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Klaipedos Nafta, a state-controlled oil terminal operator, is leasing the ship, formally known as a floating gas storage and regasification unit, from a Norwegian company, Hoegh, in a 10-year deal for 430 million euros, or $560 million.

Lithuania would need to import L.N.G. at prices 5 to 10 percent less than Gazprom charges for its gas to ensure the project breaks even; Lithuanian officials said the price of L.N.G. imports could be as much as 20 percent less than Gazprom charges.

“We will be able for the first time in our history to negotiate, because we have alternative sources,”

But Mr. Masiulis said his greatest challenge was overcoming the Lithuanian bureaucracy and fending off attempts to give the project “a shade of corruption.”

they would help inoculate European economies against the adverse effects of energy disruptions in the medium term.

Consideration should be given to invoking GATT Article XXI, which provides exceptions for national security reasons from rights and obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example. Invoking this WTO exception would allow across-the-board actions against Russia without prior notification or even justification. The national security exception of Article XXI is that broad. In brief, the United States and the European Union could remove in one step all the WTO benefits they accorded Russia when it acceded to the WTO in August 2012. Doing so would disrupt bilateral trade and investment, possibly kicking tariffs back up to Smoot-Hawley levels of the 1930s.

4,000 jobs

Today, the aluminum products have approximately a 40 percent  share in the total export of goods from Iceland (which is more or less the same proportion as that of fish products).

But three years later, the same row erupted again: Gazprom demanded a price hike to $400-plus from $250, Kiev flatly refused, and on New Year's day 2009, Gazprom began pumping only enough gas to meet the needs of its customers beyond Ukraine.

Again, the consequences were marked. Inevitably, Russia accused Ukraine of siphoning off supplies meant for European customers to meet its own needs, and cut supplies completely

several countries – particularly in south-eastern Europe, almost completely dependent on supplies from Ukraine – simply ran out of gas.

Bulgaria shut down production in its main industrial plants; Slovakia declared a state of emergency

Many industry experts, though, point out that the world has changed since 2009, and that there are any number of reasons why Moscow's natural gas supplies may not prove quite the potent economic and diplomatic weapon they once were.

higher than normal temperatures are forecast to continue for several weeks yet, significantly reducing demand for gas and leaving prices at their lowest for two years

since the first "gas war" of 2006, many European countries have made huge efforts to increase their gas storage capacity and stocks are high. Some countries, such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and Moldova, which lack large storage capacity and depend heavily on gas supplies via Ukraine, would certainly suffer from any disruption in supplies

New Gazprom pipelines via Belarus and the Baltic Sea to Germany (Nord Stream) have cut the proportion of Gazprom's Europe-bound exports that transit via Ukraine to around half the total, meaning only about 15% of Europe's gas now relies on Ukraine's pipelines. Gazprom is also planning a Black Sea pipeline (South Stream), expected in 2015, meaning its exports to Europe will bypass Ukraine completely. Ukraine itself has cut its domestic gas consumption by nearly 40% over the past few years, halving its imports from Russia in the process.

Europe is increasingly installing specialist terminals that will allow gas to be imported from countries such as Qatar in the form of liquefied natural gas – while Norway's Statoil sold more gas to European countries in 2012 than Gazprom did. "Since the Russian supply cuts of 2006 and 2009, the tables have totally turned," Anders åslund, an energy advisor to both the Russian and Ukrainian governments, told the Washington Post.

Europe accounts for around a third of Gazprom's total gas sales, and around half of Russia's total budget revenue comes from oil and gas. Moscow needs that source of revenue, and whatever Vladimir Putin's geo-political ambitions, most energy analysts seem to agree he will think twice about jeopardising it.

As US coal demand declines, more US coal is going to Europe, where low CO2 prices and high gas prices are increasing the competitiveness of coal in the power generation system.

Because burning natural gas emits half the carbon dioxide of coal, this technology has helped the United States reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the lowest level since the mid-1990s

Meanwhile, the share of coal – the dirtiest fuel – has been rising, not falling, in the rest of the world’s energy mix.

Put differently, if the world continues to build coal-fired power plants at the current rate, those plants will still be around in 2050, regardless of what other technologies become viable in the meantime.

Even a serious fracking mishap would be unlikely to cause as much damage as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in 2011, or coal-mining tragedies that play out dramatically in frequent explosions and collapses (and more insidiously in the form of lung disease, water pollution, and soil erosion).

Indeed, US carbon emissions have dropped some 20% per capita, and are now at their lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower left the White House in 1961.

the shift from coal to natural gas has reduced US emissions by 400-500 megatonnes (Mt) of CO2 per year. To put that number in perspective, it is about twice the total effect of the Kyoto Protocol on carbon emissions in the rest of the world, including the European Union.

America’s 30,000 wind turbines reduce emissions by just one-tenth the amount that natural gas does. Biofuels reduce emissions by only ten Mt, and solar panels by a paltry three Mt.

Germany is the second-largest foreign investor in Ukraine behind Cyprus, which is a transit point for Russian money.

“Germany in particular is dependent on Russian gas,”

Domestic oil production has rocketed by roughly 70 percent over the last six years to 8.7 million barrels a day, and imports from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have already been cut roughly by half.

many oil experts predict that the country’s output will rise to as much as 12 million barrels a day over the nex

Shale oil is predominately light, sweet oil, meaning it is low in sulfur content and flows freely at room temperature.

United States exports of oil could reach three million to four million barrels a day in a few years, more than most OPEC producers currently provide world markets.

Europe depends on Russia for about 40 percent of its imported gas, most transmitted through Ukraine.

The appearance of imported cheap liquefied natural gas on the European market from Qatar and reduced demand have already led Gazprom to negotiate cuts of about 10 percent in contracts with Western European utilities,