patrick.net

Gazprom shares collapsed on the Moscow Exchange on Monday evening after it became known that the company would not pay dividends based on operating results in 2023.

Gazprom's stock sank by almost 6% and fell to 145.03 rubles - the lowest since October 2023. Against the backdrop of the decision of the Russian government, the largest shareholder of the gas monopoly, to prepare a directive on the refusal of payments, Gazprom’s capitalization decreased by 144 billion rubles, or almost $1.6 billion, in just over an hour.

Gazprom de facto has nothing to pay dividends with: last year, for the first time in 25 years, the company ended with a net loss, and its size - 629 billion rubles - became a record in three decades of its history. After the loss of the European market, Gazprom’s exports fell back to 1985 levels (69 billion cubic meters), and collapsed threefold relative to pre-war levels. Unable to sell gas, Gazprom was forced to freeze wells and in two years lost a quarter of production, the volume of which last year became the lowest in its history.

Having lost the gas war with Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin is counting on China, offering it, in addition to the Power of Siberia pipeline, to build a second one - Power of Siberia-2 with a capacity of 50 billion cubic meters.

But Putin is unable to gain approval from Beijing, despite assurances of “friendship” and “strategic” partnership “without borders.” The Russian president's state visit to China last week was powerless to correct the situation. Putin did not receive a new contract, and Xi Jinping never mentioned Russian gas in official comments.

Even if Gazprom manages to agree with China on a new pipe, this will only worsen its financial position, MMI analysts write. Beijing does not want to invest a single yuan in the project, asking Russia to foot the multibillion-dollar construction bill on its own. Gazprom “will not have dividends for many, many years,” MMI warns: the company does not have enough operating cash flow to cover investment costs, and its debt burden is growing rapidly. Gazprom's net debt, that is, not covered by cash reserves, has reached 5.2 trillion rubles and already exceeds the size of the liquid part of the National Welfare Fund.

To have such a golden goose and to kill it over what - posession of ruins of some small towns along your Western border? 🤡

Kind of like what the US did for the banks for absolutely nothing but to preserve their ill gotten gains and absolve them of blame back in 2009.

The now German-nationalized gas contractor "Uniper" brought charges against Gazprom and won. The sentence requires that Russian Gazprom has to pay €13 billion compensation for not delivered natural gas. This sentence also cancels all ongoing contracts between Uniper and the Russian gas company.

Uniper has doubt that Gazprom will pay this bill and will likely write it off, but if Gazprom wants ever to make business in the Germany, their most lucrative market, they will not have choice than to foot the bill, plus interests. China will never be able to compensate, not even in the year 2035.

Russia's financial obligations are growing and growing without any hope that it will be reversed. In fact, it is painting an even bigger target on Putin's back. The war industry is only making things worse, since it produces products which are destroyed the very next month.

https://x.com/Tendar/status/1801166025611682158

Eric Holder says

Russia's financial obligations are growing and growing without any hope that it will be reversed. I

Don't have go to X to see Ukey propaganda bullshit like this. We have Ukey shills posting it right here on PatNet.

Acts of War are standard outs on contracts like this.

America blowing up the Nordstream pipeline is an Act of War. So are the sanctions.

DemocratsAreTotallyFucked says

America blowing up the Nordstream pipeline is an Act of War. So are the sanctions.

Rrrrrrrrrright! If this is true, where are the nukes? 🤡 Are you saying that our little pedo friend Pukin is a wimp and we can do acto of war against him with utmost impunity? Does it also mean that Potato's wimp-ass scared pussy posture towards the Soviets for the last two-and-half years was wrong? If yes, I wholeheartedly agree.

The authorities of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern violated the law when they approved the construction permit for the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Details: An expert report designed to assess the safety of Nord Stream 2 construction was prepared in September 2021, five months before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The report was to be prepared by BOS Baustoff & Off-Shore Service GmbH, whose executive director is Lasse Petersen. His brother Steffen is known to have headed the Climate and Environment Protection Fund (the "climate fund"), which lobbied for the completion of Nord Stream 2 in Germany.

BOS claims that the report on the pipeline was prepared by "independent third-party experts". The contractor, according to the documents at the disposal of FAZ, turned out to be Nils B. - who, however, previously worked at the operating company "North Stream 2" Nord Stream 2 AG.

"If the person who helped build the pipeline later led its evaluation - how independent can that be?" - it is noted in the article.

FAZ also obtained documents confirming Nils B.'s correspondence with Nord Stream 2 AG's lawyer. In one of them, a representative of the operator company sends "proposals for adjustments."

The FAZ documents also show that there appears to have been a close relationship between the company and the Mining Authority in the city of Stralsund in Western Pomerania, which was responsible for obtaining the permit, raising further doubts about the independence of the report.

In addition, the Stralsund Mining Authority, on behalf of Nord Stream 2 AG, asked the German Armed Forces for the coordinates of NATO submarine dive sites in the region - information that Russia could have obtained.

A specially created investigative commission is investigating these circumstances, but they say that those involved are not cooperating and are hindering the work of the investigation. For example, many emails and documents of the "climate fund" were destroyed or deleted.

As a reminder, the Climate and Environment Protection Fund was established in 2021 by the government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It was intended to complete the construction of Nord Stream-2 to bypass US sanctions.

The fund received a €20 million contribution from Nord Stream 2 AG and another €200,000 from the state government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and had a commercial arm to purchase the assets needed to complete the project, including vessels and technology, as well as settlement with Nord Stream 2 AG.

After the USA introduced sanctions against the operator company "Nord Stream-2" in February 2022 and it effectively ceased to exist, the "climate fund" announced its liquidation.

Oldie, but goodie: https://x.com/SergioBarreiro/status/1854653900533477784

Trump has always been against that pipeline and he is the one who commited the "act of war" by sanctioning it.

Potato has promptly lifted these sanctions, btw. Are you sad you couldn't vote for Potato second time? 🤡

ONE DOLLAH!