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Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

277 points by guard0g 4y ago

le-mark 4y ago
> Germany is now in the "early warning phase" of its energy emergency plan, I’m not sure what the levels are, seems like they’d be at a higher level since the flows could stop at literally any time since they refused Putin’s decree to pay in rubles.
- actinium226 4y ago
  No, Putin backed down on that one. It's not over yet but Russia doesn't want to turn the taps off by itself. It needs the money too badly (what do you think is propping up the Ruble) and also they need some deniability, some excuse, because if they turn it off unilaterally, it's hard to see it coming back on, at least not under the same circumstances
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    I am so pissed off on russians and putin for all this, I wouldn't care if they turned this off immediately. Europe will handle the shock, few rough months, at least heating season is finishing fast it won't affect civilians. I know it would be probably very hard for businesses dependent on LNG but we need to move from russian gas fast, not have 10 year plan that will take 30 in reality. Every euro/USD paid will be mostly siphoned to re-building dictator's army. As much as they fucked up and still are fucking up now in Ukraine, next russian invasion may be much better executed. Let's not pay with our money for it, since his ultimate ambitions cover as much Europe as he will be allowed to grab and subjugate.
manuelabeledo 4y ago
Only tangential to the article, but does anyone find risky that absolutely critical services depend on one or two foreign private companies? And other than losing money, what would be the consequences of Gazprom pulling out of Germany completely? I’m guessing that Russia just doesn’t have enough economic leverage to do so.
- laurent92 4y ago
  Do you think it is fine for EDF to operate 8 nuclear plants of UK, “outside EU”? Do you think it is fine for Gmail to suppress email accounts of entire companies in Europe? Especially if they already did it for individuals and their work Gmail. I think we live in a dangerously intertwined world, and a bit of email redundancy in each country would be quite important.
- gumby 4y ago
  The theory is that if the two countries depend on each other deeply they will avoid disputes that would disrupt that relationship. That hasn’t worked out so well in this case, but has worked well IMHO to break the cycle of warfare in Western Europe over the last 70 years or so, the longest stretch of peace in in that region for over a thousand years or longer. Under a rational actor/game theoretic model that is the most likely outcome. Russia decided to use the gas as a weapon and germany decided to use its financial structure (I.e. its ties to many other countries) as a weapon back. In the medium and long term I think Russia needs germany more than the other way around. More broadly: your business is in trouble if it only has a small number of customers or suppliers. That diversity provides resilience. In geopolitical terms, it’s it’s fine to have only overseas suppliers (and even good from a comparative advantage perspective) as long as they aren’t correlated. Germany’s bet (wrong) was that making an oversized commitment on Russia would provide a welcome guarantee to reduce the chance of isolationism, That didn’t work. But Russia made the opposite bet: that the commitment meant they had a stranglehold on Germany. But Germany is too rich and has too many friends for that to be any more than a transient threat.
pelasaco 4y ago
The TL;DR is: "Germany's economy minister announced the seizure in a statement on Monday. The move came after the ministry of economic affairs learned that Gazprom Germania had been acquired by JSC Palmary and Gazprom export business services LLC — but it wasn't clear who the owners behind the two companies were, per the statement."
twa999 4y ago
> Germany has seized control of a local unit of Russian natural-gas giant Gazprom, saying it will do 'what is necessary' to maintain energy supply in the country this action doesn't make much sense then, does it?
- hvidgaard 4y ago
  Did you even read the article? > Germany's economy minister announced the seizure in a statement on Monday. The move came after the ministry of economic affairs learned that Gazprom Germania had been acquired by JSC Palmary and Gazprom export business services LLC — but it wasn't clear who the owners behind the two companies were, per the statement. > Germany's economy ministry justified the takeover by saying it had not granted permission for the Gazprom Germania acquisition. Permission is required, the ministry said, if the investors are not from the European Union and "critical infrastructure" is involved.
  - twa999 4y ago
    so the russians are going to be happy about this move then?
    - AndrewThrowaway 4y ago
      Are we still trying not to offend Russians?
    - hvidgaard 4y ago
      The Russians knew of this rule, so I doubt they are surprised. If the new owners are approved they will get control back.
    - throwmeariver1 4y ago
      You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
- bitL 4y ago
  Maybe they will burn the offices to convert them to electricity once the gas stops flowing?
actionfromafar 4y ago
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-regulator-takes-over-gazprom-germania-ensure-energy-supply-2022-04-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-regulator-tak...
kome 4y ago
Gazprom Germania was basically a branch of the state even before... *cheeky Gerhard Schröder emoji here*
fareesh 4y ago
They seized the call center?
hugi 4y ago
It's nice to see Germany start working towards energy independence. I think it's a crucial factor for both national security and a faster migration to more environmentally friendly energy sources.
- bitL 4y ago
  10 years too late... It's going to be Eldorado for US companies buying bankrupting German companies for cheap...
  - durnygbur 4y ago
    yes please
  - Gareth321 4y ago
