Capitalist piracy continues as the short and long-term speculation and profit from the global natural gas market, with some examples of potential price gouging in the case of California and as China attempts to control some LNG futures.
The emergence of Renewable Natural Gas shows how problematic the resource markets have become, no differently than the neoliberalism of corporate greenwashing. Not unlike the markets for carbon capture tech, the solutions will become more elusive as they become more profitable regardless of the climate crisis.
Even the most basic of solutions are not implemented like methane releases. “Stopping all non-emergency flaring and venting is the single most impactful measure countries can take to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations.” Even the current shifts in LNG transport are more about profit than mitigating peace, and blaming a future Chinese monopoly could be more about Taiwan foreign policy than an efficient global market for LNG.
Globally, 2020 was the hottest year on record, effectively tying 2016, the previous record. Overall, Earth's average temperature has risen more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1880s. Temperatures are increasing due to human activities, specifically emissions of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane.
climate.nasa.gov/…
The usual creative destruction of capitalism has resulted not simply because of the chaos of the Russo-Ukrainian war but of the hybrid war’s disinformation campaign including the culprit who damaged the Nordstream 2 pipelines.
Fortunately there has been a mild EU winter that makes the background intrigue of natural gas supplied by Russia less problematic. As always capital will benefit not simply because of neoliberal searching for energy substitutes but for financialization of commodity markets. Despite a war rife with propaganda, the accumulation of surplus value continues. The long-run, speculative sub-market created by sanctions regimes may prove more impactful in the long run. As always, “parallel economies and opaque dealings will flourish.”
If RNG could be a renewable replacement for fossil natural gas, why not move ahead? Consumers have shown that they are willing to buy renewable electricity, so we might expect similar enthusiasm for RNG.
The key issue is that methane isn’t just a fuel – it’s also a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Any methane that is manufactured intentionally, whether from biogenic or other sources, will contribute to climate change if it enters the atmosphere.
And releases will happen, from newly built production systems and existing, leaky transportation and user infrastructure. For example, the moment you smell gas before the pilot light on a stove lights the ring? That’s methane leakage, and it contributes to climate change.
To be clear, RNG is almost certainly better for the climate than fossil natural gas because byproducts of burning RNG won’t contribute to climate change. But doing somewhat better than existing systems is no longer enough to respond to the urgency of climate change. The world’s primary international body on climate change suggests we need to decarbonize by 2030 to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.
theconversation.com/...
Though RNG sounds like a viable alternative to gas, it has drawbacks. According to Vox, some hope it's a valid option to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. But the reason why gas companies are promoting RNG is because many plan to mix it with regular natural gas in pipelines, for a "sustainable mix" — even though it's really to keep gas as a viable energy source. That said, it doesn't fully eliminate greenhouse gas emissions when it's being used, unlike other energy alternatives.
Additionally, much of the "organic matter" will be taken from agricultural communities that pollute the air and water with methane that comes from raising livestock, agricultural runoff, and more. Unfortunately, many of these farms are based in vulnerable communities.
RNG sounds great in theory, but it's just another way for gas companies to keep thriving amidst an environmental revolution — it's definitely best to stick to our guns, and advocate for clean energy.
www.greenmatters.com/...
The reproduction of world economy relations is now routinely confronted by the often intractable politics of securing access to a wide range of resources; the drive towards constituting a distinctively low-carbon economy with its particular implications for various energy carriers; and the ongoing institutional reconfiguration of both the demand- and supply-side of international resource markets.
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It can be argued that much energy scholarship, whether it realises it or not, is grounded in IPE as a discipline. Gilpin’s (1987) three core approaches to IPE – liberalism, mercantilism, and Marxism – effectively cover many of these debates. Liberal IPE, beginning with Adam Smith’s 1776 The Wealth of Nations, provided a set of questions with direct and ongoing relevance to the study of energy and resources. Notably, the operation of supply and demand in competitive markets, establishing necessary (minimum) levels of government intervention to support the operation of markets, the benefits of specialisation and trade (Ricardo 1817), managing the distribution of resources as a separate question to that of production (Mill 1848), and the futility or otherwise of trying to address issues of poverty (Malthus 1798). These questions remain central in contemporary liberal IPE, and within its main variant, (neoclassical) economics, even if the analysis and answers to such questions have changed. Crucially, there was no need for such approaches to directly engage with energy issues – for liberal theory, all goods can be treated equally, just as they are treated equally by impersonal market mechanisms. The mercantilist response precisely focuses on this equating of goods. It differentiates between different types of goods: primary, agriculture and resource extraction; secondary, industrial manufacturing; and tertiary, service sector, goods.
