It is hard to ignore Russia in today’s newscast and even those…

No cash - no business. That’s stone old wisdom. Any LNG venture…

But America needs to fix its addiction to easy money and the current crisis could have been the best thing happening to the country in a long while for its curative properties. Its going to be bluntet by the shale gas boom as this puts new easy money at the fingertips of politicians.

Many know Colombia for its Emeralds, even more for its wild past during the drug wars. The wars are over and visitors can enjoy one of the most beautiful counties on earth again. But to the energy man, Colombia rings for its huge super high quality coal reserves. But how is coal important to a LNG man?

I have seen many of those plans and they have never worked. Not because they are African. This stuff cannot work if you put it in Europe or North America. Because grand Master plans generally are impossible to realize. They inherently lack flexibility, which is necessary to deal with unforeseen events or twists and turns in the market or the international energy scene.

Many African countries are oil producers but they are also beset by frequent power outages. At the same time they flare Natural Gas in huge volumes. Infrastructure to bring that gas to power plants and then further distribute electricity is weak or non existent. That could be a blessing in disguise as the continent is on the verge of an energy revolution.

Scientific chaos is not the same as your ordinary chaos. It simply means that it is impossible to predict exactly what will happen in all but the very simplest systems, even if every detail of its past and current conditions is known.

We cannot easily say that we did not try (in homeopathic doses) to wean ourselves off our addiction to imported hydrocarbons but who wants to take a reduction in lifestyle, even if that meant financing (directly or indirectly) some people that may wish to harm us. In simple words, we gave some of those who might want to kill us money - to increase their ability to do so. Plus our presence on their lands further stoked their ire. Not really smart but a reality we seemed had to live with so far. No more. The unconventional gas revolution has already done more for US national security than all nation building programs combined.

While the world was having a beauty sleep an earth moving event sent ripples through the Barents Sea - and made the infantile dreams of the classical energy monopolist in Europe (trust me - they are still an abundant species but they have learned to don the market gloves) a little less sweaty.

It's a thorny question. And not one with a clear-cut answer possible.…

Many would be buyers are not very nimble when it comes to secure volumes of LNG. No surprise here, as many are behaving like the BORG from Star Trek. We are the BORG - resistance is futile. But is that really a recipe for success?

About 2 months ago I had written an open letter to president Obama. Here is his response. Right below it I explain why I think that LNG as a fuel is not just a blimp or a bridge technology as some like to call it. Its an energy earthquake and it will ring in a new paradigm shift.

LNG has been a history of ever larger liquefaction trains. It all culminated in the construction of the Qatari supertrains. One of those monsters is able to satisfy the needs of more than the entire gas consumption of a small country such as Austria. But do they make economic sense?

Expertise can be a drawback. Sometimes it's outright deadly. Some things - sometimes - change so deeply, so radically that old experience does not even serve as a valid foundation for new learning anymore. It becomes so harmful - you must get rid of it - or else you face oblivion. In Natural gas - this happens right here - right now.

The US seems to be on the verge of becoming an LNG exporter. This, combined with new volumes from Australia, show the prospect of Asia being drowned in LNG. But there is a shiny white knight on the horizon. China with its ever-growing industries, with its endlessly expanding consumer markets, with its insatiable thirst for energy promises to become the new LNG El Dorado.

The Ukraine has a LNG problem. It’s a major blunder and it looks like LNG in the region is doomed. As strange as it sounds, there might be a bright future for LNG in the Black Sea still.

Those well-connected are supposed to be the magic cure to a rotten LNG portfolio. They are not so important, after all.

New Asian LNG buyers (outside the JKT and China) have a problem. They are perceived to be in the “I will pay any price for LNG” club by sellers. Many of them face vastly different situations from each other in their home markets. Not an enviable position but one that can be dealt with.

Sky-high CAPEX plus cost overruns and a fundamental shift in…