September 21 is the most tense day in the world this year. On this day, Russia's Vladimir Putin made a speech and launched a partial mobilization in Russia, and the situation in Europe as a whole fell into a tense atmosphere. On the same day, the Federal Reserve announced a large interest rate hike of 75 basis points, and the global financial level was also in high tension.
At the moment when the international situation was on the verge of breaking out, Germany, which is highly dependent on Russia for natural gas, saw that Nord Stream 2 was hopeless to open for gas transmission, and German Chancellor Scholz arrived in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on September 25, local time for an official visit.
Scholz's trip has only one purpose, which is to find more natural gas imports for Germany**. The German Chancellor's open source journey has not yet achieved tangible results, and an even greater bad news has come. On the night of his visit to Qatar, at 2:03 a.m. local time on September 26, there were two ** incidents on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, and the Nord Stream pipelines were completely blown up.
The bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines is tantamount to making matters worse for Germany, which completely ends the possibility of direct energy cooperation between Germany and Russia, and Germany's energy ** chain is facing a serious crisis. Therefore, Scholz's mission in the Middle East is even more important.
But I was not optimistic about Scholz's trip to the Middle East, and I had an inference at the time, which is what I said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz personally visited the Middle East, visiting Saudi Arabia and Qatar, just to reorganize Germany's energy chain and find new channels. But Germany doesn't know if it has figured out whether the Arab countries will really help it on the cusp of this storm?
Obviously, if the United States wants to completely destroy Europe's industrial chain, then whoever helps Germany will not be able to get along with the United States. And now the United States is the most important natural gas player in Europe, and it is impossible for him to allow such a good business to be robbed by Middle Eastern countries.
At the same time, if Germany finds a new energy channel from the Middle East, it will completely cut off Russia's financial route, and won't it be impossible to get along with Russia?In addition, the energy ** chain in the Middle East is very stable, and the biggest buyer here is us, if Germany wants to come in and cut a piece of the cake, who are you going to cut?If our share is moved, it is equivalent to for the sake of Germany, and the Arab countries will offend the three permanent members.
So it is conceivable that Scholz's trip to the Middle East will only harvest a bunch of empty checks, and this world is so realistic that what the United States does not want you to get, Arab countries do not dare to give.
Now, as expected, Germany has not achieved any tangible results. Of course, the United States did not do anything desperately, but only pulled up the **, and exported a large amount of natural gas to Europe at a price four times higher than the market price to solve Germany's urgent needs. The goodwill of the United States is just a little more expensive, but it has not killed Germany's path, and the United States is also thinking of a way for Germany, and has already thought of a good way.
Qatar's Ministry of Energy announced on November 29, local time, that Qatar has reached a long-term natural gas agreement with Germany, and from 2026, Qatar will send 2 million tons of liquefied natural gas to Germany every year, and the agreement is valid for 15 years.
It seems to be a happy thing for all, but the most critical part of this agreement is that this ** agreement will be implemented through a middleman, ConocoPhillips of the United States.
This shows that the United States still loves Germany after all, but after all, it is Germany that bears everything.
But can this long-term agreement really solve the long-term energy crisis facing Germany?Let's look at what the future evolution of the energy landscape will look like.
In the Persian Gulf, on the border between Iran and Qatar, there is one of the world's largest natural gas fields, the Nampas gas field, which is divided by Iran and Qatar.
And this part of Qatar is the largest natural gas exploitation in Qatar, the northern gas field.
At present, Qatar's total LNG production capacity is 77 million tons per year, and LNG exports are second only to Australia, ranking second in the world.
However, with the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the truly far-reaching restructuring of the global energy chain will become a major event that will change the world's energy pattern in the future. One of the most important things here is who will replace Russia for Europe's gas imports.
Since mid-June this year, QatarEnergy has been recruiting international partners to accelerate the expansion of the northern gas field, with the goal of increasing production capacity by about 50% to 12.6 billion tons, which would make Qatar the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
According to Qatar's plan, the expansion of the northern gas field is divided into two parts: the first phase of the Eastern Expansion Project (NFE), which plans to build four liquefaction production lines with a total of 32.6 million tons per year and a cost of 287$500 million, production is expected to start in 2026.