No, it wasn’t. Germany switched to far pricier […] LNG
The instability and fear, the supply since 2023 is solid and has not been doubted by anyone.
They had it as a barganing chip, and you seem to take it as a given they wouldn’t bargain with it.
It had sat for months before, and months before that it was trickling down. Russia would have at minimum waited the entire winter too, hoping Germany would cave or act less determined to replace the supply.
And then after that winter, would they have just resumed exports like nothing at the old low prices?
American LNG where it has remained.
I’d like a source on that, from what I’ve seen they are decreasing gas use internally to more than compensate, mainly in heating (mostly moving to heat pumps). Initially they were getting a lot of supply from inside the EU and Norway, and brokered some temporary deals with middle eastern nations (also they did have some storage to buffer it out). With LNG accounting for almost none of the total imports. The numbers I’ve found myself so far don’t seven split out the US or middle east from the “other” category, being in the low single percent or less.
In looking into this I saw that the EU at large has more notable LNG imports, about half of the total, so as much as Norway and eastern (non-eu) europe combined. Which is also about as much as Russia used to supply, though has not increased by that amount so just taken up some of the slack.
Btw. my initial guess for who did nordstream was germany itself, or in cooperation with whomever (like the us), to gain the political decisiveness to properly migrate away from russian gas without constantly fighting against people still wanting to bargain with russia. May still well have been complicit or explicit support, with various players deciding to let it happen for example. Or could have truly been a few people deciding it would be best and winging it themselves.
This is the (to be fair consumer) price history, and it pretty clearly shows the price calm down and return to pre tension levels due to the detonation and proper action after.
So, since the price remained the same, noone was ever forced to act due to price pressure from norstream. Industry and private housing probably did start retooling before that, due to the price spikes at the start of the war.
It also seems to show that “the market” did not expect the pipeline to reopen, given the spikes.
Give this, I change my opinion to “the nordstream detonation probably improved the german economy and reduced industry downturn”. Be it from added confidence or from creating proper political action.
This is the (to be fair consumer) price history, and it pretty clearly shows the price calm down and return to pre tension levels due to the detonation and proper action after.
So, since the price remained the same, noone was ever forced to act due to price pressure from norstream. Industry and private housing probably did start retooling before that, due to the price spikes at the start of the war.
It also seems to show that “the market” did not expect the pipeline to reopen, given the spikes.
Give this, I change my opinion to “the nordstream detonation probably improved the german economy and reduced industry downturn”. Be it from added confidence or from creating proper political action.
Edit:
Oh also germany did not import or use basically any LNG until way after nordstream. It’s not even 0.1% of germanys gas in 2021 and 2022, as you can see from the graph further up.
And your substack blog link seems untrustworthy (and is quite old), but I can’t investigate more because it’s paywalled
They had it as a barganing chip, and you seem to take it as a given they wouldn’t bargain with it.
No, it wasn’t. Germany switched to far pricier American LNG where it has remained.
The instability and fear, the supply since 2023 is solid and has not been doubted by anyone.
It had sat for months before, and months before that it was trickling down. Russia would have at minimum waited the entire winter too, hoping Germany would cave or act less determined to replace the supply.
And then after that winter, would they have just resumed exports like nothing at the old low prices?
I’d like a source on that, from what I’ve seen they are decreasing gas use internally to more than compensate, mainly in heating (mostly moving to heat pumps). Initially they were getting a lot of supply from inside the EU and Norway, and brokered some temporary deals with middle eastern nations (also they did have some storage to buffer it out). With LNG accounting for almost none of the total imports. The numbers I’ve found myself so far don’t seven split out the US or middle east from the “other” category, being in the low single percent or less.
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2026/20260112_GAS.html
This would be one reliable (though not terribly specific) source I found for this.
This sums to 89%. Other statistics I found split the remainder between LNG and other.
https://www.bayern-innovativ.de/en/emagazine/detail/en/page/where-germany-gets-its-gas-from
I don’t see any notable issue in any of this.
In looking into this I saw that the EU at large has more notable LNG imports, about half of the total, so as much as Norway and eastern (non-eu) europe combined. Which is also about as much as Russia used to supply, though has not increased by that amount so just taken up some of the slack.
Btw. my initial guess for who did nordstream was germany itself, or in cooperation with whomever (like the us), to gain the political decisiveness to properly migrate away from russian gas without constantly fighting against people still wanting to bargain with russia. May still well have been complicit or explicit support, with various players deciding to let it happen for example. Or could have truly been a few people deciding it would be best and winging it themselves.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
And yes, when German industry collapsed, they started using less LNG. That’s what happens when a price rises, amount demanded falls.
There was no industry collapse though.
This is the (to be fair consumer) price history, and it pretty clearly shows the price calm down and return to pre tension levels due to the detonation and proper action after.
So, since the price remained the same, noone was ever forced to act due to price pressure from norstream. Industry and private housing probably did start retooling before that, due to the price spikes at the start of the war.
It also seems to show that “the market” did not expect the pipeline to reopen, given the spikes.
Give this, I change my opinion to “the nordstream detonation probably improved the german economy and reduced industry downturn”. Be it from added confidence or from creating proper political action.
There was no industry collapse though.
This is the (to be fair consumer) price history, and it pretty clearly shows the price calm down and return to pre tension levels due to the detonation and proper action after.
So, since the price remained the same, noone was ever forced to act due to price pressure from norstream. Industry and private housing probably did start retooling before that, due to the price spikes at the start of the war.
It also seems to show that “the market” did not expect the pipeline to reopen, given the spikes.
Give this, I change my opinion to “the nordstream detonation probably improved the german economy and reduced industry downturn”. Be it from added confidence or from creating proper political action.
Edit:
Oh also germany did not import or use basically any LNG until way after nordstream. It’s not even 0.1% of germanys gas in 2021 and 2022, as you can see from the graph further up.
And your substack blog link seems untrustworthy (and is quite old), but I can’t investigate more because it’s paywalled