Home ›› 09 Mar 2022 ›› Front
Moscow has stoked fears of an energy war by threatening to close a major gas pipeline to Germany after the US pushed its European allies to consider banning Russian oil imports over its invasion of Ukraine, reports The Guardian.
In an address on Russian state television, Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said: “A rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market”, and claimed the price of oil could rise to more than US$300 a barrel.
Novak cited Germany’s decision last month to halt the certification of Nord Stream 2, a secondary pipeline, saying: “We have every right to take a matching decision and impose an embargo on gas pumping through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline.”
He claimed it would be impossible to quickly find a replacement for Russian oil on the European market. “It will take years, and it will still be much more expensive for European consumers. Ultimately, they will be hurt the worst by this outcome,” he said.
Analysts at Bank of America have said prices could reach US$200 a barrel if most of Russia’s exports were cut off, and oil prices hit near 14-year highs on Tuesday, with Brent crude futures reaching as high as $125.19 a barrel.
Novak’s threat refers to the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany and follows comments by the European Commission’s climate policy chief that the EU could wean itself off Russian gas within years and start curbing its reliance within months. “It’s not easy, but it’s feasible,” Frans Timmermans told the European parliament’s environment committee on Monday. Russia supplies about 40% of Europe’s gas.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered energy security concerns and the European Commission will on Tuesday propose plans to diversify Europe’s fossil fuel supplies away from Russia and move faster to renewable energy.
Joe Biden held a video conference call with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain on Monday as he pushed for their support to ban Russian oil imports. The US was however willing to move ahead without its European allies, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, revealed the idea was gaining traction in the White House and had been the subject of “very active discussion”. Boris Johnson attracted criticism after saying the UK may have to increase its domestic gas and oil production.
A draft of the European Commission’s energy plan, seen by Reuters, suggests increasing gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from other countries, and phasing in alternative gases such as hydrogen and biomethane.
Other elements would aim to build wind and solar projects faster, and ensure countries fill gas storage before winter to cushion supply shocks. Europe’s gas storage needs to be 80-90% full ahead of next winter, Timmermans said. Storage levels were about 75% as of the end of September last year.
The International Energy Agency has said Europe could reduce Russian gas imports by more than half within a year, but that would require a raft of rapid measures, from swapping gas boilers for heat pumps, to significantly raising LNG imports.
Ukrainians escape besieged towns
Ukrainians boarded buses to flee the besieged eastern city of Sumy on Tuesday, the first evacuation from a Ukrainian city through a humanitarian corridor agreed with Russia after several failed attempts in recent days.
Sumy governor Dmitro Zhivitskiy said in a video statement that the first buses had already departed Sumy for the city of Poltava, further west. He said priority would be given to the disabled, pregnant women and children in orphanages. A short video clip released by presidential advisor Kyrolo Tymoshenko showed a red bus with some civilians on board. “It has been agreed that the first convoy will start at 10:00am (0800 GMT) from the city of Sumy. The convoy will be followed by the local population in personal vehicles,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a televised statement.
Meanwhile, the death toll from an overnight strike in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy rose to 21 civilians, according to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office. The office confirmed “the death of 19 adults and 2 children as a result of an air strike in the city.”
“As a result of the bombing, one house was completely destroyed, 16 were partially destroyed. As of 7:00, the bodies of 21 people, including 2 children, were found during an inspection,” it added.
Residents were also leaving the town of Irpin, a frontline Kyiv suburb where Reuters journalists had filmed families fleeing for their lives under fierce bombardment on Sunday.
Residents ran with their young children in strollers or cradling babies in arms, while others carried pets and plastic bags of belongings.
“The city is almost ruined, and the district where I’m living, it’s like there are no houses which were not bombed,” said one young mother, holding a baby beneath a blanket, while her daughter stood by her side. “Yesterday was the hardest bombing, and the lights and sound is so scary, and the whole building is shaking.” Russia’s Interfax news agency said Moscow was opening corridors on Tuesday to allow people to leave five Ukrainian cities: Cherhihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and the capital Kyiv, as well as Sumy.
There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian side on evacuations from cities apart from Sumy.
Russian and Ukrainian officials had agreed similar corridors to evacuate residents from the besieged port of Mariupol in the south on Saturday and Sunday, but both those attempts failed, with each side accusing the other of continuing to fire. Ukraine accused Russia of violating a ceasefire by shelling a humanitarian corridor from besieged Mariupol as buses began to leave two other Ukrainian cities.
People in the southern port city, which could allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to Crimea if captured, were not only suffering bombardment but had had no heat, water, sanitary systems or phones since Friday.
