It was almost a year ago, when having tumbled in early 2015, oil proceeded to rebound strongly into the summer, where it traded at about $60 for three months, before US production resumed resulting in the next big leg lower which culminated with this’s February drop to 13 year lows. At that point a comparable rebound to last year materialized, and just like last year, the pundits have emerged claiming that there will be no further downside. Incidentally, we covered this comparison previously in “For Oil 2016 Is Setting Up To Be A Rerun Of Last Year.”
However, unlike last year, not everyone is (wrongly) convinced that this time the rebound in oil will be sustainable. One very prominent company that is already preparing for the next oil crash is the world’s largest shipping company, Danish conglomerate A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (also known as Maersk).
Maersk is perhaps best known for its pragmatic, even downright bearish outlook on the global economy. Recall that three months ago, the company admitted in its annual report that “demand for transportation of goods was significantly lower than expected, especially in the emerging markets as well as the Group’s key Europe trades, where the impact was further accelerated by de-stocking of the high inventory levels.”
The company’s CEO, Nils Andersen, told the FT in February that “it is worse than in 2008. The oil price is as low as its lowest point in 2008-09 and has stayed there for a long time and doesn’t look like going up soon. Freight rates are lower. The external conditions are much worse but we are better prepared.”
It is the risk that the current 60% rebound in oil prices from 2016 lows is just another temporary bounce, that has forced Maersk to start preparing for the next oil crash. The company’s CEO is confident that since the world keeps producing more petroleum than it can consume, it is “adapting its cost base to prepare for the risk of lower crude prices” according to Bloomberg.
As a result, Maersk’s oil unit is already exploring bigger cost cuts than previously planned. “The price will obviously be driven by the balance between supply and demand and there will be oversupply for many months still,” he said by phone from Copenhagen. “It definitely can’t be ruled out that the oil price will fall again.“
To be sure, Andersen is ultimately bullish on higher oil price… he is just not bullish on the path that oil prices will take to his higher price target: “I have previously said the oil price was too low, but it’s very plausible that the balance between supply and demand will continue to be unfavorable,” Andersen said.
Recent cost-cuts by Maersk have drastically reduced its breakeven oil price: in its latest full year forecast, the company predicted it can now break even with oil at $40 to $45. It previously said oil needed to trade at about $45 to $55 in order to avoid a loss. “We’re happy we’ve reached the goal we set,” Andersen said. “We will definitely work on cutting costs even further.”
As it continues to cut costs, we expect that Maersk will soon be profitable with oil in the $30, if not lower. Which is precisely the contingency Maersk is actively preparing for.
For a preview of what the next six months of general election jousting between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will look like, take a moment to watch the pair of ads released by the Clinton campaign over the last 24 hours. The ads portray Trump as both a dangerous demagogue with a penchant for racially charged remarks and as a loose cannon candidate whose behavior is unacceptable even to fellow Republicans.
One ad focuses on Trump’s comments about Mexicans and Muslims, and his initial refusal to disavow support from white nationalists:
Another ad is just a compilation of statements that Trump’s fellow Republicans, including Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and Marco Rubio, have said about him:
These ads give a pretty good sense of the general tone the election is likely to take right off the bat, and the sorts of attacks that Clinton is likely to pursue as the election proceeds. You can think of them as teaser trailers. There’s sure to be lots more later in the year, once the main event is upone us.
And what both ads make clear is that Clinton is going to make a sustained early effort to portray Trump as simply and totally unacceptable in a way that Trump’s Republican primary competitors never really did—or at least didn’t do in any concerted way.
One of the reasons that analysts got the Trump campaign wrong, and that he was able to outperform expectations was that many observers expected that the GOP would make a unified effort to cast Trump as someone who should be disqualified.
Although, as Clinton’s video shows, there were certainly scattered efforts to take on Trump, and to rule him unfit for the presidency, they tended to come in bursts, one at a time, by desperate candidates who had effectively already lost. (Witness Ted Cruz, who played nice with Trump throughout last year, laying into Trump on the morning of the Indiana primary this week.) And so, as Nate Cohn writes in The New York Times, “The Republican elite treated Mr. Trump as it would have treated a fairly ordinary candidate, even as he said extraordinary things. That’s a big part of why he won.”
Maybe Trump will figure out how to respond to these attacks in a way that renders them less effective. He’s indicated that he will make an effort to behave in a way that is more “presidential” as the general election begins. But so far, at least, it’s not clear what that will look like, and how it will mesh with these sorts of charges being lobbed at him.
Trump spent yesterday flip-flopping on whether or not he would consider Ohio Gov. John Kasich as his running mate, and suggesting that, contrary to what he’s said previously, he might consider raising the federal minimum wage. He may be toning down his rhetoric a little bit here and there, but he’s still the same old Trump. And Clinton is going to draw out that less-presidential version of Trump, in part by attacking him with ads like these.
