Russia's at it again

SwansonsTache said:
Thing with shale is that even if the tech significantly improves the lifting cost is pretty high. Currently it is in the fifties, they might get it down to the 40 range, but due to the nature of the process it has a natural limit for efficiency. You have to force it out of the rock, normal oil deposits flows with lift from the gas beneath it, or stimulating efforts like water injection - it is like popping a balloon, meanwhile shale production is like forcing air into a balloon.

As an example the newest offshore fields going online in Norway has a break even at $16\barrel. The gulf nations who basically can use a drinking straw to find their oil under the sand are even lower.

Then again, to balance their budgets they need atleast $50 a barrel, since they are so oil dependant, but their lifting cost is ridiculously low.
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It's lower than $50 for the the shale focused operators. But I agree with the difficulty for other countries to kick off shale production. Aside from the technology involved, it's a very labor and resource intensive process . More akin to a giant mining operation than traditional oil drilling.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
It's lower than $50 for the the shale focused operators. But I agree with the difficulty for other countries to kick off shale production. Aside from the technology involved, it's a very labor and resource intensive process . More akin to a giant mining operation than traditional oil drilling.
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IMO all oil deposits with lifting costs above 20-25$\barrel will not be economically feasible within 10 years when the electric revolution has properly come to fruition.

Shale deposits hold a lot of gas though. Gas is the new oil, to imagine it was just a few years ago we in Norway used to inject the gas back down into the reservoir to lift more oil as the native pressure in the reservoir got lower due to depletion. These days oil companies specifically look for gas, not oil.

No need for refining when it comes to gas, just directly into the pipe and export. The US mostly ship it in LNG carriers to the far east though, and it is still economical.
 
Adisa said:
Is it really him?
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Believe so....some of the people I follow are followers of the account. I just think he may be one of those people who doesn't care whether or not he has the blue check mark.
 
Brwned said:
The good guy from the allies' perspective. Not the good guy from an objective perspective.
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He's not a good guy from any perspective. He was a great catch for MI6 because they got a valuable information from him about Russian operatives. Because they bought him. Just like I don't consider Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen good guys just because they sold their country's secrets to Russia, in fact, I despise them just as much.
 
matherto said:
There are less than 10 nuclear armed countries in the world and the other 190+ do alright.

There's no reason whatsoever why Britain needs them when we're part of a group that ensures we've got them anyway if we need them.
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Possibly. But (a) unilaterally chucking your own weapons on the fire and relying on the group to cover your now naked ass isn’t likely to down well with the group - we see aspects of this in Trump’s attitude to Germany. And (b) presumably this same group is relying on our nukes at the moment, so what would it say about our commitment to their security? (c) it would be the height of stupidity to give up a powerful symbolic asset and defensive weapon, in return for nothing. Although to be fair there is a feck of a lot of stupidity around at the moment in the UK.
 
Russia is to expel 23 British diplomats following the row over the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.

Moscow has said the diplomats must leave Russia within one week.

Russia has also withdrawn permission for Britain to open a general consulate in St Petersburg and says it will be closing the British Council in Russia.

https://news.sky.com/story/british-ambassador-summoned-to-russian-ministry-11293252
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Russia taking our 2 and raising us 1.
 
How come this Craig Murray is seen as such an impeccable source on these matters when he is quoting a single anonymous source? Serious question, what are his credentials?
 
Classical Mechanic said:
How come this Craig Murray is seen as such an impeccable source on these matters when he is quoting a single anonymous source? Serious question, what are his credentials?
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Is he seen as an impeccable source? I don't know about that but he is ex FCO with quite an interesting career history if you wiki him.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
I'd certainly hope so, or the treaty isn't worth the paper it's written on. Collective defence is the whole point, and why Russia is so keen to split NATO members.


Never? To me, this is ludicrous complacency. If human history tells us anything, it's that nations will go to war. Ten years ago, who would have thought that Europe's borders would start changing through military invasions again... but here we are with Russia invading Ukraine. The borders have changed.

