originally posted at 20:18
http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20130405/180450967/Russia-to-Start-State-Tests-of-New-Ballistic-Missile-in-2014.html
Related News
WASHINGTON,
March 20 (RIA Novosti) – US President Barack Obama on Thursday
announced new sanctions against Russia over its reunification with
Crimea.
Obama said more Russians were added to the blacklist of individuals,
who are subject to travel restrictions and whose assets in the US will
be frozen.
"We're imposing sanctions on more senior officials of the Russian government,” Obama said.
The US president also mentioned that sanctions will be imposed on The Rossiya Bank.
“In addition, we are today sanctioning a number of other individuals
with substantial resources and influence who provide material support
to the Russian leadership, as well as a bank that provides material
support to these individuals," he continued.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury said on Thursday its Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated sixteen Russian government
officials and four individuals who provide “material support” to the
Russian government.
The list includes presidential aide Andrei Fursenko, Presidential
Executive Office Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov, head of Russia’s military
intelligence service GRU Igor Sergun, head of Russia’s railway
monopoly RZD Vladimir Yakunin and a number of senior lawmakers.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the existence
of any types of blacklists is “absolutely inadmissible for Russia, no
matter who is on the list.”
“Anyway, Russia’s reaction… will follow soon, on the basis of reciprocity,” he said.
A presidential executive order, published by the White House later in
the day, also envisages sanctions targeting key sectors of the Russian
economy, such as energy, finance, defense, mining, machine-building
and others.
The US and EU announced asset freezes and travel bans targeting a
number of Russian officials close to President Vladimir Putin on Monday,
following Crimea’s referendum on secession.
Crimea, previously an autonomous republic within Ukraine, refused to
recognize the legitimacy of the government in Kiev that came to power
amid often violent protests last month and sought reunification with
Russia after 60 years as part of Ukraine.
The reunification treaty, which sparked the most serious geopolitical
showdown between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War,
was ratified by the State Duma on Thursday.
Russia Warns US Sanctions Would Have Boomerang Effect
Topic: Sanctions Against Russia
http://world.einnews.com/article/196263645/Wh66pCqAZVExhtpQ?n=1&code=lCtThc8XIaCtSyaE
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
© AFP 2014/ Fabrice Coffrini
© AFP 2014/ Fabrice Coffrini
23:48 07/03/2014
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MOSCOW,
March 7 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned
Washington on Friday against "hasty and reckless” steps over the crisis
in Ukraine that could harm Russia-US relations.
In a telephone call initiated by the American side, Lavrov told US
Secretary of State John Kerry that any sanctions against Russia “would
inevitably hit the United States like a boomerang.”
US President Barack Obama on Thursday announced the first set of
sanctions against Moscow to punish Russia for perceived violation of
Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The sanctions include visa bans and asset freezes against
unidentified Russian officials deemed responsible for the escalation of
the Ukrainian crisis.
In an hour-long telephone call earlier on Friday, Russian President
Vladimir Putin told Obama that US-Russian relations "should not be
sacrificed due to disagreements over individual, though extremely
significant, international problems."
Meanwhile, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a chat show on
state television late Friday that Russia did not want the return of the
Cold War that kept the Soviet Union and the West on opposite sides of
the barricades for over four decades.
“There still remains hope...that some points of agreement [over the
Ukrainian crisis] could be found as a result of dialogue - which our
partners, thank God, have not yet rejected,” Peskov said.
Russia
EU Adds 12 Russian, Crimean Officials To Sanctions List
Topic: Sanctions Against Russia
Dmitry Rogozin
© RIA Novosti. Sergei Mamontov
© RIA Novosti. Sergei Mamontov
23:10 21/03/2014
Originally posted at 20:00
Related News
MOSCOW,
March 21 (RIA Novosti) – The European Union on Friday extended asset
freezes and travel bans on 12 Russian and Crimean officials allegedly
responsible for what the West considers the seizure of Ukraine’s former
region of Crimea by Russia.
The EU expanded the number of Russian and Ukrainian officials under
sanctions to 33 early Friday morning, just hours after the United States
added 20 more officials to its own list. French President Francois
Hollande said the EU list largely mirrored a similar US list.
The individuals added to the list are: speakers of the upper and
lower houses of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko and Sergei Naryshkin;
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the country’s
military industry as deputy prime minister; presidential adviser Sergei
Glazyev and presidential aide Vladislav Surkov.
