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BP is probably just getting ahead of the game. The value of this investment is likely to be predicted to plummet and need to be written off anyway. The EU will

BP is probably just getting ahead of the game. The value of this investment is likely to be predicted to plummet and need to be written off anyway. The EU will need to dramatically reduce energy dependence on Russia after this. There will no popular support and the long term strategic implications make it untenable.

TedShiller 5y ago
The financially correct way to do it would be to wait for it to plummet first before writing it off. So no, you don't want to get "ahead of the game" in the accounting sense.
- baq 5y ago
  but it has already happened. show me (or them) a bidder. no one in their right mind would buy a russian asset after what happened a few hours ago and likely what will happen in retaliation.
- UnlockedSecrets 5y ago
  What are the effects of doing it now versus later?
  - TedShiller 5y ago
    The lower the asset drops, the more you can write off when you do it. So it’s best to wait until the asset is the lowest that you think it will go. Of course you could mistime it
    - kgwgk 5y ago
      That makes absolutely zero sense. Whatever you lose in the end is what you will lose. You can lose many billions this quarter and more billions next quarter.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure BP had a lot of accounting and tax knowledge throen at that question before doing it.
- shagmin 5y ago
  The article doesn't say exactly how BP is going to extricate itself, but if they are just "writing it off", doesn't that mean the value is essentially $0? They will have a tax deduction equal to the cost basis of the stake.
  - TedShiller 5y ago
    If it's a total write-off, then yes, it means the value is zero. But you can also write off a less-than-total loss. For example if my stock drops from $10 to $5, I can write off $5 in losses (assuming I sell at the lower value). In that example it didn't drop to zero. So it depends if they're talking about a total write-off, or a write-off. I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that in everyday parlance, "write-off" often means a complete 100% loss (for example, my car was totaled, and it's a write-off). But in accounting, it does not.
foobiekr 5y ago
It will take a decade to reduce their energy dependence.
- ajross 5y ago
  Less, if Russia resolves its governmental intemperance first. The events of the last few days make it at least plausible that Putin's days are numbered. If so, that's very bad in terms of absolute apocalyptic risk, but probably a good thing as measured by expected outcome. The chances of getting a stable democracy in the next decade might be, I dunno, 40% or greater (and those of dying in a nuclear fireball surely under 1%, right?). So as geopolitics it's probably a mistake, but as investment decisionmaking I think it makes sense.
  - trhway 5y ago
    >Russia resolves its governmental intemperance first i see the history of the last 30+ years as clear indication that Russian society is progressively becoming less and less able to manage large issues. As result i think there is high probability that Russia will breakup after that catastrophe of Ukraine war similar to USSR after Afghanistan (the key to such breakup isn't external forces, instead it is clear disillusionment with existing power). For example, the Far East in particular has no good connection to Russia (and Putin was basically trying to buy them up by sending money which will definitely become problematic once the war related bills, like compensation to Ukraine, start to hit the treasure) while say getting high-speed rail Vladivostok-Dalyan/Bejing would include it into the Pacific ring of the future boom of economic development.
    - petre 5y ago
      China is already buying off ex Soviet satellites like Kyrgystan and Mongolia. Kazahstan is also economically dependent on China. If Japan is given any reason to rearm itself to the teeth again (like a Chinese invasion of Taiwan) and Russia breaks up, they'll almost certainly retake Sakhalin and Kurlil islands back. The rest will probably all become China satellites, except maybe for South Korea.
yrgulation 5y ago
I have a feeling BP will be paid back from a Russian war reparations package. Call it a hunch.
- secondo 5y ago
  I don’t get why’re being downvoted. Without doubt a series of governments were looped in on this decision - naively assuming one or several did not initiate it in the first place - to ensure alignment on current matters and there is no chance BP did not take the opportunity to ensure alignment on future matters.
  - ascii_pasta 5y ago
    I have a feeling, call it a hunch. becuase the post adds nothing and is simply a post for the sake of posting.
    - iandanforth 5y ago
      FWIW I hadn't considered there would be a war reparations package that would benefit companies like this. So useful for the naive/ignorant?
- agumonkey 5y ago
  those frozen assets will ease the process I assume
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  Before that Russia would need to actually lose the war, which is highly unlikely, considering Ukraine is fighting on its own..
