An unconfirmed tweet about Freeport LNG is upending gas markets | Hacker News Reader

An unconfirmed tweet about Freeport LNG is upending gas markets

bloomberg.com

128 pointsJumpCrisscross163 comments

Commodity traders and investors are very networked and really like such immediate usage news. Many firms also count trucks/traffic near sites etc. so it isn't surprising to see people respond to this.

However, the causation is unclear to me. European gas stocks are at full capacity as is and this Winter is warm with minimal gas burned so far. A 7% drop is par for course in the last few weeks. An extra piece of bad news wouldn't necessarily lead to this - though it could perhaps amplify it to some extent.

You'd have to compare message posting time, look at the views/readership of that tweet etc. That said, this is relatively straight forward and included in many sentiment analysis engines.

From what I have heard the fact that European gas storage is full is nice but not really all that meaningful. The gas storage is only large enough to last a week or something in that magnitude.

The German storage facilities hold gas for two months of typical January consumption rates.

Ownership of that gas is however unclear https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/trotz-voller-speich...

in a national emergency situation can't the government just take it and pay fair market value despite who owns it?

The German government has already taken action several times during this crisis.

(For non German speakers: that linked article's main point is that the gas in German storage may be sent to other European countries, it's not all reserved for the German market.)

As a German, I'm perfectly fine with the reserves serving Europe and not just Germany. Even if/when we run low and have to suffer a bit.

After all, we expect the same from others, that they help us out if they have some and we don't. Energy markets in Europe are connected, for electricity too.

A picture: https://old.reddit.com/r/hardenergy/comments/2d4sgy/natural_...

The EU gas storage is actually around 2 months.

Full capacity is ~1000TWh[0], while winter monthly consumption is around 450 TWh[1].

In other words, way more than a week, and yes, the storage does make a meaningful difference.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1294025/quarterly-gas-in...

[1]: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-04/Quarterly%2...

Perhaps you're thinking of the UK? The UK only has the gas storage capacity for nine days of gas.

Some other European countries have enough gas storage for months - the Netherlands has 123 days of gas stored [1]

[1] https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/10/31/uk-has-nine-days-o...

> this Winter is warm with minimal gas burned so far

I feel like I'm going crazy as this is not the first time I've seen / heard this argument. What does winter mean? I thought it was the months from December to February. I don't understand the narrative that we're in a warm winter at all. Winter, just like Game of Thrones, is coming.

People are just throwing fall and winter together, but it has been an incredibly mild fall so far and that’s definitely been suppressing gas prices. We’re pretty much mid November and I haven’t even turned on my heating, it’s crazy.

Just a couple of months ago (2?) there was an article on Hacker News about the arctic vortex falling apart making for an unusually hot autumn and a very bad winter. I don’t know how it’s going to pan out but where I am from, yesterday was basically late spring and today is very cold.

Could it have been this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32985927

Wikipedia has an interesting note

"Cultural influences such as Christmas creep may have led to the winter season being perceived as beginning earlier in recent years"

I think I've always considered November to be winter, and at some point I picked up that Christmas is in the middle/even towards the end to break it up and give everyone something to look forward to, so I'm always a bit surprised seeing talk of winter in the future tense once I've put on the winter duvet/started wearing a coat all the time/turned on the central heating (not this year).

Equally anything in Feb seems firmly Spring.

But I'm not trying to force this on anyone!

In many parts of Northern Europe, at least, February is often the absolute coldest month (most likely for snowfall in UK, for example). So for heating worries, we’re definitely not out of the woods come February.

Here in New England, USA November is firmly in Fall/Autumn And Feburary is firmly Winter. March is also Winter until the last week.

In Alberta November is Firmly in Winter, same with February (normally the coldest month of the year). Most years October & April also fall into it. Only month I haven't seen snow is July.

You forgot The Marmot.

I realized this is exactly what has been happening for me. Because of even how early things like Christmas shows and stores switching into Chrismas mode happens it really does make it feel like Winter is late. But really it's just that culturally Christmas has started happening earlier.

I always thought that the shortest day shouldn't be the first day of winter, but rather the middle, so then winter would begin in late October, and summer would begin in late April.

The oceans are Earth’s heat buffers. Summers are when the ocean stores heat, winters are when it releases heat.

