Francesco Sassi

🚨Personnel from🇮🇹Italian energy giant ENI is leaving the Zubair #Oil &amp; #Gas field in🇮🇶Iraq.
The company says this is a precautionary move after the latest🇺🇸US strikes on🇮🇷Iranian nuclear facilities and risks of a wider War in the Middle East between🇮🇱Israel and its enemies
🧵 

Massive Oil &amp; Gas fields are dispersed throughout the region in:
🇮🇶Iraq
🇮🇷Iran
🇴🇲Oman
🇦🇪UAE
🇸🇦Saudi Arabia
🇰🇼Kuwait
The 12 largest fields in the region could produce up to 15 million barrels a day of oil, nearly 20% of the global daily total. 
Other than NOCs,

many IOCs such as
🇺🇸US Chevron
🇬🇧British Shell
🇫🇷French TotalEnergies
🇨🇳Chinese CNPC
🇷🇺Russian Lukoil
are involved in regional hydrocarbon extraction.
What could happen to Middle Easte energy production if the conflict escalates and the US and Iran start to directly attack

regional military outposts?
(Not) Funny fact: Only a few days ago, ENI's CEO Claudio Descalzi said oil markets signalled that a regional escalation and closure of the Strait of Hormuz were unlikely.
In a today's interview for the FT, he also states he hates "to be politically

correct."
I wonder how he would "incorrectly" and in his secret chambers justify calling back company's workers from the most prolific Oil &amp; Gas region in the world...

To explore the energy geopolitics of the Middle East
➡️Qatar’s Gas Diplomacy in the Iran-Israel War
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE2587
➡️The Blind Obsession For The Strait of Hormuz 
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE2546
➡️Energy's Sleepless Weekend in the Middle East 
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE2525

📯🇨🇳🇷🇺China-Russia pipeline gas trade just reached the 100 billion cubic metres milestone through the Power of Siberia pipeline

🤝Natural gas remains a crucial issue in economic cooperation between Beijing and Moscow and an essential feature of the political allegiance
🧵 

Alexei Miller, the CEO of the Russian gas giant Gazprom, informed that the 4,000 km Power of Siberia pipeline just crossed the shipping of 100 bcm from the natural gas fields of Kovykta and Chayanda in Eastern Siberia, some of the largest gas reserves in the Eastern half of the

immense Russian territory, untapped until a few years ago. The pipeline entered into service at the end of 2019, right a few weeks before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis in China, and it was inaugurated by the same Chinese and Russian president Xi Jinping and

Vladimir Putin.
The agreement between the two countries about the pipeline construction dates back to 2014 and was the result of at least 10 years of negotiations between Moscow and Beijing. Many times, including within Miller's announcement, the contract has been described as

"the largest gas contract in the history of the industry"
Today, continues Miller, the landmark achievement is just the "beginning of a long journey" which will get "more than a trillion" of cubic metres from Russia to China in the decades ahead. In practice, Gazprom sees

China as the largest market for its natural gas. This is particularly true in the face of the crumbling interdependence with the🇪🇺EU and the same Roadmap, recently published, intended to phase out all natural gas, oil, and nuclear fuel imports from by 2027. 
Interdependency

is the key word to describe the Sino-Russian gas reality and future. According to Miller, the partnership with China is "based on mutual trust and a common desire for development and prosperity. As our Chinese colleagues say, the longer the friendship, the stronger it is."

Gazprom is promising a new pipeline from the Russian Far East, the so-called Far East Route, to be realised by 2027. It describes the same gas routes as "more than clean energy suppliers. This is a strong bond between our countries and peoples, and it is a mutually beneficial

cooperation for many, many years to come."
Other projects are discussed, both in Siberia and in the Arctic, including the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline through🇲🇳Mongolia. Yet, there is no certainty that these will be realised as gas geopolitics continues to be

deeply entrenched rooted in the rise of a new energy geopolitics order.

To review recent developments of global gas geopolitics

➡️Romania as a powerhouse in the EU energy geopolitics
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE2341
➡️The Norwegian Battle For Frontier Oil &amp; Gas
https://rebrand.ly/RE2307

⚡️The most dangerous blackout in history, collapsing the grids of🇪🇸Spain &amp;🇵🇹Portugal, was caused by the disconnection between🇪🇸Spain &amp;🇫🇷France, thus between the🇪🇸🇵🇹Iberian Peninsula &amp; the🇪🇺EU

🚨Interdependency is the most important variable in today's energy geopolitics
🧵 

According to REE, the operator of the Spanish grid, the giant blackout of yesterday, one of the most spectacular failures of the European energy systems in the age of electrification, was caused by the sudden disconnection between the Spanish and French electricity grids.