You think there's no risk to the NATO countries bordering Russia? Putin certainly carries out a lot of military exercises on the border... I wouldn't want to show too much weakness if I were a Prime Minister.

The whole point of NATO and collective defence is to try and prevent all out war with Russia (or other major powers). Undermining NATO like Corbyn and Trump have been doing is precisely the kind of thoughtless talk that could actually trigger a war, if Russia think NATO won't defend itself.


Now would be the worst time imaginable to scrap our nuclear deterrent. Russia recently helped elect a wannabe-fascist to lead our closest ally. And an actual fascist came second in the presidential race of our geographically closest ally. Just this week, Russia warned the UK 'not to threaten a nuclear power'.

I wish nuclear weapons didn't exist. But we live in a world where they do and it's hard to imagine a more crazy decision than unilateral nuclear disarmament in the current geopolitical situation.

Corbyn and his ilk approach foreign policy as if the world is the pacifist utopia they'd like it to be, rather than how it actually is.
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The chances of Russia attacking NATO are a lot lower than NATO attacking Russia.

If you believe otherwise, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya!
 
antihenry said:
He's not a good guy from any perspective. He was a great catch for MI6 because they got a valuable information from him about Russian operatives. Because they bought him. Just like I don't consider Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen good guys just because they sold their country's secrets to Russia, in fact, I despise them just as much.
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I'm not sure if you're aware but the point you're making has nothing to do with what I was saying. So, just to clarify, what I was saying is that it wouldn't make any sense for them to kill off an asset, someone who helped them, someone on their side or, as some people from their vantage point might describe it, one of the good guys. It isn't a moral judgement and it doesn't have anything to do with what you or I think about him. It's shorthand for being on their side, and it just so happened that a typically moral phrase was co-opted to serve that purpose many decades ago.

In other words, what you're talking about is semantics and political agendas. I don't have an interest in either so I'll bow out here...
 
Classical Mechanic said:
How come this Craig Murray is seen as such an impeccable source on these matters when he is quoting a single anonymous source? Serious question, what are his credentials?
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I don't think he is regarded as a credible source by many. He was ambassador to Uzbekistan ages ago and wrote a well-received memoir of his time there, and was very critical of the lack of response from the Western powers to the horrible human rights abuses in that country, including the Andijan massacre.

He certainly plays to a certain crowd these days, maintaining an air of credibility while hinting at and flirting with the conspiracy-driven fringe.
 
matherto said:
He won't go into Estonia because they're NATO, even disguised as the green men force a la Ukraine. As much as I don't think everyone else would actually rush up there to save the Estonians the implicit nature of the deal in NATO would stop Putin. They couldn't do it they way they did in Ukraine, especially not after Ukraine happened too. We're too alert to the possibility and the first hint of any suspicious activity would be a call to war. Like I said, Putin is a murderous dictator but he's not suicidal. He knows what it means to attack a NATO member (even if I personally don't think anything would come of it).

For MAD to work, you only need opposition parties with nukes. We're one and the same with the US (regardless of Trump) or even with France who also have nukes. We're all NATO so NATO have nukes and that's enough to put Putin off. Do you seriously think he'd nuke the UK if we didn't have Trident? Would he bollocks. That's all out nuclear war. Even if the US or France didn't respond with their own nuke, he's not going to pick on us specifically (think about the logistics and optics of that for a second and realise how impossible that is, Trident or not) and attack us/invade us so Trident is completely redundant. Absolutely, one hundred percent a waste of money, time and effort.

I'm well aware of the doomsday clock but it's just a warning sign by people who have opinions much like any of us. They may have been party to more facts than the general, I'm not sure but it's still just opinions.

Nobody is using a nuclear weapon against anyone else any time soon. Kim wouldn't do it despite all the hysterics about him. Trump won't do it either even if he gets full warhawk types advocating a first strike like the people rumoured to replace Tillerson are. Much as he's the type that would love to ride a nuke into history and stamp his name forever more in mankind's tale even he isn't stupid enough to doom us all. It's literally just propaganda and hysteria.

