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The picture shows the above ground assets of the Sudzha Gas Meter Station in Russia. I have no information on the station itself, so I will comment on what I see and other information that is available. The pipeline flows from the NE (Russia) to the SW (Ukraine). The 56" line is buried, and the above ground assets include 4 banks of Meter Tubes, 2 of which were damaged. If there was damage to the pipeline itself, there would be a crater ~ 100+ ft across and 20 feet deep, with a fireball 100's of feet high, consistent with the rupture of a 56" natural gas pipeline flowing at 1,000 # of pressure, sounding something like a jet engine at full after burner. I expect that the yellow box in the lower left corner is an area that would include the manifolding for switching flows between the various meter banks. This indicates the measurement may be compromised, but the pipeline itself is intact, at least as much as it was before last week. TLDR. The Urengoy (Brotherhood) pipeline was commissioned in 1984 and originates in the Urengoy Gas Field, ~ 2,000 miles away in northern Siberia. The pipeline flow 700+ miles across Ukraine, splitting as it enters near Sumy (Sudzha), and at various points in Ukraine and again as it moves further towards Eastern Europe. The Sudzha meter station shows the meter tubes, consistent with the characterization of Sudzha as a meter station, simply a custody transfer measurement point between Russia and Ukraine, to assist in doing a material balance across the pipeline system. Typically, a mainline Block Valve (BV) is closed and the gas is diverted from the below ground mainline to the above ground assets, in this case, the meter tubes. Each of the 4 meter banks appears to have 5 tubes (size unknown), but 5 24" meter tubes would handled the full flow gas stream. Most measurement systems require laminar rather that turbulent flow, so you need a long straight run of pipe upstream (~ 20 pipe diameters) of the meter and downstream (5-10 pipe diameters). This tells me the measurement capacity is (a) ~ 4X the gas flow, or the mainline flow is split into 2 smaller streams, each with a typical 100% redundancy or (b) requires 3 measurement banks, with one spare or (c) none of the above. The meters and tubes are specialty pieces of equipment, but smallish in nature. Necessary for most accurate measurement possible, but the older technology still works. Probably sanctioned items, but ... Sudzha but does have any compression facilities nor does it show a "slug catcher", a structure constructed to remove any condensate (liquids) from the pipeline. UTOS Slug Catcher & Compressor Station, near Cameron, Louisiana The mainline compressor sets are major pieces of equipment and the heart of the pipeline system, up to ~ 25,000 HP gas turbines with centrifugal compressors. Damages to these would be huge, irreplaceable due to sanctions. The slug catchers are massive structures ( ~15 pipe sections, 1,000 feet long, 42" diameter, with associated manifolds and gas/liquid separation capacity) fabricated to catch and stabilize the large slugs of liquids that condense in the pipelines. These are not located at the Sudzha Station. Ukraine showed enough to get the message across; "We are here and we could have done much worse." At the same time, they have 700 miles of a Russian pipeline crossing Ukraine. They could stop the flow any time they wanted, but they also need the gas.
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Interesting, and thought provoking, read. This really gives some insight about the "logistics tail" of the F-16. Ukraine used its fleet of four AN-124, 4-engine cargo planes, over 5 days, to bring two F-16s and, in all likelihood, the necessary support equipment from the US to Poland. Each can carry 150 tons of cargo. These were not direct flights, but hopscotching and shuttling across the globe. The places they landed, multiple times, included ... Singapore, Leipzig, Fairbanks AK, Tucson AZ, UAE, Mobile AL, Ft. Worth TX, Portsmouth, NH, Montreal, Rzeszow in Poland, Evenes in Norway, Leige Niersey? in Belgium?, Anchorage AK, Ciudad Juarez Mexico (Tequila?), and Dulles in DC. It's obviously more complex than jumping in a couple of F-16 and grabbing some tankers and flying across the ocean. I remember many moons ago reading about the 1986 US raid on Libya, using F-111's from RAF Lakenheath, England, via the Straits of Gibraltar, as France & Spain refused to give the US overflight clearance. In an interview, the pilots made a distinction between flying commercial over the ocean and flying on the deck, with multiple aerial refuelings, at night. The differences between the US air logistics command, a marvel of organization & coordination, and the Russian equivalent, is staggering.
