The Duran Podcast - Europe's Self Inflicted Energy Nightmare Deepens

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

Europe's Self Inflicted Energy Nightmare Deepens

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation with global energy. The price of oil is now at 100 or it's approaching 100. Actually, I believe it is 100. Brent crude is at 100. It may have even passed 100 by the time this recording is published. It has risen a lot over the past 20 days, the oil price. And we also have the e-eathe. use 21st sanctions package, which much of it is focused on oil. Actually, the oil price cap is the

foundation of that sanctions package. Other parts of that sanctions package turned out to be a big defeat for the European Union. They had to walk back many other provisions of that sanctions package in order to get it passed because the big part of it was the $44 price cap. Yes. On Russian oil. I don't know how that's going to be enforced. I don't know how that fits into the reality of the world we live in today. But for Kaya Callas and the European Union, reality is not so important. They prefer to live in Brussels' fantasy land.

Anyway, your thoughts. And just to add to that litany of treasurer. trouble, we now have further reports, including a long article, finally in the Financial Times, about the fact that European reserves, natural gas reserves, are extremely low this year, lower than they were in the summer of 2021, which if you remember, led to gas price hikes and shortages. Anyway, they're lower and the Europeans are struggling to buy LNG in the spot markets because Asian buyers are outbidding them by offering even higher prices.

So they're not able to fill up their gas reserves ahead of the winter. So we have problems with oil, which you've just talked about. This is crude oil. We've got problems with refined oils. There is a worldwide shortage of diesel oil and diesel oil prices are rising and it's made worse by the fact that the Russians are not exporting diesel at this time. There are shortages of aviation fuel which could affect eventually airline tickets and oil. of those things. And we have already seen a 50% rise in wholesale crisis for natural gas in the EU, with the real possibility that they could go much further, much higher in the autumn. This all looks extremely difficult. And the amazing thing is that European governments are completely oblivious to this, not just European governments, but the American government to some extent as well. Instead of planning and working to deal with this problem, they're mostly focused, as you absolutely rightly say, on sanctions against Russia, on reducing the oil price gap to

$44 for Russian oil, $44 against a price of $100, about it. barrel. I mean, it is ridiculous. Bear in mind that the Europeans themselves, from the 1st of January, I'm not supposed to be buying Russian. So they're trying to enforce a global price of $44 a barrel on third-party buyers. I mean, it is nonsense. But I mean, the mere act of doing that is going to create complications in the world maritime industry and in the global oil markets. And to add folly upon folly, Kayakalas, having got $44 a barrel price cap, now wants to use EU navies to start intercepting shadow fleet tankers, Russian shadow fleet tankers, as she calls them in the Indian Ocean. So ships carrying oil at higher prices to Indian refineries. And the Indians,

by the way, are now buying Russian oil at, you know, the highest quantities ever. All the oil refineries in India are now busy importing Russian oil, refining it, re-exporting some of it to Russia, by the way, exporting other parts of it to the EU. But Gaia Kallas wants to somehow interfere in this trade by seizing ships on the high seas in the Indian Ocean delivering oil to India. You cannot make this up. You couldn't make this up. It is actually, however, really happening.

Does she understand that all of the moves she's making are going to just send the price of oil higher? Rooters is reporting, yeah, Rooters, Roiders is reporting that in July, year on year, Russia's revenue from oil exports was up 60%. I mean, it's obviously not working, right? No, but it's become such an obsession now to try and to counter... It's weird. Yes. Nicole, I'm just saying it's performative. it's it's

reflex it's like a reflex now for them to just come up with these these sanctions I mean it's not like they're trying to accomplish anything anymore it's just kind of it's almost like a routine you know like you wake up in the morning you brush your teeth you for the EU it's just like okay now we're on sanctions package 22 let's put it together yes yes yes I mean one sanctions package after another you're getting the sense, again, that some EU countries sort of realize the absurdity of all of this. So Greece carves out, gets a carve out on ships carrying LNG, Russian LNG to third country, to third countries. Others have pushed back on fisheries and all sorts of other things.

somebody within the EU finds this all outrageous. In other words, found it outrageous that EU governments are protecting domestic industries and are protecting their own citizens. But instead, nonetheless, we still have to have this policy of doing everything we possibly can to disrupt energy markets at a time of an energy shortage. As I said, it's difficult to explain. the thinking behind all of this. It's difficult to understand why people cannot see that the effect of all of this is to make Russia richer,

which it is. I mean, it's increasing, as you rightly said, Russian export revenues. It's difficult to understand why they cannot see that it is not helping Ukraine in Dombas, where the Russians are continuing to advance and all across the front lines. But as you rightly said, they still feel they have to do it. They do it all the time.

