Russia-Ukraine news week 19: Biden's LNG bailout for EU could backfire, and what about the SPR?

Warmonger Joe, as the European Union fears freezing its gonads off this winter, has talked about a liquified natural gas "bailout" for it. The Financial Times notes that could backfire at home, as quote-tweeted by Mark Ames.

Yes, natural gas prices are a lot cheaper here than there, but they're a lot more expensive here than they were a few years ago.

Now, as I noted in reply to one respondent to Ames, if Biden wants to keep being Warmonger Joe, he'll just wait until after midterm election day to make this start happening.

There's also other "fun issues" noted in that piece. New England states import LNG at ports. They don't want pipelines from Pennsylvania's fracked shale gas, though.

Then, there's the environmental concerns about LNG ports in general. But, see two paragraphs above.

There's yet other issues. It costs money to liquify natural gas for international shipment. Russian gas is a lot cheaper. But, gas, and not just for this reason, is less fungible than oil.

So, some "dood" claiming this:

no. US + europe have many fallback options to lower european energy prices, if they choose, including
(*) reactivating german nuclear plants
(**) lifting sanctions on venezuela
(***) lifting sanctions on iran
(****) repurchasing russian LNG via china

nobodys getting "crippled"

— Medium-Sized Lebowski (@FrancisFuturama) September 9, 2022

Got refudiated by me:

1. Germany not restarting nuke plants (plus you don't just snap your fingers to restart a mothballed nuke plant)
2. BIDEN is not lifting sanctions on Venezuela and EU will not challenge
3. Iran deal is a maybe.
4. China ain't reselling Russian LNG unless with a BIG premium

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) September 11, 2022

And, that's that. 

Actually, not quite that. Since that tweet?

A restart on the Iran nuclear deal looks to be officially on the rocks. That's from the German Foreign Ministry.

UPDATE: Based on the Xi-Putin meeting in Kazakhstan, the New York Slimes alleges, in subhead and in body copy, that Putin's in deep doo-doo with Xi. For "analysis" to back that up, it quotes both a State Department spox AND one of the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™. Who is NOT quoted? Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Associated Press has a much more balanced take. 

UPDATE 2: Initial long-range weather forecasts by the National Weather Service say that, into January, most the Sun Belt tier is likely to be warmer than average and most the rest the country is likely to be average, giving Gassy Joe more working space.

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Meanwhile, speaking of oil? Warmonger Joe's sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have lowered crude prices, and gas prices with them. But, they haven't lowered oil prices as much as I think he expected, and meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine War drags on.

So, does he replenish, as he said he would, at $80/bbl? BUT...

Doesn't that take oil back off the world market, therefore raising prices again?

Remember, Mohammad bin Salman already told him that no more Saudi oil was immediately forthcoming, and that in five years, KSA would hit Saudi Peak Oil at just 1 million barrels a day more than now.

So, does Warmonger Joe hope that people have less vacation time planned in winter (drought and heat out west mean less skiing, amirite?) and that he can sneak in some buybacks before March (also hoping that General Winter on the steppes means less fighting)?

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Meanwhile, meanwhile, as Ukraine's counterattacks are at least moderately successful, more local-level Russian politicos are calling for Putin to step down.