There is more land in the northern hemisphere, more ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. Summers get hotter in the north, winters get colder. This is because land does not store/release nearly as much heat as ocean.

> I always thought that the shortest day shouldn't be the first day of winter, but rather the middle

That's not just you. Every traditional calendar says the same thing.

As far as I can tell, the idea that winter starts on the solstice, when it's been winter for more than a month (unless you're in the tropics), is an invention of Hallmark or some other calendar manufacturer. It is based on nothing.

I tried reading Poor Richard's Almanac[1] to see if it indicated the "beginning of [any season]", but if it does I didn't understand. (There is a column of "remarkable days", but it is often difficult to understand the entries in that column.)

Careful track is kept of the exact time of sunrise and sunset, and of what kind of weather to expect ("rain"; "snow"), but the seasons don't seem to be labeled explicitly.

Interestingly, I browsed through the Almanac of 1748 as a sanity check while writing this comment, and the sunrise and sunset times clearly identify June 14 (well, the 8-day period from June 10 to June 17) as the summer solstice (we'd expect June 20 or 21) and, much more weirdly, March 8 (exactly) as the vernal equinox, where we'd expect March 20. The autumnal equinox is September 11 and the winter solstice is sometime between December 3 and December 18.

Either Benjamin Franklin was terrible at calculating astronomical dates, or there was a calendar adjustment between then and now.

[1] http://www.rarebookroom.org/Franklin.html

There was indeed a calendar change just 4 years after the 1748 almanac you were reading. In 1752 the American colonies switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. That leaped 11 days ahead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_cale...

It's currently 71f 22c at 19:00 where I live in NY.

Historical average for the day is 56f 13c and the high is 74f so only a few degrees off

In SoCal we're having an unusually cool fall so far. Today's high was 68f, it's currently 64f at 5:30PM. I don't think I remember temperatures this low happening in early/mid November in the 15 years that I've lived here.

Sounds like an El Niño or La Niña year.

We got dumped on with rain a little early this year so far, where I am in socal

We in ND just got our first winter storm and it was bad enough to cancel work. We are not exactly apt to cancel because of snow. I get the feeling this is not going to an easy year on the heating budget.

In this case all that is meant is the months during which heating is required. For many parts of Europe this will include a substantial portion of fall months and usually extends into spring. It’s just the easiest way to talk about it.

It's definitely not the easiest way to talk about it. I've used heating, in Europe, in late spring and in my cabin even in summer. Am I just living in a perpetual winter?

Just read "the cold time of year" when you see "winter" and you'll get past this.

I'm not trying to 'get past this', I'm trying to express my disbelief at the fact that:

A - Things have gotten to the point where we can't talk about a damn season without personal interpretations of it;

B - This has seeped into Hacker News, a forum I thought was for more diligent folks.

Language is fluid.

And with climate change, traditional seasons aren't nearly as useful in discussion as they used to be.

In my area of my country, our autumn used to be the time of big stable highs giving rise to clear days and frosts overnight. Great time of year to go hiking, minimal chance of intense rainfall or snowfall in the high country.

Now the weather in autumn resembles that in spring - predominant north west winds that bring intense rainfall to the west, heavy snowfall on the tops, and hot dry days to the east.

I feel you're still getting hung up on definitions that are becoming more obsolete by the year.

Lastly, from my limited experience of Germany, the most miserable weather tends to come late October - November. It's not technically winter, but it's a frigging cold and miserable time of year.

> And with climate change, traditional seasons aren't nearly as useful in discussion as they used to be.

It's definitely a bit more useful than arbitrary subjective interpretations of said terms based on hyperlocal weather patterns.

> I feel you're still getting hung up on definitions that are becoming more obsolete by the year.

I feel like you're not getting hung up enough on the definition of a definition. This might or might not be true, just how like if I feel that April is cold, it doesn't make it winter.

Agree to disagree I think.

Lolol, you're the best example I've seen of "hacker news guy meets ambiguities in real language usage, can't handle it".

> I feel like you're not getting hung up enough on the definition of a definition. This might or might not be true, just how like if I feel that April is cold, it doesn't make it winter.