Nuclear weapons are the symbol of the end. That's why MAD works. They're not actually anything else and they don't need to be either.

Putin is prodding and probing because he knows how successful the approach in America was. He knows how successful Brexit has been too to sowing discord but as you referenced before, it didn't actually work with Le Pen. We're going to be made to look like the jokers who jumped the gun because the supposed right wing wave died on it's arse shortly after we let it get the better of us. The Dutch and Austrians rejected it, the French then rejected it too which is arguably much more important and now we're just gonna be left hanging once Trump has had his time in the sun. Once the world consolidates ourselves again and the balance swings back, Putin/Russia won't be the boogeyman they are now and he knows it. They're not really a big threat but the press has gone into overdrive a bit like the red scare back in the 50's.

You need to calm down.
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Yes, as you’ve acknowledged here, NATO are vital in balancing one side of the MAD equation that stops us all being incinerated in a nuclear war (and hopefully prevents Putin marching through any more of Eastern Europe). So to loop this back to where our conversation started, why the hell has Jermey Corbyn been repeatedly disparaging NATO and calling for British withdrawal?
 
Classical Mechanic said:
How come this Craig Murray is seen as such an impeccable source on these matters when he is quoting a single anonymous source? Serious question, what are his credentials?
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Craig Murray doesn't have any credibility. Anyone can check-out his blog to find out that he spreads a lot of nonsense and conspiracy theories wrapped in a certain form of critique of western foreign policy.
 
Barca84 said:
Is he seen as an impeccable source? I don't know about that but he is ex FCO with quite an interesting career history if you wiki him.
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He seems to be the go-to guy for a certain faction of the left to give credence to an anti UK govt line on the current situation with Russia. He certainly seems to be the only source I have seen quoted in this regard.

Impeccable was the wrong word. I should have have queried if he was at all credible.

Thanks for the replies.
 
So could Trump be the oldest ‘Sleeper’ in the history of espionage? Putin is a few beans short of a can and is playing with fire. He knows that bugger all will happen, again. The West has let him stroll into Crimea and Ukraine, shoot down civilian aircraft and bankroll the Syrian war and done nothing. Russia have been awarded the Winter Olympic Games where they were caught cheating and a World Cup that they probably secured vie Blatters bank account.

This guy is having a laugh, literally. He knows that a War won’t happen, he has all the cash he needs and is probably hoping all the Oligarchs he despises so much will have all their assets in the West confiscated. Bad news for Arsenal and Chelsea and the London property market.

All will be forgotten in a month or when the Gas pipeline to Germany is turned off a la Have I Got News For You opening credits.
 
Brwned said:
I'm not sure if you're aware but the point you're making has nothing to do with what I was saying. So, just to clarify, what I was saying is that it wouldn't make any sense for them to kill off an asset, someone who helped them, someone on their side or, as some people from their vantage point might describe it, one of the good guys. It isn't a moral judgement and it doesn't have anything to do with what you or I think about him. It's shorthand for being on their side, and it just so happened that a typically moral phrase was co-opted to serve that purpose many decades ago.

In other words, what you're talking about is semantics and political agendas. I don't have an interest in either so I'll bow out here...
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He was an asset for as long as he could provide the Brits with the relevant intel. By the time he was arrested in Russia, tried, convicted then pardoned, swapped to UK, whatever info he had possession of as an intelligence officer had long since lost its value. So from that point on he was totally expendable for both sides and could have been used as a pawn in some dirty politial scheme. The only value he represents in this story is that he is a convenient 'victim of the crime perpetrated by the bloodthirsty Russian dictator on British soil.'
 
matherto said:
There are less than 10 nuclear armed countries in the world and the other 190+ do alright.

There's no reason whatsoever why Britain needs them when we're part of a group that ensures we've got them anyway if we need them.
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So what happens if France then followed suit? Or should we demand they continue to pay to protect us? If America decided they weren’t going to continue with NATO in its current form?