21st sanctions packages. Wasn't the first one supposed to work. Yeah. Why do you need another 20? The key word that you said is feel. They feel like they have to do it. Yeah. Why do they feel like they have to do it?

It's obviously not producing any results. No. You've gone through 21. You're now on 22. They've already started the 22nd sections package. Why do they feel like they have to do this? I mean, are you telling me that throughout the entire European Union and the EU ambassadors and the different member states and the foreign ministers of the member states and the

staffs of the foreign ministers of the member states and the advisors and the think tanks, there's not one person to say, hold on a minute, guys, we've got through 21 of these. There's a global energy shortage. Hormuz is closed. Al-Mandab Strait is most likely going to be blockaded if not already blockaded. We're the customer, we're the buyer, we're not the supplier. There's no way that we're going to be able to dictate the price of oil with this price cap. and there is zero doubt that Russia is going to find a gazillion buyers of oil at whatever price

is out there in the market. So let's just stop this. There's no one to say this. Let's not waste our time anymore, guys. I mean, everybody in the room here about to pass this sanctions package, look, let's not waste our time. We're wasting our time. Let's stop.

The only person who used to talk like that to some extent was all done. and of course he's gone. I mean, they got rid of him because they didn't like listening to what he was saying. With him gone. They didn't like listening. The words that you use

are very indicative of the mentality, I think. I'm sorry, I have to point that out. You're saying they don't feel, they didn't like. Yes. Well, that's right. Well, they didn't like. They didn't feel.

They feel they have to do these things. I mean, reason and logic has long since gone out of the window in all of this, which makes it very difficult. And when you went through all of this, you're on the list of all the various people, you know, the governments, the think tanks, the bureaucracies, the civil servants,

the consultancies, the people within the EU, it's bureaucracy itself. Well, I mean, you answered your own question because clearly there aren't enough people pushing back against this. Or there aren't, in fact, there isn't anybody really pushing back against this. Because we see that it still continues to happen. As you rightly said, we've now had sanctions number 21.

So we have to move on to sanctions number 22. Berliners, yeah, Berlin or Zaitan? Zayton, yeah. Zatong, right? They put out a report where they figured out the cost that Germany is, is incurring what they're paying for gas. And when they had the long-term contracts with Russia, they were paying around $10.

Now it's gone up to around $65, $70. The cost for gas. And they have to get it now from various different sources, Norway, for example, and the United States. And as you said, it's bought on the spot market. They're no longer into cheap, reliable, dependable, long-term contracts with the country next door through a pipeline. And basically they calculated, look, Germany is deindustrializing because they're having to pay five to six to seven times more for the gas at once upon the time. They used to get at a very cheap rate.

It's all self-inflicted. But, you know, they can't turn back. They refuse to turn back. Well, they refuse to turn back. I mean, Berlin at Cytung, by the way, is a good newspaper, and one is grateful to them for writing this. But it's worth pointing out that we have been saying this for the last four and a half years. I mean, we have. But, I mean, it's obvious anybody sits down and looks at this, can see it.

Didn't we say in February 2022, when they suspended the Nord Street pipeline, that it was going to lead to. to the deindustrialization of Germany and ultimately of Europe. Didn't we just discuss it a short time ago when we did a program about the problems that Volkswagen and other German auto industry companies are having? People, it is obvious. Are they trying to hurt to their own countries? I come back to this. I have some theories, some guesses as to why they continue to do this.

with regards to to this being some sort of deliberate action. But I don't know, even my own, my own thinking, my own theories, I just can't, I can't, I can't convince myself, right? So, you know, why would they want to do this to their country? Why would Germany want to pay six, seven times more for energy? Why would they want their businesses to close down? Why would they create all these disruptions? Why would they push towards de-industrialization?