    Angela Merkel is squarely to blame here. She was warned about he dangers for the 16 years she was chancellor of Germany, and instead of diversifying, doubled down on Russian oil and gas, and ordered the closure of the remaining nuclear plants. So be it. The people voted for her, and apparently Germans in general are rather anti-nuclear.
    - cinntaile 4y ago
      Angela Merkel did not want to close the plants, but the public opinion forced her hand. The people wanted this.
      - baq 4y ago
        perhaps she didn't properly explain that Putin can and will shut off the supply... or maybe she herself couldn't believe that he's that much of a thug.
        sho_hn 4y ago
        OP's "the people wanted this" hints at a complicated background. Getting out of nuclear is a long-running social movement in Germany, with Chernobyl as a decisive event. There's a caste of of politicians and private individuals for whom this is generation-defining/a founding myth. It's the kind of thing that arthouse movies (e.g. "Das Ding am Deich") and social documentaries are made about. Discussing, for example, the particular issues of adolescents raised by parents who used to live at the protests parties in the 80s. It bubbled over with Fukushima, the a roiling and boiling mid-life crisis for an entire subculture. Consequences or the Russia variable provided little resistance to the Zeitgeist - the biggest "I told you so" in decades. There was no planning to be done.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Medowar 4y ago
More Background, why this is in fact important: Gazprom Germania is also a critical part of the german Gas-Market, because it owns the largest gas-Storage with 1/5 of total capacity in Germany, major Gas Pipelines and Platforms for trading the ressource. This is both through Sub-companies Wingas and Astora. It also has contracts with Gazprom in Russia with guaranteed Prices and Deliveries.
- throwaway4good 4y ago
  Exactly what is left of value in this company; except some payrolls, offices, and some contracts which are void anyway?
  - pfortuny 4y ago
    the stored gas and the storage facilities, I gather.
    - ls15 4y ago
      To me it seems that actually the reason for the seizure was that Gazprom did not store enough gas, while they have the biggest capacity: > In Germany, a third of gas storage belongs to Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM), whose facilities in Germany had lower levels of stored gas this winter than those operated by other companies. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-law-mandating-full-gas-storage-before-winter-2022-03-25/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-law...
  - SnowHill9902 4y ago
    It’s a hostage for a future prisoner exchange.
    - gumby 4y ago
      A plausible scenario but probably won’t happen in this case, Could be more like overseas subsidiaries of Bayer, seized by various allied countries in WWI and only reunited in 1994. The reparations bill (both during and after the war) will be high and I assume various assets, including foreign currency reserves, will end up going to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine.
durnygbur 4y ago
So they finally can fire Schröder... oh he is in Rosneft already what a bummer.
throwaway4good 4y ago
I hope I one day get to visit a Russian nationalized McDonalds; just to fully grasp what deglobalization means ...
- Etherlord87 4y ago
  Currently it's probably the same stuff as the original McDonalds. Eventually the quality will deteriorate due to lack of supervision - unless Russians will do an equal job in supervising, which I doubt.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Eventually the quality will deteriorate What quality? Even in Austria, at some really busy McD's I've been to like the train station or airport, their finished burgers looked nothing like the ones in the menu. Often they had components like the cheese, lettuce and sauces missing and I got just a dry paddy between two barren pieces of bread as a burger lol. It was uneatable so I had to throw it away and buy a sandwich from the SPAR next door which has much better quality. The McD's I've had in NY weren't much better either. OTOH, McCafe's in Europe (the separate establishment, not to be confused with the coffee you can get from McD's) are amazing, coffee is always great, on par with even fancy hipster cafes and their pastry and cakes aren't bad either.
    - lordnacho 4y ago
      > looked nothing like the ones in the pictures This is surely too high a standard! Did Coke ever give you the satisfaction of the people in the Christmas adverts? Did you get girls after you bought Lynx? Did you score more goals with those Predators?
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        Sure, not looking exactly like the menu/ads is one thing, that's just marketing for you, but being served a patty in a bare bread bun, missing the cheese, lettuce and other parts of the product you ordered, is an outright scam in legal terms if we're being pedantic. Sure, I get it, having underpaid and overworked people making your food is not a recipe for a great experience, but ultimately I paid in full, the company got their money and I didn't get the product I ordered, which is why I jusy stopped eating there, since I don't like being "THAT GUY" who ask for "the manager" in order to complain about overworked people on minimum wage that they got his order wrong and they need to redo the order while 10 more customers are waiting in line.
fnma 4y ago
- ibmfud 4y ago
  Did you forget one coalition partner?
- sokols 4y ago
  The sending of troops to Kosovo was done in accordance with UNSCR 1244.
  - rgmarker 4y ago
  - naoqj 4y ago
    - sokols 4y ago
      Russia voted for the resolution as well.
      - naoqj 4y ago
        Ah well, if Russia says it then it's justified.
  - nairboon 4y ago
    And sending of troops is unconstitutional according to Art. 26 of the German constitution...
- Barrin92 4y ago
  Is there some memory loss at work here? Because when Russia marched straight into Crimea and started this war eight years ago I distinctly remember Merkel being in office. We even rewarded Putin with NS II for it.
- 4y ago
LAC-Tech 4y ago
This doesn't make sense to me. Can i get an explanation? The German state seized a local German branch of the Russian Gazprom company. In order to secure its energy supplies... which come from Russia. Are they in essence capturing some reserves?
