Russian "REPKA"

[idianov]

The recent developments in Russia to create energy exchange to trade oil and gas with Europe and Asia in rubles has been largely ignored in the western financial news:

http://petersburgcity.com/news/busin...10/oil_prices/

This could be the beginning of the next Poom cycle.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Russian "REPKA"

I can understand trading in Euros ... but who's going to hold Ruble reserves

[idianov]

Re: Russian "REPKA"

Russia is #2 oil producer after Saudis producing around 9mb/d. Europe is importing 40% of oil and gas from Russia. China is also a good customer of Russia with tremendous FOREX reserves and voracious appetite for energy. Any country importing oil and gas from Russia will have to sell USD reserves to buy Rubles.

Can Russia do it? Looks like it can.

[EJ]

Re: Russian "REPKA"

I can understand trading in Euros ... but who's going to hold Ruble reserves

Apparently Putin thinks quite a few countries will..

MOSCOW, May 10 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a ruble-denominated oil and natural gas stock exchange should be set up in Russia.


Speaking before both chambers of parliament, cabinet members, and reporters, Putin said: "The ruble must become a more widespread means of international transactions. To this end, we need to open a stock exchange in Russia to trade in oil, gas, and other goods to be paid for with rubles."


"Our goods are traded on global markets. Why are not they traded in Russia?" Putin said.

[DemonD]

Re: Russian "REPKA"

Are we in a cold war again? North Korea shoots off 2 nuclear bombs, confirmed, and Russia and China want to just twiddle their thumbs. As dangerous as I think Iran is, the Iranian leadership seems to me to have a sense of Mutually Assured Destruction. They know that if they attack militarily, the world will basically go Sodom and Gamorra on them.

I get the feeling that Kim does not have this sensibility. North Korea scares me far more than anything else in the world. A nuke detonated at the Port of LA would be far, far, far more catostrophic than 9/11 from both a human loss level and would be far more disruptive from an economic standpoint.

Most dictators and regimes, I have a sense of why they do what they do. Kim... and his father... just strike me as idiotic madmen with no sense of direction.

And China and Russia's complicitness in this is... it adds an extra layer of complexity and sadness to the situation. For them to be dovish on North Korea speaks volumes on how much they want to stick it to the US. Are we headed towards a true WW3?

[PeterM]

Re: Russian "REPKA"

The whole Russian situation appears more worrying to me as generally reported in the MainStreamMedia.

Free media there pretty much gone. An unreported 'war on terror' (this time from Russian perspective) fought in Chetchnia. Investigating reporters shot.
Increasing tension with Georgia. Some news of 'illegal' Georgian immigrants being picked up randomly and deported from Moscow.

On the economic front. First most applauded that Putin was targeting the oil-oligarchs .... but increasingly you now see a squeeze on foreign interests.
Today Shell had to accept that Russia state oil will get sizeable share of Sachaline II interest.

I see Russia moving back towards the strong leader / repression system.