A geopolitical state of emergency?

As tensions between Iran and the US intensify, Russian mounts fresh attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, and  President Trump softens his stance on the US  grab for Greenland, France´s President Macron has warned Europe about a false sense of security, even a state of emergency.

In this episode, Richard speaks to our guests in front of a live audience at E-world in Essen, Germany, about the outlook for Europe's supply and demand under these ongoing geopolitical rumblings: Listen to a discussion on the most important threats to Europe's energy security. 

Host: Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News

Guests: 

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group

Hanns Koenig - Managing Director, Aurora Energy Research EMEA

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel

Contributor: Mai Rosner - Investigative Reporter, Montel News

Editor: Oscar Birk

Producer: Sarah Knowles

Transcript

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 0:06

Hello listeners and welcome to Plugged In - the Energy News podcast from Montel, where we bring the latest news issues and changes happening in the energy sector. It's that time of year again, we're at the energy trade for E-World in Germany where some 30,000 people across Europe's energy sector have gathered. It's a lively, upbeat atmosphere inside the four walls of the Essen Messe, as Delicates meet, cut deals, talk and collaborate. But outside, beyond the city, beyond the continent, the geopolitical events that have set 2026 off to a turbulent start rumble on. As tensions between Iran and the US Mount and Russia launches its latest wave of attacks on Ukraine's power system. In this episode, I sit down with a panel of experts here at E-World to discuss the outlook for Europe's supply and demand as we trundle through 2026 and why, if and when peace finally comes to Ukraine, it will have a power grid that will be the envy of Europe. But first, I'm pleased to be joined by Montel's investigative reporter Mai Rosner. A warm welcome to the Plugged in podcast, Mai.

Mai Rosner - Investigative Reporter, Montel News: 1:13

Thank you very much, Richard. Happy to be here.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 1:15

You've been an investigative reporter for many years. How would you assess the current geopolitical situation, especially with regard to global energy market?

Mai Rosner - Investigative Reporter, Montel News: 1:23

Well, I think we're living in unprecedented times. You know, we all kind of woke up four years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine and realized that this enormous dependence we have on each other for energy is also a vulnerability that can be weaponized by hostile dictators, by hostile countries. And we woke up to that reality in a pretty rude way. And we're now living in a world post that realization where we have to be wary about the kinds of dependencies that we're building with the United States. Behaving less like an ally than it's ever been with Donald Trump threatening to take over Greenland with the kind of force removal of Venezuela's leader Nicholas Maduro. We're living in a world where the rules seem to not apply and our energy system is incredibly interconnected and. What that means is that it's being pressure tested in a way where all these vulnerabilities are being exposed on where we rely on each other, on where the money from these commodities being traded is funding hostile educators or, you know, countries with other geopolitical interests. So all of this is being exposed. But at the same time, we're also learning about how flexible the energy system can be. And I think that was a big surprise for many people. If you had told most people who work in the energy world five years ago that Germany would be free of Russian gas, I think they would've laughed in your face. So we are also, in times that are, it feels change is accelerated. And we have to remain flexible and independent as much as we can.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 3:01

There are lots of, it was good you pointed out some bright spots, but there are lots of dark clouds on the horizon. What are the biggest concerns?

Mai Rosner - Investigative Reporter, Montel News: 3:10

I think one major concern is that, we learned, as I said, that, having a energy dependence on a single nation, a single government is a dangerous place to be. And I do fear that Europe is repeating mistakes of the past by promising Donald Trump that they will buy enormous amounts of American LNG more than they're even able to consume. I think that the risk of creating those kinds of dependencies, again, are very high. I also think that underlying all of this is an accelerating climate crisis, and that poses enormous difficulties as well. And it is really important that we safeguard Europe's commitment to the rollout of renewable energy, even in the face of big oversupply of LNG and LNG supply, glut and the push by the United States to get Europe to consume more and more American gas. And I think that there's this, real risk also of this more conflict breaking out in the Middle East. We see this tension with Iran, with Venezuela, with China and Russia. There's just increasing tension and I think we're in this place of very high risk for more breakout of conflict. And that obviously has implications for energy systems and even the sale of energy has implications for the funding of these different conflicts and war around the world. So that's another risk that's on the horizon and that one that I hope is not realized.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 4:41

Yeah, absolutely. I share that sentiment entirely, Mai, Thank you very much.