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  That company owned pipelines and storage tanks within Germany, thus controls the flow of gas after reaching Germany.
  - nbadg 4y ago
    To expand on this: much of the distribution infrastructure within Germany is owned by Gazprom. For example, there's a very large natural gas storage capacity within Germany, but a significant portion of that is owned by, you guessed it, Gazprom. There's broad consensus that, if all of the storage infrastructure were topped up, Germany would be able to make it through _next_ winter reasonably well, even if Russia stopped delivering gas. However, currently the storage capacity is at around 30%, which is insufficient. This move would imply that the German government is taking action to force the distribution infrastructure to be more resilient against the contingency that Russia (through one means or another) stops delivering gas. It's also worth pointing out that there's been some evidence suggesting that, in the weeks and months leading up to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the "fill level" of the Russian-owned storage infrastructure within Germany was decreased, which would both be a way for Russia to attempt to leverage gas delivery against sanctions (in other words, blackmail), as well as yet another strong indication that the invasion was a deliberate Russian aggression planned well in advance. If you're interested in more and understand German, I'd recommend the most recent episode of Lage der Nation, which talks about this at much more length: https://lagedernation.org/podcast/ldn284-ukraine-krieg-6-woche-landtagswahl-saarland-vorbereitung-auf-gas-stopp-zweites-energiepreishilfspaket-waermepumpen-interview-franco-dubbers-corona-massnahmen-enden-impfpflicht-mens/ https://lagedernation.org/podcast/ldn284-ukraine-krieg-6-woc...
    - sabertoothed 4y ago
sonicggg 4y ago
How many years has Merkel remained in power? This awkward situation is all her doing, but still nobody will mention her name. How can one country willingly put its entire energy sector in the hands of a terrorist state, which has been showing signs since 1999 when bombing its own citizens.
- TMWNN 4y ago
  >How many years has Merkel remained in power? And yet there are still people, in this very thread, that say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas but could not do anything about it. For 16 years! >This awkward situation is all her doing, but still nobody will mention her name. There is more "evidence" that Merkel is a long-term Russian intelligence asset, recruited from her youth in East Germany,[1] than that of Trump being the same. One guess on which claim is incessantly repeated by the bien-pensants of the chattering classes. [1] Something else never talked about is how her parents moved from West to East Germany when she was a baby
- nebukadnet 4y ago
  Lots of reasons. It was at the time the least authoritarian regime. The alternatives are Saudi-Arabia, where as I understand the gas is harvested with the help of human rights violations, and other nearby suppliers like Norway were already and still are at capacity. At the same time, gas is a relatively enviromentally safe, when compared to others, and since the relations to Russia were mostly friendly, the slight problems in the regime were ignored. Now germany is reliant on them, and that was a mistake they are realizing. But if germany stops accepting gas today, the germans will freeze in the winter when the gas runs out, so its a complicated situation.
  - scapecast 4y ago
    The issue is not people freezing. Wear a sweater and suck it up. Buy an electric heater. There are ways to hack your way through it. The much larger problem is industrial manufacturing, in clusters like Ludwigshafen, where you have companies like BASF and Benckiser that rely on Russian gas for their refinery operations. Fertilizers, chemicals, lubricants, etc. You turn off Russian gas, you turn off the German industrial complex. Literally over night. And that’s the reason why the German is so cagey about stopping the import of Russian gas. They can’t, because they don’t have an alternative.
pelasaco 4y ago
from the cyber security point of view, I'm quite sure the whole branch still under Russia's control (IT/OT wise)
lobochrome 4y ago
They sold the company to new owners on Friday who then tried to liquidate it. Gazprom Germania is the counterpart to Gas dealers and utilities. It then has an intra-company agreement with Gazprom Russia. If they had liquidated, those contracts would have been gone and the Gas dealers & utilities would have had to renegotiate new contracts with Gazprom Russia. This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles instead of Euros.
- usr1106 4y ago
  > new owners This was a completely fraudulent construct. 100% of the voting rights were sold for the equivalent of 1 Euro to a single person with no serious business background (has dealt with cars and performed as a DJ). This is a company with billions of turnover. And 99.99999% of the ownership was bought back by the the company itself.
- tazjin 4y ago
  From what I've read, the contracts between Gazprom Germany and Gazprom Export (on the Russian side) do not have a fixed settlement currency. > This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles instead of Euros "allowed" is a funny word - this situation is way past a point where cross-border contracts on either side hold any legal value. How are you going to hold anyone accountable for breach of contract?
  - tedivm 4y ago
    Can you back that up with a source? It's the opposite of what basically everyone has been saying and I can't find anything that even hints that there isn't a fixed settlement currency in their contracts. Russia has been trying to push this issue for weeks, while Germany and others are refusing to pay in anything but euros.
    - op00to 4y ago
      [flagged]
yrgulation 4y ago