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A few important points, Natural Gas (NG), Natural Gas Liquids (NGL), and Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) are all related, but they are much different from each other, and the terms Natural Gas & LNG should not be used interchangeably. Natural Gas Liquids are removed from the produced gas stream and are used for rural heating (propane) and as feed stocks to petrochemical plants and blending stocks in refinerieries for motor gasoline. Natural Gas is processed in plants, the NGL removed, and the remaining gas (residue gas ~ pure methane) is transported via long haul pipeline networks that criss cross the country. The term "natural gas" is used to represent produced at the wellhead as well as gas used by end use consumers, though those are very different forms of of the same thing. Natural gas is transported at high pressure ~ 1,000 PSI and ambient temperatures, where the pressure in the cities is reduced within the municipalities to the point that local distribution is on the order of ounces of pressure (~ 1/4 PSI). Liquified Nat Gas is processed natural gas that is cool and liquified ( −260 °F, ~ 4 PSI) in world class LNG Plants, and transported via HUGE LNG tankers. LNG, as transported, IS NOT USED by consumers. LNG is regassified at at equally large facilities, where the gas is warmed to ambient temperature and compressed to high pressure (~1,000) for further distribution in long haul pipelines. The expansive quality of LNG is a 600 fold increase/decrease in volume (the mother of all fuel air bombs). Natural gas is transported in buried pipelines (generally 10" to 48" diameter) while LNG is transported via huge LNG Tankers. Nothing going on with Ukraine's push into southern Russia has anything to do with LNG. The Urengoy gas pipeline traversing from Siberia, Russia to Western Europe (Soviet Bloc) via Ukraine (~ 2,800 miles, built in 1974) was the largest capacity Russian pipeline until the Nordstream pipelines were built ~ 2011 (to Germany & western Europe). Ukraine basically "controls" the pipeline once it crossed the border. The "gas meter station" in the recent press is, at a minimum, a control room of sorts with instrumentation of operate and control the pipeline. There are typically large compressor stations along the pipelines (+/- ~ 150 miles) to boost the pipe pressure. Not sure if there is anything like that near Sudzha. I thought I read they took control of the station. There would be no reason to blow up "idle" facilities, whether they be meter stations or compressor stations, etc. , unless they are going scorched earth. Once the pipelines enter Ukraine, they would be controlled by Ukraine.
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Bringing in the big gun w/ the Sherman Tank, well … 75 mm any way.
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From the links, the map shows Russian fortifications in the area consist of anti-tank ditches & obstacles and strongpoints. There are not multiple layers of trenches and other infantry fighting positions. In the map, the most significant fortifications in the area. Following the Vince's strategy and Prigozihn's lead, Run to Daylight, it looks like Ukraine choose to run straight north up the road rather than deal with the Russian fortifications along the east-west lines. The orange icons in the plot below show the various towns mentioned in the past few days, with Sudzha to the south and Kursk to the northeast. The 700' plateau depicts the high ground in the middle, overlooking the rail roads and highways, and the Kurskaya Nuclear Power Plant. Short term, this appears to give Ukraine "influence" of an area with some intrinsic value without spend or committing significant resources. Gaining access and/or control of the Nuke is a hell of a bargaining chip, given that both countries are going into the winter short of power generation capacity. The Urengoy gas pipeline transiting the area is idle for the most part and is already controlled by Ukraine, so taking control of the Sudzha Meter station is symbolic more than anything. The Cockroach factor is huge. The psychological effects of the leaflets, air raid sirens, e- warfare, and Ukraine flags over Russian territory, etc. will make the natives restless. Ukraine does not appear to have many assets in the area, but it will be a bitch for Russia get them out. How will Russian force them out? Bombs and rocket attacks on their own soil & people? Giving the F-16's a play pen void of air defenses? I would think the half-life for any Russia troops brought into the area is going to be pretty damn short.
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Family is from Louisiana, mother is Swedish. His dad has been his coach since forever, and Mondo wanted his dad to coach him for the Olympics. US said no. Swedes offered him $50,000 each time he broke the WR. I think today was #10.
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Noah Lyles tied for having the slowest reaction time of anyone in the field, but he still won the men's 100m final... REACTION TIMES: Fred Kerley 🇺🇸 - 0.108 Marcell Jacobs 🇮🇹 - 0.114 Akani Simbine 🇿🇦 - 0.149 Kenny Bednarek 🇺🇸 - 0.163 Oblique Seville 🇯🇲 - 0.171 Kishane Thompson 🇯🇲 - 0.176 Noah Lyles, Letsile Tebogo 🇺🇸🇧🇼 - 0.178 Saw this on another site. It shows the 10 meter splits from start to finish. Lyles was last out of the gate and still last at the 40 meter mark. Top 7 guys finish less than a tenth of a second apart. Awesome race.