Meet interpersonal linguistic negotiation. Since in most Northern places most people feel cold roughly between November and March, no your one personal experience doesn't matter. Just like 'tall' is a perfectly useful word, even though it doesn't have a precise meaning in terms of number of millimetres.

> Lastly, from my limited experience of Germany, the most miserable weather tends to come late October - November.

For what it's worth, if anything, this is certainly not true. Generally January and February are the coldest months in Germany, and if by miserable you mean dark, grey or snowy, it's also January and February.

I believe they might have meant that it comes in October/November, not that it's gone by December. It stays "miserable" until spring, with January and February being the coldest and snowiest.

The point is that just freezing cold is not miserable. Autumn weather with days getting very noticeably shorter and it’s cold but not freezing and gray for weeks is quite depressing for many. In contrast, proper winter with snow and days getting longer feels much better even if you need warmer clothes and more heating. This year and next will be a bit different as everyone will be very conscious about gas prices, but purely from weather perspective early December is the worst.

> The point is that just freezing cold is not miserable

I think the fact that what is most "miserable" to people varies so much is why trying to use the names for seasons to apply to whichever weather you dislike the most is confusing. I prefer the cold to the heat, and I'm much more miserable in hot humid days due to sweating than I am in the cold when I can bundle up and feel mostly fine, but it would be absurd for me to refer to June through September as "winter" in the northern hemisphere based on this.

For a street artist, winter might mean when it's too dark to perform.

For a farmer, it might mean when the animals need to be kept in a barn.

And for a commodities trader, it means when demand for gas is high.

You must be fun at parties. Things haven't "gotten" to this point. It has always been thus. Kindergarten definitions leave out many nuances.

Definitions are nearly always dependent on context, are nearly always fuzzy around the edges, and are nearly always subject to usefulness.

And then we aren't even discussing metaphors, hyperbole, pars pro toto, tota pro paribus, other kinds of metonymy, and more figures of speech.

Context made it perfectly clear what was meant here. It's a far more useful usage than the kindergarten level definition where winter starts at the winter solstice and not a day sooner.

I'm normally the pedantic one but I've observed and participated in casual usage of term winter over the last 40 years across 5 countries three languages plus dialects and two continents.

This isn't new :)

Very large number of people in large number of countries will consider e. G. November "winter". It's cold, it's dark, it's snowing - the informal but practical definitions of "winter". It's not a sign of linguistic or social apocalypse. It's just people communicating.

Update : I've talked to a few of my friends and one point they made was that winters arr not equal everywhere in the colloquial daily sense. It's quite normal and meaningful and easily interpreted to say that "winters are longer in Canada than in North Carolina". Or that Nova Scotia has longer autumn than Ontario. In other words there are places that may have a short winter (I.e. Short period of extreme cold and snow, with very dark nights etc) and places that have long winter. Not astronomically correct but semantically and practically useful.

>Things have gotten to the point where we can't talk about a damn season without personal interpretations of it

If by personal you mean around the 5-600 million people that will totally get the context of winter = heating season especially when we are discussing gas for heating.

> can't talk about [...] without personal interpretations

Congratulations, you've discovered a Truth.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy)

Various places have a heating season (for example Heizperiode in Germany) which is a period where you're expected to have your heating turned on to maintain a certain indoor temperature. It could be regulated by the law or specified in a contract if you're renting. Different places have different definitions of it. Sometimes it's fixed, like from October 1 to April 30. Sometimes it uses an average indoor temperature over a few days.

If there's a cold snap in mid May (Eisheilige), you still want your heating turned on, but generally it will fall outside of the heating season.

I'm not surprised at the fact that different places in the world have different weather patterns and different approaches to heating, lol. I'm surprised at the fact that winter is such a debatable topic and people base it on how they dress, or whether their municipality is feeding them heating agent, or if they turn on their own heating agent.

We can take every little coordinate point on the earth, its political structure, its energy-reliance structure, the will of its people, and plot what winter means to each and every one of us, but ultimately winter is winter; October is not winter, November is not winter, and a meter is not an inch.

What do you consider a winter?

I consider winter to be a magical time of the year when as a child I used to play in the snow, hear stories about horrible winters from my grand parents, and that as an adult I feel brings some difficulties to my life.

