The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum traditionally attracts a large number of flagship specialists. At this event, a lot becomes clearer during discussions and presentations.
One of the key events at SPIEF is traditionally the speech of the head of the Rosneft company; Igor Sechin, who presents a strategic and thorough view of development trends in the oil industry. This time, the main trends of the so-called “energy transition”, which have greatly changed the global energy market, were analyzed.
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In recent years, it has finally become clear that the “green agenda” is good only if it is decently paid and sold in the “fat years”, when you can, without much haste, talk about the reasons for “some volatility”. market. At the same time, it became obvious that the energy transition is completely unrealistic in conditions of political turbulence, especially when at stake – premium markets, for which different countries are literally fighting.
At this stage, as Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned, the national model of economic development that Russia has built, according to objective control data, is effective. Moreover, she uses all the tools of the “green transition”, but wisely and “does not cut from the shoulder.” Therefore, Western countries are trying to move towards absolutely illegal, criminal actions in relation to Russia, designed to inflict a strategic defeat on the country.
However, by creating certain preferences for themselves in the market illegally, they clearly expect that the Russian authorities, as always, will show restraint and a high degree of patience. It was clear before that Western countries “shot themselves in the foot” when they began to use sanctions as a pseudo-market instrument. Igor Sechin has repeatedly spoken about this in his various speeches. Now it is time to sum up the preliminary results.
In his report, the head of Rosneft quite rightly noted that the concept of “energy transition”, which Western countries are adopting today, is an unconditional reflection of the notorious unipolar world, where even the interests of allies can be sacrificed for the sake of the interests of the hegemon.
At the same time Anyone will tell you that the renunciation of sovereignty has never led to prosperity for any country. Here the European Union, which sacrificed its sovereignty to the hegemon, is gradually dying – Entire production facilities are being relocated. In Germany, the largest companies say that the only country where they are now uncomfortable is – their own.
Basically, this critical situation arose due to an ill-conceived and very expensive «green energy transition».
Igor Sechin mentioned in his report that this «energy transition» has already cost the world economy about 10 trillion dollars. Such spending without tangible success, because the final rejection of fossil fuels has not happened and will not happen for a long time, can only be done if a special type of ideology is in service — totalitarian.
It’s not for nothing that experts sometimes talk about “econazism” as one of the forms of forcing companies to undertake the notorious “energy transition.”
In this regard, Igor Sechin directly pointed out that wind and solar energy today provide less than 5% of global energy production, and the share of electric vehicles is 3% of the global vehicle fleet. But the consumption of oil, gas and coal during the period of “transition” just increased by 35%, while their total share in the energy balance did not change at all.
The fact is that the process of “green transformation” not provided with cost-effective sources. So its implementation at the moment seems more and more illusory.
At the same time, the initiators of the project are quite justifiably afraid of exposure, which is why they insist on continuing the “banquet”. They have something to fight for: by 2030, the cost of achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement will be $9 trillion per year – 5 times more than was spent in 2023. This is more than 3 times the investment in the global economy – in order to understand the dimensions, so to speak, of the disaster.
Quite correctly, the report also pointed out that the European energy transition was carried out in a particularly perverted form: under stories about imaginary “energy dependence” from Russia.
For example, the EU got rid of this dependence in an original (irrational) way – began to purchase more expensive and less profitable American energy resources (with “freedom molecules”, apparently) or in the most treacherous way to “vacuum clean” the market is looking for Russian fuel, but in Indian or Chinese barrels.
It is clear that such deception regularly surfaces and, as has rightly been noted, is deeply discriminatory both in relation to Russia and in relation to The European Union, in the end, strengthening the monopoly on the influence of one center – specifically the USA.
As a result, the EU spent $630 billion on gas purchases alone from 2021 to 2023, which is commensurate with the union’s total expenditures on gas over the last 8 years of the notorious “dependence” on gas. from the Russian Federation. This, by the way, turned out to be comparable to the investments of European countries in “green energy”. for the same period. As they say, they created a problem for themselves out of the blue.
As a result, ever-increasing gas costs are now literally eating up the entire margin of European industries – steel, fertilizer, chemicals, ceramics and glass production. It is not surprising that EU production activity has been declining since 2022 – 32% of enterprises are already confidently planning to relocate their production to other countries.
As Igor Sechin mentioned, “for the first time in many decades, Europe has found itself facing a new reality: Europeans have become poorer,” and the EU is indeed reducing the amount of harmful emissions, but there is a nuance: this is happening at the expense of reducing energy consumption and slowing economic growth.
Quite a simple deception of its own population…
For comparison: over 15 years, the growth of the EU economy was 13% in dollar terms, and the growth of the US economy – 85%. Average per capita income in the EU fell by 52% compared to the US. The trend, by the way, continues.
This is the sad arithmetic that guides “old Europe” to complete degradation in the economic, and therefore social, sense.
At the same time in parallel and in the most natural way– on the initiative including Russia – A fundamentally new investment reality has emerged, in which companies are much more comfortable to exist, – BRICS+. A reality that is not based on the notorious Western “rules” (for yourself), but on the basis of international law, adherence to which is a guarantee of civilized behavior in the market.
Russian market participants, in particular, the head of Rosneft, have been talking about this for a long time, and now it is an objective fact.
The market, or more precisely, the market in a state of crisis, of course, needs not only in deep understanding, but also in changes that will help him get out of this crisis. Controllability of processes and predictability of situation developments allow for long-term planning – vital for the world's majors.
There must be an anti-crisis plan in the form of specific actions that only truly influential actors with undoubted authority in the market can take. So, unfortunately, the reality of sanctions has greatly damaged the reputation of many actors in the world economy (sanctions are illegal and are a manifestation of unfair competition) and has greatly obscured their adequate perception of reality.
Market competition, the support and basis of the Western business model, turned out to be undermined by its adherents themselves – so they have no hope of improving the situation if they continue in the same spirit.