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Thank you all again for the information and insights you bring. Russia being Russia I think it's a combination of corruption and arrogance, and reality. The corruption and the differences in budgeted and built are well known. Their arrogance gave them a false sense of air defense capabilities. We mirrored similar beliefs in those capabilities until ~ 892 days ago). It still boggles my mind how much we (the Royal 'we") overvalued Russia's military capabilities until 2022. The reality is that the military facilities are mainly steel and concrete. While the planes can be moved ("The damn things have wheels" - FDR), the infrastructure is static. When Google Earth first came out, I located all the Air Force Bases I lived at, had seen, or knew about. I also located all the O&G processing facilities I came across in 40 years. Cool stuff, right? I remember the first time I went to Mont Belvieu in 1980, the largest concentration of Natural Gas Liquids processing and underground storage in the world. (Think about downtown Houston, turn it upside down so the building are square holes in the ground, and fill them up with propane; that approximates MB NGL storage capacity). There used to be a confluence of NGL-Pet Chem pipelines called "Xxxxxxx - Xxxxxxx". Enough about that... The only calming influence I have now is that I live 200 miles away and I don't work in that industry anymore. The reality of life in 2024; with GPS data, drones, and ordinance, you could give a nine year old a game controller and a monitor and he could do in a few hours (flight time) what would have been impossible not too long ago. It is what it is. The new reality is scary for many reasons. Most US Air Bases also have their planes in the open, with the normal parking places well known. The biggest difference in that the daily threats to the US bases and infinitesimal compared to the Russian bases. A lot of the pictures we see of the US hardened aircraft shelters are at foreign locations with a higher threat exposure, or an areas with extreme weather conditions. Russian Air Bases and Air Assets I agree that the US mindset is totally different than Russia's. Nobody is invading the US. Of the Russian Air Bases I've looked at over the past 2 1/2 years, I only recall seeing one that I would characterize as a "refueling wing". There may be others, or not? By comparison, the US has ~ 400 Air refueling aircraft in inventory. Russia only built 53 Ilyushin Il-78 4 engine aircraft. I only looked at jet engine powered aircraft, not prop driven, 🙂. The US tends to collocate the refueling aircraft with the bigger bombers, with smallish ratios. At Russia's Engels Air Base, the public photo's only show 1 or 2 tankers for the bomber fleet. The Engels mini air museum does not have an Il-78 airplane. If Russia only had a very small number of their AWACS equivalents, I imagine the air refueling assets are also somewhat limited.
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From the link ... Somebody leaked footages of the Russian submarine “Rostov on Don”, which got hit by Ukrainian missiles (likely Stormshadow). The bow of the submarine received a direct hit. Additionally, there is an impact at the starboard side. You can strike this ship from the list. Yeah, I know, "it'll buff out." It looks like the Russkie's like to store their ordinance where it's convenient ... , for them and Ukraine. Care to offer an opinion on what those tubes are, or were?
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They never showed the graphic of finish order and times on the main broadcast.
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Scottie Scheffler, 2024 Olympic Gold Medalist. Hook ‘em!!!
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Ever watch the Winter Olympics? At the Winter Olympic Games, Norway has won 405 total medals including 148 gold medals, both considerably more than any other nation in Winter Olympic history. More than half of these medals have come from cross-country skiing and speed skating (it used to be half the disciplines). Norway is one of only three nations (along with Austria and Liechtenstein) to have won more medals at the Winter Games than at the Summer Games. I skied my ass off once I learned how, maybe 200 yards of which was cross county. Fuck that, I liked gravity skiing. I’ve always had supreme respect for those Nordic events. Winning the Decathlon Gold Medal is a nice addition. I was pulling hard for Leo, but I know my Norwegian Au Pair is happy.
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Queue the cheese puns in 3, 2, 1 ...
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The Gold Medal match between France & Fiji was awesome. Tied 7-7 at halftime, Antoine Dupont, "The Closer", comes off the bench to a thunderous ovation. First time to touches the ball, he promptly does a Ricky Williams style burst down the sideline, tossing to a teammate for the go ahead try. Dupont added 2 more tries to lead France to a 28-7 win and the Gold Medal, on the first full day of the Paris Olympics. Dupont inspires France's first Paris 2024 gold Dupont inspires France's first Paris 2024 Gold
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
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"Urgently, I went over a fence and to the front of the line as directed...carefully balancing speed with care." I thought you were going to say, "Gaspard said, 'if you can run and hop a fence like that you're well enough to play, Get your ass in there!'" -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2025: Duck Around and Find Out
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Thanks for posting the raw data on Russia's arsenal and summary of same. The early dialogue of Russia's 2nd Army of the world was shown to be a sham, given the disfunctional military organizational structure, quality of the "training", and the performance and technology of their military leadership and hardware. From a hardware perspective, Russia has ~ 1/2 of what they started with, with most of what they have left being the shit that was replaced 30-50 years ago, or longer. Golf carts & motorcycles v. Bradley's? The only positive from a Russian perspective is the 40-60 year old conscripts & replacements are already familiar with the weapons systems they trained on when they were in their prime. It appears the cumulative effects of sanctions and FAFO is finally starting to work, not unlike the Titantic's rudder. Russia's increasing reliance on China, and China getting their hooks ever deeper into Russia, is looking like a short term benefit with longer term FAFO implications. I watched this YouTube video, Why Russia's Biggest Threat is Actually China, along with a few others. (Disclaimer; I watched them late at night w/ whiskey, after a day of being in the heat with cold beer, so I may be mixing my metaphors). My recollection of the "facts": I read The Bear and the Dragon, when it came out. Russia and China are not friends. The Crimean War impact on Russian's economy led to Russia selling Alaska to the US. Following WWII, Russia ended up with Manchuria, lands that historically had been China. Russia's land grab cut off China's access to the Sea of Japan, leaving China with the South China Sea as it's only means to international commerce. China is totally dependent on the Malacca Strait for access to Middle East oil. Russia using the far east provinces to feed the Ukraine meat grinder is exacerbating what was already a 10:1 ratio of China v. Russia far east military resources. So ... China needs and wants what Russia has, Russian's economy is in the dumper (other than oil & gas, its always been shit) and will be for a long time, China's economy is on the skids due to China being China, China is already dictating terms on Russian trade, Russian can't defend the far east, ... it seems like a somewhat inevitable end point that Russia "sells" Manchuria back to China. Fiction or fact? Oh, I almost forgot. I came across this following the MillerEP link: The symbolism of a long appendage swinging between the legs, to the delight of a young lass.
