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Alexander Stahel 🌻 Profile picture
@BurggrabenH
Nov 4, 2021 • 11 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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Let's look at the EU gas situation (ex Serbia, Ukraine, Norway, CH). Overall, the seasonal %-fill for EU members (below) is lowest in a decade (yellow line). That will not change as we show below. Train left the station.

#NaturalGas #Europe
Meanwhile, the withdrawals of natural gas are coming in seasonally the earliest in a decade! Again, yellow line. If that trajetory (in GWh/d) remains, EU gas prices will hit record soon again. IMHO, a likely. We will see.
So is the gas coming overproportionally in? Answer: no, overall injection rate (in GWh/d) is in fact seasonally low. Only 2011 & 2012 were lower. However, ...
back in 2011 & 2012 etc., EU used a lot less natural gas (i.e. working gas volume).
Were is the gas seasonally missing? Answer: Austria, Germany (both due to Gazprom), the Netherlands but also Italy. France? Fine, after all they are mainly using nuclear energy :-). Below the Netherlands!
Here is Austria: 56% is the lowest. Only Ukraine (which is gas starved geopolitically by Russia) has less. Austria matters a lot. With Baumgarten, it is gas hub for Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) or 80 million people. Poland looks fine (96%), but rest is low, between 75-86%.
Denmark is also low. Not dramatic at 81% but worth mentioning because it was one of the reasons why the EU runs low on gas. Danish offshore wind farms did not deliver this summer as expected. It just had a below wind season. Period.
Germany is EU's largest gas consumer. It's fill % (below) is seasonally lowest in 10 years. Gazprom has not filled its German "Gazprom storage". I am not competent to speculate why. Is it geopolitics or simply a gas production issue at Gazprom? More insight welcome!
Since the spike in EU gas prices, VVP mentioned he will inject come 9 Nov. One measure is the injection point. Data goes back to 2014. Never been so low! Why? The NS2 pipeline approval in Germany? Not sure it is that easy.
I just don't see the fix in the coming weeks looking at seasonal injection patterns (in GWh/d). Does not make sense to suddenly have gas that is seasonally needed (Russian winter). But maybe I am wrong. Maybe Gazprom can inject 40TWh at will. Certainly no Russian gas expert.
If they can, they should start asap because the weather forecast is for a cold December in Germany. That will not help restrain withdrawal rates. In sum, I don't see the fix for EU gas prices. We will see.

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More from @BurggrabenH

Alexander Stahel 🌻 Profile picture
Apr 3
On this platform, certain perma bulls keep pushing a bullish crude narrative based on relative U.S. inventories—day after day, for three years now.

Their logic: Total U.S. crude inventories (including the SPR) are at 838 million barrels (orange line), 200 million barrels below the 10-year average → bullish!

Yet, inventories keep falling, and prices remain stuck in a range. Clearly, they are wrong.

1/9 @UrbanKaoboy @Iris62655179 @BrentRuditLeoImage
The problem with their logic?

a) The U.S. is no longer the marginal importer of crude oil—Asia is (or was).

b) U.S. inventories are artificially high on a 10-year average due to the shale boom, which took off in 2014. Shale growth and Covid distort the data, keeping inventories (ex SPR) elevated. So any 5- or 10-year comparison is meaningless—period.

2/n US Crude Oil Inventory ex SPRImage
Including SPRs, the picture looks more normalised - but not tight. But does the US really need 700mb of strategic reserves in 2025? I don't think so.

3/n US Crude Inv incl SPRs Image
Read 9 tweets
Alexander Stahel 🌻 Profile picture
Mar 23
Yesterday, I shared a few thoughts that I’d like to expand on, especially given how volatile the current tariff landscape under this admin has become.

Navigating it isn’t just difficult—it’s nearly impossible to avoid missteps. Hopefully some traders will expand on my thoughts...

1/n
What do we know?

As at 23 March 2025, Comex copper price in New York is trading at 14% premium to LME in London. Buying a tonne of copper in NY costs $11,213 versus 9,842 in London, $1,371 per tonne more than in London.

2/n Image
Why is that? Because of tariff FEARS, not tariffs.

Traders are hedging future risk of potential tariffs on all forms of the raw material, such as cathodes, concentrates, ores, and even scrap. But there aren't such tariffs in place for copper yet (unlike alumnium).

3/n
 fastmarkets.com/insights/us-ta…
Read 9 tweets
Alexander Stahel 🌻 Profile picture
Mar 22
A few thoughts on copper.

The current Comex price action in the U.S. is basically a Trump tariff trade mirage and is otherwise as misleading of fundaments as the May 2024 price action of which I warned on multiple occasions.

1/n $/pound Image
In May 2024 however, U.S. price action was more in synch with London. But it didn't reflect weak Chinese housing & construction fundamentals which has been 15-30% of GLOBAL copper use for the past two decades. Today, U.S. prices trade as if borders close tomorrow.

2/n Comex - LME arb in $/tImage
Unlike May 2024, copper blue chips like $FCX, however, do not buy the rally. So at least it seems that the equity market understands the tariff aspect of the copper price mirage.

3/n Change in % Image
Read 15 tweets
Alexander Stahel 🌻 Profile picture
Nov 3, 2024
Let's talk China: Episode 5 of 7

In this episode, we discuss China's 2nd of 5 economic paths it can follow.

This episode will also focus on Xi the leader. To understand Xi means to better understand China's economic path forward.

1/n #China Image
Can China replace malinvestment with more consumption?

Answer: Maybe a little bit & over a long time frame, but President Xi does not want to focus on this path. Instead, he wants to implement his socialist utopia.

2/n Image
Yes, China’s rising entrepreneurs were welcomed by the Communist Party for at least two decades. But all of that is in reverse.

Under Xi Jinping, China has moved full circle: from low growth & low freedom in the pre-reform era back towards something similar today.

3/n Image
Read 7 tweets
Alexander Stahel 🌻 Profile picture
Oct 29, 2024
Let's talk China, shall we? Episode 4 of 7

In this episode, we discuss China's investment-led growth model & the first of 5 economic paths China can follow.

As you would expect, also this episode is full of Chinese characteristics!

1/n #China Image
Starting in 1990s, China’s economic engine has been fueled by capital investments.

Its central planning bureau defined GDP targets, picked winners and drove growth from debt-driven capital formations (green line).

2/n Image
Has any other nation tried this before, ever? Not to our knowledge.

We checked at ALL G20 economies and their respective growth models for past 70 years. 45% capital formation share is a unique experiment in economic history.

3/n Image
Read 6 tweets
Alexander Stahel 🌻 Profile picture
Oct 20, 2024
Let's talk China, shall we?

Over the past 3 years, we made some controversial calls in commodities. We decided to exit our oil holding in Aug 2022, we went short natgas in early 2023 or called for copper to go lower in May.

Why? Because we have an egde on China.

1/n #China Image
Yes, mainstream media picked up pace on important issues facing China today.

Most came to understand that the property bubble burst, that the economy is slowing, that geopolitical frictions are emerging, that there is too much debt.

But do they understand the underlying forces that drive these issues?

2/n
While the majority of these facts are known, most Western observers, investors & industrialists do not fully appreciate their interdependence & the structural changes that are unfolding in China today.

For too long, the CCP had their back.

3/n
Read 10 tweets

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