When I read something like 'this Winter is warm with minimal gas burned so far', I refer back to the common interpretation of winter which is December -> March in the Northern Hemisphere, because otherwise I would have to start interpreting what the other three seasons mean also.

> the common interpretation of winter which is December -> March in the Northern Hemisphere

As I hope you are learning, in very many places in the northern hemisphere, perhaps including most of Europe, that is not what people mean by 'winter'.

Well, most of Europe stopped having consistent snow, so we can't refer to it like that any more.

I remember when I was a kid come November there was frost on the ground and the soil would gradually freeze and harden, creating the type of environment needed for snow to persist.

Twenty years have passed and it's all gone now. We have droughts in the summer though, for which we're largely unprepared because water retention was never a concern before.

That's climate change for you I guess.

The part of the year where it is cold does not start on the shortest day of the year. There is the part of the year that is cold and there’s the part of the year between the shortest day of the year and the equinox, both are winter. Winter doesn’t mean a lot in mild places where you can wear a tshirt out most days of the year. Where it snows, winter is more or less the time of the year where it snows.

People need to relax a little about absolute definitions of things.

In a sense, the astronomical definition of winter has a lot more meaning in a connected world. I grew up in a part of Canada where the (colloquial) winter started at the end of October and ended at the end of March. I now live in a part of the country where it starts in late December and runs until the end of April. If you're trying to convey time by saying that something happened last winter, different people are going to have very different ideas of when that means.

Then again, perhaps we shouldn't be discussing time in terms of the seasons. Anyone in the southern hemisphere experiences the opposite, while people living in equatorial regions don't really share our notions of seasons (from my understanding).

Different places have different seasons. Some places have monsoon season, parts of New England have mud season. Referring to a time period based on what the weather is like for a significant portion of the year makes sense when that is a relevant part of the comparison.

Winter official definition is basically “astronomical Q1” which honestly isn’t all that useful in most cases. (It’s a bit stupid that our months, major holidays, and year almost but not quite align with the astronomical milestones).

With respect to the astronomical definition of the seasons, they line up reasonably well where I currently live (coastal) but not with where I grew up (interior). Likewise, holidays probably lined with the seasons at one point in their history. What we are likely seeing is the gradual shift between natural phenomena and a human construct, i.e. the calendar. We carry a lot of historical baggage with us, even if we rarely think of it.

Don't blame astronomers! We think it's cold when it's actually cold, not only after the solstice.

Remember the people who told us two week to curb the spread?

They have a new catch phrase.

Winter is the coldest period where you always require to heat (in northern Europe), but you still need to heat your house in autumn and spring. I usually start my gas boiler in October, but this year I started it only last week because we had 20-25 °C through the month, it felt like summer

Winter can be used in multiple ways.

The way you're thinking of is the calendar based season which for the Northern hemisphere is Dec, Jan Feb (with each season being three consecutive months) - more specifically this is called the meteorological season. The astronomical season (which is the more "official" one) starts on 22 December and ends on 21 March.

But there's also a more informal usage, which is definitely prevalent in Europe, which is used to refer to the cold months of the year where you would typically have the heating on. For the UK this spans October to March for example. That doesn't mean you never have heating on in April, and it doesn't mean you _have_ to have the heating on in November. It's just a useful way of thinking about the period of time when gas/energy usage will be high and allows you to describe whether the period as a whole has been mild or particularly cold and the impact that's had on heating.

Are you American? I'm British but lived in the USA for several years, and I think there's a cultural difference here. Americans attach precise boundaries to the seasons, whereas in Europe 'Winter' means something more like the part of the year that's normally cold.

In Europa proper, Winter is the period of the year between Dec 22nd and Mar 21st. In the UK, we have 5 months of Winter and 7 of Autumn, that move around the year like Ramadan.

Yeah, it's usually −171°C there by this time.

> 7 of Autumn

I saw what you did, there…

I lived in London, back in the 1970s, and can confirm.

Generally, a rainy autumn. Sort of like Seattle, for the US folks familiar.

> In the UK, we have 5 months of Winter and 7 of Autumn,

that has not been the case for the past few years. it’s getting hot much earlier.

I'm European since the birth of my grand-grand-grand-parents and until today I had not heard of the "Dec 22nd and Mar 21st" version of winter. I have only ever heard of these two:

- Calendar winter: December first to February last.

