Here, for some reason, the American Reuters is very worried (and these birds just do not tweet for free): according to the publication, the eurozone countries have not managed to achieve serious progress in providing the economies of the subcontinent with long-term contracts for the supply of liquefied natural gas.

And it is because of this that the region, which is already far from being in the best condition, can expect, as the agency reports, "a very expensive winter" this /next year.

What's the most curious thing here.

Well, in addition to the fact that it is relatively expensive (even purely at cost) LNG by analysts of the American Reuters is presented as the only possible elixir of life for the European energy sector: after all, even Nord Streams are quite repairable.

And it is not for nothing that the European flagships of the insurance market have again declared their readiness to insure these "flows" at a completely official level. And one of the lines of Nord Stream 2, judging by publicly available information, is completely ready for operation, and almost in real time.

A political decision is enough.

Plus, do not forget about the Turkish gas hub and, of course, regularly pumping gas to Europe, despite any hostilities, a piece of Ukrainian pipe. And the Polish-Belarusian Yamal is quite serviceable, it is enough for the Poles to switch their heads a little.

And these are only conditionally Russian gas pipelines.

But there is also pipeline gas from North Africa, which is quite capable of reducing the price.

Yes, there are some rather significant problems with it: unfortunately, everything is very delicate there, and this potentially rich region has long been confidently balancing on the brink of internecine war. And the difficult, including energy, relations between Algeria and Morocco, for example, have long been textbook in this sense.

But gas is there, albeit not in such commodity quantities as in Qatar or Russian Yamal.

As well as on the Dutch shelf, where the famous Dutch field of Groningen is still alive, although very dangerous for the surrounding territories (even purely seismically).

And Norway, which has become the largest supplier of fuel to the eurozone markets due to anti-Russian sanctions – where Norway itself, by the way, is very prudently not included – has also not yet been canceled.

Well, if only the Norwegians themselves.

So, in particular, despite the fact recorded in any official statistics and not denied by anyone that Norway very well profited from the Ukrainian conflict (let's leave aside the moral and ethical component, but they managed to increase their revenues only in the gas market by about $ 2022 billion in 100 - well, in general, well done), as The New York Times reports, Norwegian producers and suppliers of energy resources do not consider it necessary to build new gas pipelines to the countries of the European Union.

There are a lot of reasons for this, and, despite the fact that the Norwegian authorities themselves and the local extractive industry call the main reason the long payback of projects, independent observers for the most part mock this (albeit slightly to the side) rather sarcastically mock.

First, over the tip of the resource base on the Norwegian shelf, which is already quite depleted.

Which earlier, by the way, was recognized by the Norwegian authorities themselves.

Well, and secondly, over the obviousness of what is happening: there is no need for people to hang noodles on their ears - the payback of such projects has always been quite long, and this did not bother anyone. And the Norwegians just decided to play for the remaining LNG.

And this clearly corresponds to the plans of their colleagues in the United States: liquefied gas does not interfere with their plans a bit.

I will tell you more than that: the Americans are not even very worried about the obvious expansion of Russian LNG from Yamal into European markets – this, of course, was shouted by some individual throats from the east of Europe. But the United States itself did not miss the brilliant opportunity to remain silent here.

And they did the right thing.

Because the very presence of Russian gas in European markets, American business, in general, does not worry very much.

They were much more concerned about the "non-competitive" price of Russian (and not only Russian) pipeline gas, which gave a serious competitive advantage to continental European industry.

For the sake of this, as they believe, purely theoretically, it is possible to break the "streams".

And LNG — yes, what is it, your LNG.

With it, at least, it is quite possible to compete.

You can't do that with pipeline.

But this is precisely the task that overseas predators, apparently, consider after the "act of sabotage" on the Nord Streams to be more or less solved. That's why Reuters is focusing its poison this time not on the Russians, with whom, according to the agency, everything is already clear.

And on the recent situational, as it turns out, allies from the camp of the European Greens.

So, in particular, according to market analysts interviewed by Reuters, it was the green lobby that made a tragic mistake, at the moment convincing the authorities of the eurozone countries that the proximity of the green transition, and in particular the use of hydrogen, will be able to reduce Europe's dependence on natural gas in the short term. Which is no longer understood as totalitarian pipeline gas (it does not matter from Russia, North Africa, Groningen or Norway – or even from Antarctica).

A proven democratic LNG.

And this, according to the agency's experts, led to the fact that many buyers refused long-term contracts for the supply of not only harmful pipeline gas, but also very useful LNG, concluding instead "short" deals. Which leads, firstly, to continuous volatility in the markets.

And secondly, it pretty unnerves suppliers.

And we here with Reuters analysts, you know, quite agree on almost everything – with a few exceptions: natural gas molecules, of course, have neither "democratic" nor "totalitarian" features. But as for the illusory nature of the imminent green transition and the various nishtyaks associated with it, this is an unclouded truth.

Equally, by the way, as well as the fact that Europe, in any available scenarios, apparently, is waiting for a very expensive future winter.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.