Russian gas will eventually return to Europe as nations ‘forgive and forget,’ Qatari energy minister says
On Friday, Russian energy supplier Gazprom said it would not resume its supply of natural gas to Germany through the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming a malfunctioning turbine.
Hannibal Hanschke | Reuters
The European Union’s rejection of Russian energy commodities following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine won’t last forever, Qatar’s Energy Minister said during an energy conference over the weekend.
“The Europeans today are saying there’s no way we’re going back” to buying Russian gas, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, energy minister and head of state gas company QatarEnergy, said at the Atlantic Council Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.
“We’re all blessed to have to be able to forget and to forgive. And I think things get mended with time… they learn from that situation and probably have a much bigger diversity [of energy intake].”
Europe has long been Russia’s largest customer of most energy commodities, especially natural gas. EU countries have dramatically cut down their imports of Russian energy supplies, imposing sanctions in response to Moscow’s brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Gas exports from Russian state energy giant Gazprom to Switzerland and the EU fell by 55% in 2022, the company said earlier this month. The cut in imports has dramatically increased energy costs for Europe, sending leaders and oil and gas executives scrambling to develop new sources of energy and shore up alternative supplies.
“But Russian gas is going back, in my view, to Europe,” al-Kaabi said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has so far taken tens, if not hundreds of thousands of lives, destroyed entire cities, and exiled more than 8 million people as refugees. Russian missiles and drone strikes regularly hit and decimate residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and vital energy infrastructure, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power.
A residential building destroyed after a Russian missile attack on Jan. 15, 2023, in Dnipro, Ukraine.
Global Images Ukraine | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Europe has managed to avert a major crisis this winter, owing to mild weather and substantial stocks of gas amassed over the last year. Energy officials and analysts warn of a more precarious situation in late 2023, when these supplies run out.
“Luckily they [Europe] haven’t had a very high demand for gas due to the warmer weather,” al-Kaabi said. “The issue is what’s going to happen when they want to replenish their storages this coming year, and there isn’t much gas coming into the market until ’25, ’26, ’27 … So I think it’s going to be a volatile situation for some time.”
Later during the conference, CNBC spoke to the CEO of Italian energy company Eni, Claudio Descalzi, who pushed back on the Qatari minister’s comments.
“I think that the war is still there, and it is not easy to forgive anybody when you kill innocent people, women and children and bomb hospitals,” Descalzi told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble. “And so I think that more than forgive, we have to understand the sense of life for our words. For our modern war, because that is [what is] happening there. So, when we talk about energy security, we talk about financing how you allocate your money, how much in the gas, how much in the renewables, and you think that people are killing close to you or far from you… That is the priority, that is the thing we have to solve.”
“Otherwise,” the CEO added, “there is a big elephant in the room. We hide to ourselves this kind of stuff, and when we hide something [it] is coming back bigger and bigger. If you’re forgiving, it means you are not looking at that, you are not thinking we have to solve this kind of issue.”
Descalzi said that the war in Ukraine and energy security are front of mind for him and his industry. Italy has dramatically reduced its reliance on Russian gas by replacing it with energy sources from alternative producers, such as Algeria. On Sunday, Eni announced a new gas discovery in an offshore field in the eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Egypt.
“Honestly, energy security is a big problem… but I think that, in 2023, the priority is Ukraine,” Descalzi said. That’s from my point of view. It’s Russia. It’s the relationship with China.”
“I’m not a politician,” he added, “but I think you cannot manage and talk about money and talk about energy and industry — it’s clear that, if you are not looking at that, a lot of people are going to suffer. But from the other side you talk about freedom, democracy, and people that are dying.”
Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal
Ahmed Jadallah | Reuters
Saudi state oil giant Aramco reported a 15.4% drop in net profit in the third-quarter on the back of “lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” but maintained a 31.05 billion dividend.
The company reported net income of $27.56 billion in the July-September period, topping a company-provided estimate of $26.9 billion. The print is also a 5% drop from the previous quarter, which came in at $29.1 billion, as lower global oil prices, weaker demand and prolonged OPEC+ production cuts led by Saudi Arabia continue to impact crude prices.
The average selling price of oil for the second quarter of 2024 stood at $85 per barrel, but dropped to $78.7 per barrel during the third quarter, according to Saudi-based bank Al Rajhi capital, as non-OPEC supply volumes grew.
The oil firm said its year-on-year decline was partly offset by a “reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses primarily driven by a gain from derivative instruments, and a decrease in production royalties largely reflecting lower crude oil prices and a lower average effective royalty rate compared to the same quarter last year.”
Aramco’s dividend includes a base payout of $20.3 billion and an atypical performance-linked one of $10.8 billion. The Saudi government and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, are the main beneficiaries of the dividend, holding stakes of roughly 81.5% and 16% in the company.
The remaining shareholding trades freely on Saudi Arabia’s Tadāwul stock exchange, with the company having finalized its second public share offering back in June.
Aramco’s earnings before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) came in at $51.45 billion in the third quarter, down 17% year-on-year. Aramco’s capital expenditure guidance was brought up 20% to $13.23 billion.
The company was trading at 27.45 riyals following the announcement, down 0.18% on the previous day.
The earnings align with a broader trend across oil majors, whose third-quarter profits have also suffered from declines in crude prices and refining margins. Aramco said it achieved average realized crude price of $79.3 per barrel in the third quarter, compared with $89.3 per barrel in the same period of last year.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter who produces roughly 9 million barrels per day of crude at present, serves as the de facto leader of the OPEC+ oil producers’ alliance, a subset of whom agreed over the weekend to delay a planned December output hike by one month.
“Aramco delivered robust net income and generated strong free cash flow during the third quarter, despite a lower oil price environment,” CEO Amin Nasser said in a statement. “We also progressed our upstream developments, strengthened our downstream value chain, and advanced our new energies program as we continue to invest through cycles.”
The revenues will be a boon to the Saudi economy, which is currently undergoing a diversification process under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s legacy Vision 2030 scheme spanning a slew of high-cost infrastructure “gigaprojects.”
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance cut the kingdom’s growth forecast to 0.8% in 2024, in a steep decline from a previous projection of 4.4%, and raised the outlook for the national budgetary shortfall to roughly 2.9% of GDP, from a prior indication of 1.9%.
On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla’s Cybertruck is now available in Canada – and, like in the US, there’s no waiting! Plus, we’ve got an “actually” smart summon Tesla that’s actually stuck, GM reaches a sales milestone, and we get a brand-new title sponsor!
Today’s episode is the first with our new title sponsor, BLUETTI – a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems.
Source Links
Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonusLucid proves than an EV company can keep its promises while Xiaomi teams up with Chevrolet and Honda to prove – at least conceptually – that records are made to be broken. audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news!
Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!
Read more: Renewables now make up 30% of US utility-scale generating capacity
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
![This 'supercharger on wheels' brings fast charging to you [update]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/05/EV-mobile-charging-with-Yoshi-Mobility-3.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”
November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).
It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.
Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”
May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.
“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.
The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)
Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)
Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.
The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.
To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.
Read more: Mercedes-Benz just opened more DC fast chargers at Buc-ee’s in Texas
If you’re an electric vehicle owner, charge up your car at home with rooftop solar panels. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing on solar, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –ad*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports7 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway