The energy crisis

Anti-NATO protests have gripped France as the country grapples with a cost-of-living crisis. The protests come amid a strike by union workers at France's petroleum refineries. Molly Gambhir tells you how Emmanuel Macron faces a double challenge.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday that he had accepted the proposal of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to create an international natural gas hub in Türkiye.

Addressing the Turkish parliament, Erdogan cited Putin as saying that Europe could obtain Russian gas from a major hub in Türkiye.

Last week, the two leaders discussed the matter at a face-to-face meeting in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. The idea was suggested by the Russian president, who offered to build a major gas hub in Türkiye to handle supplies that had previously been directed to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea. The pipeline, along with the yet-unused Nord Stream 2 pipeline, were severely damaged in late September in a series of explosions that are widely considered to be the result of sabotage.

Praising Türkiye as one of “the most reliable” partners for the transit of Russian fuel to Europe, Putin noted that an international gas hub would serve not only as a distribution platform, but could also be used for determining gas prices and avoiding the “politicization” of the issue.

The Kremlin had previously urged Ankara to consider further developing its gas infrastructure after several people were detained for allegedly plotting to sabotage the TurkStream pipeline, which delivers Russian natural gas to Türkiye. According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, the pipeline is now the only “fully functional, fully loaded and working as clockwork route” for Russian gas to reach Europe.

www.rt.com/business/564967-turkiye-decision-russian-gas-hub

Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines, which were damaged and made inoperable by underwater explosions in late September, can be repaired within a few months.

That's according to the state-backed Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) which was citing Sten Ussing, Chief Engineer with consultant group COWI.

Ussing assessed from underwater video-footage that the pipes will not be damaged by rust for some time as there is little oxygen at a depth of 80 meters, where they are located. He noted that the fracture surfaces look “very clean and almost shiny,” which suggests that “the pipe will not rust in a few weeks, as one would expect in a more oxygenated environment.”

“We can expect corrosion inside the pipe to be limited as well,” he added.

The engineer, however, explained that the explosion caused a pressure surge, and that could have damaged sections of the pipeline some distance from the site, adding that they can be repaired by elevating the pipes slightly above the seabed, which would allow underwater welders to remove the damaged sections and replace them with new ones.

“It is standard procedure to weld such a piece of pipe under water. It has been done many times before, and the technologies – vessels, pipes and specialists – that need to be used already exist,” Ussing explained.

“Finally, the pipeline would have to be emptied, the strings cleaned of dirt and grime, blown and dried – and that's it, you can have gas flowing again,” the engineer concluded, saying the process will likely take several months. He warned, however, that even with little oxygen, the fractured pipes can accumulate rust over time, and advised to carry out the repairs within a year.

The footage of the pipeline fractures which Ussing inspected was taken by Swedish media outlet Expressen, which sent a camera down one of the pipes.

The cause of the explosions which damaged three out of four strings of Russia’s 1,200-kilometer Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines is still being investigated. Sabotage is suspected to be the likely cause. President Vladimir Putin branded it “an act of international terrorism.”

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US companies may fail to launch next generation nuclear power plants with new Small Modular Reactors (SMR) without supplies of Russian uranium, Reuters reported on Thursday.

The advanced reactors, according to developers, are three times more efficient than conventional versions, they consume less fuel and are crucial for the country’s agenda to meet net-zero emissions.

SMRs need High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU), which is enriched to levels of up to 20%, compared to about 5% for the uranium that powers most nuclear plants. The only company which currently sells this type of uranium commercially is Tenex - a subsidiary of Russian state-owned nuclear energy major Rosatom.

While the company has not been subject to Western sanctions, being an important part of the global nuclear fuel supply chain, US firms X-energy and TerraPower that have state contracts to develop advanced reactors, are reluctant to buy Russian uranium.

“We understand the need for urgent action to incentivize the establishment of a sustainable, market-driven supply of HALEU,” a spokesperson from the US Department of Energy told Reuters.

It is not clear who can replace Russian HALEU which is needed to fuel nine out of ten of the advanced reactors funded by Washington.

www.rt.com/business/565032-us-nuclear-industry-needs-russian-uranium

Russia has ruled out complete demilitarization of the area around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), but would support some kind of arrangement to ensure its safety, a senior Russian diplomat has said.

“An agreement about demilitarization is impossible in principle. We cannot keep the station safe without guarding it,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the newspaper Izvestia on the sidelines of an international seminar on the prevention of nuclear war in Moscow.

“Zone of protection is a different idea, and its parameters are being discussed,” he noted, referring to Russian contacts with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in remarks published on Monday.

Moscow is engaged with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and has observers from the UN nuclear watchdog stationed at the facility, Ryabkov said, adding that Russia has “nothing to hide.”

The Zaporozhye NPP has been under Russian control since the early stages of the military operation in Ukraine. Kiev and Moscow accused each other of shelling the station on multiple occasions. Ukraine also claimed that Russia deployed heavy weapons at the site and used them to attack Ukrainian troops.

Russia took over formal responsibility for the station earlier this month, after Zaporozhye Region voted in a referendum to split with Kiev and become part of Russia.

The IAEA, however, still refers to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe as Ukrainian. The agency stressed “the need to establish a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the facility, following frequent shelling at or near the plant in recent months,” in its latest briefing on the situation.

Both Russia and Ukraine expressed discontent with the IAEA’s refusal to say who is responsible for the shelling of the plant.

Speaking to Argentinian media last week, Grossi said his goal was to identify “the lowest common denominator” between the two nations and to ensure the physical safety of the nuclear site. He chose to ignore the mutual accusations, as taking “a militant or critical position” would have been detrimental to that goal, he explained in an interview with La Nacion newspaper.

www.rt.com/russia/565218-iaea-zaporozhye-plant-zone

Russian gas supplies to the EU dropped by almost 50% since May, while exports to Japan and South Korea remained at about the same level as in 2021, the CEO of Novatek, Russia’s second largest gas producer, said on Thursday.

“Russian supplies to Europe decreased by nearly 50 billion cubic meters of gas (bcm) in the past four-five months. As of October 1, the slump has reached 47%,” CEO Leonid Mikhelson said at the Eurasian Economic Forum in Baku, adding that the EU has almost replenished the shortfall by boosting LNG consumption by 65%.

According to his estimates, the EU has received a total of 43bcm in additional volumes of gas via its LNG terminals, with 29bcm arriving from the US.

Mikhelson suggested that the upcoming winter will be the easiest of the next three, given that the bloc has managed to build up its gas stocks. However, he warned that with restored demand in China, the global economy may need about 60-70 million tons of LNG in the next two years to offset reduced pipeline gas supplies. Mikhelson also pointed to the lack of new major projects until 2026.

In his view, global GDP will struggle to grow amid skyrocketing energy prices, and the only way to rein in the inflation and stabilize the markets is to beef up investment in new large-scale energy projects. And this, according to Mikhelson, is only possible with international cooperation.

www.rt.com/business/565470-russia-eu-gas-supply-drop