- Metorological winter according to our meteorologists: "the period of the year where the daily average temperature is below zero degrees Celsius" [Sweden: https://www.smhi.se/kunskapsbanken/meteorologi/arstider/vint...] and [Norway: https://snl.no/vinter]

Today I learned of a third definition.

'Winter' in calendar, solar terms in the Northern hemisphere , also called astronomical winter, starts on 21st December and ends on 20th March (there might be a one day shift now and then?). That is, the period from the winter solstice until the spring equinoxe. This is written on most calendars and that is what Google tells you when you look up 'winter'. I am flabbergasted that you never heard of that...

Now, usually the other definition people use relates to their locate climate for practical purposes.

Funnily enough we call that first day date “Midwinter Day” or “middle of the winter-day” here.

Maybe it it time to rename it to “Firstwinter Day”! ;)

Yes that's a customary name for the winter solstice. Like Midsummer for the summer solstice.

As I wrote, in European tradition 'winter' starts much earlier than the winter solstice because quite obviously the cold and grey months start earlier.

I am still puzzled that you never heard of 21st December being the beginning of the (astronomical) winter, like 21st June is beginning of summer, etc.

Why would I ever have heard of it in the first place? It's not in use, not in social settings, not in official settings. Though I have learned it exists, and that some people _really_ like that definition. Reading this thread I am just as puzzled by you being puzzled, because I base my use of it on:

- Official communication (e.g. with tax authorities) use december first as first day of winter quarter.

- Social connotations use either a simplified version of the scientific/metrological definition (e.g. is it cold enough to be called winter yet? E.g. is it warm enough that winter has ended?) or calendar winter (dec-jan-feb).

- Historical reasons, late December is literally called "middle of the winter". Same thing with summer, it officially begins on June 1st and the summer solstice marks the "middle of summer" the same way "Mittwoch" marks the middle of the week.

- In the scientific literature I occasionally read (e.g. meteorology and biology) I read the definition is when the average daily temperature determines winter and never based on astronomy.

I find it very hard to believe you don’t know that winter starts on specific dates every year. Not really sure how grandparents fit into it either.

I have always known that winter according to social convention AND official calendars starts on December 1 every year. I have also known the scientific meteorological definition which is based on temperature.

Yes, winter hasn't started here yet (except meteorological winter in some northern places.) They mean fall. It has been an exceptionally warm fall though, so much so that we haven't even had to turn on our heaters. So the argument is still sound.

People are saying this because so far it has just been much warmer than usual at this time of year, and snow in November wouldn't be the most unusual thing, and most people just assume snow=winter.

Some stats of my weather station in South Germany from this year and last year. It is much warmer this year, and even last year was pretty warm

Oct 2021: Avg: 8.5°C Min: 0.5°C Max: 22.0°C

Oct 2022: Avg: 12.7°C Min: 4.9°C Max: 21.5°C

Nov (1st to end of 11th) 2021: Avg: 4.1°C Min: -1.9°C Max: 9.4°C

Nov (1st to end of 11th) 2022: Avg: 7.8°C Min: 0.9°C Max: 15.8°C

I have no clue about weather forecasting and I can't exclude a drastic change in the coming months, but right now it just doesn't look like that at all

So interestingly, we will see a massive decrease in energy usage from heating thanks for climate change. Actually pretty cool.

Yes, and air conditioning is far more efficient than heating.

https://www.pud3.org/blog/articles--blog/behind-the-scenes-a...

This "it's a warm winter" is the equivalet of "we're all going to die, there's a new variant".

Can someone explain why the rumor of cracked pipes and delayed restart of a terminal would cause the futures price to go down?

I would think that news of a supply constraint would cause the price to go up.

TIA

US has a large supply of natural gas and domestic prices are cheap. LNG prices are very high globally. The price discrepancy exists because there is not enough LNG export capacity. This is a very large LNG export facility. When it gets back on global LNG supply should increase and prices should fall. Domestic supply should decrease and prices should increase.

The terminal is for exports from the US (particularly to Europe), and the futures contracts are on US gas prices.

Europe desperately needs gas this winter. Markets are pricing in the assumption that the US producers will get great prices from European consumers this winter.

