Stop valve. File photoMOSCOW, April 30Russia has cut gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria over their refusal to pay in rubles, its «toughest response» to Western sanctions, according to an article in Huanqiu Shibao, written by Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Energy Policy Research Institute. The author recalled that in connection with the refusal of Poland and Bulgaria to pay for gas in rubles, Russia announced on April 27 that it would stop deliveries to these two countries. According to him, this means that Moscow's earlier requirement to pay for gas in rubles «began to take effect and today is considered its» toughest response «to Western sanctions.»
China announced the exposure of US weaknesses due to the Ukrainian crisisAnalyzing the current situation, it can be seen that the crisis in Ukraine has led to even greater volatility in the international oil and gas market affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the expert noted. After the crisis began, the structure of the supply chain in the international oil and gas market changed: Moscow began to look for new channels for the sale of these energy resources, and Europe began to actively try to get rid of oil and gas dependence on Russia. At the same time, in order to achieve effective substitution of Russian oil and gas, the EU needs to increase additional imports from Qatar and the United States, but they do not have a large-scale and stable oil and gas transportation infrastructure with Europe, he warned. According to Lin Boqiang, the United States will not be able to solve the problem of shortage of oil and gas in the EU in the short term due to a lack of infrastructure and limited capacity. So, at the moment, the system for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the United States is already operating at full capacity, while there is still a shortage of vessels for transportation. According to the author of the material, the crisis in Ukraine has led to changes in the structure of international supply and demand for oil and gas, as well as to a “reversal” of the market, which will have a huge impact on the global oil and gas supply chain.” In the next few years, unrealized infrastructure construction will become a serious obstacle to oil and gas trading, leading to sluggish transactions and higher transaction costs in the market energy resources. Given the mismatch between supply and demand for oil and gas and the lack of normal infrastructure, international energy prices are likely to remain high in the coming years,» he concluded. Western countries imposed new sanctions against Russia after the start of a special military operation to demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. So, Russian reserves were frozen in the amount of about 300 billion dollars. Calls to abandon Russian energy sources have become louder. However, disruption of supply chains has led to economic problems in Europe and the US, primarily to higher food and fuel prices. /uploads/2022/04/d8bf47bb90bbff238761541e1567c0e6.jpg» /> Europe is split over Russian gas disputes