  - nunez 5y ago
    The US is giving Ukraine $600M in weapons on top of the €150M the EU is giving them; they are fighting on their own but they aren’t alone. Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-joe-biden-b2023821.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukrai...
aluminum96 5y ago
> The EU will need to dramatically reduce energy dependence on Russia after this This has been clear for quite some time now, but Germany chose to move in the opposite direction by shutting down its nuclear plants. As long as Russian energy remains cheap, I expect that that Central Europeans will continue to vote with their wallets after the current crisis blows over.
- skybrian 5y ago
  Perhaps they have adjusted their plans a bit: Germany to push ahead with two LNG terminals to reduce Russian gas dependence: Scholz https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/lng/022722-germany-to-push-ahead-with-two-lng-terminals-to-reduce-russian-gas-dependence-scholz https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-ne...
  - kragen 5y ago
    That's an impressive vote of confidence that the war won't spread beyond Ukraine: an LNG terminal is really not at all the kind of thing you want to have around in a war.
  - aluminum96 5y ago
    That’s pretty encouraging news if they follow through with it. Things are changing these last few days faster than I can keep up; perhaps this actually will be a historical inflection point.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  All I track is EROEI / LCOE of alt energy in the US. Is Russia able to undercut solar/wind economics in eastern europe? The economics for migrating from Russian sources is already there. You're already losing money with coal plants, and natural gas will soon be more expensive to keep running than replace. Storage/level generation is a secondary concern, but as stated the extant nuke plants coudl do that.
  - kragen 5y ago
BbzzbB 5y ago
Looks like they weren't ahead of the game after all when the market opens and they're not allowed to sell i.e. they've been expropriated. Waiting for the weekend to pass in the hopes in blows over will have been a costly gambit, that stake is (was) worth a third of their market cap. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russian-cbank-confirms-block-foreigners-bids-sell-russian-securities-2022-02-28/ https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russian-cbank-confi...
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I agree they're probably getting ahead of the game, but in case they aren't just getting ahead of the game it is a move to be applauded. And really if it is them getting ahead of the game I don't think there's any 'just' to it, lots of companies would be hesitant at this stage to make the move, most managers don't have the vision to get ahead of the game - only, at best, to be where the game is currently at. As such I have to respect them whether they are doing it as a game playing move, or a moral move.
abc789654567 5y ago
Ukraine needs to realise the fact that they have been left high and dry by their so called NATO friends
- aiisjustanif 5y ago
  How so, they are not a member of NATO? And even still NATO countries are doing something, not nothing at all. You are spamming quite a lot, with a lot of bias. Your username smells like a bot.
abc789654567 5y ago
Hmm, the only country to have used nuclear weapons against innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is staying calm
abc789654567 5y ago
Ukraine crisis is only because of the swollen head of the Americans as they were expanding NATO ignoring earlier promises ..As the only super power, they underestimated the Russia..If we blame Putin, for this invasion, Americans should answer for invasions on Iraq, Sudan, Yeman, Afganistan and many others ...
huhtenberg 5y ago
They were effectively forced to do this by the UK government. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60548382 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60548382
qiskit 5y ago
More like as britain takes russian assets via sanctions, the russians will offset it by taking british assets. So all british assets in russia/ukraine are already lost just like all russian assets in britain are lost. This is just something their PR team put together to get some good publicity. Like paying media to rename the "BP oil spill" to "Deepwater oil spill". Like branding their company as a green eco-friendly after said BP oil spill. Still one of the largest oil companies in the world, but they are green eco-friendly.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  It definitely can't be just a PR move, because no company allows PR to throw away a $25B business, the management has to decide first and PR just spins the decision. Just imagine the board room discussion! Hey what happened to that 25 billion, oh PR thought it would be a good look for us if we lost it! Thumbs up!!
- ryder9 5y ago
- gruez 5y ago