Mai Rosner - Investigative Reporter, Montel News: 4:45

Thank you, Richard.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 4:47

Let's hear now from our panel of experts. And what they believe to be Europe's greatest impending challenges for its energy sector. I'm pleased to be joined by three good friends of the podcast, Henning Gloystein, managing director of Energy and Resources at Eurasia Group. Warm. Welcome to you Henning.

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 5:10

Thank you very much. Great to be back.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 5:12

Hanns Koenig, managing director of Aurora Energy Research. Warm welcome to you. Welcome back. And of course, Tobias Federico, chief Analysts at Montel. Welcome all of you. Now we've got a lot to talk about, A lot to squeeze in 30 minutes. Tobias, if I'd like to start with you if I may. We spoke at the beginning of January just after Trump's attack on Venezuela and the rest of his president. And the impact this was gonna have on oil and gas markets. What's changed since then, do you think? And how have global markets fared over the last month?

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 5:43

Actually what's quite interesting, I think global market really moved back to fundamentals more as we had a quite huge dominance of a cold wave all over Europe when it comes to natural gas. Oil was quite calm and even natural gas, higher prices came down recently compared to what we had in febrile. We are in a situation where, first of all, we see a certain oversupply on a natural gas side in the next years coming. So that the impact of that, what has happened in January when we made our beginning of the year podcast was much lesser than expected. So the market is not super nervous about, let's say a volume risk in that sense. Might be a bit nervous from the what else could happen thing. So the quite erratic behavior of Trump, but in the end, situation has calmed down a bit or changed back to fundamentals, I would say.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 6:33

Okay. So it's a combination maybe of the weather and geopolitics here that to be driving.

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 6:39

If you were to ask me, I would say 80- 20, 80% fundamental drivers.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 6:43

Exactly. And normally, sometimes over the weekend, we seem to be getting some big announcements. Hanns, what's your view here? What's what do you see as the major drivers at the moment?

Hanns Koenig - Managing Director, Aurora Energy Research EMEA: 6:52

Basically I agree with Tobias and I find it really remarkable that, if if you had told me half a year ago that in early 26 we're in a world where the US kidnap the president of the country with the largest oil reserves globally. We might be debating a US attack on Iran. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is still going on. And nervousness in oil and gas, in all these kind of things is pretty low. I would've I would've been very surprised, frankly. And I think. What this might be a reflection of is that two things. Fundamentally on the supply side, I think we're we brought a lot of new capacities online already, and there's much more coming in the years to come. So we are rather heading for a, for markets that's a market that's long in oil and gas. And that also in the reaction of the American shale drillers on the oil and gas side too. Venezuelan exports being announced to come back to the world market. They're not happy about this at all, right? Because it's bad for prices rather than good for price. On the other hand, of course the world economy isn't performing super as super strongly in China, in Europe. And so also the demand side is most subdued than than what we might have expected. A year or two ago, and then those taken together give you a quite relaxed by demand balance and this relaxed overall market despite this geopolitical turmo.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 8:03

And how do you see what's happening in the Middle East? You mentioned Iran. If I'd said to you six or eight months ago, even the E-World last year, and said, Hanns, exactly the scenarios that you've just highlighted. And the markets hardly reacted. What would your reaction have been then? I mean, it's oddly fathomable

Hanns Koenig - Managing Director, Aurora Energy Research EMEA: 8:20

I wouldn't be, I would've been surprised, frankly. And at the only way I can explain it is that fundamentally the market is quite relaxed if you look at the quantities and and if we were in a tighter world, there would've been a much a much bigger reaction. Both to the cold spell. And to to a threat of an American attack on Iran.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 8:37

So it's because we're well supplied. What's your take?

