Tom Bent

@JeremyNic666 @TheSolarShed Yup correct . 17 hours of consecutive negative prices on Easter Sunday. epexspot.com/en/market-resu…

@TheSolarShed If UK ran 100% on renewables* the marginal cost of generation and hence wholesale price would collapse, possibly even turn negative. But renewables would continue to trouser their subsidies and fixed costs of accommodating them remain unchanged. *this would require 0% nuclear

Wait till he finds out the UK will at some point this weekend run on renewables alone and we'll still be paying as if it's all coming from gas

Wow, those are some very interesting images. The highest quality I have seen to date, with some valuable information. Thank you for sharing. If you are asking what I see, well, first understand a couple things. I am not a military person, or familiar with bomb damage assessment. Nor am I a political person, or economist. I just build and operate the hardware. So I’ll tell you what this looks like from a hardware perspective, and label things that are objectively facts vs. things I am guessing at or if I put any opinions in. With those caveats, here are some facts and my analysis of the Train 6 strike. I’ve attached two pictures. The first is the undamaged facility from happier days. I’ve labelled the north end of the train with some color coded boxes, and a couple dimensions on Train 7 to give a sense of scale. Train 6 used an Air Products (now Honeywell) AP-X process, which has three refrigeration loops in series, each driven by a Frame 9 mechanical drive turbine – a propane (C3) loop, a mixed refrigerant (MR) loop, and a nitrogen expansion (N2) loop. Propane precools the feed gas and the refrigerant, the MR liquefies it, and the N2 subcools it all the way to -160 C. At the southern most portion of the photo, in blue, there is the propane refrigerant system. Process equipment is to the west of the main spine rack, and the driver is to the east. Drivers include both the turbine and the compressors on a single shaft for each loop, and they are located under the 220 m long turbine building with the tan roof. Exhaust stack is immediately to the east turbine building, with the VFD components just south of the stack. The red boxes in the middle are the primary liquefaction section, with two machines on the east in the turbine building, and the main cryogenic heat exchangers (MCHEs) on the west side of the rack. I’ve labelled the MCHE’s. The larger is the MR MCHE, which is about 50 m tall, and has a two inch thick aluminum shell. The N2 MCHE for gas subcooling is a little further to the west. It is shorter and has a stronger stainless steel shell; it is a substantially stouter piece of equipment. These two MCHEs combined are in the range of $50-100MM capital cost with a two year lead time. The yellow box at the top is the helium extraction unit. The machinery is electrically driven compander, inside the small building, and the primary separation column is just to the east of the building. With the basics out of the way, take a look at the second picture. I’ve marked where the missile impacted, and the visible area of damage; the shadows disguise some of the blast and make it a bit harder to see. But from my view, it is quite bad, having hit immediately north of the MR MCHE, doing a fine job of messing up the equipment in the liquefaction section. Compare to Train 7 next door. I’ve marked the approximate circle of visible damage, which indicates an immediate blast radius on order of 50 meters. While I’m not military, it is pretty easy to calculate the energies involved, which indicates to me that we are talking about something on order of ~100 kg HE warhead. Sizable enough to do some real damage, but not a catastrophic hit from 500 kg or more. I am a bit surprised I could not see more damage from the subsequent fires. Qatari emergency crews responded to the fires, and it appears to me they did quite well at extinguishing them quickly before significant escalation. Note the precision of the hit. If I were responsible for targeting this facility, … well, I couldn’t do it, because I love these facilities and the machines in them too much. But if a hypothetical person who knew about the facilities and wanted to harm them was planning it, this is just about where they would place a strike to cause maximum damage. Possibly a little further to the southeast to strike right on top of the MR turbine, but certainly within about 50 meters of the actual strike point. That will give a feel for the CEP of these missiles. It is quite good, which I understand is not at all a given for nations building missiles. Remember the notorious inaccuracy of the Iraqi Scuds during the 1991 Gulf War. The Iranians don’t suffer from the same problem – they can hit what they aim at with considerable precision despite American and Gulf nation efforts at interception at one of the most heavily defended areas in the Gulf. In fact, in Qatar, this site is probably the most heavily defended site, only excepting Al Udeid air base and Doha itself. What was damaged? The resolution is not adequate to fully identify everything – you’d really need a walk through to be sure. But it is clear the MR MCHE is destroyed, along with some of the smaller pieces of equipment around there. The N2 MCHE is still standing, but there is some visible damage. I’d guess that, even with the shell standing, a missile strike this close would complete destroy soft items – insulation, instruments, cabling, platforms – and likely perforate the shell with fragments such that it would be unusable as a pressure vessel. My best guess is the N2 MCHE will require replacement. To the east, the turbine housing roof appears undamaged, but I think this is deceptive. The roof is about 40 meters high, and the missile blast wave will initiate below it and propagate sideways under the pipe rack and through the building. Both the N2 and MR machines are close to the blast point and likely received a significant overpressure, along with heat from the subsequent fire. I have no doubt they are damaged. Frame 9's are robust and reliable industrial machines, but they are not designed for missiles. Whether they can be repaired or will need to be replaced is an open question. North of the impact point, I suspect the helium machine was protected from significant damage by the intervening piperack. However, the column protrudes above the piperack and probably caught an overpressure and significant fragmentation. My guess here is the helium column was likely perforated and will require major repair or replacement. To the south, the MCHE’s and piperack absorbed most of the damage and my best guess is the propane system is likely undamaged, or only suffered minor damage. Qatar has said the train will require 3 – 5 years to be back in operation. In my mind that seems a little conservative. If they can get to work immediately, and expedite procurement, I would guess about three years is a reasonable timeline. Five years I think is longer than will be required, absent another attack causing further damage. Analysis? This is speculation on my part, and anyone might well disagree. But it appears to me that Iran was sending a message more than simply just trying to destroy. They used a precise missile, but with a somewhat smaller warhead, one that is large enough to cause heavy damage, but not so large as to cause catastrophic irreparable damage to the entire train or even to multiple trains. They also targeted two trains that are jointly owned with the Qataris by ExxonMobil. (Puzzle question – why did the second missile strike Train 4 instead of the larger Qatar-XOM Train 7? Or maybe they did try to hit Train 7, but that missile was intercepted? Don’t know…). But they conspicuously avoided hitting the trains that are co-owned by Japanese or Korean partners, trying to keep them onside or neutral in the war. To me, this strike seems to say, “Look Qatar and XOM – we can hurt you. But we didn’t hurt you as much as we could, and we want you to use your influence to get the US to stop and restore the status quo ante.” Whether that will work is for the political people to say. I do know the Qataris are royally ticked off at this attack. Anyway, that is my read on it. It is definitely a very bad attack, one that caused substantial damage and will impact Qatari production for years. I am not trying to play down the impact in any way. But it is simultaneously true that it *could* have been worse. I’ll look at the Train 4 strike when I can. Looks like the miss was a bit more there – it struck southwest of the turbine house, looks like it affected the propane equipment. These reviews take a bit of time, and I am chronically short of that commodity. But thank you again for sharing these photos.