If US gas can't get to Europe then the US can't sell that gas at high prices in Europe. Also, additionally, the domestic market will be flooded in supply.

Isn't it true that the price for gas in Europe is very inelastic at the moment (meaning they will pay pretty much any price to get it) and so any shortage of it will cause dramatic price increase? Also, Europe can't easily switch to another source of gas because they have maxed out everything they could.

This is basically the reason why OPEC restricts oil production, it is just here the same is happening unintentionally by LNG terminal malfunction.

Besides, looking at that graph it looks that the "plunge" is on the order of normal price change noise. Just look at the history from before the "plunge". Clickbait.

Not sure if your post is trying to contradict the post you are replying to, which made the very good point that what plunged are US gas futures. I assume that yes, this would be very bad news for European gas consumers.

And electricity consumers, since prices usually trend gas prices.

And anyone buys exports manufactured in Europe...

Besides, looking at that graph it looks that the "plunge" is on the order of normal price change noise. Just look at the history from before the "plunge". Clickbait.

Clickbait is literally the business model at Bloomberg: https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensa...

> meaning they will pay pretty much any price to get it

They would buy it at current market rate, which is dropping atm. That's why LNG tankers wait at the coast for a hopefully future higher price.

Is this not diminished by the buyers hedging?

you still need counterparties

Aren't they camped out because Europe's storage is maxed out and the winter so far is mild so it isn't using as much gas?

Yes the heating period ist just now starting as it gets colder.

That's crazy late.

In addition Germany for example sees a huge reduction of consumer usage even after accounting for outside temperature.

People are changing their habits in anticipation of increased gas bills (and also nobody likes being blackmailed by Russia).

In April May it will become clear how much was used and what it did cost extra (since most renters get their yearly balance around that time)

>Yes the heating period ist just now starting as it gets colder

We broke records around the UK yesterday for the warmest November day so still not really starting here.

Were also breaking records for wind generation.

>it is just here the same is happening unintentionally by LNG terminal malfunction.

with all that is going on in the world, it would be really easy to give into the conspiracy aspect and say intentional malfunction. we've already seen what has been agreed upon as sabotage to underwater pipelines. why not a terminal like this as well?

Edit: I'm in no way pushing this as a thing. Just speculating from past experience in the inner sanctum of groups that would absolutely push an idea like this. Just because we as a forum might not think anything like this would be possible, you absolutely know there are those that will

You've had past experience involving large conspiracies?

oh boy, where to begin? very long story short, yes. yes I have.

I think US needs its partners more than ever and doing things like this on purpose is bound at some point to backfire on them spectacularly. I think rational US government would not do something like this on purpose because there just isn't a whole lot to gain but boy, there is a lot to loose.

ahh, you seem to think that a gov't is the only thing that could do something like this. what if the gas company itself did this? a true conspiracy aficionado would follow the money and ask who benefits the most. hell, a good conspiracy would suggest all of LNG producers got together and chose the specific plant to sabotage so they all benefit.

conspiracies are just so much fun! /s

whats interesting to consider is that while russia had no interest in sabotaging their nordstream pipelines, the US absolutely did. conversely russia has great interest in fouling up the gas markets the US relies upon to profit from russias curious energy export misfortunes.

Putin has plenty of interest in sabotaging the pipelines. If the pipelines are destroyed, one cannot kill Putin, take over, and sell gas to europe again to be rich.

The US would suffer an incredible risk if it ever came out that they intentionally sabotaged European energy supplies to such a scale.

What risk? The US says jump and European politicians ask how high...

Wasn't Germany building Nordstream 2 against US advice? It doesn't seem like European politicians always do what the US government wants.

Does that suggest your model might be wrong or over-simplified?

>The US says jump and European politicians ask how high...

I mean, if that were true Julian Assange would be in a bodybag right now, wouldn't he?

Good point! Where is he these days and how is his life going?

Better than it would be if the US had its way.

The UK refused to allow Assange to be extradited to the US because the US still practices the death penalty. That's one of the few areas that the UK and the US disagree publicly on.

Instead he was merely kept isolated in a single building while his accusers simply refused to investigate the allegations they invented unless he turned himself over to them to be extradited to the USA.

So yeah, maybe they aks how high, but sometimes don't jump all the way, just most of it.

