Paparazzi Ethnography

9/21: The day following the end of the LNG Global Congress, I met over lunch with interfax energy reporter Tom Washington. At the journalist’s suggestion we met near the Thames river, at Brasserie Blanc. The day prior, we had chatted briefly over lunch at the LNG gc Congress and I had so many questions that I implored him to meet with me for lunch the very next day.

As Tom explained, journalists play a role in determining prestige among firms and spokespersons. Energy journalists are interested primarily in numbers. Through numbers (annual production, forecasts on production, revenue) they aim to tell a story about the fortunes of industry.

Since they are reporting and not editorializing, they specifically employ a quote by an expert in order to fashion a particular interpretation.

That is, a quote gives surface legitimacy to their interpretation of the story based on what they understand the numbers to convey.

As an example, consider Tom’s reporting on the Yamal discussion at the LNG gc event in his article that came out several hours after our lunch titled Yamal LNG affirms its faith in China for financing.

We talked for some time of Tatiana Mitrova, who I met at Skolkovo in the outskirts of Moscow, just prior to her ascendance at Russian Academy of Sciences.

Her presentation at LNG gc was instructive as always, discussing the evolution of Russian gas policy, describing the industry’s shift from traditional contract (subsidizing economy and low taxes for production – protection from the state, monopolistic structure of market without question) to New Deal, where prices are reaching Henry Hub level for industrial consumers, while taxes are increasing, and more players, Novatec/Rosneft are “hungry to reduce Gazprom’s share”.

I should just mention that other persons of note in attendance at the LNG gc included Ralf Dickel, who I first met in Moscow during his deliver to the oil and gas congress when he was director of European Energy Charter, and then last year at the Energetics Conference in St. Petersburg.

9/18: Just off the coffee break and now listening to Takao Kasumi, Deputy General Manager, Paris representative of Tokyo Gas. In the post Fukushima landscape, LNG (liquified natural gas imports) are a big issue in Japan. What is perhaps more unexpected is the high expectations of shale gas imports from the United Sates.

I asked earlier, actually, of Senior Analyst Javier Diaz, Bentek Energy, a unit of PLATTS, whether all this US gas would potentially come from Alaskan efforts to commercialize North Slope natural gas. His response provided before everyone and sundry was that the project (announced recently in Alaska news as going forward) was totally uneconomic, without even a projected time horizon of delivery. The 45-60 billion dollar project no longer is talked about in terms of 10 to 20 year time frames rolling into the future.

Anyway, back to Takao who just finished, and we are moving on to Jose Ramon Arango, Leader of Liquid Bulk Segment, Panama Canal Authority, who will be speaking of everything [except the tariff rates].

LNG [liquefied natural gas] Global Congress, London

Global LNG Pamphlet


Panama. The transshipment center for the Americas since the 1600s. A lot of impressive photos presented both on current development in widening the canal, but also computer graphic imagery depicting how it will appear when completed.

Andrew Clifton, General Manager, SIGTTO — talking about achieving a level of reliability that makes LNG shipping “almost invisible”. US, UK, France, were the three main developers of LNG vessels, and responding on the French achievement is Jean-Francois Castel, Manager Business Development, Gazocean GDF Suez.


US LNG vs. Russian Pipe Gas: who wins. Will Russia remain the lowest cost producer in Europe? by Theirry Bros, European Gas & LNG, Global Research & Strategy, Societe Generale. A lower overall European gas price will make Chinese extract low cost gas from Russia. But Russian production costs are very low. Apparently, Russia is observing US export of LNG, watching the potential terminal buildup for exporting to Europe, wanting to keep a threshold beyond which would destroy price stability.

Yamal LNG Update, Will Yamal LNG be cost effective for European Supply? Christophe Malet, Deputy Director Marketing & Shipping, Yamal LNG. Multiple candidates of super giant natural gas fields across the northern peninsula of Yamal. Production company moving toward production and trade entity.

Envisioning utilizing Northern Sea Route during the Arctic Summer (June through September) — within two weeks distance to eastern markets making it comparable distance to middle east. During winter, Yamal would go west to Europe across Norway to transfer gas onto conventional vessels that would then provide shipments to the East.

Total investment cost of project, 27 billion dollars for the three trains. Requirements of an Arctic fleet + a conventional fleet to transport from lower latitudes + condensation infrastructure. Arctic vessels around 2015.

Port of Sabetta, Yamal. Malet shows actual photos of the development of the location, indicating 3000 persons at the site, a commercial air strip being constructed, “it’s beautiful”. [fabulous photographs, ed.]

“As Tatiana [Mitrova] highlighted this morning, sanctions have created uncertainty in Russia these days”…”Yamal has significant momentum to date because its shareholders had a pre-committment and show continued support for handling the new uncertainties, whether over technology transfers or access to financial markets”. The fundamentals of the Yamal are very strong and valuable proposition – for asian markets, and European markets. A project that will bring a constant flow besides Europe, which is ideally located to access additional production.

Now up: John la Rue, Executive Director Port of Corpus Christi providing update on the US LNG Exports. Shows the US gas transmission lines. Talking about various projects with an opportunity to “see 10-12 billion dollars going into the ground” per project.

An interesting discussion about flaring – burning natural gas – and the attempts to cut back on flaring from days to hours.

In one of my favorite books, Ancient City, Fustel de Coulanges builds lifeworlds around the smallest bits of data. I always think of it when looking at photographs, especially poor images like the one above that I took with the photobooth camera on macbook.

If we take just one fragment from this image, we can see quite a bit about the nature of what constitutes the staging of verification in energy knowledge at this particular event.

In this case, the “pleated” blue cloth-like folds that conspicuously hang down from the elevated “stage” onto the carpet, indicating excess and heightened sensation of a location titled floor or ground, where people walk, and the elaborated distance from which people speak or address those on the ground floor.