It also includes head of the state news service Rossiya Segodnya
Dmitry Kiselyov, lawmaker Elena Mizulina, deputy commanders of the Black
Sea Fleet Alexander Nosatov and Valery Kulikov, commander of Russian
forces in Crimea Igor Turchenyuk and chairmen of Crimea and Sevastopol
electoral commissions, Mikhail Malyshev and Valery Medvedev.
Kiselyov said on Rossiya-1 TV channel on Friday evening that imposing
sanctions on journalists was “an attack against the media freedom,”
which “contradicts Europe’s basic human rights documents.”
The move was the latest escalation in the clash over Ukraine’s
Crimea, the greatest geopolitical showdown between Russia and the West
since the end of the Cold War.
The US and EU announced asset freezes and travel bans targeting a
number of Russian officials close to President Vladimir Putin on Monday,
following Crimea’s referendum.
EU officials have described three levels of sanctions against Russia.
The first was the suspension three weeks ago of negotiations on visa
liberalization to ease travel between EU member states and Russia.
Defense
Russia Starts Massive Air Defense Drills Amid Crimea Standoff
Topic: Crimea’s Fate
http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20140306/188151801/Russia-Starts-Massive-Air-Defense-Drills-Amid-Crimea-Standoff.html
20:39 06/03/2014
Related News
Putin Orders Troops Back to Base After Military Drills- Russia Plans 2 More Ballistic Missile Tests in March
- Russia Test-Fires ICBM to Target in Kazakhstan
- Russia to Test 70 New Rockets and Missiles in 2014
- Russia Test-Fires ICBM to Target in Kazakhstan
Multimedia
MOSCOW,
March 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Western Military District has begun
large-scale air defense drills at its southern testing range of Kapustin
Yar on the backdrop of further escalation of tensions with the West
over Ukraine.
Kapustin Yar, located some 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of the
Ukrainian border, will host about 3,500 troops and over 1,000 units of
military hardware for about a month. The exercise will culminate with
live-firing drills, involving S-300, Buk-M1 and other air defense
systems.
“It is for the first time that all air defense units from the
district, including coastal defenses of the Northern Fleet, have
gathered in one place,” said the district’s spokesman, Col. Oleg
Kochetkov.
“It is the largest-ever exercise held by air defense units of the
Western Military District,” Kochetkov said, adding that the drills were
part of a regular combat training cycle.
The exercise, however, coincides with further escalation of a
political crisis in Ukraine that has led to the current standoff between
Russia and the West over the fate of Crimea, an autonomous Ukrainian
region with a majority ethnic Russian population.
Crimean authorities have refused to recognize as legitimate the new
central government in Kiev, which ousted President Viktor Yanukovych
late last month, and on Thursday they announced a decision to become
part of Russia.
A popular vote to approve the decision will be held in Crimea on March 16.
Russia’s parliament has recently approved military intervention in
Ukraine, while thousands of “local militia” allegedly under Russian
command have taken control over Ukrainian military bases across Crimea
in the past week.
Following these developments, the West showered Moscow with
accusations of aggression and threats of sanctions while cutting off
military exchanges with Russia and scrambling to bolster military
cooperation within NATO.
The Pentagon announced plans on Wednesday to expand combat pilot
training in Poland and to send six additional F-15C fighter jets to a
NATO mission carrying out air patrols over Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania.
Patrols have been carried out on a three- to four-month rotation
basis by 14 NATO states from Lithuania’s air base in Zokniai, near the
northern city of Siauliai, since 2004 when the ex-Soviet republics
joined the alliance.
The Estonian military said Thursday that the six US fighter jets as
well as two KC-135 aerial refueling tankers landed at Zokniai, joining
four US F-15s deployed there since January.
Defense
Russia Plans 2 More Ballistic Missile Tests in March
Russia Plans 2 More Ballistic Missile Tests in March
© RIA Novosti. Sergei Kazak
© RIA Novosti. Sergei Kazak
17:20 05/03/2014
Related News
ASTANA,
March 5 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is planning to carry out two tests of
intercontinental ballistic missiles this month in addition to Tuesday’s
successful launch, the Kazakh military said.
“On February 19, the Kazakh Defense Ministry received a request [from
Russia] for permission to carry out three test launches in March. The
request was approved on February 28,” the Central Asian nation’s Defense
Ministry said Wednesday.