  >This is just something their PR team put together to get some good publicity. Like paying media to rename the "BP oil spill" to "Deepwater oil spill". Source? I did some rudimentary checking and what you're describing seems like revisionist history and/or conspiracy to me. I checked the news section from wikipedia on that date[1], and it's referred to as "Explosion on Deepwater Horizon drilling rig", with no references to BP (in the title, there are references in the body). The linked sources also do the same. The same lack of BP reference also applies to NPR which had stories from the AP[2] as well as new orleans public radio[3]. Maybe BP bribed all of them, but that seems hard to believe. Looking at the wikipedia page and/or news articles, you can find a less sinister explanation for why it wasn't called the BP oil spill: the drilling rig was owned and operated by Transocean, not BP. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/April_2010#2010_April_22 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/April_... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20100421145719/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1001 https://web.archive.org/web/20100421145719/https://www.npr.o... [3] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126183561 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126183...
mytailorisrich 5y ago
The value of their investment will be known when they find a buyer... I don't see too many organizations interested at the moment. Chinese would be the most likely candidates but they may also be wary and stay away for the time being. Or they can pretty much give their shares away to the Russian government or sell them to some Russian organization at a massive discount.
- drran 5y ago
  They can donate their shares to Ukraine.
filomeno 5y ago
> There will no popular support and the long term strategic implications make it untenable People just want cheap prices for gas, oil... We don't care too much about what happens in Ukraine, we just want to pay our bills. Nobody is going to be cold or hungry just to harm Russia. Capitalism wouldn't exist otherwise, and capitalism is just what the EU is about.
- delegate 5y ago
  I think you're not getting the full picture. A dictator with thousands of nukes has gone rogue, saying and doing crazy things, eg. is unpredictable. Capitalism works in peaceful times, it stops when tanks are rolling by.
  - filomeno 5y ago
    The only thing I remember, is that the only time nuclear weapons were used, it was not Russia nor the USSR. To me it doesn't look unpredictable at all: Ukraine has long been warned that joining NATO poses a threat to Russia and that they should remain neutral. Yet they decided to continue to provoke Russia (just for the interest of the US) and now they get what they were looking for.
    - rnk 5y ago
      Russia said don't join Nato or we'll destroy you, Ukraine. And then Russia attacks Ukraine anyway. So what would be different if Georgia, Ukraine, and the other smaller democratic survivors of the USSR join NATO? Russia will still want to attack them. Edit - one more thing, Russia said it threatens us if NATO is right next door to us in Ukraine. So Russia wants to take over Ukraine, and they'll be right next door to NATO in Poland. They were already right next door to NATO.
      - filomeno 5y ago
        > Russia said don't join Nato or we'll destroy you, Ukraine. And then Russia attacks Ukraine anyway They wanted some guarantee that Ukraine would remain a neutral country, and the response they got was that Ukraine was going to join NATO. Even more, NATO's secretary general said not only Ukraine can join NATO, but also, NATO's presence in eastern Europe was to be strengthened. If that was meant to avoid a military conflict, I think they were very wrong.
lwhi 5y ago
Yes .. if you know you're going to have to do it, might as well be the first and get the publicity.
nickysielicki 5y ago
If they could, they would have already. The energy crisis next winter is going to be apocalyptic.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  We could just wear heated clothes and take the bus. That's not apocalyptic. It's still better than the vast majority of people in the world have it.
  - nickysielicki 5y ago
    > We could just wear heated clothes and take the bus. That's not apocalyptic. Energy is everything. We effectively convert hydrocarbons to calories. We ship everything with hydrocarbons. Real costs for every good and service will blow up alongside preexisting inflation. Food shortages aren’t just an inconvenience. Societies don’t do well when these kinds of shocks happen. It’s not enough to contextualization it against the third world. When you’ve had it good and you don’t have it good anymore, that means chaos.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      EU imports 30% of its oil from Russia - 39% of natural gas. Wearing heated clothing instead of heating the indoors could cut down natural gas consumption by close to 40% - https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-sector/households/heating-energy-consumption-by-energy-sources.html#:~:text=Natural%20gas%20is%20the%20leading,(39%25%20in%202019) https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-secto.... Close to 4% of natural gas is used for cooking and heating water - which the EU could easily replace with electric using a subsidy (well worth it regardless). The EU consumed ~379B cubic feet of natural gas in 2021. Shutting down just the German nuclear reactors is the equivalent of ~14B cubic feet = ~4% of natural gas consumption for the entire EU. Gasoline consumption for personal (passenger) vehicles and flights uses more than 30% of the EU's oil consumption: https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/how-electric-vehicles-could-take-a-bite-out-of-the-oil-market-81081 https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/how-ele... OPEC could easily pump enough oil, and the US & Canada ship enough LNG to replace 10% (or more) of the missing oil and gas. It would be a major inconvenience - not an apocalypse, definitely not starvation. The EU is rich.