The political economy of energy and resources is very clearly placed within the primary goods category, and will exhibit the structural characteristics thereof. Indeed, the object of mercantilist policy is very clearly to diversify economies away from primary production towards secondary goods, which are deemed to have a range of advantages (see Hamilton 1791 and List 1841), not least due to different ‘terms of trade’. Protectionism and other trade and industrial policies which states might practise are justified by mercantilism in these terms while national industrial growth and economic development strategies outweigh the liberal objective of maximising global, aggregate levels of economic wealth through free trade. Energy resources, particularly coal, are cast here as the fuel of the burgeoning industrial economy, and so take on strategic importance, not simply for national economic power, but for the military might which this underpins. This necessitates a much greater thinking in international political economy role of the state in managing these resources – but the same role regarding energy as for any strategic resource.
Critical International Political Economy (IPE) asks a different set of questions altogether, concerning the ownership of economic assets, including energy and resources, and concerning the stability of the global economic and trading systems under capitalism. Generating systemic crises, capitalism constantly disrupts production and destabilises the social system in which production takes place (Marx 1867). Commodity price fluctuations and crashes, along with deep inequalities in access to energy, would be an expected outcome. In practice, it was not only communist states which emphasised national government ownership of key energy resources to address this problem, though more avowedly reformist variants chose to emphasise government management and regulation of the private sector economy to ensure acceptable social outcomes (see Keynes 1936).
Concerns with the distribution of wealth, particularly as Europe’s welfare state moved away from its conservative roots and towards the social democracy of the post-war era, led to the creation of large energy utilities providing energy services to entire populations.
Polanyi (1957) called for markets to be subordinate to the norms and values of society, opening the door for a range of critical environmental positions in relation to fossil fuel and nuclear energy production technologies. Again, the state is a key actor here, required to address both domestic regulatory requirements and redistributive politics across a range of issues, of which energy is included, but without any particular ‘public goods’ characteristics to distinguish it from other policy areas.
www.elgaronline.com/...
The Kremlin is betting that geology is destiny. History supports that wager. If energy reserves are good enough, countries have held onto a world-leading position for a century or more. The US and Russia were the world’s largest oil producers in 1900. After more than 100 years of wars, revolutions, the dissolution of the old tsarist and Soviet empires, and the discovery of the Middle East’s vast oilfields, the US and Russia are still on top.
Thanks to a mild winter, constrained consumption and vast liquefied natural gas imports that have filled the Russian pipeline gap, European natural gas prices are now trading below their average levels during the 2010s, perceived at the time as an era of glutted gas markets. European gas consumption in August to November fell by a fifth, compared with its average over the four previous years. Even German industry managed to cut back and pull through — with a cost that nonetheless fell short of a recession. Benchmark oil, which surged above $120 in the spring, is back toward $80.
www.bloomberg.com/...
Cornell University’s Nicholas Mulder, author of The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War, argues that economies like Iran and Myanmar have created states within a state. The money will flow — commodities have a way of making it to market — just not necessarily into official coffers. Time allows existing power networks to adapt and new ones to be created. Parallel economies and opaque dealings will flourish.
All of this makes using coalitions of nations in sanctions efforts far more significant — not just in terms of signaling support for Ukraine, but when it comes to enforcement. That means the US and Ukraine’s other supporters must continue to engage with large emerging nations who have so far avoided taking sides, reluctant to break with a major grain, fertilizer, oil and weapons exporter, and wary of Western intentions.
Why Were California's Natural Gas Prices Almost 6 Times Other Parts of US?
To some, low tanks and slow pipelines resemble the state’s 2000 and 2001 energy crisis. Back then, secretly-recorded phone calls exposed insiders’ scheme to intentionally take power plants down to push prices up in California.
“These are hard cases to investigate,” said Severin Borenstein, Ph.D., faculty director of the Energy Institute at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas Business School. We asked Borenstein if he sees any parallels between the power crisis in 2000 and natural gas today.
“I do see parallels in the setup at least,” he said.
Borenstein said federal investigators should be looking for signs someone manipulated the gas market -- at your expense. Why were pipelines reduced and storage tanks low right when California clearly needed gas?
“Did that put some players in the market in a position to make it even worse, as we saw happen back in 2000, 2001,” he asked.
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Three hopeful signs in California
Here are three pieces of good news for your gas bill.
(Bloomberg) — A rush by China to sign new long-term liquefied natural gas deals promises to give the nation even more control over the global market at a time when competition for cargoes is booming.
Chinese companies are sealing the most LNG purchase agreements of any nation and increasingly are becoming the sector’s key import intermediary. The Chinese buyers are reselling many of the cargoes to the highest bidders in Europe and Asia, effectively taking charge over a hefty chunk of supply.
Firms based in China account for roughly 15% of all contracts that’ll begin delivering LNG supply through 2027, according to an analysis of BloombergNEF data. That trend is set to increase as the companies seek to lock in more long-term agreements, which will effectively give their traders control over the fuel for decades.