There was zero blowback last time the US blew up Russian pipelines. It was the largest non-nuclear, man-made explosion / fire to date though -- all achieved in 1982 via a software supply chain attack:

https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2022/09/29/reagan-approve...

Interestingly, the three simultaneous ruptures of two pipelines look a lot like what happened 40 years ago.

It wouldn't surprise me if a shoden-wielding script kiddie was to blame this time, but I have no idea. I'm not trying to imply anyone was/wasn't involved.

Also no blowback when the US blew up refineries and oil pipelines in Nicaragua in Puerto Sandino, in 1983[1] - as well as mined the ports of Nicaragua[2]. There is in general a 30 year statuary timeline for declassifying these types of ops, although the US is usually late[3], so we may have confirmation in 2060 or so.

[1] https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/04/07/c...

[3] https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2011/10/frus_leads_lags/

That's questionable. From wiki [0]:

"A report in the Moscow Times quoted KGB veteran Vasily Pchelintsev as saying that there was a natural gas pipeline explosion in 1982, but it was near Tobolsk on a pipeline connecting the Urengoy gas field to the city of Chelyabinsk, and it was caused by poor construction rather than sabotage; according to Pchelintsev's account, no one was killed in the explosion and the damage was repaired within one day. Reed's account has also not been corroborated by intelligence agencies in the United States.

Another point of criticism of the sabotage allegations is that, according to Prof. V. D. Zakhmatov, an explosion safety expert who has overseen the safety measures on many of the Soviet oil and gas pipelines built in the 1980s, at the described timeframe Soviet Union simply didn't practice digital control of its pipeline system. Most of the control was manual, and whatever automation was used utilized the analog control systems, most of which worked through pneumatics."

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss

It's an analytical mistake to think in terms of Russia's interests. The correct perspective is what might be in Vladimir Putin's interests. He's stuck in a quagmire and trying not to be deposed.

Whoever sabotaged nordstream handily left one pipeline undamaged which can be used to send massive amounts of natural gas to Europe.

> Europe desperately needs gas this winter

Yes, but consider this: There's ca. $2bn of LNG waiting on LNG tankers around Europe, with many more ships to come.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/6/dozens-of-ships-car...

Does not look all that desperate to me any more by this point. The price is higher than before of course, but that is much less of a problem than not having the gas. Besides, isn't that higher price exactly what is needed anyway with climate change looming? About twenty-five years ago the Greens in Germany wanted 5 DM (it was ca. 1.50 DM at the time) for a liter of gas for that reason.

Yes, supply is meeting demand. That's roughly consistent with the (all in all relatively modest) 7.4% price move in us futures, some of which was retraced. If this had happened with less reserve in the system, that price move would've been much higher (and from a much higher base).

When operational, this facility consumes billions of cubic feet of natural gas [1]. They take gas make it liquid, put it on a boat, ship it.

If they have cracked pipes, they are less likely to reopen.

Not reopening, not going to consume the gas.

Less demand for gas.

Price drops.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52859

The fact that one is unable to buy gas does not mean demand for gas has fallen.

The fact that the plant will be unable to buy gas for longer than anticipated should reduce the expected demand for gas. Less demand for gas, lower price for gas.

People were pricing gas on some expectation of this plant opening and consuming at some point in the future. If that's pushed back, the price should drop.

That is not how that works. That would reduce the quantity demanded, not the demand. You're describing a supply decrease, which will raise the price.

The mechanic here is the decline of exports to europe making the supply of gas available to us go up, meaning the price for gas in the US will go down.

Reducing the quantity demanded is reducing the demand.

I don't understand how you reduce "quantity demanded" but not "demand." MAybe you can clarify.

I am describing a demand decrease.

When operational, this plant consumes US gas. It is a demander of gas. If it's staying closed, less demand for US gas.

> The mechanic here is the decline of exports to europe making the supply of gas available to us go up, meaning the price for gas in the US will go down.

This is correct and equivalent to what I'm saying.

Your notion: "If this place doesn't open, less gas is exported to europe, leaving more supply in the US"

My notion: "If this place doesn't open, less gas is bought in the US for export to europe, leaving more supply in the US"

We're on the same page.

> Reducing the quantity demanded is reducing the demand.

