Since my very earliest days in the Natural Gas business, I have been exposed to a couple of notions that had a hollow ring to them from day one. The oil price link drew my most immediate suspicion although it took years until I was able to express my scorn with this antiquated mechanism in […]
The European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) was born on September 3rd 1953. It took a rather long time from then until it became an integral part of various national laws but today citizens of most European countries are able to directly invoke it before national courts in order to protect their rights. Article 2 […]
In the second installment of the famous Matrix trilogy, Neo meets with the Oracle just before his epic fight with Agent Smith and asks her what would be the purpose of the Architect. The Oracle answered that his purpose was “To balance the equation”. Then he asked what the purpose of the Oracle itself would […]
One of the first assignments I had, when I joined the gas world, was the negotiations with Iran on gas supply for the Nabucco pipeline. I jumped right into a process that was already pretty mature but it struck me very soon that in spite of the hype around Nabucco, I had a hard time […]
Those reading blogs on the future have all asked themselves the same question. Am I going to see the great (or sometimes horrible) things that we futurists predict? Or am I going to die before it comes to happen? Will I stand on the surface of Mars or Pluto? Will I leave the Solar System […]
I have been writing about LNG in Africa for years now. Remember? Sub-Saharan Africa is going to be one of the most exciting plays in the LNG world for the next two decades. But it’s not going to be a walk in a Japanese garden – more like walking on burning charcoals barefoot. Africans are […]
Its more than 3 years now that I am fighting for some improved quality of life in Austria and Europe and it’s time to take a hard stance. In the end, VW has been caught with its hands in the Cookie jar so what better time could there be? Fine Particulate Matter (PM) is a […]
We all believe that protecting the environment around us is something that must only affect others. Most people could not care less if Polar Bears find a patch of ice to live their life’s on or if the rainforest dies as long as the burgers are big and the beer is cold. Let me spoil […]
Africa – just like many other regions on earth – suffers from a double edged problem. On one side, enormous amounts of natural gas are being flared every single day and this gas comes as associated gas to the surface with the oil that is produced at the same time. And on the other side, […]
Now it’s official. Since September 1st this year, all new diesel vehicles sold in the European Union must comply with the EURO 6 standard. EURO 6 is by any measure the most severe limitation of nasty pollutants that are allowed out of the exhaust shaft of a vehicle in and around the European Union and […]
Good ideas are incredibly frequent and it’s even more astonishing how long they hover around without ever producing any noticeable impact. Most great ideas, that have gone on to change the world, did not do so because the ideas were great to begin with. They did so because there was someone; one single person who […]
Is there still anyone who is not in awe of what the shale revolution has done to the planet? Whatever one might think of the environmental suitability of fracturing rock deep in the earth in order to extract oil and gas, one cannot deny that the world has changed beyond recognition. For the first time […]
In July 2014 I made a wager. I said that before March 2016 (don’t ask me why this date, it just sprung into existence out of nothingness) WTI would go below 28 USD. We have seen a huge slide in the oil price over the last 12 months so I refined my stance in February […]
What’s the biggest killer on planet earth? It’s not the Islamic State or some other conflict. It’s not even cancer, bad driving or cataclysms of Mother Nature. It’s a much more terrifying opponent – heart failure. A whopping third of the world’s population succumbs to some form of cardiac arrest at some point in live […]
Who knows what a Stirling engine is? Most of us won’t. Well, I didn’t until about a year ago and when I was explained the principle at its core, I had an EUREKA moment. Let’s go to the fundamentals. Stirling engines work by exploiting temperature differences in order to move pistons that in turn move a […]
A couple of days ago I had a conversation with a trader friend who has migrated into the consulting business. His journey was the result of a bit of involuntary arm twisting to be sure as this was not what he had planned for in his life, but the job market for traders is generally […]
How many times have I written about the implications of shale on oil? For an LNG guy I have a strange obsession with that but look at the fundamentals and the picture is clear. Oil is still the big bully out there and it dominates the entire energy world hands down. So, anything that happens […]
It is difficult not to be stunned by what happens in energy nowadays. Prices were stratospheric for many years and suddenly have dropped to less than half just to regain a little over the last weeks and months. Renegade drillers in the US have shaken decade old certainties and created the shale MasterBlaster. Nothing in […]
Who has not seen the movie “The Matrix”? As incredible as it seems, there still seem to be those who have not. I guess none of my readers responds to this challenge so I skip the storyline and the cast. One of the defining scenes of the first installement was when Cypher (the traitor) had a meeting with agent Smith […]
There is a German saying. He, who does a voyage, shall have stories to tell. This certainly applies to the LNG business and to any newcomer getting his first chills from it. It’s all exciting but after the first few missteps (oh trust me, there will be plenty) the F-word starts to creep into your […]
