Containergeddon moved to Europe

Preface:

We are a team of translators trying to make the voice of Russia heard in the outside world. It is our intention to give you a glimpse of what our fellow Russians feel, see and think. This is our first shot at a long-read, we hope that we are going to have some more.

We do our best to preserve the author's style and speech, and we may not agree with the author on some points, but here we are.

Enjoy!

The original article: https://рука-кремля.рус/контейнергеддон-перебрался-в-европу/

Hello, fellow aggressors.

To begin with, a few words on the previous article - to be honest, I did not expect this many comments thinking it was going to be no more than about a hundred. While the article is not for everyone, in my opinion, if it made at least one person to stop and think, it's already a success.

And no matter how this article is seen, it is, primarily, about the inner freedom of every person. In this regard, I would like to add a few brief remarks as well.

First. The article is intentionally written without emotions. This was the most difficult thing, to write this without an inner emotional message, because people follow emotions. My point was to let the readers look at themselves from aside.

Second. I liked absolutely all comments, both positive and negative. It also turned out that Zen [Yandex.Zen] has a limit on likes, which is funny.

Third. Some called me a graphomaniac here. This is a little strange, since the author never claimed to be a writer. Neither he claimed to be a journalist. Moreover, I only wrote one book, but it is focused solely on professional topics - and yes, it is also entirely about people.

Fourth. The author reserves the right to write about what he considers necessary. Without drama, sentiments and looking back at anyone. If the author were vain, he would write victorious reports exclusively, because people like them, don't they?

Fifth, and very important. I have never had and will never have any subscribers. I always have readers and friends, even if the opinion of some does not coincide with my own. In any case, we are all doing the same thing here - fighting for Russia, sorry for the pathos. And there are only two reasons a person can get banned - impassable stupidity and outright rudeness, both towards the author and other readers. Oh, wait, there is another reason - hatred of Russia and our people.

And the word "subscriber" in itself is already slippery and nasty, like slugs.

Sixth. The author is allergic to flattery. Since childhood.

Seventh. In many comments, I was accused of almost sworn sectarianism. Believe me, being as well-spoken as I am and with the type of mind like mine, you can easily lead people, create organizations, movements, parties and churches without any issue and very successfully - and if someone does not do this, then maybe they have a reason why this cannot be done under any circumstances?

There is authority and there is Authority. These two are completely different - and only God has the right to the second, but not a person. People who play God always end up extremely shitty - and if a person does not understand this, then woe to his loved ones. They also pay their price, which can be exorbitant.

It's not about laziness - it's about the internal censor, who is much stricter than any critics from the outside. This censor definitely will not allow a person to fall into the abyss of Authority.

That's all about it for now.

Now back to business.

So, welcome to Rotterdam, dear aggressors. 

On the left you can see a very large European town, without much frills and sights.

Now look to the right - you see the largest port in the European Union, receiving tens of thousands of containers every day. Millions of tons of iron-packed cargo pass through this port every week. They carry everything you can carry in containers - that's what the port of Rotterdam was built for.

But here comes the trouble, fierce and uninvited. It so happened that some of these iron boxes came from distant Russia - the other part was supposed to go to Russia.

And now the port management is facing an extremely interesting task - each container must be opened, checked for compliance of the cargo with accompanying documents, and the cargo itself has to be run through the database of sanctioned goods - what if Louis Vuitton handbags, ham and oysters are going to these Russians? Or frog legs, God forbid?

Because ham-eating Russians with Louis Vuitton handbags are a terrible sight, believe me. Only Covid-19 and an atomic bomb are worse than that.

In normal times, the Dutch port of Rotterdam is like a machine: hundreds of ships come and go each day, and tens of thousands of boxes are loaded and unloaded from those vessels, all to keep Europe’s economy humming. Right now, though, sanctions on Russia are snarling thousands of steel shipping containers, Allard Castelin, director of the port of Rotterdam, said in an interview to Bloomberg.

"Even before the invasion, global supply chains in general -- and in the container shipping industry in particular -- had scarcely got over the chaos caused by Covid-19, with vessels being pulled out of place and demand for goods booming when the pandemic made many services unavailable. Now, according to Castelin, among the thousands of parcels arriving with each vessel, several tens or hundreds may be destined to Russia."

"You need to isolate them, set them apart, and then do physical inspections of the containers before they can be released," Castelin notes. - " That exercise delivers constraints on the value chain in terms of physical space, manpower and time. Currently, there are 4,500 containers set aside for inspection, an extraordinary situation.”

For full immersion in reality, my aggressive friends: in a year the port of Rotterdam processes 470 million tons of cargo, 13% of which either come from or are destined to Russia. In total, this is more than 61 million tons per year or more than 5 million tons per month. But a significant part of the total volume of goods passing through the port is related to energy. Currently, about 30% of Russian crude oil, 25% of liquefied natural gas and 20% of petroleum products and coal are imported into the European Union through Rotterdam.

Let's imagine 4,500 containers that got stuck in the port of Rotterdam. If we just store them on top of each other, as it is usually done in ports, we get a 7.27 mile tall pile of containers. But if we put them on top of each other upright, our pile of containers already becomes 34 miles tall. This is just to illustrate the situation - and now all these iron boxes gradually pile up in Rotterdam's container terminals.