Despite germany's strong dislike for east europeans I am glad to see they are taking measures to help their allies. This is a positive move in the right direction, I hope we figure a way to help germany solve it's dependency of russia in due time, as indeed their economy needs protection.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  And what of the rest of the Western world's dependency on Middle Eastern oil? That was already weaponized in 1973 yet nobody seems to have learned from it.
  - recuter 4y ago
    Let them drink Pepsi.
- belorn 4y ago
  Why is protecting the economy more important than stopping the funding of the Russian army and their military invasion?
  - zirror 4y ago
    Even if we stop paying for gas and oil right now, that won't stop the Russian invasion. They have massive currency reserves, are relatively self sufficient etc. Whereas if we do not receive gas anymore, it would wreck our own economies, which would lead to massive unemployment, social unrest and maybe going to the political extremes in the long run. It would basically be European suicide. We need to be strong to help Ukraine. That being said, the day we can stop paying for Russian gas is the day we will truly be free. Germany's liberatarian finance minster called renewables "freedom energy" and that could not be truer IMO.
  - ivan_gammel 4y ago
    There's a false assumption that stopping oil and gas imports will somehow stop the invasion and funding of Russian army. It will not, so it's better to focus on more practical and sustainable steps.
quantum_state 4y ago
Where is the rule of law and protection of private property?
- gumby 4y ago
  It’s a classic fraudulent conveyance case. Normally it would simply work its way through the courts, but due to exigent circumstance and geopolitical circumstance they seized it. But the point of law is the same.
Barrera 4y ago
> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a time." And Germany is not unique. Take the United States, for example, and its near total dependency on Chinese manufacturing for, well, just about everything. The US offshored manufacturing capacity hand-over-fist. In exchange the US got cheap goods (and low inflation), and continued supremacy of the dollar in world trade and as a reserve asset. Both of those benefits are looking shakier by the week. Inflation is ripping higher, and the sanctions on Russia have prompted what some observers are calling Bretton Woods III, or a brand new economic order that minimizes the position of the US dollar. But the worst part of all is the enormous leverage China has over the US. The US can protest human rights violations or even an attack on Taiwan, but any serious action taken against China will visit upon the US the same fate as Germany now faces. The brave threats can not be made good on because of an economic hole dug over the course of a generation or two. The irony is that if you wind the clock back 25 years or so, this situation is the same in direction (although possibly not in magnitude) as policy makers wanted. Free trade was supposed to make conflicts more difficult because of mutual dependency. And it has worked. Just look at the disconnect between the saber-rattling German/US rhetoric and the tepid German/US actions.
- baybal2 4y ago
- lobochrome 4y ago
  Now consider that Germany has a huge dependency not only on the supply side to China but also on the demand side for machinery equipment and vehicles. In addition, we have a huge dependency on the US for national security. So we are dependent on Russia for Energy, on China for Manufacturing and industrial demand of our most important industrial sectors and are protected by the US from a National Security point of view. The army is a national laughing stock, the car industry is begging to be disrupted, and chinese equipment and machinery companies have completed their IP theft programs and are now almost at par from an innovation level. All while international media hailed Merkel and her useful idiots for their international leadership.
skeptikal 4y ago
This is Germany doing something to not be seen doing anything. Doing something for lack of a plan is usually a mistake. Everything of value of this subsidiary has (pipelines, stored gas, etc), is physically in Germany and already subject to German law. The stored gas wasn’t going anywhere without the German regulator’s permission and the regulator can always force Gazprom Germania to sell German stored gas to Germans. Nor does seizing this magically solve the problem of lack of gas. The Germans either abide by Russian rules for gas, or pipelines coming in from Russia remain empty. This was a boneheaded move. The Russians can now seize a comparable German asset in Russia to recompense Gazprom; say a VW plant, a real asset that can continue to produce real things while the Germans are left with old laptops, empty pipes, a salt cavern and unheated offices in Berlin.
- agapon 4y ago
  Well, Gazprom changed ownership of Gazprom Germania without any approval from German government. So, apparently, it's not impossible that they would be able to do other things as well.
  - skeptikal 4y ago
    changing company structure while the assets remain in Germany (in fact they are immobile) is peanuts. Pretend change. If they (the Russians) had tried to vent Germany’s gas reserves (which wont happen because the employees are German) to kneecap them (the Germans), then you would have seen the German regulator do something.
rootsudo 4y ago
Reminds me of the ending of Three days of the Condor. A great film, while it doesn't touch on the exact issue happening today w/ Russia, the ending has quite an emotional tinge about the ends justifying the means. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZNnDiDSUiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZNnDiDSUiI
exabrial 4y ago
> The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024 Plenty of LNG ships and suppliers. Cheap gas is not worth an immense cost of human life. I think this timetable could be moved forward far quicker.
- kbelder 4y ago
  Expensive gas also costs human life, and a national shortage over winter could easily kill hundreds, and ruin many more lives. That said, sometimes you do need to make tough geo-political decisions, where every option has a horrible cost. While the primary blame falls on the aggressor nation, it doesn't make those decisions easier.