This is absolutely the worst possible time for discussions about unilateral nuclear disarmament. We have the US pissing on its historical alliances, Russia more aggressive than its been in half a century, and China on the very cusp of becoming a superpower and starting to show aggression itself towards its neighbours. Oh and we are about to leave the union that meant we were part of a superpower scale bloc. Giving up nukes now would be moronic. The world is becoming wildly unpredictable.
 
MrMarcello said:
Is a coup/assassination attempt impossible?

If said act did occur, how would Russia react?
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Lol WW3

Seriously, I doubt Putin would take it well. And even if someone managed to kill him it would be impossible to install a pro western leader in Russia - simply because they're not popular in Russia and there aren't many of them. What would likely happen is some one much worse than Putin would take over and start a war.
 
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Nogbadthebad said:
Hes a kook.

In that picture of him he is holding his own book. He claims it contains the recipes to make novichok ,

Its for sale on amazon for £6

https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Secr...QG8_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521218299&sr=1-1
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"Recipes" or chemical formula?

It seems fairly well established that he's a chemist that developed the agent.

Also

DYfT00OX4AEZbeL.jpg
 
Nogbadthebad said:
Hes a kook.

In that picture of him he is holding his own book. He claims it contains the recipes to make novichok ,

Its for sale on amazon for £6

https://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Secr...QG8_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521218299&sr=1-1
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According to Mirzayanov, the Russian Military Chemical Complex (MCC) was using defense conversion money received from the West for development of a chemical warfare facility.[4][5] Mirzayanov made his disclosure out of environmental concerns. He was a head of a counter-intelligence department and performed measurements outside the chemical weapons facilities to make sure that foreign spies could not detect any traces of production. To his horror, the levels of deadly substances were 80 times greater than the maximum safe concentration.[5][18]

Russian military industrial complex authorities admitted the existence of Novichok agents when they brought a treason case against Mirzayanov. According to expert witness testimonies that three scientists prepared for the KGB, Novichok and other related chemical agents had indeed been produced and therefore the Mirzayanov's disclosure represented high treason.[c]

Mirzayanov was arrested on 22 October 1992 and sent to Lefortovo prison for divulging state secrets. He was released later because "not one of the formulas or names of poisonous substances in the Moscow News article was new to the Soviet press, nor were locations ... of testing sites revealed."[5] According to Yevgenia Albats, "the real state secret revealed by Fyodorov and Mirzayanov was that generals had lied—and were still lying—to both the international community and their fellow citizens."[5] Mirzayanov now lives in the U.S.[20]

Further disclosures followed when Vladimir Uglev, one of Russia's leading binary weapons scientists, revealed the existence of A-232/Novichok-5 in an interview with the magazine Novoye Vremya in early 1994.[21]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent
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Have you read this by any chance?

Perhaps I should also send it to Alexander Shulgin, Russia's ambassador to the Netherlands and also the Russian representative at the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) who hadn’t heard of Novichok until Theresa May mentioned it in Parliament the other day.
 
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Red Defence said:
Have you read this by any chance?
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Yes I have.

Hes a bloke who has claimed, he laid bare novichok in his £6 book. Nothing there does anything to make that a less ridiculous claim.

Just for reference about nerve agents.

This is from the OPCW in 2013

Regarding new toxic chemicals not listed in the Annex on Chemicals but which may nevertheless pose a risk to the Convention, the SAB makes reference to “Novichoks”. The name “Novichok” is used in a publication of a former Soviet scientist who reported investigating a new class of nerve agents suitable for use as binary chemical weapons. The SAB states that it has insufficient information to comment on the existence or properties of “Novichoks”

https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/CSP/RC-3/en/rc3wp01_e_.pdf

And this is from Dr Robin Black in 2016, he was head of Porton Down at the time

In recent years, there has been much speculation that a fourth generation of nerve agents, ‘Novichoks’ (newcomer), was developed in Russia, beginning in the 1970s as part of the ‘Foliant’ programme, with the aim of finding agents that would compromise defensive countermeasures. Information on these compounds has been sparse in the public domain, mostly originating from a dissident Russian military chemist, Vil Mirzayanov. No independent confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published. Robin Black (Dr), Development, Historical Use and Properties of Chemical Warfare Agents. Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.

