Russia-Ukraine Crises: Putin Knows The Reliance On Gas By Most European Countries

A former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr. Alex Mould has revealed Russian president, Vladimir Putin knows the significance of oil in the prevailing war he has waged against Ukraine in relation to other European countries.

He explained how crude oil and gas supply has become the main missile in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the warfare with Ukraine as well as with most European countries and the United States of America (USA).

He made this submission known on the program the Key Points with Dzifa Bampoh on TV3. According to him, Mr. Putin knows that Europe is vulnerable when it comes to the reliance on gas by most European countries for economic activities, especially during the peak of the winter.

“The spike we saw where the oil went above a hundred dollars for the first time since 2014 was just a response by circulators and traders who thought that this was going to cause supply and demand problems.

“But there is excess supply in the world, Russia produces 12million barrels of oil a day, so does Saudi Arabia, they have the capacity to do that so does the USA. The USA consumes the most oil more than any country and Russia has about 4.8billion barrels a day of oil they export. Saudi Arabia and OPEC have excess capacity of almost 5 billion barrels (4.8bn barrels) of which Saudi Arabia controls half of that, 2.3 billion barrels.ADVERTISEMENT

“So, the consensus by researchers and traders whom I have spoken to in the last week was yes, they were a little concerned about the immediate impact where you will see spike because there are issues to do with Russia not supplying gas to Europe.

“But the fact of the matter is, Europe needs the gas and Europe and US say they are not putting sanctions on gas and oil in the short term. However, as we speak Europe is now receiving gas from other Asian suppliers just to ensure that Putin will not hold them, given that we are at the peak of winter.

“This is where it will be felt in Europe, most people cannot switch from gas to crude oil to power their power plants, it is only Germany that has the capacity to do that. So Europe is very vulnerable as we we speak and Putin knows that, the USA also knows that and the USA recently, the Biden administration said they will not sanction Russia crude because that will harm US consumers,” he said.

SOURCE: www.