"Turkish stream". Russia punished itself with the ruble

In Moscow, they do their best to make a good impression despite a bad game. It's no secret that Gazprom's geopolitical project to transport natural gas bypassing the territory of Ukraine has failed, and the Kremlin is well aware of this. But they also understand that ordinary Russians, who, in fact, paid for the construction of the "Turkish Stream" out of their own pockets, should not guess about the failure. That is why we have to blow the trumpet in all directions ceremonial launch gas pipeline by Putin and Erdogan.

And the louder the numerous statements of Russian officials about the commissioning of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, the more it becomes clear that this entire project is a complete "Potemkin village". It was planned that there would be four threads that would pass from the Anapa region of the Krasnodar region of Russia along the bottom of the Black Sea to the European part of Turkey, making the latter a gas hub. But the four did not work out, Turkey refused the "honor" of being a gas hub, then Italy did not want to be the host party... "Gazprom" put out fires from all sides. As a result, two lines of the pipeline remained: one for Turkish consumers, the second for consumers of the countries of Southern and South-Eastern Europe to Serbia and Romania via Bulgaria. Russia planned a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters per hour, but due to the changes that had to be made in the course of the project, only 31,5 billion cubic meters per hour remained, and that is under question.

Russian officials do not stop telling journalists about the prospects of the Turkish Stream, humbly keeping silent that they are not the most rosy. The sword of Damocles has been hanging over Gazprom's geopolitical project since the first days, and, in fact, the "pipe", on which billions of taxpayers' pockets were spent, will become a pile of scrap metal almost immediately after commissioning. There are many reasons for this, and all of them are objective. Actually, nothing personal, despite the fact that even cautious European politicians hardly hide their irritation in conversations about Russia, watching how the Kremlin destabilizes the situation in the whole world.

According to Sberbank CIB estimates, "Turkish Stream" cost Gazprom more than a record 20 billion dollars. In the conditions of Turkey's reduced demand for Russian gas, these costs look strange, because the project will not pay off even in 50 years and will bring Gazprom $13 billion in losses according to the most modest calculations. In 2019, Turkey bought 16 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia, which is the volume of the "Blue Stream" already existing since 2003. It is also necessary to take into account that Turkey's need for gas decreases every year due to energy-saving technologies. Due to this, one of the strands of "Turkish Stream" will be idle without loading, and the second one, which goes to Bulgaria, will not be able to work, since today there is not all the necessary ground infrastructure for the further pumping of gas to end users. There is simply no money for ground infrastructure in Bulgaria, and Gazprom, as a gas supplier, has no right to invest in laying pipelines across Europe. Based on this, it becomes clear that at least for 2020, it will limit the use of the gas pipeline by more than 50%, so there is no question of any profitability.

The Kremlin spent a lot of money to punish Ukraine, and it punished the Russians. Russian taxpayers paid a high price for the construction of "Turkish Stream" only so that Putin could speak from a high platform about the prospects of increasing the volume of natural gas exports. In fact, the volumes are falling from year to year, and, in fact, along one of the "Turkish Stream" threads, "Gazprom" simply redirected the gas that previously went through the territory of Ukraine to Bulgaria and Serbia. It's not that Ukraine lost income from gas transit, but ordinary Russians paid so that Putin could brag about the "implementation of large infrastructure projects."

If "Gazprom" by some miracle manages to increase the volume of natural gas pumping, despite the fact that there is a tendency to reduce the volume of energy consumption worldwide, the Kremlin is waiting for a second unpleasant surprise - the Third Energy Package. The European Union will limit the capacity of pumping Russian gas through the pipeline by another 50%, as has already happened with the Opal gas pipeline. The same restrictions await Nord Stream-2, provided that the Russians complete it. But the completion of construction, taking into account a number of negative factors, such as American sanctions against the project and large-scale NATO military exercises planned for 2020 in the Baltic Sea, is extremely doubtful.

It becomes clear that the Kremlin's talk about the triumphant commissioning of the "Turkish Stream" is nothing more than bravado. Informational noise is intended for Russian taxpayers who have no real idea of ​​the state of affairs in the energy sector. And in fact, the geopolitical project called "Turkish Stream" has become another failure of the people who are at the helm of Russia. Although not quite a failure, after all, Putin's friends and his friends made good money on the "cutting" of the budget.

Source: zik.ua.