You are the one missing the point. You think Germans should wait until they actually are freezing before doing anything drastic to protect themselves. Many would consider that a foolhardy piece of advice, and especially outrageous coming from somebody who isn’t subject to having his oil or gas cut off by Russia.

The point is that 100% of Germany’s oil supply was cut off by Russia, and if it had continued that way Germany would have exhausted its reserves and been forced to find a gigantic new supply. You have offered no evidence whatseover that it could do so, and even if it could it would experience massive and debilitating price rises.

Frankly, I think it’s amazing that you can urge people to “be calm” and have “dialogue” about their basic energy supply when it is threatened in a hostile manner by Russia. I think people are doing exactly the right thing in calling for immediate action to prevent a future occurrence of this nightmare scenario.

Europe (excluding, of course, Russia) imports more than 80% of its oil, and more than 50% of its gas from outside of Europe (not just from Russia, but from the Middle East, and other countries around the globe) and its dependence is expected to grow in the coming years. Given that the security of a large proportion of that supply can be considered to be unstable (not just the supply from Russia, but from countries such as Iran) it would be prudent for Europe to move as quickly as possible towards reducing that dependence.

Europe isn’t a resource rich continent any more, so the most practical approach to reducing dependence on external energey sources is to invest in sources such as solar, wind, hydro and even nuclear power.

Which will hopefully have some added side benefits for the environment…

Kim – I think you are quite spectacularly missing the point here.

8 million German people are not living in freezing homes. In fact, the shutoff has absolutely no impact on their day to day lives. Unless they read the papers, or watch the news, most people would not even notice the shutoff of oil to Germany.

For one thing, Germany has substantial reserves of oil. Enough to last at least two months in the event that Germany’s entire oil supply is cut off. If 10% of Germany’s oil supply is cut off, the reserve will be sufficient for almost two years.

Secondly, there are other supply routes for oil in the world that don’t involve Russia. They are more expensive, and would cause considerable inconvenience, but Germany can import oil from elsewhere if needed. This is why Germany has a reserve of oil – to buy it time to source oil or gas from elsewhere, should the need arise.

Thirdly, if oil genuinely did start running out and Germany truly was faced with a national crisis, Germany has access to other forms of energy. Additionally, it would rationalise its current use of energy, redirecting it to ensure that essential users received energy, and did not freeze to death.

Even Germany, the only ‘Western’ European state affected by the oil cutoff, only receives 26.4% of its supplies from Russia (and, I think, not all of that comes via the Druzhba pipeline).

According to the below graph from a German paper, both of the above statements are off:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,458871,00.html

It states that Germany gets only 20% of its oil from Russia, not 26.4%, and it states that the Druzhba pipeline is the the ONLY significant source of Russian oil to Germany. There are pipelines through nations other than Belarus that deliver GAS to Germany, but not oil, and the vast majority of significant gas pipelines also run through Belarus.

So, in fact, it appears that when the Druzhba line was shut down 100% of Germany’s oil from Russia was cut off, and this would potentially affect over 15 million German consumers in terms of availability once German reserves ran dry and could drastically alter the price for the entire country, impacting most heavily on the lower classes. I think this kind of jolting impact on the Germany economy, which heavily impacts Europe, is more than enough reason for not only Germany but all of Europe to be up in arms, to say nothing of the numerous other countries similarly affected.

I’ve run a post on my blog with a chart showing overall European energy dependence on Russian gas (I’ve yet to see a similar one for oil but it will probably turn up).

http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/01/european-dependence-on-russian-natural.html

This chart clearly shows that only a few countries in Europe have avoided 50% or greater dependence on Russian natural gas, meaning that any Russian threats have extremely high signficance for virtually all European countries.

Based on this, I think a perfectly credible argument can be made that it’s Andy, not the European papers, whose reaction was originally out of proportion to the threat involved.

I’m not sure there is any evidence at all that a modulated response has ever been effective with the Russians. Andy, if you have some evidence that it has been, please give it. I think that Russians are quite likely to perceive a modulated response as weakness and to go right on doing whatever it is we object to.

I think Tim is quite right when he says: “Russians have long been known for their self-destructive collective ideas, and this is no exception: they cheered on their Soviet leaders as they led them down a path to grinding poverty, and they are doing the exact same now.” And I think that only very vigorous confrontation has any chance of jolting Russians out of this malaise before it utterly destroys them. The same can be said for Western governments, who are excrutiatingly slow to react to Russian outrages, to our great cost. Even now, despite all the “hysterical” rhetoric you complain about, we haven’t seen a single shred of action come out of Europe.

So far from overreacting to Russia’s actions, I think the world is dramatically underreacting, and I congratulate the world’s media for invoking appropriately urgent rhetoric.

Russia clearly needs Europe’s custom more than Europe needs Russia’s oil. But, and I hate to sound condescening to Russians here, but they are so new to this capitalism lark that they have no clue as to how it works, and that they need both sides to play fair for it to work. Similarly with their handling of the Sakhalin II contract, they see themselves with the oil and gas and believe that they hold all the cards, as if they have a sword to somebody’s throat. I don’t think they have the first idea that the west holds a pretty strong hand too, one that played well – or at least better than the Russians – could bring Russia’s economy crashing down about their ears.

Probably the most seriosu problem with this interpretation on international business is that it has immense support from the Russian population. They love the fact that Russia is screwing over western companies and making the west pay more by hiking up the price. Russians have long been known for their self-destructive collective ideas, and this is no exception: they cheered on their Soviet leaders as they led them down a path to grinding poverty, and they are doing the exact same now.

30% of the oil used in Europe comes from Russia.
82% of Russia’s oil exports go to Europe.

Read into that whatever you will about just who is dependent on who…

Source: BBC News (again).