Since my earliest days in LNG, I have lived with the specter of Iranian LNG. Iran was always one of the potentially emerging LNG superpowers. Well – sort of at least. Since 1972, when the first concept for an LNG project was conceived until this very day, not one single drop of LNG has been […]
After nearly a decade in LNG I tend to believe that I should have seen everything under the sun – but that conviction turns to shreds just an instant after when I see the next hilarious piece of LNG news. When I started to get serious on the matter in 2005, I quickly realized that […]
The news about the current Nigerian fuels crisis is already spreading beyond the realms of the Gulf of Guinea. It is said that this one is the worst since anyone can think. This is truly not an enviable legacy for the outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan. Could the incoming Nr. 1, president elect Buhari, be more […]
When I was exposed to Sub-Saharan Africa for the first time in 1996, one of the real big problems of the time was keeping in touch with loved ones back in Europe. Telephones were rare and when they existed, lines did not always work and even if they worked, it cost an arm and a […]
On the day when my oldest son hit school, I had a moment of surprise. Gone were the neat rows of tables and chairs I had found when I was a boy myself. Today’s schools in Vienna (my hometown) were colorful, differently assembled islands of tables enabling group formation in the classroom. I must admit […]
This is not my first post on the current oil price dilemma and I have a hunch that there will be more to come in terms of even lower prices. From today’s vantage point it looks a bit like the new ruler of the kingdom has stabilized the slide but nothing could be further from […]
In the mid Nineties, the UK transformed its gas market unleashing liberalization. Competition was about to set customers free, set traders loose and set the scene for the birth of the dominating gas hub of Europe. The National Balancing Point or better known as NBP. The NBP, as its name suggests, originally was a leftover from the […]
Those who have spent the last 10 years in oil and gas were in for the ride of their lifetime. Those who have spent far longer in the industry will look back at the nuttiest 10 years of their entire careers. We have gone from peak fear to boom and now gloom with lots of […]
When I was a little kid, Star Trek was a staple. No surprise – I was born in the year when Neil Armstrong strode down the surface of the moon for the first time. And I sucked it in. I just sucked every sequel of Captain Kirk solving another cosmic puzzle and Mr. Spock frowning […]
Most of us will remember from our time at school that life divides into different reigns. One of them belongs to Bacteria, scientifically called Prokaryotes. They are simple singular cell life forms with no cellular core and RNA swimming free in a sack of chemicals. They are the very simplest life forms the broad public […]
Dear Airline executives I am a frequent traveller and heavy user of airline services. As a consultant for the energy industry, my work is global and I spend a lot of time musing about the safety on the planes I use. The recent disaster involving the apparent homicide perpetrated by a young co-pilot to 149 […]
2011 I was briefly involved in a project called AGRI – the Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania Interconnector. I was intrigued, because even if this project was daring and exotic, it had immediate appeal to me. But I underestimated the signs of the time. There were big ticket pipeline projects sucking off much-needed media exposure and political […]
Is there anyone who does not know about the sanctions against countries like Iran, Cuba or North Korea and now against Russia? If one looks at the news only, sanctions appear to be a very effective means of turning violent regimes into purring kittens. Well, are they? Let’s take a look at some of the […]
More than 6 years ago – in 2008 – something big happened. The world economy took its first big knock from which it has not recovered since. For many, it has set in motion a spiral that threatens to blow our livelihoods apart. Who would not be intimidated? But something else happens, something much more […]
Just imagine it’s Christmas but nobody is there. That’s a bit what LNG for bunkering feels like. It has it all: LNG is cleaner than anything else cutting some cheese with the environmentalists, it’s cheaper than diesel which must make sense to the shippers, and when you put the cost of scrubbing in it even […]
A couple of days ago I was engaged in an online discussion about joblessness at age 45 and beyond. I was struck by the obvious magnitude of the problem and also by the sometimes extreme honesty with which the participants described their personal fates. One of the moderators then tried to make everyone comfortable by […]
All those interested in Norse mythology (I am sure there are some Thor fans out there) will have a clue on what happens when Ragnarok hits us. It is a series of events that eventually destroys most of everything we know and even many of the gods die. The world reboots on a new setting. […]
So we have lived through the last OPEC meeting in Vienna holding our breath what the oil producers might be doing in order to stop the oil price from falling even lower. The oil price is still not really low right now, let’s not forget this. But it is too low for some who cannot justify […]
How many times have you had a great idea but your in-built censure mechanism prevented you from spilling it to the world? I bet any of you had countless of those moments. Great ideas are extremely frequent. So frequent in fact, we all have them more often than we change our undies. I know that […]
One in 3 Arabs worldwide lives on the banks of the Nile river? That makes the oldest culture on earth the Arab heavyweight. Unfortunately, modern Egypt has made the headlines more than once in the very recent past. Not really the kind of news that we would wish this tormented country but believe it or […]