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 8:39

Yeah. Before we totally agree on absolutely everything which we do but there is a few things you can hold. So if you start with oil, you can see, and we actually already saw that mid last year when the straight of Hormuz really was at risk of being shut down. That's when Brent moved to $80 per barrel. Now we don't really, nobody really expects the Suez to fully shut down. Venezuela. Yeah, there's been a few ruptures, Vitol is already trading its oil, so there's actually not been disruption and that's why we haven't gone that much higher on Brent prices. And and then of course got the fundamentals of an oversupplied market. However, I think for Europe, 2026 actually looks quite tight. When we just at Eurasia Group, we revised our forecast that initially said that 2026 would already be quite oversupplied in terms of natural gas coming in from the LNG side and because of the global oil markets creation. And while that is still our view, especially for 2027, this year, I think it's become quite tight because of course it has been cold and for quite a long time. The situation in Ukraine really is brutal. And yeah, I was there at the start of the bombing campaign in Kyiv in November. And it's still ongoing. I'm out and I'm happy we're here, but there's they're freezing. There's no power. And that means that the Ukraine has to be supplied with electricity and natural gas via the European Union. So that's tighter. And then, this is probably good news, but on the demand side, there's actually real movement now. If you look at the German official data that was released last week, the fabricated metals consumption in Germany in the last two months of 2025 was 30% higher than the Euros. And, processed metals is energy intensive stuff, and you can see that in CO2 permit demand the electricity consumption from the heavy industry is really going up now because the stuff that we were starting to talk about on this podcast year ago, so the German spending program has turned from a plan into actual spending. Because if you look at the order books of the heavy industry, hit Down the Road of iron and metal and all those. They've really jumped. And the only sector that's not doing well there is the auto sector. They're still a bit screwed. But on the demand side of heavy industry, you're really seeing a demand side, and that's why we think that's tightening up as well. And then lastly, on the LNG front, I suspect this is no knowledge, but I suspect that some of the LNG additions that have been announced with this year will be delayed because LNG sector globally has a terrible track record of ality. And so I reckon this year is still quite tight, not a supply risk. Yeah, so it's but it's a bit tight. And of course the German storage is or below 30% now it's still cold,

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 11:06

but yeah. So it's, there's a little bit of disagreement between you and, yeah, a little minor differences. Maybe Hanns will come back to that. But when you are saying, this rise in demand from German industry, is that also because you're starting to see maybe an increase in preparedness for tensions in terms of military tensions?

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 11:24

Yeah, I mean it's, the defense budget's gone up. The infrastructure spending is going up. Deutche Ban has a defense budget of a mid-sized nation. They're making tracks all tanks, but they, it's like, there, there is a lot of spending going on into these energy intensive industries. Making ammunition, submarines, airplanes missile fence system and building tracks. And I think that will continue. And it's not just Germany. Poland has a bigger per capital infrastructure budget for this year than Germany. And the Netherlands, they're spending a lot as well. So the whole, so Baltic and North Sea Coast, we think industrial looks quite holy.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 11:57

Hanns, I see you're nodding your head. Do you agree with that view?

Hanns Koenig - Managing Director, Aurora Energy Research EMEA: 11:59

I think given my point was rather given where we stand with the storages below 30%, I think prices are remarkably low. If we'd seen, if we'd seen the pri the current storage levels two or three years ago I think we would've seen much higher prices than than what we're seeing now than what we're seeing now. And that is where, that is the more to do with the relatively well supplied market overall, but of course we're gonna have a challenge filling, refilling the German gas storages over, over the summer. Just getting physically enough in will be will be a massive task. And of course also the market is not necessarily sending the right signals, right? Because the because the summer, winter spread is is inverted, could remain inverted if there's so much demand in the summer. And then there was the question, what does the regulator do to actually enforce a filling because. We need the gas storages to be ready to be welfare well felt in the wi in the winter.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 12:45

But I'd like to move on to a point that you raised Henning and ask you Tobias about it. The Strait of Hormuz. There's been a lot of talk about this. Is that, has that concerned the ease now in terms of what's happening the past few weeks that they could be closed off? Or is it, is this still a real possibility?

