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Europe and the European Commission are pushing for the green transition and companies are investing in this direction. However there is a time gap of 2 to 3 years until the green transition is possible, where the question is whether we will have enough LNG from Qatar and the United States. This is a death trap for Europe and I am not at all sure that European industry and households will cope with this situation. This was recently emphasized by the president and CEO of Mytilineos E. Mytilineos speaking at the Economist’s 26th Annual Economist Government Roundtable.
Mr. Mytileneos criticized Europe’s choices, stressing that mistakes were made in the previous decades and the issue of sustainability came much further than the economies can withstand. We have abandoned the issue of security of supply and today Europe is in real danger, he said.
He cited JP Morgan’s forecasts for an oil price of $300 if Russian supply is completely cut off and for a natural gas price of 200 euros/MWh if Russian flow is curtailed. Before the crisis of 2021, the price of gas was only 20 euros/MWh, Mr. Mytilineos said.
As for how Greece is ready to deal with a possible gas flow interruption, Mr. Mytilineos mentioned that our country has endogenous sources such as lignite and hydropower that could cover part of the needs as well as the Revythoussa terminal and TAP pipeline that can help supply gas. Greece is a small market of 6-7 billion cubic meters which means 45 LNG cargoes are needed to cover the needs, he added. For the reconstruction of Ukraine, after the end of the war, Mr. Mytileneos expressed his appreciation that Greece will be present with all its forces, as it is now present by helping the country militarily.
In conclusion, Mr. Mytilineos emphasized that we are living in a period full of challenges as the cheap energy from Russia on which the progress and great development of Europe was based in the last decades is definitively a thing of the past while the guarantee of American security remains to be determined by the developments inside the American political scene.
In the same panel, world-renowned Stanford professor Francis Fukuyama expressed his assessment that the war in Ukraine is not about the country’s threat to Russia or the expansion of NATO, but about Russia’s questioning of the order of things that emerged after the fall of the wall . Mr Fukuyama argued that the war was not going to last long as the Russian army was exhausted and taking heavy casualties and the Ukrainians who retreated at first due to lack of equipment and ammunition are now recovering with the international support they have received. There is a significant chance that the Ukrainians will regain the momentum of the war before the end of the summer, the American professor estimated. He added that if Ukraine eventually turns the tables and pushes back the Russians, it will be a big boost for democracy in general.
Greece is safe
After the end of the panel, Mr. Mytilineos, in a conversation he had with journalists, underlined his assessment that Greece will not have a problem with security of supply. Indeed, as he said, the problem will be the level of prices and not the availability of natural gas. He estimated that Russia is not going to stop the flow to Greece, while at the same time the companies have taken care in time to receive quantities of liquefied natural gas LNG.
Regarding the measures announced by the government, he stated that they are moving in the right direction, while regarding the mechanism of the wholesale market, he estimated that the forecasting of prices that companies are required to do involves a risk, which large companies can cope with, while smaller ones will probably have a hard time.
Finally, Mr. Mytilineos revealed that he made a recommendation to the executive committee of Mytilineos for the company to reduce by 20% its energy consumption in all its activities within a period of less than 1 year, as he said energy saving is the final solution.
H. Fludopoulos
Source: Capital
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