Acting Foreign Affairs Minister David Parker has confirmed Cabinet will on Monday consider a proposal for legislation to be passed to enable New Zealand to impose sanctions on Russia.
Parties from across the political spectrum have been calling on the Government to urgently do more to boycott Russia as it invades Ukraine.
It isn’t yet clear how long it will take for a Russian sanctions bill to be passed.
Parker, during question time in parliament on Wednesday, said National's Foreign Affairs spokesperson Gerry Brownlee would be briefed on the proposed bill on Friday.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday, said, “New Zealand has not yet reached the extent of the measures we will take to condemn the recent unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
“We will continue to look at measures to condemn this act of war, including measures to target Russian finances. To this effect, after exploring the role our Overseas Investment Office and Overseas Investment Act could play in further restricting incoming investment, we have subsequently sought advice on a specific Russian sanctions bill.
“We expect to engage with other parties on this course of action shortly.”
Ardern noted New Zealand has already imposed targeted travel bans against Russian Government officials and other individuals associated with the invasion of Ukraine, prohibited the export of goods to Russian military and security forces, and suspended bilateral foreign ministry consultations until further notice.
Furthermore, New Zealand has contributed “an initial” $2 million to humanitarian aid to support those in Ukraine.
NZ supports emergency release of oil reserves to curb soaring prices
The latest measure New Zealand has taken in response to the invasion in join other members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) governing board in agreeing to release emergency oil reserves to “send a strong and unified message to global oil markets that there will be no shortfall in supplies as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.
Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods partake in the board’s decision-making as oil prices reached an eight-year high.
The IEA said, “The Ministers noted that Russia’s invasion comes against a backdrop of already tight global oil markets, heightened price volatility, commercial inventories that are at their lowest level since 2014, and a limited ability of producers to provide additional supply in the short term…
“The situation in energy markets is very serious and demands our full attention. Global energy security is under threat, putting the world economy at risk during a fragile stage of the recovery.”
Members of the IEA are required to hold stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports. New Zealand buys emergency reserve stocks that are held offshore.
This is only the fourth time the IEA, which was created in 1974, has released emergency stockpiles. The last time it did so was in 2011 in response to the Libyan crisis.
The 60 million barrels of oil it is releasing makes up 4% of its stockpiles.
The IEA said, “Russia plays an outsized role on global energy markets. It is the world’s third largest oil producer and the largest exporter. Its exports of about 5 million barrels a day of crude oil represent roughly 12% of global trade – and its approximately 2.85 million barrels a day of petroleum products represent around 15% of global refined product trade. Around 60% of Russia’s oil exports go to Europe and another 20% to China.”
43 Comments
Didnt old blowhard Brownlee try and introduce a bill that would have allowed us to sanction the Russians -- without the UN approval -- another instance of talking about our strong response and actually doing virtually nothing about it ! \
Surely we could pass a one page bill that says NZ can take all and whatever steps necessary - provided it has 85% backing in paraliment -- valid for 3 months until a full bill can be crafted ?
how hard can it be to actually make it happen -- everybody agrees -- what happened to Lets do this ....
"Next, political news. The Russians have now officially declared all the following countries as “hostile”:
- All EU member States,
- The USA
- Australia
- Albania
- Andorra
- Czech Republic
- Great Britain (including Jersey, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar)
- Iceland
- Canada
- Liechtenstein
- Micronesia
- Monaco
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Republic of Korea
- San Marino
- North Macedonia
- Singapore
- Taiwan
- Ukraine
- Montenegro
- Switzerland
- Japan
What does this mean?
At the time of writing (14:00 EST) all the Russians are saying is that there will be “financial and diplomatic consequences”. If you find out more details, please post them in the comments section!
I expect both diplomatic and economic sanctions to be announced in the coming days. And they will hurt like hell."
So our oil reserves are overseas. Haha. What a joke.
And we are releasing some of it. Haha. Another joke.
I would have thought that you would want to keep those reserves at full quantity at just these times! And in NZ too!
How long do they think that this ruction will last for? And will it grow? And will we need all the oil we can get our hands on in a month or two?
Talk about mickey mouse.
They've been offshore for years -
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/2829-review-of-nz-oil-security-dis…
"New Zealand has a treaty obligation to contribute 90 days of net oil imports to the IEA
stockholding. New Zealand presently meets this obligation through commercial inventories held by
companies in New Zealand, and by entering ticket contracts with offshore companies.
Tickets are an option, in return for an annual fee, to purchase specified quantities of stock at
market prices in the event of an IEA-declared oil emergency. At around 10 percent of the cost of
building domestic oil stockholding, tickets are by far the lowest cost option for meeting New
Zealand’s IEA obligation."
2012 - and as you can tell, written by #@**^!?? economists. Those twits who thought money was fungible with energy.
Don't confuse ecological overshoot (too many people) with some sort of political/societal.moral failure.
Poverty = lack of access to energy and resources. Nothing else. That face-off has been inevitable for perhaps 50 years, and documented for at least as long (longer, if you read Soddy's 1926 book).