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 13:01

I would say there's nothing, which is not a real possibility honestly in the world now with the geopolitical chaos, I would say. But the discussion about the straight of Hormuz right now it's quite interesting because we are mostly back in the years we have been focused due to oil. Now we are focused on that due to natural gas and LNG transport as Qatar is the, one of the biggest suppliers for Europe. I think it's the second one, or first of all, I'm not sure if it's US or Qatar, but nevertheless, the thing is, if that street would be closed, you would really have a supply risk. If it's the situation is really, it's a big question. Who could close it? Would US close it? No. Would Iran close it? Yes, maybe. But I think their corporation with Qatar is too high that it's quite likely that it's going to be closed. So I think it will not be closed, and so therefore it's always a threat somehow if there are some tensions. But in the end I'm very sure that we will not have a supply issues.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 13:59

Okay. What's your take Henning?

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 14:01

Yeah. I actually, during the last summer, I heard a quite a big swinging all trader. He was just saying, now the spice must flow. And the reason is, the United States has a full aircraft carrier fleet in Australia warmers now. They will bomb it open if they have to. So our view is actually that Iran, if they try that, they might, they will, they can blow up a tank or two, but the US and its allies have enough naval capacity to export tankers through that. So you'd have a, the risk of maybe one or two tankers and, the headlines and the images the burning. But the oil supply would actually still be maintained. All that said, we actually have a call still despite the talks over the last couple of days between the US and Iran in Oman that the US will strike before April 30th. Now until last week, our view was that they were imminent. We, he strikes, and that we've now pushed towards the latter end of this outlook. But our view is still that the United States wants to interfere and they've got more than 45,000, highly trained and well-equipped soldiers there. And if they don't do anything with them, that's a huge waste of money

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 14:59

for sure. But that, that risks a regional escalation and military conflict where, which could have wide ranging, wide range impact, you think Hanns?

Hanns Koenig - Managing Director, Aurora Energy Research EMEA: 15:09

Absolutely. Just to add to the point on on, not goes to the strait of Hormuz, I think the reason Iran is not doing it is because if the US aren't yet said or weren't yet yet set on on intervening in Iran that would very likely trigger that intervention. And over the past couple of months, the Iranian regime has been rather trying to deescalate with the Americans and rather been trying to keep them keep them away from from moving in. Because looking at the Venezuelan example, that's probably not something that could, that wouldn't be something that would end a terribly well for. But of course if the US intervenes and to be very open here. This is above my pay grade. I think this is the Henning is much much better position to comment there. But of course then to some extent, all beds are off. And there could, this could be a very short surgical thing where where the Iranien leadership gets decapitated and there's no wider regional escalation. It could also be just the opposite, right? And and that if the surgical strike doesn't work and we go into a protracted conflict in the region, and of course the even bigger question is then what even assuming the intervention is successful, what does that mean for the relationships of all the other countries in the region among each other? Because if you take Qatar, if you take the Emirates if you take the various other places they are not naturally friends with each other. They're they're getting along right now because they have a common enemy. And it's like they can, everyone can agree that Iranians are a threat at which should we should play nice. But if they are gone, I think we would see a whole set of additional conflict break breaking out between the various Arab countries.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 16:34

And that's of course a quite a major danger here and could have far reaching consequences. Tobias, I wanna move to maybe a sort of a colder part of the world. Greenland, Trump seems to have backed off the Greenland slightly after announcing he won't be taking it by force. I was seeing comments being made today on Tuesday by the President Macron saying it's not off the table. What's your view?

