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The_NeutralGuy t1_j40yvlg wrote

It's NOT a change in demand. Germany now relies more on Norway. What will Russia do with the excess of natural gas? There lot many consumers elsewhere (non-Europe) to be catered for.

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GranPino t1_j4114et wrote

They wont be able to export it. You need infraestructure to export natural gas, pipelines or LNG ports. And Russia lost or closed several pipelines and only have LNG facilities to export less than 20% of their natural gas production

Therefore, they are exporting 60% less natural gas in december 2022 (5.7b metric tons) than in december 2021 (13.6b.)

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bad_apiarist t1_j43u8hw wrote

Yes. and I am not convinced Russia can simply "find other customers" easily. Germany = 80 some million people and the #4 economy in the world, meaning they have plenty to spend on energy. And it's not just Germany, the entire EU's % of gas imports being from Russia used to be around 50%. Now it's like 18%. You can't just go "find another" EU to shell out many billions for your fuels.

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GranPino t1_j45c6dk wrote

You could displace other exporters if you butch your prices. However, finding customers is irreleant when you cannot even export it, and it requires many years to build such infraestructure, sometimes decades, and it requires the technological partners from the West.

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bad_apiarist t1_j45cik3 wrote

Agreed. Though I'd also argue that if you could do that, if you had a base of potential customers worth trillions of dollars over a few years.. well you'd increase production and build that infrastructure... starting years ago, whether there's a euro crisis or not. Why leave trillions of dollars on the table? But Russia largely hasn't done that (yeah I am oversimplifying here, Russia has made such efforts to improve base and supply, but faces physical and political obstacles etc. but I think the main point stands).

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