KKKKkkkk1 5y ago
Good for them. The Italian government fought tooth and nail to get an exception for luxury goods in the EU's Russia sanctions package. So clearly Gucci and Prada are not interested in getting ahead of the game. [0] [0] https://twitter.com/Barnes_Joe/status/1497194009038626842 https://twitter.com/Barnes_Joe/status/1497194009038626842
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kmlx 5y ago
  is that carve out still on?
- trashtester 5y ago
  Gucci and Prada are clearly strategic resources that must have their exports blocked asap. Doing so hurts Russian oligarchs more than anything - it makes their wives and daughters (and mistresses) unhappy, and they the oligarchs will not be allowewed to rest until imports are restored....
  - kabes 5y ago
    And the Chechen dictator will be out of boots https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1497540771880132609 https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1497540771880132609
darwinwhy 5y ago
That's really interesting. If they had waited for the value of the investment to plummet, would they get less of a write-off on their accounting?
jansen555 5y ago
Only way to dramatically reduce energy is for EU not to have babies and higher mortality rate. As long as they have more "new" people, and each accord with EU lifestyle, you need energy...lots of it. Every form of energy has their cost and limits. Oil or gas is the most accessible. Everything else will need to massively conversion. Fusion is just too far off. Nuclear you need to build a lot of plant which just provide more easy target for bombing. Solar, you need plenty of batteries as well with large land....butvthen very dependent on China cheap solar. Wind and sea waves are very limited as well. For example nuclear, electric vehicle, electric airbus, electric tankers, and so on. And also a lot of people tend to forget (most are babies, children or even teen and not born yet) Soviet at its height of power requires very little money from the west. They still can bomb EU and America back then to kingdom high. Today Russia is significantly richer with China the world factory backing. EU need to rethink its cold war NATO alliance. Just go read up during naughties, Putin try his best to join EU community. But then Obama pissed on him because refusal to kill children and women in Libya and Syria. The irony is EU people think highly of themselves by reacting a lot to Ukraine while celebrating the destruction of Libya and Syria. The correct respond is not need jerk sanctions but reseting of NATO. If you always treat people as shit, you cannot expect they treat you back like Jesus.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
This benefits the US who want ship liquid gas into Europe, the US already sanctioned Germany over NordStream2 but short term this will also reduce CO2 and pollution which goes back to my post on heading for a population collapse by 2040 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30488972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30488972) yet the global population is predicted to peak by 2100 so things are being done. UK Pension funds will be hit as they tend to invest in the "blue chip" stocks so alot of people planning on retiring might be drawn back into the workforce against their will.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  We are talking about spinning up coal and nuclear again... Natural gas would be preferable to fracking gas, but I guess political reasons will top environmental ones.
  - AniseAbyss 5y ago
    The extraction of oil and gas in Siberia is far from environmentally friendly but we don't care because it is far away. Europe prefers to externalise it's pollution.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Agreed. Burning gas is far from environmental friendly. It might be choosing the lesser evil if at all. We could also change to electric heating and burn lignite again of course.
abc789654567 5y ago
After USSR was abolished, why NATO was not abolished ? The main aim of NATO is to demolish Russia and divide it in dozens of small countries depending on USA for their survival. Second aim is to control Europe by USA. There is not one single European country which can stand up to USA. Asia is divided because of China, the worse expansionist country the world has seen, Africa is busy in tribal wars, South America is kept poor by USA and indulge in overthrowing governments which are not lackeys of USA. UK, a Pakistani colony, is using Muslims in India for further partition, this time it is hijab insurgency. In 1947, it was Jinnah, this time it is Owaisi, an Iranian migrant. Wpnder when Hindus will wake up.

