For every commodity, there are downsides to extracting the commodity from the earth. A little bit does not matter, but to earn profits a large amount must be done. If we are discussing minerals, earth has to be moved and sorted, fortunately there are huge machines which can do the job. The downside is when the mineral is no longer profitable to be mined, the site is never the same. If the commodity is grown in the earth, additional fertilizers are added to enhance the yield but there will be some runoff into the water collection. Just about everything we do there is some negative effect, sometimes we learn that they can be mitigated. For profitable companies, there is some lawsuit around the corner, some group not liking their operations, and sometimes governments impose sanctions on other governments.

In an article by Mark Trevelyan of Reuters, when Russia invaded Ukraine and still has not left, the western governments imposed sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas industry. At the time, Russian was supplying up to 40% of Europe’s needs. The western governments were hoping the sanctions would mean less revenues for the Russian Treasury and Russian would change their strategy in the war to finding a way to stop it. Russian has not done that, the sanctions remain and Russian had to find other markets for their oil and gas.

Gazprom will supply more gas to Hungary for the winter months and send an additional 600 million cubic meters this year according to TASS news agency quoting Alexei Miller the head of Gazprom.

Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in 2023 left Russia and went to China to help negotiate the deal.

Hungary is the only member of the European Union and NATO who has kept friendly ties with Russia.

Mr. Miller said in a TV interview the additional gas supplies to Hungary amounted to 1.3 billion cubic meters of gas.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in life we all want to have alternatives and sometimes they are forced upon us. For a profitable company as an investor, you want it to have more than one revenue stream to ensure profits remain at a near constant level as the economic cycles go through the economy. Every once in a while stuff happens to people and companies, while one hopes the individuals will find an way to deal with it, the expectations are people in the company will deal with the stuff quicker and more efficiently, if that does not happen, perhaps you should look for alternative companies that deal with stuff better.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.