Barrelperday

The birth of liquid international LNG markets

In the second post of our LNG series we focus on the restructuring of LNG markets and how they transform from a rigid, long-term structure dominated by a few incumbents into a flexible and vivid market place.

This restructuring opens doors for new entrants. There will be new buyers without rigid long-term commitments and new traders with less market power. They will distribute LNG towards new markets, even to Hungary. Following our slightly technical post today, next week we will continue our LNG series with focusing on how LNG will penetrate the European markets. […]

Neither. The South Stream would not have solved much of Hungary’s problems. But neither will the country be worse-off without it. […]

The price of natural gas is higher in European countries where the share of Russian import is high. Most likely this is not because of import dependency, but Russian dependency. While many countries import gas into their country, which is a healthy trade helping both the countries involved in the process, one of the main problems of this is the leaky pipelines which although can be detected by using a Portable Gas Detectors, but resolving this issue will again cost the country a ton of money. If Eastern European countries want to buy cheap gas, they need to connect to the Western-European gas market: there Russian gas has to compete with other sources, leading to much lower prices. […]

“The only free cheese is in the mousetrap.” Who profits from politicizing gas prices in Ukraine? How much is a country’s sovereignty worth?

Guest post by András György Deák, Associate Fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs. […]

Bluff, empire-building or no better project?

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Gazprom faces money troubles – it simply has too much.

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For the first time in history, Gazprom is transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan via the Arctic, and even endeavored to make the trip in November. This route is three weeks shorter than the currently used roundabout to the south, and there are no fees to be paid at the Suez Canal. All this has been made possible by climate change, more specifically the melting and thinning of the Arctic ice layer.

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Finally the EU has woken up to something that has long been obvious. Another sign that the (market) power of Gazprom is waning.  […]