Up here, the shouting fades. Below, the deckhands brawl over semantics and empty barrels. But from the rigging, the shape of things comes into focus — slow collapse, fast delusion, and the absurd elegance of it all.
This is where I map the mess from altitude. Big arcs. Broken patterns. Unwelcome truths seen before impact. No rah-rah optimism, no collapse-porn doomerism. Just the sharp wind, a good scope, and the knowledge that sometimes the best you can do is spot the rocks early and yell loud enough for someone below to hear.
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…
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…
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 as a boy. Today’s schools in Vienna (my hometown) were colorful, differently assembled…
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…
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 better…
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…
Dear Airline executives I am a frequent traveler 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 of the planes I…
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…
Just imagine it’s Christmas but nobody is there. That’s a bit of 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…
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…