Modern man with all his marvels is roaming the planet because of a simple, yet powerful mechanism called Evolution. It’s simple because it mechanically tries out every possible pathway in order to find what works best. It also eliminates those solutions, that have not worked well. Simple, as this mechanism may be, it yet has ensured […]
There is something exciting up in the north. Its big, it’s cool, it’s the new darling of the LNG world. World – meet Alaska LNG. Shall we be excited? For a second we might, but there is something strange creeping up our spines. About 2 years ago I wrote about the Black Mamba effect in […]
If one does a long-term project, one needs good forecasts. But what is a good forecast? The one which gives you the truth – or something reasonably close to it. Judging by past performance, all this crystal ball gazing has so far only delivered paltry results – at the very best. Most of the forecasts […]
I cannot remember how many times I had the issue on the table. What’s better? CNG or LNG? My answer is simple – none. Each one of them serves a different purpose and hence, they cannot really be compared. They do coexist in a way. But when we already talk about mobility, I would like […]
For the technophiles among us – Oculus Rift is a revolution that will buzz gaming aficionados by mid next year. And we all wait eagerly. It’s all too easy to dismiss it as a pure gaming gimmick but if one looks a little deeper, a lot more lies beneath and that will rattle many things […]
I am feeling a little like in a warp bubble – don’t you? Browsing the news-feeds I am swamped with posts about projects that are not doing well because the oil price is so low, countries in trouble because the oil price is so low, markets in panic because the oil price is so low. […]
The world of those who trade liquefied gasses and light condensate products is in turmoil. At last, the ripples of the US shale revolution are hitting the refinery products markets. And the leave no stone unturned just as shale has already made billion-dollar LNG projects go up in flames. LPG prices worldwide go down and […]
Dear President Obama, if I had to draw up a list of the defining moments in world history during my childhood, the Islamic Revolution in Iran certainly stands out. As a 69er I have somehow seen the last years of the Shah’s reign, but not enough to remember vividly. After all, I lived in […]
Since Toyota has bequeathed the Prius on us, all eyes are on hybrid cars. And it’s hard not to admire the technology that has gone in. It’s also hard not to have a heart attack at the sight of the price tag that comes with a Prius – or indeed other hybrid cars. This technology […]
65 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled the planet. They had conquered every niche of life and ruled the elements. Huge marine Dinos dominated the seas, the biggest land animals ever roamed the planet and the skies were full of airborne Dinos with wingspans that rival today’s biggest sailplanes. However, were they alone? Of course, they […]
When about 10 years ago I was unleashed on the LNG world, I did not imagine that future logistics is going to be something I am going to spend a lot of time with. When we talked of logistics, we talked of supertanker sized loads of LNG that were landed at super-large LNG terminals where […]
It’s incredible how some old, bad ideas linger on in human minds and make their way through history even or despite having been roundly disproven and everyone just trying to defend them should be laughing stock. However, they persist and camouflage under new sexy buzzwords and terms. The new/old crap raining down on us in truckloads […]
Already in 2008, Smart Grids were all the rage. Everything was to become smart but when I hit my first Smart Grid conference in Paris in 2010, I was disappointed beyond any description. What I saw there was as smart as a fruit fly – not my definition of real brainy. When I think of […]
I was born in 1969 – the year of the moon landing. My parents bought their first black and white television set at the time and they still had it when I went to school. The moon landing was accidentally happening in the most important year on my timeline. But ever since I was a […]
This blog is full of speculation. Why? Because I like to imagine things how they are likely to turn – at least the way I see. Worry not – this is not a spiritual but rather a spirited journey into a near future. A future most of us are likely to see so you can […]
Humanity is capable of astonishing feats from making atoms visible to landing probes on saturnian moons. In business though, there are limits of what should be done – or not.
Let me give you some figures straight. Iran consumes a little more than 30 billion liters of diesel fuel per year in order to keep its economy chugging on (pulled that from Google). I am not even talking about gasoline here. Because much of the same rationale I will be unfolding in this post also […]
In September 1815, 3 leading powers of the 19th century Europe signed a document that gave birth of the so-called holy alliance. At the behest of Alexander I of Russia, the rulers of Austria and Prussia decided that the revolutionary idea fomented in the French revolution should be suffocated wherever it rises. God given rights […]
This blog is almost two years old now and I have been asked multiple times why I avoided the F-word. Let’s clear up that misconception right now – I am not avoiding it. There only was so much else happening in energy that gave me more thrills than Floating LNG. And here we go right […]
News on another potential Russian gas crisis is galore. Not a week without page-filling analysis if Russia will cut the gas or Ukrainians will simply resort to stealing or, or, or. All this commenting on the troubles between Russia and Ukraine masks another, much more serious issue, which threatens European gas supply security much more […]
