Post #394,484
9/12/14 8:40:38 AM
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Sanctions likely to hurt Russian gasoline production.
Daily Mail (Reuters). Sanctions have limited the ability of Russian companies to borrow from the Western capital markets and hit Rosneft , Russia's top oil producer, which has had to cut its staff as its production falls.
Russia is particularly dependent on the West for catalysts, refining equipment and gas turbine parts, meaning complicated refinery modernisation work to improve fuel quality is seen as almost impossible without the access to Western expertise.
Rosneft needs to invest more than $21 billion annually until 2017 to launch new fields and upgrade refineries. It said last week it planned to replace all equipment and technology imports from the West as the U.S. and EU sanctions.
In May, Energy Minister Alexander Novak asked President Vladimir Putin to boost funding for domestic producers because a quarter of all equipment used in oil output enhancement was imported. The modernisation drive is estimated to cost about $55 billion this decade.
Zolotnikov said Russian refineries were unable to sharply increase production over the next two years, which may lead to shortage of gasoline. He added that the increasing number of accidents and routine maintenance work at refineries also pointed to possible fuel supplies disruptions. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #394,519
9/12/14 5:44:13 PM
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Dominoes..
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Post #394,597
9/14/14 12:27:03 PM
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Oh Goody. Let's push a nuclear power to the brink.
Particularly now that Russia and Ukraine are talking to each other.
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Post #394,599
9/14/14 12:43:45 PM
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They've been talking. Still fighting, also too.
AP (in the NY Times)Putin seems to hope that half measures (e.g. the announced cease-fire, the withdrawal of some of his troops) will distract the West's attention enough to win by default. I doubt it'll work the way he wants, but who knows... To be clear, I think the conflict is going to go on, at a fairly low level as far as the West is concerned, but still a disaster for those in Eastern Ukraine, for a very long time. Ukraine isn't going to surrender its sovereignty easily. Memories are too deep there. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #394,603
9/14/14 1:41:38 PM
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Re: Memories are too deep there.
You bet your ass! :)
And those memories have been stirred up and intensified by Putin's actions.
Communists tried hard to suppress that kind of thinking by mixing a resettling ethnic groups.
About 3 years ago my wife and I were shopping at Costco. As usual, there were folks giving out samples of chips, or pieces of chocolate, cookies, or whatever. One of those folks, a portly lady, says to us "Please try this." So, we did. As we were walking away I tell my wife "That woman came from what was the Soviet Union." "No," my wife says, "given her complexion, she could be Mexican!" "Well," I said, "I know my accents, lets go see." My wife and I often play a game of contrariness. So we traipse on back to that lady and I say "I am going to ask you a question you do not have to answer." "What country did you come from when you came here?" "Kazakhstan," she says. "Welcome to the United States!," I said. "I came from Ukraine, and I've been here for over 60 years." "We're all the same people." she said a flashed a wide grin showing a couple stainless steel teeth.
Alex
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
-- Isaac Asimov
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Post #394,627
9/15/14 3:55:24 PM
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Could be Ukranian too.
Lots of Ukrainians were exiled to Kazakhstan, along with the Volga Germans, Cossacks, Crimean Tatars and plenty of "uncooperative" Russians.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, most of these peoples have been migrating out of the region, leaving a population more and more just Muslim Kazakhs.
I'm just wrapping up an intensive study of the cuisines and history of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uyghurstan). Nothing up on the site yet except a bunch of Uzbek and Turkmen salads, with more to come (and very good salads they are).
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Post #394,620
9/15/14 8:09:13 AM
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Are you completely unconcerned about <strike>Soviet</strike> Russian paranoia?
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Post #394,622
9/15/14 10:04:35 AM
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Mostly unconcerned. YMMV.
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Post #394,626
9/15/14 3:14:07 PM
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'Indigenous life must be in agreement.'
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Post #394,634
9/15/14 4:47:18 PM
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Re: Are you completely unconcerned...
As you know, mmoffitt, I am largely (not entirely) in sympathy with your reservations here, but—perhaps because I was inoculated by the Cuban brouhaha of 1962—I am not disposed to duck and cover just yet. Putin's a gambler, and Putin despises the rest of the world (much of which, not least the USSA, is of course reasonably to be despised), but I've seen no indication these past fifteen years that he's suicidal.
in solidarity,
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Post #394,644
9/16/14 12:41:26 AM
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Concerned here.. mainly about the Unknowns looming.
Rand covers the best surmise we might justify of Putin's somewhat disciplined proclivities, say. But were the M.E. to turn as ugly as ISIS is determined to uglify.. then it's not just Putin's forbearance we'd have to worry about. Any unsuspected new weapons-aid in the hands of these pukka psychopaths is just one aspect, but a large one. One mistake in countering their next escalation could well precipitate the New millennium's equivalent of that Spasm-war thing of yore. (Meanwhile in the dis-USA, the usual defectives are already hammering the ISIS-WIll-Be-Here drum for all it's worth. As expected.) So I think you're right to be concerned about Not-forcing Putin towards his own berserkdom capabilities, but damned if I can guess if all the other players remain stable enough to See-this-caveat? while scheming to assert own agendas (most? still irrational about last century's oil--which must not be burned.) ie There's nothing remotely-simple about the many ways a clusterfuck can happen in a trice. That circumspection so absent in 2003, when even the UK was mesmerized:[Comment read re a NYT article, The Death of Adulthood in American Culture.]
willtone east hampton
Obama does not lead by bravado like W., who led us into two unfunded wars that made us the scorn of nations, cost thousands of american lives, hundred of thousand Iraqi and Afghan lives, bankrupted our economy as well, and yet we blame a level headed, rational, considerate, forward thinking man who has guided us through a perilous time in our economy and the world without a lot of flash and bluster, and zero help or cooperation from members of the opposite party. it is a most shameful time for america, yes, but the blame belongs squarely on Mc Connell, Boehner, Cantor, and company who have orchestrated the demise of government at the expense of the american people. shame on them!
Contrast Obama's intelligence with Cheney/Shrub, and it's clear that we do not want to find out if BHO can ever be sufficiently spooked into idiocy by our sub-army of Neoconmen: just as we must worry about Putin's upper-limit. The whole fucking Planet is in the hands of creatures, politicians/flawed humans with large egos. We can only watch.
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