The wall street Journal announced yesterday that Germany will drop opposition to russian oil embargo https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-drops-opposition-to-russian-oil-embargo-11651155915?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
That will have a huge effect on oil prices.Oil will surge if the ban will be effective this year.After the news oil climbed from 95 to 105.
Would be interesting if the Russian refinery (Rosneft) will process oil from Arabia. The Germany Government threatened Rosneft with sanctions if it did not process oil from other sources.
"Should Rosneft refuse to process non-Russian oil imports, Germany could put the refinery under state management under laws protecting strategic assets," (German ministry's).
German economy min on yesterday brief:
"Higher inflation and slower growth is the price to support Ukraine"
- Confirms reports of 2.2% GDP growth forecast this year and 2.5% in 2023 without embargo
- Expects 6.1% inflation in 2022 and 2.8% in 2023
How much economic disruption are Europeans ready to tolerate for Ukrainian people ?
Euro is already at lowest levels against the US dollar
The EU expects to remain dependent on imports of Russian gas for years (two three years at least). Russia’s move to halt gas flows to Poland followed Berlin’s decision to supply Ukraine with air-defense weaponry. Russia will cut off Germany’s gas supplies if Berlin continues to ship arms. If supplies of gas were to be cut off tomorrow, Western European economies including Germany and Italy would face a severe energy deficit and a -2% on GDP. The economic effects would be catastrophic.
A sudden stop in the flows of Russian gas would mean industrial shut-downs and chains supply disruption because of economic shutdown. Southern European governments would demand more mutual EU debt issuance to relieve the economic pain. This is exactly what Germany has spent years trying to avoid. So, expect Berlin to do everything it can to keep Russia’s gas flowing in the near term, including dragging its feet over arms shipments to Ukraine, and paying for its gas in rubles, if that is what Moscow demands. Longer terms, Eu cut-off russian gas, will be able to colapse & disintegrate Russia. War is already lost by Russian army, because you can't subjugate a free people and a country of the Ukraine dimensions with just 250K soldiers. When blitzkrieg is lost by Russia actually russian army lost the war.