Thats found here http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/chapter/bk9781849739696-00001/978-1-84973-969-6

I am not trying to claim any sort of conspiracy, or russia are innocent or any of that, but I do like evidence and truth. Despite mays outburts we are a long way from that.

She is still refusing to present evidence to the OPCW or even the European Security Council, and the longer that goes on, the more she plays into putins hands, giving him the chance to claim she has no evidence.
 
Kentonio said:
So what happens if France then followed suit? Or should we demand they continue to pay to protect us? If America decided they weren’t going to continue with NATO in its current form?

This is absolutely the worst possible time for discussions about unilateral nuclear disarmament. We have the US pissing on its historical alliances, Russia more aggressive than its been in half a century, and China on the very cusp of becoming a superpower and starting to show aggression itself towards its neighbours. Oh and we are about to leave the union that meant we were part of a superpower scale bloc. Giving up nukes now would be moronic. The world is becoming wildly unpredictable.
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It really isn't. The world is entirely predictable right now. The US are the US and their influence is always going to be the same no matter who is in charge. Putin is trying to make Russia into a bigger threat than they actually are just like he's been doing for the past 20 years and just like the Soviets did in the Cold War and China will continue along until they finally become a superpower. Everyone else is just 'there'.

The US, Russia and China will be the superpowers, we all know that. As such, they're the only ones that actually need nukes as they're the only ones that matter. If there's going to be war, it's going to be between those three and their allies are just along for the ride. We have no say and we're not in any way significant in the world.

If France got rid of their nukes (they've already gotten rid of the land based ones IIRC) then it doesn't matter. They're NATO, we're NATO, America are NATO. America has enough nukes to protect any of it's fellow NATO members and they're never going to get rid of them. I'd be slightly perturbed if they even remotely looked like they were going to leave but regardless of Trump being an idiot, they won't. Leaving the EU has no effect on NATO.

Russia aren't going to attack a single, individual NATO member. The might of NATO as a whole and the nukes that the US have (not ours, not the French ones) ensure that. Our nuclear capabilities and France's too were developed when the world was a much more unsure place after WW2 and we doubted that NATO would be what it is but there's no doubt anymore and it's been that way for decades. We're just part of the clan now, we don't need to have nukes much like the 20 odd other members of NATO that don't have them don't need them either. We're not going to wage war individually and never to the stage that we need nuke so why keep Trident? It's just willy waving having them nowadays. Think about the machinations of world politics and policies that would lead us to ever use them and then realise just how impossible they are to come to fruition. They're a redundant legacy from 70 years ago for the UK when it was actually still a major player. We're not anymore and it's time people realised it.

Seriously you guys are getting whipped into a frenzy thinking the end of the world is round the corner when it really isn't, neither is war between major states (y'know, the type where nukes might be on the table). Nobody will ever use a nuke on another nation again, I'd bet the human race on that.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
Yes, as you’ve acknowledged here, NATO are vital in balancing one side of the MAD equation that stops us all being incinerated in a nuclear war (and hopefully prevents Putin marching through any more of Eastern Europe). So to loop this back to where our conversation started, why the hell has Jermey Corbyn been repeatedly disparaging NATO and calling for British withdrawal?
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Probably because he's not in power and he wants something to stand out as. Even if he was PM he wouldn't withdraw us from it. There's too much opposition to that idea for him to do it.
 
Nogbadthebad said:
Yes I have.

Hes a bloke who has claimed, he laid bare novichok in his £6 book. Nothing there does anything to make that a less ridiculous claim.

Just for reference about nerve agents.