277 points by guard0g 4y ago

> Germany is now in the "early warning phase" of its energy emergency plan, I’m not sure what the levels are, seems like they’d be at a higher level since the flows could stop at literally any time since they refused Putin’s decree to pay in rubles.

actinium226 4y ago
No, Putin backed down on that one. It's not over yet but Russia doesn't want to turn the taps off by itself. It needs the money too badly (what do you think is propping up the Ruble) and also they need some deniability, some excuse, because if they turn it off unilaterally, it's hard to see it coming back on, at least not under the same circumstances
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  I am so pissed off on russians and putin for all this, I wouldn't care if they turned this off immediately. Europe will handle the shock, few rough months, at least heating season is finishing fast it won't affect civilians. I know it would be probably very hard for businesses dependent on LNG but we need to move from russian gas fast, not have 10 year plan that will take 30 in reality. Every euro/USD paid will be mostly siphoned to re-building dictator's army. As much as they fucked up and still are fucking up now in Ukraine, next russian invasion may be much better executed. Let's not pay with our money for it, since his ultimate ambitions cover as much Europe as he will be allowed to grab and subjugate.

manuelabeledo 4y ago

Only tangential to the article, but does anyone find risky that absolutely critical services depend on one or two foreign private companies? And other than losing money, what would be the consequences of Gazprom pulling out of Germany completely? I’m guessing that Russia just doesn’t have enough economic leverage to do so.

laurent92 4y ago
Do you think it is fine for EDF to operate 8 nuclear plants of UK, “outside EU”? Do you think it is fine for Gmail to suppress email accounts of entire companies in Europe? Especially if they already did it for individuals and their work Gmail. I think we live in a dangerously intertwined world, and a bit of email redundancy in each country would be quite important.
gumby 4y ago
The theory is that if the two countries depend on each other deeply they will avoid disputes that would disrupt that relationship. That hasn’t worked out so well in this case, but has worked well IMHO to break the cycle of warfare in Western Europe over the last 70 years or so, the longest stretch of peace in in that region for over a thousand years or longer. Under a rational actor/game theoretic model that is the most likely outcome. Russia decided to use the gas as a weapon and germany decided to use its financial structure (I.e. its ties to many other countries) as a weapon back. In the medium and long term I think Russia needs germany more than the other way around. More broadly: your business is in trouble if it only has a small number of customers or suppliers. That diversity provides resilience. In geopolitical terms, it’s it’s fine to have only overseas suppliers (and even good from a comparative advantage perspective) as long as they aren’t correlated. Germany’s bet (wrong) was that making an oversized commitment on Russia would provide a welcome guarantee to reduce the chance of isolationism, That didn’t work. But Russia made the opposite bet: that the commitment meant they had a stranglehold on Germany. But Germany is too rich and has too many friends for that to be any more than a transient threat.

pelasaco 4y ago

The TL;DR is: "Germany's economy minister announced the seizure in a statement on Monday. The move came after the ministry of economic affairs learned that Gazprom Germania had been acquired by JSC Palmary and Gazprom export business services LLC — but it wasn't clear who the owners behind the two companies were, per the statement."

twa999 4y ago

> Germany has seized control of a local unit of Russian natural-gas giant Gazprom, saying it will do 'what is necessary' to maintain energy supply in the country this action doesn't make much sense then, does it?

hvidgaard 4y ago
Did you even read the article? > Germany's economy minister announced the seizure in a statement on Monday. The move came after the ministry of economic affairs learned that Gazprom Germania had been acquired by JSC Palmary and Gazprom export business services LLC — but it wasn't clear who the owners behind the two companies were, per the statement. > Germany's economy ministry justified the takeover by saying it had not granted permission for the Gazprom Germania acquisition. Permission is required, the ministry said, if the investors are not from the European Union and "critical infrastructure" is involved.
- twa999 4y ago
  so the russians are going to be happy about this move then?
  - AndrewThrowaway 4y ago
    Are we still trying not to offend Russians?
  - hvidgaard 4y ago
    The Russians knew of this rule, so I doubt they are surprised. If the new owners are approved they will get control back.
  - throwmeariver1 4y ago
    You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
bitL 4y ago
Maybe they will burn the offices to convert them to electricity once the gas stops flowing?

actionfromafar 4y ago

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-regulator-takes-over-gazprom-germania-ensure-energy-supply-2022-04-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-regulator-tak...

kome 4y ago

Gazprom Germania was basically a branch of the state even before... *cheeky Gerhard Schröder emoji here*

fareesh 4y ago

They seized the call center?

hugi 4y ago

It's nice to see Germany start working towards energy independence. I think it's a crucial factor for both national security and a faster migration to more environmentally friendly energy sources.

