China has abandoned its one-child policy. It was about time as this draconian measure resulted in one of the most devastating shifts in population patterns the world has ever seen. Armies of males that would never find brides as girls…
Who knows the tale of Heracles who – for a moment – carries the weight of the heavens on his shoulders? King Eurystheus had charged Heracles with 12 labors to atone for the slaughter of his family. The eleventh labor…
Until about one year ago, every time I went to Sub-Saharan Africa, I entered a bustling world, awash with cash from black goo. Oil made the new fortunes of many of those countries and gave them a fillip like never…
When Nigeria LNG started operations in 1999, it had become the LNG project that has gone to FID with the longest lead time from “first conception” to realization ever. There was a first idea for the project as early as…
I am just getting out of the thick of the Central European Gas Conference – which was mighty well organized—the LNG focus day reinforced everything I have said for years and which was also on the horizon for even the…
Poor Iranians are really in bad luck. Or are they? Their agreement with the world – ending the sanctions they have been living under after many years – is now in full force. They sure have expected a wave of…
Everyone holds his breath as one of the most important hydrocarbon exporters on earth gears up to get back into the business. However, that’s not an easy quest for even as big an oil & gas nation as Iran undoubtedly…
Who remembers what a film roll for photographic film from Kodak Eastman is? Once upon a time, photography was a perfect business. To have some memories of – whatever – you needed a big clunky camera that you had to…
It’s almost 9 years ago I was asked to perform an in-company introductory course on LNG for the employees of the company I worked for at the time. It was a short 3-hour affair and I threw in everything I…
I have already written about Oculus Rift and other systems and how they are going to impact business travel or education. But one might believe that this technological revolution will take decades to take hold in the mainstream as it’s…
This article was written in summer 2015, before the break of the VW scandal as it was published in NGV. I just forgot to publish it here so far but don’t want to alter the original article so – enjoy.…
One in three Arabs worldwide lives on the banks of the Nile. 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. It’s not the…
Anyone checking regularly on the oil price must blush from time to time. One of the consequences of the lower oil price is that the world is currently drowning in other oil-related products as well and there is worse to…
It’s a staple of the green movement. CO2 is bad for the planet. It causes global warming and will eventually make us fry in hell. Behold Venus. This has been conventional wisdom since I can think – at least since…
Since my earliest days in the Natural Gas business, I have been exposed to a few notions that had a hollow ring to them from day one. The oil price link drew my most immediate suspicion although it took years…
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 can directly…
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…
Those reading blogs on the future have all asked themselves the same question. Will I see the great (or sometimes horrible) things we futurists predict? Or am I going to die before it comes to happen? Will I stand on…
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…
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…
It’s more than 3 years now that I have been 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…