Christopher Smith

Steams rises from the Kawasaki natural g

The window for US exporters to enter the global LNG marketplace will not be open forever, so why is it taking so long to approve these projects? Several high-profile energy experts mulled this and other economic, geopolitical and environmental questions at a recent Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy gathering. The US Department of… Keep reading →


The 2012 presidential election was truly part of its time not only in the issues it addressed but in the way it was run and analyzed. Large data sets were gathered and poured over and drove not only the campaigns but the streams of analysis that surrounded their outcomes.

Voting data still emerging from the election shows a number of interesting trends, some expected and others surprising. For energy sector observers tracking the public reaction to one of the election’s most pivotal issues, surprises have continued to roll in, reflecting the evolving fortunes and the shifting geographical focus of the energy sector in the US since 2008. Keep reading →


It has taken a couple of years for the energy industry to acknowledge a new reality: Natural gas availability is soaring in contravention of forecasting models that have been in use for decades, and the fuel is set to transform everything from power generation and transport to chemicals and even the trade deficit.

As old operating realities have been thrown out the window, as major oil players increasingly become natural gas companies, as billions of dollars of investment in proposed export terminals is argued over inside the sector and out, the strategic arm of this most strategic of industries is racing to catch up. Keep reading →