An interesting extract from "Alan Kohler Weekend Briefing 2014-05-25"
撇开政府不谈，这个协议对中俄澳的经济，投资上的长期影响还是不小的
文中提到的Anatole Kaletsky, 原文(also interesting to read)可搜"China-Russia is a match made in heaven, and that’s scary"
Russia's Gas Deal With China
Speaking of Australia’s Great Transition from the construction phase to the export phase of the resources boom … it won’t be helped if there’s a hiccup to the exports.
In that context, and on top of the iron ore price going below $US100, this week’s big gas deal between Russia and China is not great news for Australia.
The price of the contract was not revealed, but we know it’s a 30-year deal to supply 27 million tonnes per annum of gas by pipeline from Eastern Siberia into China, for a total contract value of $US400 billion. According to Bloomberg, that implies a price of $US350 per thousand cubic metres, or about $US9.80 per million British thermal units (Btu). That’s about half the current spot price and is reported to be about 40% below the contract prices for LNG out of Australia.
Let’s face it, we would much rather China and Russia didn’t get on. Russia has plenty of what we have, especially gas, and they are not separated by water. The gas can be piped and minerals can be delivered by train – loaded on, and then loaded off. It doesn’t have to be loaded on and off boats along the way.
The extent to which the Russia-China gas deal itself undercuts Australia is hard to fathom, but it’s clearly going to put downward pressure on LNG prices. In fact LNG is beginning to look uncompetitive versus pipe gas from Siberia. Clyde Russell writing in Reuters said yesterday: "If the Chinese insist on new LNG contracts closer in price to the pipeline supplies, it's unlikely that many of the planned LNG developments in Australia and elsewhere will go ahead.”
The hope has been that LNG was to some extent immune from the effect that China’s slowing economy is having on the iron ore price, because China is trying to replace coal-fired power generation to clean up its shocking air pollution. The stated plan is to increase gas as a proportion of its energy consumption from 6% to at least 9% by 2017. That’s still going ahead, so demand volume will be there, but the Russian deal will mean the price has to come down.
In an interesting column last night, Anatole Kaletsky put the gas deal into the broader context of a potential grand axis between China and Russia, and said there were five reasons to worry about this:
“1. China is obviously a rising superpower while Russia is a declining one. This means that both will inevitably experience frictions with the hegemonic power that currently dominates global politics and economics. Since Russia is a declining power, its frictions will mainly involve encroachments on what Russia sees as its economic or territorial prerogatives by US allies in Europe (which is how Russians see the present confrontation over Ukraine). Since China is a rising power, it will create frictions by encroaching on US allies in the Pacific. In both cases, Russia and China will find themselves opposed by the US.
2. The decline of US dominance – not because the US is becoming economically or technologically weaker but because the American public is disillusioned with foreign adventures and is no longer willing to act as a global policeman. This means that US allies can no longer realistically rely on the US to deter Russia and China.
3. The natural complementarity between these two countries’ economic, military and even demographic characteristics. Russia has excess resources, but a shortage of manpower; China faces the opposite problems. Russia is strong in advanced military technologies, aeronautics and software, but very weak in mass production of consumer goods and electronic hardware. China has the converse strengths and weaknesses.
4. A strategic partnership between the world’s second largest and sixth largest economies (by purchasing power parity exchange rates) could attract other countries, especially in Asia, that were unable or unwilling to commit themselves to Western standards of political democracy, corporate governance, trade and financial openness or quality and safety of consumer products.
5. …and perhaps most importantly, a new element has suddenly been injected into super-power relationships by the events in Ukraine, combined with President Obama’s unexpected belligerence towards China during last month’s Asian trip. While Chinese and Russian leaders have historically distrusted, and even disliked, one another, they are starting to dislike the US even more. If President Obama continues to needle and provoke China, he will not just be making a historic blunder—he will be playing straight into Vladimir Putin’s strategy.”
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看了， 发现他对 geo politics也挺敏感的。
It's a ggod thing that he is, because international politics definitely can have short, medium and long term effects on investment decisions and investment returns.
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