bitL 4y ago
10 years too late... It's going to be Eldorado for US companies buying bankrupting German companies for cheap...
- durnygbur 4y ago
  yes please
- Gareth321 4y ago
  Angela Merkel is squarely to blame here. She was warned about he dangers for the 16 years she was chancellor of Germany, and instead of diversifying, doubled down on Russian oil and gas, and ordered the closure of the remaining nuclear plants. So be it. The people voted for her, and apparently Germans in general are rather anti-nuclear.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    Angela Merkel did not want to close the plants, but the public opinion forced her hand. The people wanted this.
    - baq 4y ago
      perhaps she didn't properly explain that Putin can and will shut off the supply... or maybe she herself couldn't believe that he's that much of a thug.
      - sho_hn 4y ago
        OP's "the people wanted this" hints at a complicated background. Getting out of nuclear is a long-running social movement in Germany, with Chernobyl as a decisive event. There's a caste of of politicians and private individuals for whom this is generation-defining/a founding myth. It's the kind of thing that arthouse movies (e.g. "Das Ding am Deich") and social documentaries are made about. Discussing, for example, the particular issues of adolescents raised by parents who used to live at the protests parties in the 80s. It bubbled over with Fukushima, the a roiling and boiling mid-life crisis for an entire subculture. Consequences or the Russia variable provided little resistance to the Zeitgeist - the biggest "I told you so" in decades. There was no planning to be done.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Medowar 4y ago

More Background, why this is in fact important: Gazprom Germania is also a critical part of the german Gas-Market, because it owns the largest gas-Storage with 1/5 of total capacity in Germany, major Gas Pipelines and Platforms for trading the ressource. This is both through Sub-companies Wingas and Astora. It also has contracts with Gazprom in Russia with guaranteed Prices and Deliveries.

throwaway4good 4y ago
Exactly what is left of value in this company; except some payrolls, offices, and some contracts which are void anyway?
- pfortuny 4y ago
  the stored gas and the storage facilities, I gather.
  - ls15 4y ago
    To me it seems that actually the reason for the seizure was that Gazprom did not store enough gas, while they have the biggest capacity: > In Germany, a third of gas storage belongs to Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM), whose facilities in Germany had lower levels of stored gas this winter than those operated by other companies. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-law-mandating-full-gas-storage-before-winter-2022-03-25/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-law...
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  It’s a hostage for a future prisoner exchange.
  - gumby 4y ago
    A plausible scenario but probably won’t happen in this case, Could be more like overseas subsidiaries of Bayer, seized by various allied countries in WWI and only reunited in 1994. The reparations bill (both during and after the war) will be high and I assume various assets, including foreign currency reserves, will end up going to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine.

durnygbur 4y ago

So they finally can fire Schröder... oh he is in Rosneft already what a bummer.

throwaway4good 4y ago

I hope I one day get to visit a Russian nationalized McDonalds; just to fully grasp what deglobalization means ...

Etherlord87 4y ago
Currently it's probably the same stuff as the original McDonalds. Eventually the quality will deteriorate due to lack of supervision - unless Russians will do an equal job in supervising, which I doubt.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Eventually the quality will deteriorate What quality? Even in Austria, at some really busy McD's I've been to like the train station or airport, their finished burgers looked nothing like the ones in the menu. Often they had components like the cheese, lettuce and sauces missing and I got just a dry paddy between two barren pieces of bread as a burger lol. It was uneatable so I had to throw it away and buy a sandwich from the SPAR next door which has much better quality. The McD's I've had in NY weren't much better either. OTOH, McCafe's in Europe (the separate establishment, not to be confused with the coffee you can get from McD's) are amazing, coffee is always great, on par with even fancy hipster cafes and their pastry and cakes aren't bad either.
  - lordnacho 4y ago
    > looked nothing like the ones in the pictures This is surely too high a standard! Did Coke ever give you the satisfaction of the people in the Christmas adverts? Did you get girls after you bought Lynx? Did you score more goals with those Predators?
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Sure, not looking exactly like the menu/ads is one thing, that's just marketing for you, but being served a patty in a bare bread bun, missing the cheese, lettuce and other parts of the product you ordered, is an outright scam in legal terms if we're being pedantic. Sure, I get it, having underpaid and overworked people making your food is not a recipe for a great experience, but ultimately I paid in full, the company got their money and I didn't get the product I ordered, which is why I jusy stopped eating there, since I don't like being "THAT GUY" who ask for "the manager" in order to complain about overworked people on minimum wage that they got his order wrong and they need to redo the order while 10 more customers are waiting in line.

fnma 4y ago

ibmfud 4y ago
Did you forget one coalition partner?
sokols 4y ago
The sending of troops to Kosovo was done in accordance with UNSCR 1244.
- rgmarker 4y ago
- naoqj 4y ago
  - sokols 4y ago
    Russia voted for the resolution as well.
    - naoqj 4y ago
      Ah well, if Russia says it then it's justified.
- nairboon 4y ago
  And sending of troops is unconstitutional according to Art. 26 of the German constitution...
Barrin92 4y ago
Is there some memory loss at work here? Because when Russia marched straight into Crimea and started this war eight years ago I distinctly remember Merkel being in office. We even rewarded Putin with NS II for it.
4y ago