TedShiller 5y ago

The financially correct way to do it would be to wait for it to plummet first before writing it off. So no, you don't want to get "ahead of the game" in the accounting sense.

baq 5y ago
but it has already happened. show me (or them) a bidder. no one in their right mind would buy a russian asset after what happened a few hours ago and likely what will happen in retaliation.
UnlockedSecrets 5y ago
What are the effects of doing it now versus later?
- TedShiller 5y ago
  The lower the asset drops, the more you can write off when you do it. So it’s best to wait until the asset is the lowest that you think it will go. Of course you could mistime it
  - kgwgk 5y ago
    That makes absolutely zero sense. Whatever you lose in the end is what you will lose. You can lose many billions this quarter and more billions next quarter.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure BP had a lot of accounting and tax knowledge throen at that question before doing it.
shagmin 5y ago
The article doesn't say exactly how BP is going to extricate itself, but if they are just "writing it off", doesn't that mean the value is essentially $0? They will have a tax deduction equal to the cost basis of the stake.
- TedShiller 5y ago
  If it's a total write-off, then yes, it means the value is zero. But you can also write off a less-than-total loss. For example if my stock drops from $10 to $5, I can write off $5 in losses (assuming I sell at the lower value). In that example it didn't drop to zero. So it depends if they're talking about a total write-off, or a write-off. I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that in everyday parlance, "write-off" often means a complete 100% loss (for example, my car was totaled, and it's a write-off). But in accounting, it does not.

foobiekr 5y ago

It will take a decade to reduce their energy dependence.

ajross 5y ago
Less, if Russia resolves its governmental intemperance first. The events of the last few days make it at least plausible that Putin's days are numbered. If so, that's very bad in terms of absolute apocalyptic risk, but probably a good thing as measured by expected outcome. The chances of getting a stable democracy in the next decade might be, I dunno, 40% or greater (and those of dying in a nuclear fireball surely under 1%, right?). So as geopolitics it's probably a mistake, but as investment decisionmaking I think it makes sense.
- trhway 5y ago
  >Russia resolves its governmental intemperance first i see the history of the last 30+ years as clear indication that Russian society is progressively becoming less and less able to manage large issues. As result i think there is high probability that Russia will breakup after that catastrophe of Ukraine war similar to USSR after Afghanistan (the key to such breakup isn't external forces, instead it is clear disillusionment with existing power). For example, the Far East in particular has no good connection to Russia (and Putin was basically trying to buy them up by sending money which will definitely become problematic once the war related bills, like compensation to Ukraine, start to hit the treasure) while say getting high-speed rail Vladivostok-Dalyan/Bejing would include it into the Pacific ring of the future boom of economic development.
  - petre 5y ago
    China is already buying off ex Soviet satellites like Kyrgystan and Mongolia. Kazahstan is also economically dependent on China. If Japan is given any reason to rearm itself to the teeth again (like a Chinese invasion of Taiwan) and Russia breaks up, they'll almost certainly retake Sakhalin and Kurlil islands back. The rest will probably all become China satellites, except maybe for South Korea.

yrgulation 5y ago

I have a feeling BP will be paid back from a Russian war reparations package. Call it a hunch.

secondo 5y ago
I don’t get why’re being downvoted. Without doubt a series of governments were looped in on this decision - naively assuming one or several did not initiate it in the first place - to ensure alignment on current matters and there is no chance BP did not take the opportunity to ensure alignment on future matters.
- ascii_pasta 5y ago
  I have a feeling, call it a hunch. becuase the post adds nothing and is simply a post for the sake of posting.
  - iandanforth 5y ago
    FWIW I hadn't considered there would be a war reparations package that would benefit companies like this. So useful for the naive/ignorant?
agumonkey 5y ago
those frozen assets will ease the process I assume
rmbyrro 5y ago
Before that Russia would need to actually lose the war, which is highly unlikely, considering Ukraine is fighting on its own..
- nunez 5y ago
  The US is giving Ukraine $600M in weapons on top of the €150M the EU is giving them; they are fighting on their own but they aren’t alone. Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-joe-biden-b2023821.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukrai...