@DundeeSat I think @holland_tom might enjoy this….

Herodotus was always right.

Year-to-date wind power as reported by NESO* is up 34% on 2025. By happy coincidence GB net imports of electricity are down by 34%. (* This is just wind farms with their own BMUs; around 15-20% of wind output is from small wind farms without their own BMU).

@afneil One minor correction: UK electricity imports are falling. 2025 net imports were 12.25% down on 2024. Year to date 2026 net imports are down 34.25% on 2025. There's a case to answer on everything else, but we might as well get the facts straight first.

Thanks to policies you zealously pursue we already have the highest industrial energy costs and second highest household costs in the world. You’re inflicting working people with extra financial burden and loss of well-paid jobs. So don’t dare talk about skyrocketing bills. Your solar panels are paving over good farmland and your onshore windmills are already a blight on the landscape. There are nothing like hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs. It’s a myth you perpetuate. Unemployment is rising. There is no energy security when you increase dependence on intermittent renewables, which is why you’re having to build new gas plants as back up and increase imported electricity (which hardly adds to our energy security). Thank you for your attention to this matter.

@IsabelOakeshott Nope. Pointless having a great health system you can’t afford to use. A quick look at the USA will tell you how that choice works out for most people.

All most people want is a system that can always be relied upon to deliver great quality health care in a timely fashion. The existing one obviously can’t. Stop frightening people unnecessarily!

@seatsixtyone Good luck, keep us posted. If you do make it, on the return leg the soundtrack should of course be ….Farewell To Stromness .

And now it seems there’s a storm a comin’. Will tonight’s Scrabster-Stromness sail? Will I ever reach Scapa Flow? Stay tuned and find out! youtu.be/uJtyRT8GMUA?si…

OPERATION SCAPA FLOW: Boarding the @CalSleeper at Birmingham International (only its fourth departure from this new calling point), heading for Inverness, Thurso, Stromness & Scapa Flow. The Far North in January - am I crazy..?