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 16:57

I think it will never be really off the table. If you take a view on the globe and usually, or if you see a map, we usually see two dimensional maps. But then you have a globe and you rotated. You see how close the distance between US slash Canada and Russia slash China is over the Arctic. And back in the days we said there will never be a war about the Arctic, but over the Arctic and Greenland plays a crucial role, first of all, in somehow in Trump calls it the Golden Dome, A, a protection shield against a potential attack from Russia. What we also had back the days in the Cold Wars first. But secondly, if you look then, and now I'm speaking a war about the Arctic. Who has access to the Arctic Shelf and what nations have access to this. The US only has a tiny little fraction of that. Russia, of course, quite big. But then we have Norway, we have Denmark slash Greenland, and we have Canada which are all having a major share in that potential resource rich area, which unfortunately with the climate change can be utilized much, much more. So I think the discussion around Greenland or generally around the Arctic will not be over. Yeah. But it's not that potentially by force taking it.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 18:17

Henning, your view on Greenland, is it a red herring or is there a real threat that, that could be taken over by the US?

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 18:23

Trump we know want´s Greenland and his main reason is not what's often touted that, the mineral reserves. But the main thing is he wants, see, he said it, he wants to be the first US president in a century, expands US territory. And then you have part of his government that, that has this hemisphere thinking it's in the national security strategies in the National Defense Strategy was, which was just released two weeks ago. Where they see the Americas as their hemisphere. And Venezuela is a play in this. The Canada demands are a play in this, Panama threats are places. We actually think that Trump at some point that's try have a go at Panama as well. He says, he says to his cabinet, we built the canal. It's ours. I think that's important to keep in that in mind there. And we

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 19:03

the Donroe Doctrine.

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 19:04

And we have to accept that well, no, we don't have to accept it, but we have to acknowledge that. The US has, and Trump has that desire. And so I, I totally agree saying that this is not over, the only thing that seems to be over is on the trying to send soldiers there. So we know during Davos basically on his way to Davos, Trump changed his mind because there was a host of factors that happened that prevented it from them. So there was a couple of Republican senators who said, if you do this, we will switch sides and the Democrats need 20. Republican senates, senators to move over and then hit and start impeachment programs again. So he is a bit worried about that. Wall Street pulled him and said the treasury market is a bit wobbly here. Yeah. The Debasement trade is a bit of a fear, and that's why Scott Bessent Davos went all out and said all these fake news about selling the dollars is nonsense, but it, there wasn't risk. And the Pentagon gave him a call and said, there's actually a risk that if you order a military attack on a NATO ally that significant parts of the US armed forces refuse order. And so that comment, and then the Europeans said no as well. How rude of those.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 20:04

Yeah, exactly. So that was why, maybe why the plane was late landing. That he had all these phone calls to deal with. Yeah. Absolutely. But so if it were to happen, it's not off the table. If it were to happen it, that's the final straw for that lines that transatlantic lines.

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 20:17

So I actually I'm afraid I normally try me optimistic about things, but on this one. We've talked to quite a lot of European defense ministries recently. They all said, we can't assume Article five to be live at Stein. And no one says it's dead because you don't want to pull it dead yet, but you have to assume it. So you can hope that you're wrong and that the Americans have still come and support a European ally. But you must assume that it's not functioning,

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 20:39

but that glazes into Putin's hands, does it not? Hanns,

Hanns Koenig - Managing Director, Aurora Energy Research EMEA: 20:41

yeah, absolutely. And it's all a, it is all a matter of timing, right? So I think the estimates of the German armed forces and military intelligence are that Russia could be ready to launch another invasion after the current one in 2028 or 2029. And now it's basically a race against the time for Europe to get ready for that to counter that in some way without the Americans, because I completely agree with Henning. We can no longer rely on article five being it being fulfilled and even if there's a new American government, there will be substantial structural pressures in America to reduce the involvement in Europe. So Europe will have to will have to learn to stand on its own feet. And that I think, is going to require a bunch of decisions which we're not yet ready to make. So we're now re-arming Convent Europe. An early discussion about some kind of nuclear deterrent sharing in Europe is starting. But if you look at the, what the actual deterrents look like, the Americans basically, the British have basically American bombs. And there's good reason to believe that the Americans could prevent the Bridgeford youth from using them if they wanted to. The French have an extremely limited arsenal anyway. Governing nukes at a European level is probably a nightmare. I, just to put one out there, I do think we need a discussion about a German nuclear Terence.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 21:55