LAC-Tech 4y ago

This doesn't make sense to me. Can i get an explanation? The German state seized a local German branch of the Russian Gazprom company. In order to secure its energy supplies... which come from Russia. Are they in essence capturing some reserves?

johannes1234321 4y ago
That company owned pipelines and storage tanks within Germany, thus controls the flow of gas after reaching Germany.
- nbadg 4y ago
  To expand on this: much of the distribution infrastructure within Germany is owned by Gazprom. For example, there's a very large natural gas storage capacity within Germany, but a significant portion of that is owned by, you guessed it, Gazprom. There's broad consensus that, if all of the storage infrastructure were topped up, Germany would be able to make it through _next_ winter reasonably well, even if Russia stopped delivering gas. However, currently the storage capacity is at around 30%, which is insufficient. This move would imply that the German government is taking action to force the distribution infrastructure to be more resilient against the contingency that Russia (through one means or another) stops delivering gas. It's also worth pointing out that there's been some evidence suggesting that, in the weeks and months leading up to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the "fill level" of the Russian-owned storage infrastructure within Germany was decreased, which would both be a way for Russia to attempt to leverage gas delivery against sanctions (in other words, blackmail), as well as yet another strong indication that the invasion was a deliberate Russian aggression planned well in advance. If you're interested in more and understand German, I'd recommend the most recent episode of Lage der Nation, which talks about this at much more length: https://lagedernation.org/podcast/ldn284-ukraine-krieg-6-woche-landtagswahl-saarland-vorbereitung-auf-gas-stopp-zweites-energiepreishilfspaket-waermepumpen-interview-franco-dubbers-corona-massnahmen-enden-impfpflicht-mens/ https://lagedernation.org/podcast/ldn284-ukraine-krieg-6-woc...
  - sabertoothed 4y ago

sonicggg 4y ago

How many years has Merkel remained in power? This awkward situation is all her doing, but still nobody will mention her name. How can one country willingly put its entire energy sector in the hands of a terrorist state, which has been showing signs since 1999 when bombing its own citizens.

TMWNN 4y ago
>How many years has Merkel remained in power? And yet there are still people, in this very thread, that say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas but could not do anything about it. For 16 years! >This awkward situation is all her doing, but still nobody will mention her name. There is more "evidence" that Merkel is a long-term Russian intelligence asset, recruited from her youth in East Germany,[1] than that of Trump being the same. One guess on which claim is incessantly repeated by the bien-pensants of the chattering classes. [1] Something else never talked about is how her parents moved from West to East Germany when she was a baby
nebukadnet 4y ago
Lots of reasons. It was at the time the least authoritarian regime. The alternatives are Saudi-Arabia, where as I understand the gas is harvested with the help of human rights violations, and other nearby suppliers like Norway were already and still are at capacity. At the same time, gas is a relatively enviromentally safe, when compared to others, and since the relations to Russia were mostly friendly, the slight problems in the regime were ignored. Now germany is reliant on them, and that was a mistake they are realizing. But if germany stops accepting gas today, the germans will freeze in the winter when the gas runs out, so its a complicated situation.
- scapecast 4y ago
  The issue is not people freezing. Wear a sweater and suck it up. Buy an electric heater. There are ways to hack your way through it. The much larger problem is industrial manufacturing, in clusters like Ludwigshafen, where you have companies like BASF and Benckiser that rely on Russian gas for their refinery operations. Fertilizers, chemicals, lubricants, etc. You turn off Russian gas, you turn off the German industrial complex. Literally over night. And that’s the reason why the German is so cagey about stopping the import of Russian gas. They can’t, because they don’t have an alternative.

pelasaco 4y ago

from the cyber security point of view, I'm quite sure the whole branch still under Russia's control (IT/OT wise)

lobochrome 4y ago

They sold the company to new owners on Friday who then tried to liquidate it. Gazprom Germania is the counterpart to Gas dealers and utilities. It then has an intra-company agreement with Gazprom Russia. If they had liquidated, those contracts would have been gone and the Gas dealers & utilities would have had to renegotiate new contracts with Gazprom Russia. This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles instead of Euros.

usr1106 4y ago
> new owners This was a completely fraudulent construct. 100% of the voting rights were sold for the equivalent of 1 Euro to a single person with no serious business background (has dealt with cars and performed as a DJ). This is a company with billions of turnover. And 99.99999% of the ownership was bought back by the the company itself.
tazjin 4y ago
From what I've read, the contracts between Gazprom Germany and Gazprom Export (on the Russian side) do not have a fixed settlement currency. > This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles instead of Euros "allowed" is a funny word - this situation is way past a point where cross-border contracts on either side hold any legal value. How are you going to hold anyone accountable for breach of contract?
- tedivm 4y ago
  Can you back that up with a source? It's the opposite of what basically everyone has been saying and I can't find anything that even hints that there isn't a fixed settlement currency in their contracts. Russia has been trying to push this issue for weeks, while Germany and others are refusing to pay in anything but euros.
  - op00to 4y ago
    [flagged]

yrgulation 4y ago

Despite germany's strong dislike for east europeans I am glad to see they are taking measures to help their allies. This is a positive move in the right direction, I hope we figure a way to help germany solve it's dependency of russia in due time, as indeed their economy needs protection.