> I don't understand how you reduce "quantity demanded" but not "demand." MAybe you can clarify.

As much as I dislike appeals to econ 101, this is a basic concept of econ 101.

Demand is the general willingness of people to buy something. If the price goes up they will be less. If the price goes down they will by more. Demand is how much they want to by as a function of the price.

Quantity demanded is how much they're going to purchase given a specific price.

A change in demand implies people are no longer going to buy the same amount for the same distribution of prices. e.g. perhaps a new iphone comes out and people aren't willing to buy the older version for the original price.

If the price goes up due to supply shortages or down because of supply increases, the quantity demanded will change but demand will not. The price will also change.

https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-demand-and-qua...

You are describing supply side effects. We're arriving at the same place, but your explanation of the economic story is not correct.

This is very clear and helpful. Thank you.

The futures price is for US. The terminal is for export. So terminal failure pushes more supply into US market.

Freeport buys US natural gas and turns that into LNG for export to Europe. With a plant shutdown, it’s not buying as much natural gas domestically. Hence price in US goes down. Despite still high globally.

Note the article's wording: "US natural gas futures plunged..." If the US can't export, there is increased domestic supply, causing the futures price to fall. If exports through the terminal resumed, US prices would rise since now global buyers are competing with domestic buyers, and prices between linked markets (e.g. US & EU) would equilibrate slightly. Also important to recognize that EU gas prices are much higher than US prices, so there is large demand for US->EU LNG shipments.

Gas storage is fairly limited and near capacity. Production of Gas is incidental to oil drilling, so "keeping it in the ground" would require keeping the more valuable oil in the ground and is unlikely to happen. One sink for it (this terminal) is reduced. Since there is now less demand but a constant supply, prices should go down.

> Production of Gas is incidental to oil drilling

For some wells, yes. For others, no.

Historical natural gas use in Europe from 2014-2020 (Figure 1), by month:

https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...

Does seem to track weather fairly closely, i.e. there was a big spike in natural gas demand in Jan 2017 in that figure, correlating with a cold snap:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2017_European_cold_wav...

However, anyone claiming that they can predict European Jan weather based on European Oct weather is not to be trusted. Such long-term weather forecasts are notoriously unreliable, and the noise in the global warming trend is high enough that you really only clearly see the warming trend by taking a 5-10 year running average, depending on location.

Somewhat similar when a historical tweet from Israel Defense Force account moved oil price, as it was mistaken for an real-time even news. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historical-idf-tweet-sends-oil...

That article seems kind of suspect. They say themselves that the price stayed high after it became clear it was an error, and it was just a ~1% increase. Seems like they are just attaching causality to this for no justified reason

Though insider trading does not apply to commodities, wouldn’t this tweet be illegal if the intention was to manipulate the market?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/9

What if it was made by someone outside the US?

The West is going to get owned by information attacks every time if it doesn’t learn a lesson.

maybe the west already has been owned if one considers attacks that are sustained over longer periods of time

The orginal tweet from @Lithium_Plays was here: https://twitter.com/Lithium_Plays/status/1591077653595181056

A screenshot is here: https://twitter.com/DrJackLomax/status/1591194534662533120

The screenshot does not show a Twitter Blue not-verified checkmark on it, so this may not be related to this week's Musk Twitter product debacle.

$8chan at its finest. Who knew deregulation would create so much chaos?

Are you argue for regulation for … it does not help actually and worsen it.

I think you're trying to use the example of poorly regulated things to show that regulation is bad. I think there's a college word for why that's a bad argument, but I don't know what it is. Anyway, yeah, Prohibition in the U.S. was a bad regulation, but taking lead out of water pipes, gasoline, and paint were good regulations. For any bad regulation you can think of, I can find at least ten good regulations.

Cherry picking data is close enough a term.

Meanwhile Bakken oil fields are still just burning off into the atmosphere over 1 BILLION cubic feet per DAY of natural gas.

screenshots: https://twitter.com/badc0fee/status/1591200197836967936

All you need is one of these in your life and you can sail away into the sunset.

cannot be but amazed at the spectacle of wealthy markets fretting over pennies due in ninety days

cracked pipe => crack pipe?

sorry to be vulgar, but the fish don't see the water here

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