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China can provide stability during periods of global shortages, but it could withhold supply and drive up prices if the needs at home must be met.
Thanks to the mindless Western pursuit of Net Zero, China is increasingly in a position to impose a China tax on the entire world’s energy supply, or keep the gas for themselves if they so choose.
If the Chinese plan is to insert themselves into the middle, to make a profit by reselling the gas, their positioning makes sense. Man in the middle, cornering the market then forcing up prices is an old trick, which only works when there is a limited supply of something people can’t live without.
The obvious counter strategy to China making themselves the natural gas brokers of the world, and potentially making a fat profit from everyone’s gas bills by pushing up the price, is to break China’s monopoly, by flooding Western markets with increased domestic gas production.
But my suggested counter strategy would require a rational Western political response to energy shortages.
After observing the energy policy insanity of the last decade, people operating out of China appear to have reasonably concluded that Western politicians will not respond intelligently to their geopolitical games, and have gambled their fortunes on Net Zero obsessed Western politicians maintaining their regulatory hostility to the expansion of Western domestic gas production.
If Western commitment to Net Zero falters, and Western gas production rises, international gas prices could fall below the strike price of those big Chinese futures contracts. The billions of dollars of profits the Chinese gas pirates and their associates expect to make from cornering the market would flip over into big losses (the brown area of the graph at the top of the page).
I doubt it is just Chinese entrepreneurs who are involved in cornering the gas supply market.
Chinese entities might have purchased the gas futures contracts, but who owns those Chinese entities?
- Who is on the boards of directors?
- Who provided the money?
- Who is receiving a share of the profits?
We have no way of knowing for sure who is involved. And it is worth noting, cornering the global gas market by purchasing gas futures is not against the law, so I am not accusing anyone of committing a crime. Lets just say I would not be surprised if some rich and influential Westerners are involved, in this entirely legal scheme, which I believe is aimed at ripping off ordinary Western energy consumers.
climate-science.press/...
Plunging prices for natural gas have spoiled what looked like a promising period of deal making involving energy companies and private-equity firms in the sector.
Gas prices in U.S. futures markets have fallen by nearly two thirds since mid-December and this week reached the lowest level since early in the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 as a mild winter sapped demand and supply remains robust, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
The slump put on hold or derailed negotiations for a number of deals among gas producers, including some backed by private equity, as buyers reduced offers and sellers stood their ground, industry lawyers and investment bankers said.
“With gas prices falling and without a clear understanding of where they’re going to end up, it doesn’t give people confidence when they’re trying to buy,” said Sarah McLean, a Shearman & Sterling LLP partner in the law firm’s private-equity and mergers-and-acquisitions practices.
I am well aware of multiple transactions that were in the works and stalled because gas prices have gone down. There were a lot of exits planned for this year and I think many of those may get delayed.
— Muhammad Laghari, Guggenheim Securities
More than 15 oil-and-gas companies remain up for sale in North America with a combined value of more than $40 billion, according to Rystad Energy AS, an energy-focused research company. While deals for companies that produce mostly oil are more likely to go ahead, those involving gas producers may find it hard to get to the finish line, said Muhammad Laghari, a senior managing director in the energy-investment banking practice of Guggenheim Securities.
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The drop in the fuel prices represents a reversal of fortune both for private-equity firms hoping to score profitable sales of gas producers and for potential buyers eager to expand in an increasingly consolidated shale industry, deal lawyers said.
After a steep rise in commodity prices following the pandemic led to a
series of private-equity exits in the Haynesville Shale in 2021, competition for the gas producers that remained on the block intensified, the lawyers said. Adding to the momentum, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
prompted a further increase in natural gas prices to more than $9 per million British thermal units in August, the highest in 14 years.
Gas demand also got some help when the European Union in July voted to label gas a “green” fuel, the lawyers said.
“For a while gas was sort of king in the sense that prices were high and gas is viewed as clean in many respects,” Ms. McLean said.
In addition to the recent decline in gas prices, rising interest rates and supply-chain inflation have complicated deal making because financing gets more expensive and operating costs rise, putting pressure on profits, Guggenheim’s Mr. Laghari said.
“While buyers may take a certain strategic view and see through the short-term volatility of gas prices, a bigger issue is financing,” he said.
Deal activity is expected to regain steam after gas prices stabilize at a new, likely lower, level than last year, said Atul Raina, a Rystad analyst who focuses on oil-and-gas exploration and production.
“When you try to link gas prices to [mergers and acquisitions], what is critical is having a consensus between buyers and sellers and that is only possible when those prices are stable,” he said.
Gas prices reached their lowest level since mid-2020 this week.