@afneil Bear in mind that a significant portion of fixed-bottom wind costs (for example at Dogger Bank which was likely the auction price setter) are…. option fees paid to The Crown Estate. So dysfunctional you couldn’t make it up.

Oh you mean like fixed-bottom wind farm prices have declined? Not. To get the latest licences taken up the government had to offer the highest guaranteed prices since the first wind farm round many years ago. The cost of installing wind farms is rising not falling. You’re the one in need of Grok.

@gas_gerd @ira_joseph @ColumbiaUEnergy It was mad to put a floor price on Rheden. Quite apart from being economically self defeating, how does it even sit well with EU TPA and REMIT legislation?

@ira_joseph @ColumbiaUEnergy I believe the statistic is a bit distorted due to the biggest underground storage facility in Rheden only marginally filled, but this was a deliberate choice, since SEFE did its best to market the facility, since it is a porous storage, it is slowly filled and slow to withdraw.

Hopefully the EU has learned its lesson. Allowing German storage to fill to less than 90% capacity ahead of winter was a error now costing all Europeans. Leniency on the mandate was penny wise, euro foolish. While TTF prices faded all summer, it's payback time. @ColumbiaUEnergy

@ira_joseph @JavierBlas @ColumbiaUEnergy LNG feels like the wrong target. There’s little short term elasticity of supply; so just adds inefficiency, potentially even increases FOB prices. I think tariffs are more damaging for the importing nation. But if you must; go for industries with oversupply and a weak US sector.

@JavierBlas To respond, the EU will have to look hard at putting a tariff on US LNG as a countermeasure. This could end causing significant shifts in LNG trade. In 2025, US exporters sold 68% of their #LNG to Europe and US LNG accounted for 58% of European LNG imports. @ColumbiaUEnergy #ONGT

Trump announces a 10% tariff against several European nations from Feb 1 (and 25% from Jun. 1) until he secures "the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland." (The contries are Denmark, Norway, Sweeden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland) #Greenland

@seatsixtyone Birnam

As it happens, I'm booked from Birmingham to the Highlands on Monday night. But where am I going? Somewhere special! Somewhere I've always wanted to go. Where braver men than me sleep deep within their regal tree. Any guesses? 🤷‍♂️

@Alpen_R Nice. Think that's on the Argus route....?

@tombent3 Noordhoek

Please don’t wake me up

@CallumAbroad “Crafty Burgers” surely?

@tmarzecmanser Difference being that the US is a large importer of potash….and an exporter of LNG?

US lifting sanctions this weekend on Belarus #potash (without buy-in from the EU), in exchange for prisoners and to normalize relations is pretty similar to how I see Russia #LNG sanctions eventually getting lifted. #natgas #TTF

@holland_tom One of whom was also honorary president of Withersfield village cricket club in Suffolk. Don’s parents emigrated from the village, whose graveyard is full of people called Bradnam. They changed their name on arrival to match the misspelling made by an emigration officer.

A great batsman and Sir Donald Bradman

@DrDavidBoyce @DaveThroup @zero_stevie Puts into perspective Vietnams recent 24 hour record, more than 50 times that amount in some places! thred.com/change/worlds-…

@zero_stevie @DaveThroup Over the entire rain band - about 30 billion tonnes of water - about 4 times the amount of water in Loch Ness

As I said yesterday, the extent of this rainfall is remarkable. From Great Yarmouth to Carmarthen, 30mm or more of rain in less than 24 hours. Thousands of square kilometres. 30mm of rain over 1 square kilometre weighs 30,000 tonnes and takes up 30,000 cubic meters!

@Big_Orrin @BurggrabenH Yup, e.g re-injection at Osberg - they’re always optimising that equation! BTW inventories are well below normal for the time of year so Europe can absorb plenty by month minimising winter withdrawals ….maybe why prices haven’t dropped that much so far?

@Big_Orrin @BurggrabenH Troll has been producing over quota, so potentially they’ll drop production to get back in limits.

@TomaszChlon @OlenaHalushka Belgium is just an import point for the European gas network and cargo decisions are made by commercial companies who rent the terminal. The only way to reduce Russian LNG imports is for the EU to sanction it (all). There’s no reason for them not to. It’s an EU issue.

Sorry to be picking on Belgium, but it's almost my second Heimat, which continues to import Russian LNG — even more than before the invasion — while still falling short of its 2% defense spending commitment and opposing the use of frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine. For a country hosting both NATO and the EU, that’s quite a contrast between symbolism and substance. share.google/pDvaksykSjusF0…