Nearby, there is a relatively unused site that can be utilized for expansion by the Euromax terminal in the future. However, first you need to buy it, then create and submit a project for additional storage space for containers with all the necessary infrastructure and, finally, build it all. Nothing serious, this can be easily done in 18-24 months.

Now I would like to bring to your attention the current discussions among European officials. They discuss banning of Russian oil and coal import.

We've already talked enough about oil, now it's time to take a close look at Russian coal. We supply about 50 million tons per year to Europe – with energy coals of different brands making up almost 90% of these. Once again, Russia supplies coal for Europe's energy. A lot of coal. 

The exact data can be seen in the following table - this data represents the percentage of import, not the weight:

Germany receives more than 67% of all imported coal from us. Poles get about 81%. The French import 55% from Russia, the Italians - 73%, the Dutch - 77%. And even cheerful mustached Spanish muchachos import more than 40% of hard coal from Russia.

Here's another entertaining table for the same countries, but now the data is in tons with blue representing imported Russian coal, and orange showing coal imported from other countries of the world:

In other words, the Eurogerman industrial locomotive imports 19 million tons of coal per year, of which 12.8 million tons are imported from Russia - and looking at this unearthly beauty, it is already quite possible to imagine the first consequences of the ban on Russian coal.

What is 50 million tons? For the port of Rotterdam it is nothing, just a month and a half worth of work. Question is, where to get these 50 million tons - and this is when very unpleasant questions arise.

The largest supplier of coal in the world is Indonesia. It supplies all industrial Asia, but the export of coal is banned this year, because Indonesian local coal suppliers got carried away so much that they almost left their own power plants without it. The authorities realized that it should not go any further, otherwise Indonesia itself would have no electricity - and they imposed an embargo until they were able to create a strategic reserve for their own economy. And when the embargo is lifted, the coal will go to Asia again - a short logistics leg and good prices (higher than in Europe) will force Indonesians to resume supplies to China, Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan and South Korea.

USA are able to produce no more than 6 million tons of coal per year in addition to the current scope. Australia sits tightly on long-term Asian contracts. Britain has coal (18 billion tons), but it will take two to three years to restore the industry - and it is not a sure fact that the industry can be restored at all, praise Margaret Thatcher. There are no competencies, no equipment, no trained personnel.

At this point the story of natural gas repeats itself - no matter how many emissaries the USA and Europe send to the Middle East, there will be no more gas. The same picture with oil - OPEC was required to increase oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day, but the Arabs emboldened by their friendship with China told the West to take a walk with its requests. As a result, production will be raised by 432,000 barrels per day in April, as expected by the plan approved together with Russia.

By the way, a talented and promising politician in his prime, Joseph Robinet-son, unsealed the U.S. oil reserves last week - and what good did it do? A week ago, a barrel of oil cost $103-105 in the stock markets, today it is already from $107 to $109. Victory. Glorious victory.

Let's summarize.

Logistics chains continue to degrade - now the entire supply chain is suffering many, many local hotbeds of collapse. These hotbeds are still local, but eventually the quantity will become quality and the world will divide into several industrial and raw materials zones with short delivery leg. Complex supply chains will have to be forgotten, at least for a while - which means the actual freezing of high technologies. In Europe, ordinary smartphones can go into the category of luksery goods (don’t kick me, I do know how to spell and pronounce it) - and there is a risk of other high-tech products following them.

Will Europe's energy industry collapse without the Russian coal? Of course not - nothing like that will happen to Europe, there will be enough electricity for air conditioners, and for TVs, too. However, almost the entire European industry will collapse in this case. It has been half-dead for a long time already - you simply can’t survive long with such prices on raw materials and energy.

The gasoline cost might become 2-3 times higher if coal is abandoned and will have to be replaced by oil. But anything goes if you fight for democracy and want to achieve freedom from the Russian energy monster. Now, if Europe will also refuse buying our oil along with the coal, the European Union can expect the beginning of an Era of Great Fun at any time and for any reason. It’ll come complete with fireworks from burning police cars, desperate looting at the supermarkets and with paralysis of national and pan-European authorities.

Imagine yourself driving a truck, purely speculative.

You’re hauling a heavy load and then at some point you are suddenly told that your engine will now work at half its power.

"- Okay!" - you agree and go on. The engine roars, the wind whistles in your ears, the Spring is here and everything is beautiful. You keep going fine until the road goes uphill. Then you immediately understand why the truck needed full power.

That's about how things are with the European Union. Industry is out and fuel cost at gas stations is skyrocketing. Bread and meat are becoming more expensive and vegetable oils are generally in total shortage. Inflation in the European Union has already exceeded 7.5% on average, which is clearly a recession and a risk of falling into hyperinflation. 

Suddenly, the European officials get a brilliant idea: let's finish destroying the energy industry and see what happens!

Go ahead. We don't mind. We'll remember you, really. For a long time.

And let's drink to you without clinking. You've already gone totally nuts, on your own free will and without coercion from aggressive Russia.