Baltic states lead push to cut Russia gas reliance

VILNIUS (AP) — Later this year, a ship the size of an aircraft carrier will arrive at Lithuania's port of Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea. The 300-meter (984-foot) vessel is not a warship, but a floating natural gas import terminal — aptly named "Independence" — that will be key to the Baltic region's plan to reduce its reliance on Russia's energy supplies.

The choice of a floating gas terminal is a sign of the urgency felt in the region. It was two years faster to build than on land, and at $330 million, was some 50 percent cheaper. It will be able to handle 4 billion cubic meters (141 billion cubic feet) of gas a year — well above Lithuania's annual needs for 3 billion cubic meters — when it becomes operational in January. The ship, owned by Norway's Hoegh LNG and leased to Lithuania's SC Klaipedos Nafta terminal operator, has already undergone sea trials after being built at a shipyard in Korea.

Meanwhile, neighboring Poland is working on a new liquid natural gas terminal on its Baltic Coast that is slated to come on line early next year. The terminal at Swinoujscie will enable Poland to buy some of its gas from Qatar.

As a result of such costs, analysts say, the Baltic states and Poland will likely not become completely independent of Russian imports. Rather, the new import capacity will serve as partial insurance against any cut-off threats. More to the point, it will also give the countries leverage in negotiating prices with Gazprom, Russia's state gas monopoly. Russia raised the price of gas for Ukraine to $485 per thousand cubic meters from $268.50, and President Vladimir Putin has said Russia may start demanding payment in advance — heavy burdens for a country whose finances are near collapse.

The late Boer Patriot Robert van Tonder often compared the restoration of the Baltic states & its freeing from Soviet rule as comparable to his proposal for restoring the Boer Republics & freeing themselves from South African rule. Van Tonder was the founder of Randburg in 1959 - a suburb just outside of Johannesburg - & was advocating for the restoration of the Boer Republics ever since 1961 the same year that the Dutch born usurper Hendrik Verwoerd turned South Africa into a nominal & false [ it retained the Westminster system simply replacing the Governor General with a ceremonial State President ] republic. Verwoerd had replaced Prime Minister Hans Strijdom after Strijdom died in office not long after he was calling the restoration of the Boer Republics as “the only solution to South Africa’s problems”. Too few paid any attention to this wise call as the Boers could have extricated themselves from the most of the problems of the 20th & 21 centuries if they were sovereign again as they were during the 19th cent.

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Baltic states lead push to cut Russia gas reliance, Republican1795. wrote:
The late Boer Patriot Robert van Tonder often compared the restoration of the Baltic states & its freeing from Soviet rule as comparable to his proposal for restoring the Boer Republics & freeing themselves from South African rule. Van Tonder was the founder of Randburg in 1959 - a suburb just outside of Johannesburg snip

You can’t have things both ways. If the Boers created an area of refuge perhaps along the south Atlantic coast where there is an opening to the sea they would have been better off. Leastwise they could leave in safety if nothing else.

Israel’s Leviathan gas field is scheduled to go on line in 2015. That will provide some relief for Europe and give them a bit of time to find alternatives sources for gas. I have my doubts, though, that Europeans are capable of saving themselves.

The UK, for one, may be sitting on a 400 year supply of gas; however, the Brits are afraid to go tap this source because of global warming. Quite simply, Britain has lost its collective mind. Until the Brussels fascist bureaucracy is sent to hell, along with their eco-Nazi comrades, I think that Europe will stumble from one avoidable crisis to another.

There’s a complex web of private capital involving wealthy Jewish businessmen from Russia, Europe and Israel developing the Israeli gas fields. That tells me that the main players all have skin in the gas game. I don’t think that Putin would have any interest in upsetting the scheme by backing the Arabs.

Putin and Netanyahu have been meeting and pounding out agreements to develop the Mediterranean Sea gas fields since 2011. They’re both nationalists and have an interest in getting the best deal for their respective countries. I trust that Netanyahu is a sharp leader and won’t allow Putin to roll over him, unlike that bozo we have infesting our White House.

BTW, you’re 100% correct that the Israeli gas play will change the chessboard in the ME.

Cheers

Well unfortunately the Boers were prevented from obtaining any form of self determination by the Afrikaner [ the term Afrikaner was a term promoted by the establishment & applied to all White South Africans though the Afrikaans speakers often got stuck with the term ] establishment. The Boers were the smaller segment of the White Afrikaans speaking population [ as the Cape Dutch segment was larger ] so they were outnumbered by the more “progressive” Cape Dutch who used the Apartheid era as a stepping stone to full racial integration into a macro South Africa. The Cape Dutch live mostly among the Coloured [ mix race ] population of the Western Cape & have never quite been able to appreciate the struggles of the Boers who were often right up against the Bantus so the Cape Dutch can afford to take a “progressive” view as the consequences of such a view does not affect them as much as it does to the Boers who are facing an open genocide as noted by none other than Genocide Watch.

There are even a group of Boers [ who still erroneously believe that they are Afrikaners as the term Afrikaner was promoted by the British to destroy the identity of the Boers as noted by Lord Alfred Milner ] who have been doing precisely what you advocate since 1991 within the town of Orania in the Northern Cape with the intent of settling the area right up to the Atlantic Ocean. But unfortunately the project was started by A one Carel Boshoff a former Chairman of the Afrikaner Broederbond [ which prevented the Boers from obtaining self determination all throughout the 20th cent ] & the son-in-law of Hendrik Vewoerd [ the Dutch born usurper & Prime Minister after the curious death of Prime Minister Hans Strijdom ] therefore it looks like a limited hang out.

Another thing you have to remember is that the Boers are the poorest segment of the macro White population & rarely ever rose much higher than the working class - therefore - it would have been extremely difficult for the Boers to have ever been able to organize any serious project to build an area of refuge anywhere & would no doubt have been stopped by the Afrikaner government. Just as they stopped the Boers from reclaiming the Boer Republics during the 1940s. The forces that controlled the Afrikaner government were always using Apartheid in order to disenfranchise the macro White population in the long run.

The Boer people were especially hard hit & that it why today most now live under the poverty line & a significant number live totally poor as internal refugees in squatter camps near a number of the major cities within the old Boer Republics region. The only remaining hope for the Boer people is that they will be able to reclaim at least a portion of their old republics based on legal claims as their republics were internationally recognized during the 19th cent.

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