I mean, I can understand the globalist agenda and the globalist thinking, but even that is extreme. But I have to ask it, is there some sort of deliberate action at play here? I mean, because it's almost too stupid to not be deliberate, right? A lot of people ask this question, and there are a lot of people out there who think this, that this is all a deliberate thing to somehow crash the European economies to create some kind of, and the Western economies, it creates a wave of chaos which these people believe they can ride. The point I've always made is if they really believe that, then they're even madder than they are if they're just doing this for all the stupid reasons that we've said.

because you can't ever ride a wave of chaos in that way. To be honest, and I thought about this myself many times, because as I said, there does seem to be something so strange about this, so contrary to what we see usually from governments, I think that these people are just in the grip of an obsession. they started this thing back in 2022. They were absolutely convinced that Russia was a house of cards, that it would fall over almost immediately.

And it is impossible for them to accept after all the damage they have already done to themselves, that they are wrong. So as people who find themselves in that kind of mental trap, often do, they just come back and insist on doing even more and more and more, continuing to tell themselves that Russia is a house of cards. And if you just put a little bit more pressure, if you start seizing tankers in the Indian Ocean, if you start opposing price caps of $44 when oil prices are $100 a barrel and rising, that somehow is going to be the silver bullet,

that is going to kill Russia, defeat Russia, prove that what we were saying, that it was a House of Cards all along was true and justify all of the terrible destruction and havoc in the European economies that we have already seen. And of course, the other thing that is there behind all of this is that they're saying to themselves, when we do break Russia, that. There'll be lots of money for us all to make. We will all be able to go in. We will impose the third, was it the EU law that says that we be able to break up gas

from and not roll. Right. The third development package or something. Package and something of that. We'll be able to do that. We'll be able to get the raw materials. We have the cheap labor. We'll make lots and lots.

of money like we thought we were going to do in the 90s and the early 2000s. And eventually, finally, at the end of it all, there is this enormous price, and that's what we must keep in our minds. So I think that is probably more likely what this is all about. Yeah, at the end of the rainbow, there's a whole lot of gold. There's a crock of gold. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, for Calus, it's even more than just breaking up a gas product. I mean, she's publicly said that they would break up Russia into six, seven different countries. Yes, yes. Which for her is something that she's very, very, very much committed to. Oh, absolutely. She's got this small country type of complex. Yes. And she wants Russia to be broken into a small country.

You can tell she's got this complex. Absolutely. Yeah. She's not the only one, though. I mean, you find all kinds of people who talk like that. But definitely she believes it, she wants it. Yeah, just in final note, it's the reason that they continue on this path, or one of the reasons that they keep on doing this is that the actions that they take today,

they believe it's going to give them money in the future, a lot of power and a lot of money in the future. But it doesn't hurt them today in the present either. I mean, the people of Europe get hurt. Exactly, yes. The citizens get hurt. The citizens feel the inflation. The people can't buy homes. The energy costs are passed down to the businesses, to the everyday citizen.

They don't feel any of this. Correct. So they can just keep on going on. This is absolutely right. For them, this is all very theoretical. Ursula and Carlos are not going to be subject to an open. election and even other European leaders who are, we've seen what's happened to elections in Europe today.

The elections in Europe have become increasingly hollowed out. They become unreal. Politics has become unreal. So politicians right across the European Union, what they're basically focused on is keeping the EU centre happy because that's where the money comes from. And that's where they will finally get the nice jobs that they're looking for in the future. Kirstarmer already is talking about wanting to become Secretary General of NATO, for example. The illusion of democracy is very powerful.

It's a very powerful tool that the West yields. Yes. It protects them. Anyway, all right, we'll end it there. The durand.orgas.com. We're on Rumble, Telegram, and X. We are also on substack and go to the Duran shop. We have a summer special, 25% of all merch.

All those links in the description box down below. Take care.