aluminum96 5y ago

> The EU will need to dramatically reduce energy dependence on Russia after this This has been clear for quite some time now, but Germany chose to move in the opposite direction by shutting down its nuclear plants. As long as Russian energy remains cheap, I expect that that Central Europeans will continue to vote with their wallets after the current crisis blows over.

skybrian 5y ago
Perhaps they have adjusted their plans a bit: Germany to push ahead with two LNG terminals to reduce Russian gas dependence: Scholz https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/lng/022722-germany-to-push-ahead-with-two-lng-terminals-to-reduce-russian-gas-dependence-scholz https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-ne...
- kragen 5y ago
  That's an impressive vote of confidence that the war won't spread beyond Ukraine: an LNG terminal is really not at all the kind of thing you want to have around in a war.
- aluminum96 5y ago
  That’s pretty encouraging news if they follow through with it. Things are changing these last few days faster than I can keep up; perhaps this actually will be a historical inflection point.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
All I track is EROEI / LCOE of alt energy in the US. Is Russia able to undercut solar/wind economics in eastern europe? The economics for migrating from Russian sources is already there. You're already losing money with coal plants, and natural gas will soon be more expensive to keep running than replace. Storage/level generation is a secondary concern, but as stated the extant nuke plants coudl do that.
- kragen 5y ago

BbzzbB 5y ago

Looks like they weren't ahead of the game after all when the market opens and they're not allowed to sell i.e. they've been expropriated. Waiting for the weekend to pass in the hopes in blows over will have been a costly gambit, that stake is (was) worth a third of their market cap. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russian-cbank-confirms-block-foreigners-bids-sell-russian-securities-2022-02-28/ https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russian-cbank-confi...

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

I agree they're probably getting ahead of the game, but in case they aren't just getting ahead of the game it is a move to be applauded. And really if it is them getting ahead of the game I don't think there's any 'just' to it, lots of companies would be hesitant at this stage to make the move, most managers don't have the vision to get ahead of the game - only, at best, to be where the game is currently at. As such I have to respect them whether they are doing it as a game playing move, or a moral move.

abc789654567 5y ago

Ukraine needs to realise the fact that they have been left high and dry by their so called NATO friends

aiisjustanif 5y ago
How so, they are not a member of NATO? And even still NATO countries are doing something, not nothing at all. You are spamming quite a lot, with a lot of bias. Your username smells like a bot.

abc789654567 5y ago

Hmm, the only country to have used nuclear weapons against innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is staying calm

abc789654567 5y ago

Ukraine crisis is only because of the swollen head of the Americans as they were expanding NATO ignoring earlier promises ..As the only super power, they underestimated the Russia..If we blame Putin, for this invasion, Americans should answer for invasions on Iraq, Sudan, Yeman, Afganistan and many others ...

huhtenberg 5y ago

They were effectively forced to do this by the UK government. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60548382 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60548382

qiskit 5y ago

More like as britain takes russian assets via sanctions, the russians will offset it by taking british assets. So all british assets in russia/ukraine are already lost just like all russian assets in britain are lost. This is just something their PR team put together to get some good publicity. Like paying media to rename the "BP oil spill" to "Deepwater oil spill". Like branding their company as a green eco-friendly after said BP oil spill. Still one of the largest oil companies in the world, but they are green eco-friendly.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
It definitely can't be just a PR move, because no company allows PR to throw away a $25B business, the management has to decide first and PR just spins the decision. Just imagine the board room discussion! Hey what happened to that 25 billion, oh PR thought it would be a good look for us if we lost it! Thumbs up!!
ryder9 5y ago
gruez 5y ago
>This is just something their PR team put together to get some good publicity. Like paying media to rename the "BP oil spill" to "Deepwater oil spill". Source? I did some rudimentary checking and what you're describing seems like revisionist history and/or conspiracy to me. I checked the news section from wikipedia on that date[1], and it's referred to as "Explosion on Deepwater Horizon drilling rig", with no references to BP (in the title, there are references in the body). The linked sources also do the same. The same lack of BP reference also applies to NPR which had stories from the AP[2] as well as new orleans public radio[3]. Maybe BP bribed all of them, but that seems hard to believe. Looking at the wikipedia page and/or news articles, you can find a less sinister explanation for why it wasn't called the BP oil spill: the drilling rig was owned and operated by Transocean, not BP. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/April_2010#2010_April_22 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/April_... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20100421145719/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1001 https://web.archive.org/web/20100421145719/https://www.npr.o... [3] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126183561 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126183...