For the operator, the loss of power that affected the Spanish grid at 12.33 CET, and which causes are yet unknown, determined such a huge imbalance on the grid that brought the same Spanish one to disconnect from the French one, and thus to the EU.
In turn, this led to the

total collapse of the Spanish electricity network and, as a result, the collapse of the Portuguese one.
Even though some solar, wind, and thermal generation remained operative in the Iberian peninsula, even in the immediate aftermath of the drop in electricity distribution and

transmission, the inability of the grid to balance band generation through the connection with the EU determined the loss of an abysmal amount of power generation.
We are far from having determined what really caused the sudden drop of 15 GW of electricity generation for five

seconds that brought in this domino effect, and yet we could assess a few things:

1) The electricity interconnection between European countries is so deep that the investments in expansion, maintenance, and creation of new interconnections must be a priority for policymakers

2) What happens to the EU electricity grid does not stay within the EU. Not only the Spanish and Portuguese grids were affected, but also the🇫🇷French and🇲🇦Moroccan ones experienced troubles. In the latter, internet services went out for hours. This has political consequences too

3) The Iberian grid collapse is a testimony that in Europe, energy islands exist. Geography, economy and politics are at the root of this.
The lives of thousands yesterday were at stake and determining the causes of the blackout is pivotal for the EU energy security &amp; transition.

You could find more about the geopolitics of electricity interconnections here 
 
➡️Turkey counters Greece and Israel with a grand plan for power interconnections 
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE2121 

➡️China leapfrog technology to cut undersea cables
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE1959

🚨🚫The🇬🇧UK government decided to reject the Xlinks First power cable, connecting🇲🇦Morocco with Devon and sending green electrons produced in Africa to British consumers.
⚡️Economic risks are too high for a 4,000 km project, most of which would be under the Atlantic Sea.
🧵 

The news is still not official, but it appears clear that London has said no to the Xlinks First power cable project, a mammoth $33 billion (£24 billion) infrastructure, and one of the most ambitious and discussed projects to link African green energy to European markets.

At least $6.5 billion of investments were needed in the UK to realise the projects. The shareholders proposing the subsea power cable asked London to secure a Contract for Difference agreement, with fixed price for electricity locked for many years (possibly decades) to make sure

of a sufficient return for the investment.
Apparently, even the pro-climate Labour government, very sensible to renewable energy and decarbonisation, does not want to undertake such a risky project. The size of the undersea part of the infrastructure would be around 5 times

bigger than the longest functioning undersea power cable in the world between the UK and Denmark. Promoters designed Xlinks with a 11.5 GW of capacity, all dedicated to solar and wind energy produced in Morocco, one of the African nations investing more on green energy over the

last decade. Now, without the UK, much of the investments made in the project by
🇫🇷France TotalEnergies
🇦🇪UAE Taqa
🇬🇧UK Octopus Energy will have to find another electricity purchaser instead of the UK.
Could this be🇩🇪Germany?

To explore the geopolitics of the energy transition
➡️The China-U.S. Trade War Goes Nuclear
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE2496
➡️Blame Game and Electricity Chess
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE2405

🚨🇷🇺Russia's Gazprom strikes a victory in court against🇵🇱Poland's Orlen. The Russian company expects $290 million in compensation over #gas prices #Poland paid to #Russia from 2018 to 2021.
The two companies have to settle the payment terms, but that's hard to come by...
🧵 

Gazprom had the right to retroactively charge higher gas prices to Poland and therefore it could gain even more from gas exports ended in 2022, when the transport through the Yamal-Europe pipeline was suspended.
This is what an arbitration tribunal in Stockholm ruled, and yet it

did not rule out how to settle the legal dispute and left companies to deal with it. The fact is that Orlen is unable to make any payment to Russia due to existing sanctions applied by Warsaw on any Russian entity. This ruling could pave the way for a more troubling resolution of

the next stage of the arbitration procedure, when Gazprom and Orlen are expected to fight over claims on gas prices in 2021 and 2022, and the same claims Orlen has on non-delivered gas supplies from the Russian company in 2022.
In total, Gazprom has around $20 billion in claims

with several EU companies...

To explore the gas geopolitics in the EU consider subscribing to my blog  
🫴The EU Gas Storage Gamble and the Hormuz Crisis
➡️https://rebrand.ly/RE2640
 🫴Ethical Imports: The EU Latest Battle Over Banning Russian Gas Imports
https://rebrand.ly/RE2566