The threats weighting on Europe supplying of natural gas, the very strong increase of the prices which are resulting from it and the risks of a breaking of the deliveries to essential industries remind us the oil crisis of the Seventies. The barrel price, in less than ten years, came from 3 to 30 dollars. The creation of the OPEC allowed to keeping that level and an embargo on deliveries to European countries was even decided. So the natural gas has become a strategic fossil energy as was oil forty years ago.

The main cause of this crisis is the European dependance to Russian natural gas. Several countries as Germany and Italy, instead of diversifying their supplying sources, have chosen this policy. They thought that would benefit to their enterprises. But as an answer to the sanctions taken after the Ukraine invasion, Moscow has largely reduced its deliveries, using low convincing pretexts as the necessary maintenance of the pipelines or the default of bills regular payments. That has generated a rapid rise of the market prices. The European energy regulation, through the link between power prices with natural gas ones, has worsened the situation. Europe is confronted both with an unprecedented for four decades inflationist crisis and with a serious threat on the ability of several countries to have at their disposal enough resources to go through winter.

Regarding that, the reassuring words about the natural gas inventories restoration are little convincing because we must not be wrong about their role. During that period of the year, consumption strongly increases. Inventories allow to fill the gap between this surplus of the demand and importations flows which, them, are in theory stable. But if, as we observe it today, flows are in a strong fall due to the restrictions imposed by Russia, the recourse to inventories will not be enough to offset both the supply reduction and the increase of the consumption.

So natural gas became, as oil, a strategic commodity, which is a major transformation in the energy world. It results from the union of two essential innovations occurred in the production and in the transportation of this fossil fuel. Policies put in place to reduce the greenhouse gas to cope with the climate warming have then contributed to increase its utilization.

To the difference of oil and coal, natural gas, at the origin, is a product difficult to transport from one country to another. Until recently, the only way was to use pipelines. Their costs were very high and the conclusion of long-term supply contracts with the clients to which the production was assigned was a necessary condition for their construction. But they could be built only on grounds or, as for North Stream 1 and 2, under the sea for short distances. The liquefaction technology has largely lifted this logistic constrain and we believe that, someday, it will not be more difficult to carry natural gas than oil. So investments in liquefaction could increase from 20 to 40 billion dollars between 2020 and 2024.

The second technological innovation was the fracking, which has made possible the exploitation of the shale gas fields. Along with their abundance, they offer a high flexibility, to the difference of the classical fields, especially these which are in deep sea, which are almost impossible to close and to reopen according to the market conditions. So in the United States, natural gas production increased in 10 years by 50% and it is this new fossil energy source which has allowed to reducing the share of the coal power plants to the profit of the natural gas ones. So the country has succeeded to reduce substantially its CO2 emissions and to become a major exporter with almost 100 bnm3 in 2021when it was importing 50 bnm3 in 2011. That has also allowed to China, which is starting to exploit its own shale gas fields, to slowing the growth of its coal power plants. Its natural gas consumption went between 2011 and 2021 from 135 to 375 bnm3 and its imports last year has reached 170 bnm3, mainly from Central Asia, Australia and Russia through pipelines or in the plants dedicated to process LNG. So these innovations have contributed to the fight against the climate change, giving to natural gas an increased share among fossil energies in the power production.

That offers also to the market a higher flexibility and momently allows to slowing this trend. Facing the natural gas prices rapid rise, American utilities have full interest to come back to coal, which frees exports to Europe capacities, to the largest profit of the producers. To do that, it is necessary to build new liquefactions units, at the start, tankers to make the transportation, and plants at the arrival to process the LNG. The investments are forecasted. We see the same phenomenon in China where utilities could be incited to reexport their Russian natural gas in making substantial profits but in slowing the rise of the natural gas in the country power mix.

Japan, which has put back into operation only ten nuclear power plants since the Fukushima catastrophe, has already decided to invest in near ten LNG terminals, to reduce its dependance to coal. Until now, Russian natural gas export contracts coming from the Sakhaline field are not put into question. The country could also take profit of the slowing of the China natural gas demand to complete its supplying.

Figures for 2021, so before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, already showed that the natural gas market globalization was on its course. This trend is going to strongly accelerate due to the decisions of the Russian authorities to reduce and even to stop their deliveries in Europe, as recently to Engie. Concerned countries are employing them to find as soon as possible and at any price new suppliers in order to reassuring household and enterprises. But it is not a short-term phenomenon, supposed to disappear with the end of the Ukrainian crisis. The trust toward Russia has been broken and it is not going to be reestablished soon. Several European countries have launched, as in the U.S., investments programs of plants allowing to receiving and to processing LNG, in order to durably diversify their supply sources.

That will generate an increase of the flows coming from the Middle East, the United States and from the development of new relations with African countries, and especially with these which are riversides of the Mediterranean Sea. The transitory solution, developed in urgence especially in Germany, which consists in rebounding coal use in the power production so will be for a very short one because it put into question the achievements of all the objectives of reduction of CO2 emissions.

The conjunction of a major political crisis with the invasion of Ukraine and technological innovations making easier, everywhere in the world, the have access to natural gas have transformed the fossil energies markets. That will allow, someday, the return of accessible prices which will lead then to the coming back of the reduction of the use of coal to produce power.