In line with a 1992 bilateral agreement on the use of test ranges,
Russia periodically launches ballistic missiles with dummy warheads from
its territory toward simulated targets at the Sary-Shagan range, which
Moscow leases in Kazakhstan.
The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier that a RS-12M Topol ICBM,
carrying a payload simulating “an advanced warhead,” was launched from
the Kapustin Yar testing range in southern Russia’s Astrakhan Region on
Tuesday.
Spokesman Igor Yegorov said the launch’s purpose was to test
improvements of the ballistic missile, which entered service with the
Russian Strategic Missile Forces in 1985.
The RS-12M Topol (SS-25 Sickle) is a single-warhead intercontinental
ballistic missile, about the same size and shape as the US Minuteman
ICBM.
The missile has a maximum range of 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles)
and can carry a nuclear warhead with a yield of up to 550 kilotons.
Defense
Russia to Start State Tests of New Ballistic Missile in 2014
Russia to Start State Tests of New Ballistic Missile in 2014
© RIA Novosti. Michail Fomichev
© RIA Novosti. Michail Fomichev
00:29 05/04/2013
Related News
- Russia to Bring Back Railroad-Based ICBM – Source
- Russia to Test 11 ICBMs in 2013
- Russia to Keep Silo and Mobile ICBM Launchers in Future
- Russia to Deploy New ICBM in 2014
- Putin Pledges 400 ICBMs for Russia in Ten Years
Multimedia
MOSCOW,
April 5 (RIA Novosti) – The state tests of a new solid-fuel
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will begin in 2014, a former
Russian military commander said.
Russia announced the development of a new ICBM to replace the existing Topol-M and Yars missiles in 2012. If the tests are successful, it could be commissioned as early as in 2015.
“The state tests of the missile have been scheduled for 2014,” Col.
Gen. Viktor Yesin (Ret.), who served as chief of staff of the Russian
Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) in 1991-93, told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
The general added that the preliminary tests of the missile were
underway, but refused to provide details on its performance
characteristics.
According to open sources, the SMF currently operates at least 58
silo-based SS-18 Satan ballistic missiles, 160 road-mobile Topol (SS-25
Sickle) missile systems, 50 silo-based and 18 road-mobile Topol-M (SS-27
Sickle B) systems, and 18 RS-24 Yars systems.
Two missile divisions have been fully rearmed with Topol-M and Yars
systems, while the rearmament of three more divisions will start later
this year, according to SMF.
The SMF will also deploy in the near future a new automated battle
management system (ASBU), which will allow rapid retargeting of ICBMs.
March 21st, 2014
03:07 PM ET
How West can respond to Russia's aggression
By Jane Harman, Special to CNN
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/21/how-west-can-respond-to-russias-aggression/
Many of us have said for years that terrorists have attacked us asymmetrically, where we are weakest. We've also said that they only have to be right once, whereas we have be right 100 percent of the time.
Well, apply that to Ukraine. Putin found Ukraine’s weakest point and exploited it. Russia inserted a trained covert force in Crimea quickly against Ukraine’s small military force and ineffective government. The Russians were strong, the Ukrainians were weak.
The response of the West should be to use our own comparative strength against Russia’s weakness. We have a strong economy and a robust energy future. Their economy is riddled with corruption and depends on Russia being a gas station to Europe and elsewhere.
We have to rein in Putin to prevent him from further aggressive actions. Here’s a four-point potential roadmap:
Targeted sanctions: The Obama administration, European Union and Canada have made a good start in putting sanctions on senior Russian officials. They can do more by imposing international sanctions modeled after those imposed on Iran. President Obama just authorized sanctions on investments in Russia’s energy and industrial sectors as well as Russian bank activities around the world. But if and when imposed, they may not cover holdings by oligarchs outside Russia. Expect pain for some U.S. companies operating in Russia, the high priced condo markets in London and New York and restaurants in the South of France that many of Russia’s oligarchs frequent. But done right, this could be a game changer well worth the short term sacrifice.
Help Ukraine elect competent leaders in May: A new transparent, competent and pluralist government must make it clear that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are welcome in Ukraine. The new government should qualify to receive desperately needed economic aid from the U.S., E.U., the International Monetary Fund and others. Congress must stop partisan wrangling and pass the $1 billion in aid for Ukraine.