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Gas Processing 101: An oil and/or gas well produces a mix of oil, gas and water, and other impurities, the"blood, guts & feathers." The impurities are removed and the hydrocarbons separated at different stages in the processing chain, with safety, synergies and economies of scale being the primary considerations. The purity products consumed by end use customers are separated at various points in the value chain, with the value of the products increasing though the process. The first separation is at or near the wellhead, separating the well stream into oil, water & gas (3 phase separator). The "natural gas"that is separated at the wellhead is saturated with water vapor, and is a combination of hydrocarbons, primarily methane, smaller quantities of light and heavier hydrocarbons, as well as other impurities, usually carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulfide(H2S). The natural gas is aggregated until there is enough volume to efficiently dehydrate the gas (remove the water), which is done as early in the processing chain as practical (well battery, compressor station, or processing plant). The CO2 and H2S are corrosive and dangerous, (H2S is fatal in concentrations measured in parts per million). They are usually removed at the Gas Processing Plant, where the lighter methane is separated from the the other heavier Natural Gas Liquids (NGL). The Residue Gas ( 95+% methane) at the tailgate of the plant is what is consumed as fuel or feedstock by industrial and residential consumers. Though this end use product is the interface with people, 99.9% of any disruptions in the gas supply chain happen upstream of the gas processing plants in the producing area, well away from the consumer base. Digging equipment hitting a buried pipeline, or a ruptured pipeline, would be the exception. During the great freeze, some gas processing plants, and other upstream facilities lost power, either intentionally cut off or through normal circumstances (The ocean of West Texas oil production is heavily dependent on the forest of wind mill power generation). A common sensical answer would be that individual people needed electricity over industrial customers, especially oil & gas companies. Flip a switch, shut them off, easy peasy. But wait. Ironically, Gas Processing Plants and compressor stations use large electric motors and are big power consumers. No power means no gas processing and no gas supply. Ok. Flip the switch back. Shutting a plant down shuts down everything behind it, the compressor stations, pipelines, and de-hy facilities, all the way back to the wellhead. You no longer have warm saturated gas moving though a pipeline, you have static gas lines that cool, form hydrates (frozen gaseous ice-plugs) in the pipelines, and everything is dead in the water, for which there is no easy fix. Why don't they winterize their facilities? Heat tracing requires electric power. FAFO. Hard to get that toothpaste back in the tube. I would think the new home generator sets would have a reliable source of natural gas. But I would also think Houston fucking Texas has a reliable means of supplying electricity to the common folks.
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The area along Buffalo Bayou from West Houston to River Oaks/Memorial park (~ 12 miles) is most of the highest priced real estate in Houston, in part due to the large lots and the canopy of mature trees. Removing every tall tree proximate to power lines is basically clear cutting the land to something resembling the Katy Prairie. It would be easier and cheaper to sell the large house on a heavily wooded lot and move to the suburbs, with buried utilities and planted saplings, 20+ miles from downtown. Historically, that hasn't happened. Historically, half of Houston didn't lose power every year either, or twice for a week in 2+ months. That's a tough spot to have to face the new reality.
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Great update. Re: Power Generation needs Ukraine needs ~16 GW this winter and will be able to produce 12 GW. They need 4 GW of power, roughly 80% of the combined capacity of the 2 nuclear power plants in Texas. How much power is 4 Gigawatts? 10 Million Photovoltaic (PV) Panels 1,240 Utility-Scale Wind Turbines 400 Million LED Bulbs Roughly 5.2 Million Horses 8,000 Corvette Z06s 36,360 Nissan Leafs 1.6 Texas size Nuclear Power plants
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