Ed. Note: Are we witnessing the moment when Russia has reached its peak? Will we see the start of the reversal of Russia’s economic upswing and a start of its economic decline?

It appears that the war against Russia is rising to a new level, the level of economic war. Two years ago seemed as if Europe committed suicide by cutting itself off from Russia’s oil and gas, but now it looks more like a well planned trap for Russia. Europe is now on course to extricate itself from its dependence on Russia as the newly developed reserves in the East Mediterranean region can more than offset Russia’s reserves. Russia’s only remaining market for its energy resources is China. But China is also under attack.

by Simon Watkins via Oil Price

• Under Trump’s second term, the U.S. will boost efforts to replace Russian gas in Europe with alternative sources like LNG from Qatar, Egypt and Israel.
• Egypt and Cyprus are emerging as critical gas hubs.
• These energy strategies not only weaken Russia’s economic grip on Europe but also align with broader U.S. goals to counterbalance China’s growing global influence.

[ . . . ] with Donald Trump beginning his second term as U.S. President on 20 January, this part of the multi-pronged strategy to further diminish Russian influence in Europe is set to pick up pace. It is also a key part of the new Trump Presidential Administration’s push to destroy the financing at the heart of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ in the Middle East spearheaded by Iran and, in turn, to scupper the broader China-led strategy to replace the dominant influence of the U.S. and its key allies in the world with an alternative version in which China plays the dominant role.

The first reason why phasing out all Russia’s gas exports into Europe remains so critical is that the continent’s heavy dependence on these (and its oil exports too) led to a catastrophic failure to halt President Vladimir Putin’s vision to resuscitate the European Empire of the U.S.S.R. back in 2008 and then even more significantly in 2014…

However, the failure of the Putin-ordered full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to secure the country within a week as he envisaged allowed the U.S. more leeway in moving to draw a line in Europe across which Russia should not venture. This was focused on cutting off as much as possible of the financing for its war in Ukraine that Russia still received from gas and oil exports into Europe. [ . . . ]

The pace of development of gas supplies in Egypt is spectacular. Not only does this country occupy a special political, economic, religious and cultural place in the Middle East and the Islamic world, but it also has huge gas reserves. They are very cautiously estimated at around 1.8 trillion cubic metres, and could be even higher if the assessments of those in charge of EU energy security are taken into account, contact de OilPrice.com in recent months. It is also the only country in the eastern Mediterranean region with operational LNG export capabilities and is therefore in an ideal position to become the main regional gas export hub. Equally important is its geographical positioning – the country controls the Suez Canal, through which about 10% of the world’s oil and LNG is transported.
It also controls the Suez-Mediterranean pipeline, which runs from the Ain Sokhna terminal in the Gulf of Suez near the Red Sea to the Port of Sidi Kerir, west of Alexandria, in the Mediterranean Sea. This is a crucial alternative to the Suez Canal for transporting oil from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. The importance of the Suez Canal to the global energy sector is also amplified by the fact that it is one of the few major transit points not controlled by China. The country has been through massive economic problems lately-it has not paid for a while the taxes due by its own national composition to foreign partners, but things are beginning to work out.
The attention of the same Western firms active in Egypt has also turned to the parallel gas hot spot in the eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, which is now considering a new round of licensing for offshore natural gas exploration, according to recent comments by its energy minister, George Papanastasiou. Cyprus estimates that current untapped gas reserves are around 450 billion […]

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