mytailorisrich 5y ago

The value of their investment will be known when they find a buyer... I don't see too many organizations interested at the moment. Chinese would be the most likely candidates but they may also be wary and stay away for the time being. Or they can pretty much give their shares away to the Russian government or sell them to some Russian organization at a massive discount.

drran 5y ago
They can donate their shares to Ukraine.

filomeno 5y ago

> There will no popular support and the long term strategic implications make it untenable People just want cheap prices for gas, oil... We don't care too much about what happens in Ukraine, we just want to pay our bills. Nobody is going to be cold or hungry just to harm Russia. Capitalism wouldn't exist otherwise, and capitalism is just what the EU is about.

delegate 5y ago
I think you're not getting the full picture. A dictator with thousands of nukes has gone rogue, saying and doing crazy things, eg. is unpredictable. Capitalism works in peaceful times, it stops when tanks are rolling by.
- filomeno 5y ago
  The only thing I remember, is that the only time nuclear weapons were used, it was not Russia nor the USSR. To me it doesn't look unpredictable at all: Ukraine has long been warned that joining NATO poses a threat to Russia and that they should remain neutral. Yet they decided to continue to provoke Russia (just for the interest of the US) and now they get what they were looking for.
  - rnk 5y ago
    Russia said don't join Nato or we'll destroy you, Ukraine. And then Russia attacks Ukraine anyway. So what would be different if Georgia, Ukraine, and the other smaller democratic survivors of the USSR join NATO? Russia will still want to attack them. Edit - one more thing, Russia said it threatens us if NATO is right next door to us in Ukraine. So Russia wants to take over Ukraine, and they'll be right next door to NATO in Poland. They were already right next door to NATO.
    - filomeno 5y ago
      > Russia said don't join Nato or we'll destroy you, Ukraine. And then Russia attacks Ukraine anyway They wanted some guarantee that Ukraine would remain a neutral country, and the response they got was that Ukraine was going to join NATO. Even more, NATO's secretary general said not only Ukraine can join NATO, but also, NATO's presence in eastern Europe was to be strengthened. If that was meant to avoid a military conflict, I think they were very wrong.

lwhi 5y ago

Yes .. if you know you're going to have to do it, might as well be the first and get the publicity.

nickysielicki 5y ago

If they could, they would have already. The energy crisis next winter is going to be apocalyptic.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
We could just wear heated clothes and take the bus. That's not apocalyptic. It's still better than the vast majority of people in the world have it.
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  > We could just wear heated clothes and take the bus. That's not apocalyptic. Energy is everything. We effectively convert hydrocarbons to calories. We ship everything with hydrocarbons. Real costs for every good and service will blow up alongside preexisting inflation. Food shortages aren’t just an inconvenience. Societies don’t do well when these kinds of shocks happen. It’s not enough to contextualization it against the third world. When you’ve had it good and you don’t have it good anymore, that means chaos.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    EU imports 30% of its oil from Russia - 39% of natural gas. Wearing heated clothing instead of heating the indoors could cut down natural gas consumption by close to 40% - https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-sector/households/heating-energy-consumption-by-energy-sources.html#:~:text=Natural%20gas%20is%20the%20leading,(39%25%20in%202019) https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-secto.... Close to 4% of natural gas is used for cooking and heating water - which the EU could easily replace with electric using a subsidy (well worth it regardless). The EU consumed ~379B cubic feet of natural gas in 2021. Shutting down just the German nuclear reactors is the equivalent of ~14B cubic feet = ~4% of natural gas consumption for the entire EU. Gasoline consumption for personal (passenger) vehicles and flights uses more than 30% of the EU's oil consumption: https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/how-electric-vehicles-could-take-a-bite-out-of-the-oil-market-81081 https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/how-ele... OPEC could easily pump enough oil, and the US & Canada ship enough LNG to replace 10% (or more) of the missing oil and gas. It would be a major inconvenience - not an apocalypse, definitely not starvation. The EU is rich.