Very interesting. Keeping with the subject of Russia and to move on to the Ukraine here. We are approaching the four year anniversary. So what have we learned really Tobias, the last, from the war of the last four years? In terms of energy supply particular,

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 22:10

I think we've learned a lot as, it's my typical in was, energy supply. What we've learned in the last four years was that, we in Europe can move quite quickly if we want to. We really change our supply from a pipeline driven towards LNG who focused, not mostly driven. Sometimes it's price driven. I think still in our mind discussion we had before regarding the gas storage levels in Germany. We still are very limited on focus on the gas storage, which is one part of the equation. But still on that same supply side, we still have LNG. So we can adapt, the adaptation was paid at a very high price, literally so very high gas prices at then power prices, and a very high inflation rate. And that plays into role. But now we are moving completely backward in the sense of we are going towards a situation of an over supply in natural gas. So that is one thing. What we should have learned. What we haven't learned here is that we should diversify our energy sources. And we just changed from one dictator to a wannabe dictator, which is then from the US. And that is something we haven't really learned to really diversify ourself. So that is a bit of a pity. And we are always speaking about we need to become more resilient. But actually I don't see it. We have tendencies right now and we are not there yet. And you mentioned the time pressure of a potential military in invasion up to 28, 29. That timeframe is too short to really get resilience as we are mostly focused in our economic wellbeing in general, rather than a military economy like Russia is. So I think the focus right now is okay. We coped it more or less, but we are not prepared for the next potential thing coming up military wise, but also energy wise.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 23:59

But also you've got a situation of hybrid war as well, actually ongoing, pretty much since 2014, where we've had a massive increase. The last of course was the Berlin outage, and maybe you could say, but that was a, was that a situation of the hybrid war? Could you say that?

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 24:13

Say we don't really know because the group who made it, the bucan roof, we don't know who they are. They're looking for it, and I think they're paying 1 million euro for any tip. Okay. Which was quite a lot honestly.

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 24:22

So those listeners know something,

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 24:25

it will pass it on. Exactly.

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 24:26

Yeah. Pass. Now the thing is really I think when it comes to hybrid warfare, Russia is our master in that sense. They already know how to do it. And, but that's a old way, which already came from the Soviet Times. Playing with insecurity with kinetic attack. And to Berlin played a bit into that role. If it was really Russia driven or it was a far left wing group, that is one thing, but at least playing with the public opinion, the Russians are really having that war already going on. And in some parts we see when we look into rave tracks in Poland, for example, all the disruption of communication of the German railway one and a half years ago. These are all signs that this hybrid warfare is going on in general. Energy specific, we have all these fishing research vessels in the Baltic Sea always around wind farms that's quite interesting, or at least under sea cables. So we are at war at a hybrid.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 25:28

And I think you've got also you, we've seen attacks on offshore wind farms, hybrid attacks. We've seen a Norwegian reservoir down being emptied when the valve was emptied, so these are incidents that are out there, but a clear strategy as well from Russia going right back to Soviet Times has been bombarding and annihilating the energy systems, whether it be power plants, whether it be substations, whether it be power lines or grid setting. You were back there. You mentioned you were back there in November. Can you describe for us what about the, some of the experience, what you saw? What you experienced?

