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Comment by Arnt | Hacker News Reader

I think you forget that Gazprom is now wildly unpopular in Europe. That gas will be buyers' last choice, bought only if there's no other option. What's the value of a pipeline if the only product it carries is that unpopular?

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The product is popular, the seller isn't.

A few middlemen and all is well.

That or when enough time has passed after the war.

We don't have a problem with Saudi Arabian oil, no matter what happened with Kashoggi, Yemen or Raif Badawi.

While the other responses to your comment have given some aspects that seem applicable to me. I'd like to add the aspect of marketing. There is most likely some subsidiary of gazprom that sells Gas as more clean than coal approach and hides it's ownership to those that don't do their homework. Besides there being no real alternative to russian gas in central Europe most people will not research who is behind the name on the bill.

I thought about that too, and decided that it's not significant.

That pipeline ends on the north coast of Germany. Its customers will have to be in 10-20 countries surrounding Germany, and energy sources are long-term decisions made by boards of directors rather than mid-level managers. Consider the next five years. Which energy company board in those countries is going to discuss two suggested investment plans, one that involves Gazprom and one that involves anything else, and pick Gazprom over an alternative?

Perhaps, my current opinion is: Many people don't care enough about politics at all to consider it a factor and maybe that changes with the situation in Ukraine but I'm not convinced. Will politicians put pressure on the companies, maybe more likely. In which case you are still right.

If people would care most couldn't afford things like driving a car.

Too many resources come from non democratic countries with a lack of human rights.

> bought only if there's no other option

Which is the case.

> What's the value of a pipeline if the only product it carries is that unpopular?

The value is in having options.

Which is the case today, but the value of an investment like this pipeline is based on a forecast of several decades. On that timescale, the pipeline competes with every kind of power plant.

Yeah you can bet that the 8000$ per m3 gas delivered from Qatar via the United States is going to become very popular, after Gasprom is no longer able to receive payments from its customer, and subsequently stops all of its supply to Europe. Well, this new $8000 gas will surely have molecules of freedom in it, unlike that authoritarian Putin's gas. But for how long will Europeans be willing to put up with prices like this?

If I understand you correctly, your opinion is that ① LNG will be much more expensive than Russian gas in the coming decades and ② Europe cannot reduce its gas usage enough to make that extra cost politically acceptable. Is that correct? If so, my answer to "how long" is "enough to depress the value of that pipeline considerably from its valuation as of two weeks ago".

LNG being much more expensive is pretty obvious - transportation costs are something like 90% of the final price. Pipelines are much more effective means of transportation for such things - build once, use for decades, at almost 0 marginal cost.

Reducing gas usage is entirely different topic, it would require to either: invest heavily in nuclear or: reopening of coal-powered plants.

Belgium (my country) imports about 400% of its domestic use in LNG, to then sell it to neighbouring countries via pipelines. Doesn't make sense if LNG was too expensive.

Without russian gas the demand will skyrocket.

LNG is that masses will be expensive and environmental harmful because of the transportation by ship.

Such an ignorant short sighted response.

You think, perhaps, that I've overlooked that Russia is the only viable source for the gas now?

This pipeline has an expected lifetime of around 50 years. The availability or non-availability of other power sources this year doesn't matter very much for the valuation of the pipeline. My assumption is that the current political situation will lead to a stronger push towards other energy sources, chiefly renewables but also LNG. And as a consequence, that this will depress the use of the pipeline for at least 45 of its expected 50-year lifetime. With obvious implications for its present valuation.

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