KKKKkkkk1 5y ago

Good for them. The Italian government fought tooth and nail to get an exception for luxury goods in the EU's Russia sanctions package. So clearly Gucci and Prada are not interested in getting ahead of the game. [0] [0] https://twitter.com/Barnes_Joe/status/1497194009038626842 https://twitter.com/Barnes_Joe/status/1497194009038626842

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kmlx 5y ago
is that carve out still on?
trashtester 5y ago
Gucci and Prada are clearly strategic resources that must have their exports blocked asap. Doing so hurts Russian oligarchs more than anything - it makes their wives and daughters (and mistresses) unhappy, and they the oligarchs will not be allowewed to rest until imports are restored....
- kabes 5y ago
  And the Chechen dictator will be out of boots https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1497540771880132609 https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1497540771880132609

darwinwhy 5y ago

That's really interesting. If they had waited for the value of the investment to plummet, would they get less of a write-off on their accounting?

jansen555 5y ago

Only way to dramatically reduce energy is for EU not to have babies and higher mortality rate. As long as they have more "new" people, and each accord with EU lifestyle, you need energy...lots of it. Every form of energy has their cost and limits. Oil or gas is the most accessible. Everything else will need to massively conversion. Fusion is just too far off. Nuclear you need to build a lot of plant which just provide more easy target for bombing. Solar, you need plenty of batteries as well with large land....butvthen very dependent on China cheap solar. Wind and sea waves are very limited as well. For example nuclear, electric vehicle, electric airbus, electric tankers, and so on. And also a lot of people tend to forget (most are babies, children or even teen and not born yet) Soviet at its height of power requires very little money from the west. They still can bomb EU and America back then to kingdom high. Today Russia is significantly richer with China the world factory backing. EU need to rethink its cold war NATO alliance. Just go read up during naughties, Putin try his best to join EU community. But then Obama pissed on him because refusal to kill children and women in Libya and Syria. The irony is EU people think highly of themselves by reacting a lot to Ukraine while celebrating the destruction of Libya and Syria. The correct respond is not need jerk sanctions but reseting of NATO. If you always treat people as shit, you cannot expect they treat you back like Jesus.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

This benefits the US who want ship liquid gas into Europe, the US already sanctioned Germany over NordStream2 but short term this will also reduce CO2 and pollution which goes back to my post on heading for a population collapse by 2040 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30488972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30488972) yet the global population is predicted to peak by 2100 so things are being done. UK Pension funds will be hit as they tend to invest in the "blue chip" stocks so alot of people planning on retiring might be drawn back into the workforce against their will.

raxxorrax 5y ago
We are talking about spinning up coal and nuclear again... Natural gas would be preferable to fracking gas, but I guess political reasons will top environmental ones.
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  The extraction of oil and gas in Siberia is far from environmentally friendly but we don't care because it is far away. Europe prefers to externalise it's pollution.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Agreed. Burning gas is far from environmental friendly. It might be choosing the lesser evil if at all. We could also change to electric heating and burn lignite again of course.

abc789654567 5y ago

After USSR was abolished, why NATO was not abolished ? The main aim of NATO is to demolish Russia and divide it in dozens of small countries depending on USA for their survival. Second aim is to control Europe by USA. There is not one single European country which can stand up to USA. Asia is divided because of China, the worse expansionist country the world has seen, Africa is busy in tribal wars, South America is kept poor by USA and indulge in overthrowing governments which are not lackeys of USA. UK, a Pakistani colony, is using Muslims in India for further partition, this time it is hijab insurgency. In 1947, it was Jinnah, this time it is Owaisi, an Iranian migrant. Wpnder when Hindus will wake up.