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 26:01

Yeah, it's good that you bring that up because I actually think it's somewhat, it's in the media now quite heavily, but it's not wide enough understood what the Russians have done here beyond the actual invasion itself. I don't think it's ever happened that a nation actively takes out the entire civil energy infrastructure of another nation. I don't think that's actually happened ever. And it's and that's what they've done. They've taken out 40 thermal power stations, all the compressor stations, all the grids they've taken out attack the gas storage sites and the gas production side. So it's a systematic attack. And I was there right at the start, so it was the last week of decent weather in, in Kyiv and it was quite pleasant. And at the first three days everything was sign shops, so open, kids are going to school. It was like almost normal, apart there was quite a lot of air raids at the time because they were starting that wave. And now, we have an analyst in Kyiv they have no fresh water, no heating, no electricity, heat for up to 20 hours a day. And it is really cold there. And so it's, fixing that will take years. There's a positive story about it as well. Ukraine, we know this, they will build the most modern grid possibly in the world because they have to start from scratch. So it'll be a decentralized, super modern power grid. Very smart. And so I, I think that's gonna be something to watch. It's gonna be huge business opportunity for all the companies that are here. But we need peace first, and we don't have that at this stage. I think maybe as a last thought on this, if you'd look at this step, take a step back on a European level, Europe is under siege, and we have that as a top risk for this year, but it's under siege from the, from eastern border because of the ongoing Russian in the invasion and the hybrid warfare that we're just discussing. It is now under siege from the United States, again in that national security document in the National Defense Strategy. Europe is picked out as a target European Union and to support the patriotic parties of Europe, which weaken the EU. That is official US policy now. And they're threatened Danish territory. And and you can see that in the rise and the of the populist and European parties across Europe that are supported by Russia and the United States now. So we're being picked up by the two by Russia, by the United States. The Chinese are also taking advantage of this because we're an economic competitor for them. So we're almost like the third world here now because we've got the two. Major superpowers. They're fighting for dominance globally. And then you've got the Russians. So everyone's picking on Europe at the moment, and it's a tough pace. And that's, this resilience thing is important there.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 28:20

So that, that's what I'd like to end on if you like. We have to unfortunately bring this to a close, but if I can say it is in, it is hard to end on a no optimism, I think in what we're talking about here. But if we can say. If you had a wishlist for, politicians, either at the national EU level in terms of increasing resilience preparedness for what we're gonna face in the years to come, what would that be, Hanns?

Hanns Koenig - Managing Director, Aurora Energy Research EMEA: 28:42

So it's a long one, but I'm just gonna focus on one thing and that is actually getting Ukraine closely involved in Europe. And with that, the EU and of course there's challenges on rule of law and anti-corruption. And so which we shouldn't buss over, but. I think basically Ukraine is currently experiencing the future of warfare and the future of conflict. Of course in a horrible way. Like these the attacks are the power guard. They're war crimes. That's call them what they are. But, they are learning how to deal with this in a pace which no western European country would be prepared for right now. And also that's not even mentioning cyber attacks. I thought that's not even mentioning drone wave warfare where they are orders of magnitude better than anyone in Western Europe. I think we really need to learn very closely from Ukraine to get up to their standards about modern defense and modern warfare.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 29:26

And also a modern energy system. Potential and modern, yeah. Tobias?.

Tobias Federico - Chief Analyst, Montel: 29:31

Maybe to phrase it this way, don't be naive. We very often think very naive or that will be good. America's our friend Russia was our friend, but always supplied us with gas. And we should strongly see us as in individual country, nation, continent. We should stand our ground and despite what they're telling us of stories. Just don't be naive. Take to fundamental data. Diversify, become more resilient and have a bit more courage in investing into new things.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 30:06

Absolutely. I think finally the word is yours.

Henning Gloystein - Managing Director of Energy and Resources, Eurasia Group: 30:08

The electrification of stuff. So it needs to be accelerated here. It helps reduce import dependence. China is making a very good show of it how fast they're electrifying everything. Transport, industry ,heating, power, obviously. So I think that's a priority, and that means we need to build more grid, more storage, more interconnectors, and that probably needs to be European priority to get the interconnection in Europe moving, because we know Norway and Sweden connectors to Europe are a challenge now and in every country this is a thing. But I think the interconnectedness of European markets are an absolute strength. They've helped us avoid shortages over the last three years, and we need to expand that because that will help build exhibits.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News: 30:44

Absolutely. On that note. So thank you very much for being guests on the live Plugged In podcast from E-World in Essen. So thank you gentlemen very much for fascinating discussion. And to you listeners, thanks for listening to this episode of Plugged In. If you enjoyed this discussion, please like rates and follow to make sure you get the latest podcast episodes as soon as we release them every Thursday. We'd also love to read your reviews of the podcast. It helps us to keep up to date with what you, our listeners think of the podcast and what content you want to receive more of. Finally, you can head to montelnews.com for more news and analysis from our team of journalists across Europe and beyond. See you next time.