Complete negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: The trade agreement that’s being negotiated between the European Union and the United States should be passed, as should Trade Promotion Authority to ratify it. This matters because it would facilitate trade in all sectors – including energy – by standardizing regulations. Stronger U.S.-EU economic ties will reduce Putin’s leverage in the region.
Consider an energy bargain: New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has a smart idea: get Republicans and Democrats to agree to environmentally safe extraction, transportation and export of gas, in addition to development of renewables. Get Europe to look to North America instead of Russia for energy.
Putin hasn't learned Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it. He now adds Crimea's broken economy to Russia's. The West needs to be tough and smart, which means we need to exercise our asymmetric power against him.
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Post by: |
The Opinion Pages|Op-Ed Columnist
Why Putin Doesn’t Respect Us
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/opinion/friedman-why-putin-doesnt-respect-us.html?_r=0
Just
as we’ve turned the coverage of politics into sports, we’re doing the
same with geopolitics. There is much nonsense being written about how
Vladimir Putin showed how he is “tougher” than Barack Obama and how
Obama now needs to demonstrate his manhood. This is how great powers get
drawn into the politics of small tribes and end up in great wars that
end badly for everyone. We vastly exaggerate Putin’s strength — so does
he — and we vastly underestimate our own strength, and ability to weaken
him through nonmilitary means.
Let’s
start with Putin. Any man who actually believes, as Putin has said,
that the breakup of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical
catastrophe” of the 20th century is caught up in a dangerous fantasy
that can’t end well for him or his people. The Soviet Union died because
Communism could not provide rising standards of living, and its
collapse actually unleashed boundless human energy all across Eastern
Europe and Russia. A wise Putin would have redesigned Russia so its vast
human talent could take advantage of all that energy. He would be
fighting today to get Russia into the European Union, not to keep
Ukraine out. But that is not who Putin is and never will be. He is
guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations toward his people and
prefers to turn Russia into a mafia-run petro-state — all the better to
steal from.
So
Putin is now fighting human nature among his own young people and his
neighbors — who both want more E.U. and less Putinism. To put it in
market terms, Putin is long oil and short history. He has made himself
steadily richer and Russia steadily more reliant on natural resources
rather than its human ones. History will not be kind to him — especially
if energy prices ever collapse.
So
spare me the Putin-body-slammed-Obama prattle. This isn’t All-Star
Wrestling. The fact that Putin has seized Crimea, a Russian-speaking
zone of Ukraine, once part of Russia, where many of the citizens prefer
to be part of Russia and where Russia has a major naval base, is not
like taking Poland. I support economic and diplomatic sanctions to
punish Russia for its violation of international norms and making clear
that harsher sanctions, even military aid for Kiev, would ensue should
Putin try to bite off more of Ukraine. But we need to remember that that
little corner of the world is always going to mean more, much more, to
Putin than to us, and we should refrain from making threats on which
we’re not going to deliver.
What
disturbs me about Crimea is the larger trend it fits into, that
Putinism used to just be a threat to Russia but is now becoming a threat
to global stability. I opposed expanding NATO toward Russia after the
Cold War, when Russia was at its most democratic and least threatening.
It remains one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done and, of course,
laid the groundwork for Putin’s rise.
For
a long time, Putin has exploited the humiliation and anti-Western
attitudes NATO expansion triggered to gain popularity, but this seems to
have become so fundamental to his domestic politics that it has locked
him into a zero-sum relationship with the West that makes it hard to see
how we collaborate with him in more serious trouble spots, like Syria
or Iran. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is engaged in monstrous,
genocidal behavior that also threatens the stability of the Middle East.
But Putin stands by him. At least half the people of Ukraine long to be
part of Europe, but he treated that understandable desire as a NATO
plot and quickly resorted to force.
I
don’t want to go to war with Putin, but it is time we expose his real
weakness and our real strength. That, though, requires a long-term
strategy — not just fulminating on “Meet the Press.” It requires going
after the twin pillars of his regime: oil and gas. Just as the oil glut
of the 1980s, partly engineered by the Saudis, brought down global oil
prices to a level that helped collapse Soviet Communism, we could do the
same today to Putinism by putting the right long-term policies in
place. That is by investing in the facilities to liquefy and export our
natural gas bounty (provided it is extracted at the highest
environmental standards) and making Europe, which gets 30 percent of its
gas from Russia, more dependent on us instead. I’d also raise our
gasoline tax, put in place a carbon tax and a national renewable energy
portfolio standard — all of which would also help lower the global oil
price (and make us stronger, with cleaner air, less oil dependence and
more innovation).