China is in the top ten of oil producers by volume by country but consumption is second only to the USA. Would imagine, if to follow typical CCP propaganda, production figures to be understated as too would be reserves held but they need a lot more than they can produce. Hardly a unique position globally but it is not difficult to work out why there are so many issues, measures and necessities that dove tail and make China & Russia such good pals
China 'produces' 5 million bpd.
China uses 14-15 million bpd.
China is therefore a net importer.
All 'producing' countries go this way; start exporting, start consuming, reserves deplete, consumption escalates, country becomes importer. Happens to every one, every time.
Except they can't all be importers..... It becomes a planetary problem. This was the basis of oil geologist Jeffery Brown's Export Land Model, away back 15 years ago on The Oil Drum site.
"" Nauru is officially a middle-upper-income nation, and previously, it was the wealthiest country per capita. However, a 2018 U.N. report showed that a quarter of Nauruans live in “basic need” poverty, too poor for the cost of food and access to necessities such as clean water, health care and education. ""
Replace Phosphate with Oil and then apply similar to the whole of the world. I've often qualified or quibbled with PDK but his basic message is undeniable. Is Civilisation as we know it depending on Nuclear Fusion becoming feasible?
Imagine you are a Russian, you watch the US invade whoever they want, whenever they want - mostly oil countries (from a Russian perspective remember). Russia has been asking for security guarantees from the US and NATO since Putin has been in power and has been rejected every time. Now you hear that the US wants to have Ukraine in NATO and Ukraine is planning to re-start it's nuclear weapons industry. Ukraine in NATO means NATO has to attack Russia because Russia currently owns Crimea.
It goes even earlier than that. The US promised Gorbachev that NATO would not expand East. Then there was the coup in 2014 and the US has been arming the Ukrainian military, which has been bombarding civilians in eastern Ukraine since 2015.
The US which illegally invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq is wagging its finger at Russia. I wonder if the Ukrainians realise the hypocrisy of them crying about territorial sovereignty when they were part of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Probably Mr or Ms xingmowang is one of the many very pleasant Chinese kiwis who are very happy to be Kiwis while proud of their Chinese heritage. However the CCP knows him/her and their family in China. His posts usually are an attack on the US with little relevance to NZ; they occasionally contain a valid point but usually are designed to placate his CCP masters while being a parody of rational argument. Always worth reading them to know the current CCP line on foreign affairs.
As far as I'm aware any oil or petrochemical imports from Russia have not been banned yet. MW, in an interest article, said NZ don't buy any oil or petrochemicals from Russia and an astute commentator found out that we do.
I don't like to attribute too much intelligence to politicians in general and MW in particular but perhaps she was giving time for importers to cancel any existing orders or quickly buy before any sanctions of this nature come into effect.
At 100 million barrels a day, globally, I get 15 days.
The problem is that much won't exist, more will be double-counted (I'll bet that 'our' reserves are in that category) and the ability to transport - oh dear, supply chain issues. Wrong type of crude for this/that refinery, tankers here rather than there.......
Don't look here, move along, all's well......
I was just assuming Russia's 5 million barrels wouldn't be available to the market. Some part of that oil will make its way to market no doubt, but on the other hand the price of oil has all sorts of "emotional" factors influencing price. My gut feeling is any reserve release will have little effect on price. Might as well keep oil in storage, unless the plan is to keep releasing oil until the tanks are dry?
I hope this conflict A: doesn't escalate and B: isn't prolonged because if we blow our wad of SPR too early when fuel is still currently flowing from Russia, we will end up even more exposed if the flow stops from Russia (which is possible given the current tragectory).
Yep, the only reason I see in doing this is to slightly delay a price war for the next ship load of oil... reduce pressure on the suppliers, while another major consumer nation will just step in and scoop it all up... negating the whole point of the exercise, and placing us in a more vulnerable position if the supply issue becomes protracted.
How about that ownership of beaches resorts by Russian billionaires in NZ?
And Russians living in NZ are all good? Or they would be covered under Sanctions too?
Do we have an idea on who is with Russia and aganist Russia and who is neutral in this whole fiasco going on in Eastern Europe?
"Do we have an idea on who is with Russia and aganist Russia...."
Russia is not without friends. Some former states of the USSR, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, India and Pakistan' Khan visited Russia. Other countries like Saudi Arabia did not condemn the invasion of Ukraine. The most powerful is China. The CCP share communism origins. Other than India and Pakistan, all are orwellian.
Can someone explain to me how if crude oil prices are at levels last seen in about 2014 that the price is nearly 40% higher than then? Inflation can't explain all of it surely? And neither can shipping delays - these are largely related to container shipping which uses different terminals. What else is going on?
At a glance, in 2014, fuel was 56% of the cost of fuel was for fuel and the rest tax. In 2022 48% is the cost of fuel and the rest is tax (more in Auckland has they have an additional 10c regional tax.) So proportionally tax has increased the cost of fuel substantially.
Yet somehow the average commute time has increased by 12 minutes per day.
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