Tuesday, August 16, 2022

The 'Long' Winter

 I've sat and watched a video run of ARD's public forum of 'Hart Aber Fair' (Hard But Fair) this AM.  You can watch it here (but only in German).  

The one key thing that probably 'nudged' me a bit....the suggestion of how industry in Germany might be affected this winter, and if you were a high-user of natural gas....you might not have a full production schedule going on.

Example?  You sell pickles....in glass jars.  Most companies have a glass production schedule, and you might have four of glass jars sitting around for your weekly production schedule.  So you wake up in late November, with a government order to halt your natural gas usage.  You don't worry much, because you've got four months of jars sitting there. But come March of 2023, you now realize the jar business will be halted soon because there's no extra jars around.  So you put 90-percent of the staff on 'short-work' (meaning they stay home and collect 75-percent of their paycheck from the government).  Maybe by June of 2023, you can start back up, but you are warned already of another natural gas shortage for the winter of 2023.

But here's the shocker....a number of European countries don't have a shortage, and they will be on full pickle production....meaning the German grocery stores will import their stuff.  

From my local grocery?  I would estimate that 20-percent of the shelf items are plastic or glass, and potentially affected by a production shut-down possibility.

Most companies in Germany....I think....will have a supply to survive three or four months of issues.  It's March and April of 2023 that I see as being stressful and consumers being in a frustrated emotion.  

This approaching winter will be some epic journey for some people....to survive with limited natural gas, and the chief topic daily will revolve around this crisis period.

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