dotancohen 4y ago
And what of the rest of the Western world's dependency on Middle Eastern oil? That was already weaponized in 1973 yet nobody seems to have learned from it.
- recuter 4y ago
  Let them drink Pepsi.
belorn 4y ago
Why is protecting the economy more important than stopping the funding of the Russian army and their military invasion?
- zirror 4y ago
  Even if we stop paying for gas and oil right now, that won't stop the Russian invasion. They have massive currency reserves, are relatively self sufficient etc. Whereas if we do not receive gas anymore, it would wreck our own economies, which would lead to massive unemployment, social unrest and maybe going to the political extremes in the long run. It would basically be European suicide. We need to be strong to help Ukraine. That being said, the day we can stop paying for Russian gas is the day we will truly be free. Germany's liberatarian finance minster called renewables "freedom energy" and that could not be truer IMO.
- ivan_gammel 4y ago
  There's a false assumption that stopping oil and gas imports will somehow stop the invasion and funding of Russian army. It will not, so it's better to focus on more practical and sustainable steps.

quantum_state 4y ago

Where is the rule of law and protection of private property?

gumby 4y ago
It’s a classic fraudulent conveyance case. Normally it would simply work its way through the courts, but due to exigent circumstance and geopolitical circumstance they seized it. But the point of law is the same.

Barrera 4y ago

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a time." And Germany is not unique. Take the United States, for example, and its near total dependency on Chinese manufacturing for, well, just about everything. The US offshored manufacturing capacity hand-over-fist. In exchange the US got cheap goods (and low inflation), and continued supremacy of the dollar in world trade and as a reserve asset. Both of those benefits are looking shakier by the week. Inflation is ripping higher, and the sanctions on Russia have prompted what some observers are calling Bretton Woods III, or a brand new economic order that minimizes the position of the US dollar. But the worst part of all is the enormous leverage China has over the US. The US can protest human rights violations or even an attack on Taiwan, but any serious action taken against China will visit upon the US the same fate as Germany now faces. The brave threats can not be made good on because of an economic hole dug over the course of a generation or two. The irony is that if you wind the clock back 25 years or so, this situation is the same in direction (although possibly not in magnitude) as policy makers wanted. Free trade was supposed to make conflicts more difficult because of mutual dependency. And it has worked. Just look at the disconnect between the saber-rattling German/US rhetoric and the tepid German/US actions.

baybal2 4y ago
lobochrome 4y ago
Now consider that Germany has a huge dependency not only on the supply side to China but also on the demand side for machinery equipment and vehicles. In addition, we have a huge dependency on the US for national security. So we are dependent on Russia for Energy, on China for Manufacturing and industrial demand of our most important industrial sectors and are protected by the US from a National Security point of view. The army is a national laughing stock, the car industry is begging to be disrupted, and chinese equipment and machinery companies have completed their IP theft programs and are now almost at par from an innovation level. All while international media hailed Merkel and her useful idiots for their international leadership.

skeptikal 4y ago

This is Germany doing something to not be seen doing anything. Doing something for lack of a plan is usually a mistake. Everything of value of this subsidiary has (pipelines, stored gas, etc), is physically in Germany and already subject to German law. The stored gas wasn’t going anywhere without the German regulator’s permission and the regulator can always force Gazprom Germania to sell German stored gas to Germans. Nor does seizing this magically solve the problem of lack of gas. The Germans either abide by Russian rules for gas, or pipelines coming in from Russia remain empty. This was a boneheaded move. The Russians can now seize a comparable German asset in Russia to recompense Gazprom; say a VW plant, a real asset that can continue to produce real things while the Germans are left with old laptops, empty pipes, a salt cavern and unheated offices in Berlin.

agapon 4y ago
Well, Gazprom changed ownership of Gazprom Germania without any approval from German government. So, apparently, it's not impossible that they would be able to do other things as well.
- skeptikal 4y ago
  changing company structure while the assets remain in Germany (in fact they are immobile) is peanuts. Pretend change. If they (the Russians) had tried to vent Germany’s gas reserves (which wont happen because the employees are German) to kneecap them (the Germans), then you would have seen the German regulator do something.

rootsudo 4y ago

Reminds me of the ending of Three days of the Condor. A great film, while it doesn't touch on the exact issue happening today w/ Russia, the ending has quite an emotional tinge about the ends justifying the means. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZNnDiDSUiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZNnDiDSUiI

exabrial 4y ago

> The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024 Plenty of LNG ships and suppliers. Cheap gas is not worth an immense cost of human life. I think this timetable could be moved forward far quicker.

kbelder 4y ago
Expensive gas also costs human life, and a national shortage over winter could easily kill hundreds, and ruin many more lives. That said, sometimes you do need to make tough geo-political decisions, where every option has a horrible cost. While the primary blame falls on the aggressor nation, it doesn't make those decisions easier.