Translated material
The cost of war in Ukraine. Online January 4
The Bell continues to host an online video dedicated to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.
THIS MATERIAL (INFORMATION) IS PRODUCED AND DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE BELL OR IS RELATED TO THE ACTIVITIES OF A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE BELL. 18+
17:06 On Wednesday, by 17:00 Moscow time, the dollar and the euro on the Moscow Exchange are traded at 72 and 76 rubles, respectively. Brent oil broke down the level of $80 per barrel (and WTI - $75 per barrel) on fears of lower demand due to the prospects for a recession in the US and the worsening pandemic situation in China. While sanctions against Moscow due to the war in Ukraine have reduced its oil export flows to 2022 lows, this year has not yet favored bull markets.
Bank of America, however, did not rule out that Brent would return by $110 in the second quarter - its analysts believe that the market underestimates the European oil embargo. And Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects, told Bloomberg that the market is underestimating the role of opening China to global demand, and in particular its multiplier effect.
16:17 According to Goldman Sachs forecast , the Russian economy will shrink by 1.3% in 2023 and grow by 1.8% in 2024. The Ministry of Economic Development predicts a fall in GDP by 0.8% this year.
12:55 According to Bloomberg estimates , in the last four weeks of 2022, offshore deliveries of Russian oil decreased by 117 thousand barrels per day to 2.615 million b/d. Including deliveries to China, India, Turkey, and shipments with an unspecified destination, totaled 2.42 million bpd. The effect of the European embargo and price ceiling was manifested in a drop in tanker turnover due to long delivery times to Asia and a decrease in the number of carriers willing to deal with Russian oil.
Revenues to the Kremlin's "military treasury" from oil export duties fell by $15 million to $108 million in the week by December 30. The four-week average is $3 million to $110 million. This is the lowest figure of the year, the agency notes.
“The [European] market on a short transport leg, consuming more than 1.5 million b / d of oil from terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea and in the Arctic, is almost completely lost,” Bloomberg concludes. “It should be replaced by long hauls to Asia, much more costly and time consuming.”
11:26 The British Ministry of Defense sees in the scale of destruction after the Ukrainian attack on the PTU in Makiivka a sign that there was an ammunition depot near the place of accommodation of people, and indicates that there was only 12.5 km from the building to the line of contact. “The practice of dangerous placement of ammunition haunted the Russian Armed Forces long before this war, and this incident shows exactly how unprofessionalism leads to high losses of the Russian military,” the ministry writes.
11:05 Gas quotes on the European hub TTF today fell below $750 per thousand cubic meters or 70 euros per megawatt-hour. These are the levels from the very beginning of 2022. Thanks to the warm beginning of January, savings and increasing LNG supplies, the European Union is already going through the winter on its own reserves in underground gas storages, even without Russian gas.
Over the weekend, many EU countries experienced net gas injection into storage facilities, and in Germany, the urgently built first own LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven began to operate. It is symbolic that the first gas tanker arrived from the USA.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- The Russian Ministry of Defense has already acknowledged the death of 89 servicemen after the strike of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the personnel accommodation point in Makeyevka on New Year's Eve. The ministry confirmed that the attack on the Druzhkivka station of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (and presumably the place of unloading military equipment in the same settlement) was a response to the attack, and reported the destruction of four HIMARS installations and “more than 200 Ukrainian nationalists and foreign mercenaries.” The Ministry of Defense considered the main reason for the incident to be “the inclusion and massive use, contrary to the ban, by personnel of mobile phones in the reach of enemy weapons,” and not the compact deployment of personnel in itself.
- Even if the Ukrainian air defense, according to the statements of the country's authorities, has learned to shoot down all slow-moving kamikaze drones of the Geran type, Russia still wins, writes The New York Times. The fact is that there are no cheap ways to shoot down these targets with a guarantee: each defeat of Geranium, which is estimated at $ 20-50 thousand, costs seven times more on average.
- Russian air defense shot down two drones near the Belbek military airport north of Sevastopol.
- FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty , and the trial will essentially begin in October.
- China's healthcare system is in a systemic crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak - not only hospitals, but also morgues and crematoria are overcrowded. There is no reliable data on the course of the pandemic, modeling gives 9 thousand deaths per day now and 25 thousand at the end of January.
- The US stock market finished lower on the first trading day of 2023. The S&P 500 fell 19% last year, its worst performance since 2008.