You
want to frighten Putin? Just announce those steps. But you know the
story, the tough guys in Washington who want to take on Putin would
rather ask 1 percent of Americans — the military and their families — to
make the ultimate sacrifice than have all of us make a small sacrifice
in the form of tiny energy price increases. Those tough guys who thump
their chests in Congress but run for the hills if you ask them to vote
for a 10-cent increase in the gasoline tax that would actually boost our
leverage, they’ll never rise to this challenge. We’ll do anything to
expose Putin’s weakness; anything that isn’t hard. And you wonder why
Putin holds us in contempt?
Global LNG prices rebound from lows as demand picks up
Viewd by: 299
9:59 PM
21
March
2014
http://www.gulf-times.com/eco.-bus.%20news/256/details/385452/global-lng-prices-rebound-from-lows-as-demand-picks-up
A
night view of the Petronas Petroleum Industry Complex in Kerteh,
Terengganu, Malaysia. Asian spot LNG prices may have bottomed out this
week as Japanese buyers stepped back into the market to prepare for peak
summer demand.
Reuters/Singapore/London
Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices may have bottomed out
this week as Japanese buyers stepped back into the market to prepare for
peak summer demand.
Prices for May delivery rose to around $16.50 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), from $15.70 per mmBtu last week.
Prices had fallen over the past month after topping $20 mmBtu due to limited spot supply and stockpiling after a cold winter.
“The Japanese showed interest in committing May cargoes at around $16.50 mmBtu,” said one Singapore-based trader.
Malaysia’s Petronas this week secured around 18 LNG cargoes of
Nigerian origin from Portuguese utility Galp Energia in a tender, a
source with knowledge of the matter said.
Earlier this month Galp launched the tender to sell up to 30 LNG
cargoes from Nigeria’s Bonny Island liquefaction plant over a period of
five years, with 4-6 cargoes offered each year.
The winners of the other Galp cargoes will be notified later
yesterday, with details expected to filter out to the market over the
weekend.
Sources differed in their opinions of how much winners paid for the
cargoes, with estimates ranging from 13.5-14.3% of the price of a barrel
of Brent crude oil.
At the upper end that puts the price somewhere around $15.30 per
mmBtu given that Brent crude is currently trading at about $107 a
barrel.
More pricing direction will likely come from the outcome of
Australia’s North West Shelf tender award for several cargoes which
closed last week, although the identity of the winning companies remains
uncertain.
The results of the latest single cargo sell tender from Angola LNG
also remained unclear, while re-exports from Spanish terminals are
expected to add to the availability of supply on the global market.
Angola LNG last month issued three tenders, with some traders
expecting it to do the same thing this month prior to a two-month
maintenance outage planned from July.
Argentina has also issued a buy tender for two cargoes for delivery in May, traders said.
Galp Energia is seeking to swap six LNG cargoes from Bonny Island for
pipeline gas routed to Portugal from southern France, traders said.
Japan’s JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp said on Thursday it has
signed a contract to buy 380,000 tonnes per year of LNG from the
Malaysia LNG Dua project for 10 years from 2015.
Chinese LNG imports rose by a modest 6% in February to 1.50mn tonnes
from the same month last year, although the volumes were likely affected
by the Lunar New Year festival at the beginning of the month.
In the first two months, imports rose by 42% to 4.14mn tonnes.
Imports are expected to climb by 37% this year to around 24.4mn tonnes
and by another 19% to 29mn tonnes in 2015, according to Energy Aspects.
BG Group, one of the world’s foremost LNG trading firms, expects
prices to stay robust this year and the current tightness to persist,
with only a modest rise in LNG supply and strong increase in Chinese and
South American demand.
“In 2014 we expect continued growth in demand for LNG from Asia,
albeit at a slower rate than in previous years,” BG Group’s
vice-president of global LNG, Andrew Walker, said in a report released
this week.
“In 2014, we expect Europe will continue to balance the global LNG
market by ceding volumes, but it’s not clear how much more can be
diverted before we reach the minimum level of imports,” Walker said.
“The global LNG market will be tighter for longer than many assume, until the end of the decade at least,” he said.
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