This is from the OPCW in 2013

Regarding new toxic chemicals not listed in the Annex on Chemicals but which may nevertheless pose a risk to the Convention, the SAB makes reference to “Novichoks”. The name “Novichok” is used in a publication of a former Soviet scientist who reported investigating a new class of nerve agents suitable for use as binary chemical weapons. The SAB states that it has insufficient information to comment on the existence or properties of “Novichoks”

https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/CSP/RC-3/en/rc3wp01_e_.pdf

And this is from Dr Robin Black in 2016, he was head of Porton Down at the time

In recent years, there has been much speculation that a fourth generation of nerve agents, ‘Novichoks’ (newcomer), was developed in Russia, beginning in the 1970s as part of the ‘Foliant’ programme, with the aim of finding agents that would compromise defensive countermeasures. Information on these compounds has been sparse in the public domain, mostly originating from a dissident Russian military chemist, Vil Mirzayanov. No independent confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published. Robin Black (Dr), Development, Historical Use and Properties of Chemical Warfare Agents. Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.

Thats found here http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/chapter/bk9781849739696-00001/978-1-84973-969-6

I am not trying to claim any sort of conspiracy, or russia are innocent or any of that, but I do like evidence and truth. Despite mays outburts we are a long way from that.

She is still refusing to present evidence to the OPCW or even the European Security Council, and the longer that goes on, the more she plays into putins hands, giving him the chance to claim she has no evidence.
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Not really sure what point you are trying to make. Those 2 scientists were taken to court for revealing the existence of Novichok agents and the existence of these agents was acknowledged at their trial and in 1994. Naturally there won’t be much information on them outside of the country responsible for developing them.
 
nickm said:
Possibly. But (a) unilaterally chucking your own weapons on the fire and relying on the group to cover your now naked ass isn’t likely to down well with the group - we see aspects of this in Trump’s attitude to Germany. And (b) presumably this same group is relying on our nukes at the moment, so what would it say about our commitment to their security? (c) it would be the height of stupidity to give up a powerful symbolic asset and defensive weapon, in return for nothing. Although to be fair there is a feck of a lot of stupidity around at the moment in the UK.
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We aren't giving anything up though because the US is never giving theirs up. Ours are redundant because the US have theirs.

No matter what Trump says he's not actually going to significantly alter the status quo and it would take a lot longer than the 8 years he can potentially have held power for to do that anyway. The next President will not be the same cloth as Trump and the behind the scenes maneuvering has remained the same.

It's all a show for the media to get people hyped up. Nothing has actually changed.

Our commitment to their security? Why don't we demand the other NATO members have nukes too? Oh wait, they already do because we're all one block.

It really isn't the height of stupidity to give up our nukes because they're not an asset or a defensive weapon, the US nukes are. Ours are just a legacy from when we decided we needed the technology 70 years ago and NATO wasn't really anything other than a little club.
 
matherto said:
It really isn't. The world is entirely predictable right now.
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That’s an absurd statement. Sorry to be blunt but the post WW2 order is clearly in flux. I’ve never known the international situation to be so unpredictable. I can only assume you must be quite young.
 
matherto said:
We aren't giving anything up though because the US is never giving theirs up. Ours are redundant because the US have theirs.

No matter what Trump says he's not actually going to significantly alter the status quo and it would take a lot longer than the 8 years he can potentially have held power for to do that anyway. The next President will not be the same cloth as Trump and the behind the scenes maneuvering has remained the same.

It's all a show for the media to get people hyped up. Nothing has actually changed.

Our commitment to their security? Why don't we demand the other NATO members have nukes too? Oh wait, they already do because we're all one block.

It really isn't the height of stupidity to give up our nukes because they're not an asset or a defensive weapon, the US nukes are. Ours are just a legacy from when we decided we needed the technology 70 years ago and NATO wasn't really anything other than a little club.
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Thats a whole lot of unsupported assertions to gamble on giving up your nukes.
 
nickm said:
That’s an absurd statement. Sorry to be blunt but the post WW2 order is clearly in flux. I’ve never known the international situation to be so unpredictable. I can only assume you must be quite young.
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Lay it out then. Why is it so unpredictable and how is the order clearly in flux?

How is anything that is happening right now new compared to what has happened at any time since WW2?
 
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