That’s why I suspect he’ll have a difficult time escaping his outrageous primary persona. Even if Trump manages to successfully adopt a more presidential demeanor in the general, Hillary Clinton is going to make every effort to remind voters of all the times that he wasn’t very presidential in the primary.
"Own volatility.." is the subtle message from BofA's Michael Hartnett, who warns "don't add risk before SPX 1950-2000 range and/or VIX>20." Simply put, as he explains below, bullish "positioning shocks" & "policy shocks" are largely behind us; and there is no bullish "profits shock" coming in a world that cannot cope with a higher US dollar & higher rates.
2016 YTD global total returns: commodities 7.6%, bonds 7.5%, equities 1.1%, the US dollar -5.8%.
Our base case remains:
End of excess liquidity + end of excess profits = end of excess returns = higher weightings in cash, volatility & gold in 2016
Shift from "raging bull" (2009-13) to ‘sitting bull” (2014-15) to “volatility bull" (2016) reflects: a. low probability of Higher EPS & Lower Rates, and, b. redemption, repression, regulation risks
Positioning + policy correctly caused Feb-April risk-rally; post-March we have been sellers into strength; case for volatility once again rising driven by the “3P’s” of Positioning, Policy & Profits
The bullish “positioning shock” is largely behind us: our BofAML Bull & Bear index has jumped from an uber-bullish 0.1 level in Feb to 5.1 today, an 11-month high (Chart 5); cash levels, which were at 15-year highs in Feb according to the BofAML FMS, are falling as investors rotate from cash to corporate bonds; BofAML private client equity allocation is back up to 59% (up from 56% in Feb’16, albeit below all-time high of 63% in Mar’15).
The bullish “policy shock” is largely behind us: the policy “panic” of Feb & March was ended with the BoJ decision last week to disappoint market expectations of further easing; Quantitative Failure stalks Japan (see yen surge and unbelievably low level of JGB yields – 0.31% for the 40-year yields; debt deflation stalks China (watch CN0C Index); and while the ECB is limiting credit spreads, recent ECB actions have coincided with higher euro, not higher bond yields, bank stocks & inflation expectations; meanwhile Fed willingness to raise rates likely will continue to create fear of “events” (Chart 6). The likelihood of a Trump-Clinton election match-up supports our Main Street versus Wall Street theme. Both candidates state support for the working class versus the rich.
There is no bullish “profit shock”: global EPS (Chart 7) & global GDP forecasts continue to be revised lower; good, reliable, cyclical lead indicators, e.g. the SOX index, are rolling over/heading back toward floor of 18-month range; and the decline in US corporate profits has extremely ominous implications for US payroll numbers in coming months (consensus looks for 200k on Friday). Watch credit: the global high yield index (HW00 Index) is approaching all-time highs; a break above 330 would be risk-on, but we think credit fails to hit new highs.
And finally, ahead of tomorrow, we note that profits portend weaker payrolls…
The race for The White House appears to have taken a backseat for a news cycle as the Republican "veepstakes" gets underway. Donald Trump said this morning that he would prefer a running mate with government experience to "help with pushing legislation through," adding that he puts a 40% chance that a former rival in the Republican race would get the nod.
As The Hill reports, picking a VP could be a difficult undertaking, as some potential candidates might be hesitant to hitch their political future to a polarizing figure like Trump, but there will be plenty willing to roll the dice and join his historic outsider campaign…
Based on discussions with strategists and political insiders, here are the top 10 early contenders to be Trump’s running mate:
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez
Landing the popular and telegenic governor of New Mexico would be a coup for Trump.
Martinez is the first female governor of New Mexico and the first Hispanic to lead the Republican Governors Association.
Those attributes could go a long way in helping Trump beat back criticism that he’s a misogynist and that his hawkish rhetoric on immigration is xenophobic and racist.
Furthermore, New Mexico was once a swing state. While the state has gone for Democrats in five of the last six elections, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry there in 2004.
Martinez has maintained a high favorability rating in the state through her second term and won reelection there in a landslide. Having her on the ticket could put the state in play.
But convincing Martinez to get on board could be a heavy lift for Trump. She backed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in the primary and has denounced Trump’s remarks about illegal immigrants being rapists and other criminals.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich
Trump said on Wednesday he’d consider vetting Kasich, even before the Ohio governor had officially ended his campaign.
Trump and Kasich never battled the way other former candidates did, and many Republicans believe he stayed in the race for so long to burnish his vice presidential bona fides.
Kasich is trail-tested and, as the popular governor of a critical swing state, must be included on any vice presidential short-list.
Trump has said he’s looking for someone with political experience. In addition to being governor, Kasich spent nearly 20 years as a member of the House. He was chairman of the Budget Committee and boasts of being the chief architect responsible for balancing the federal budget under former President Bill Clinton.
He has cut a mostly moderate profile as governor. His liberal rhetoric on healthcare, education and social issues drives some conservatives crazy but could expand Trump’s appeal to the middle in a general election.
Kasich’s hard line on abortion — he has signed anti-abortion laws that have led to the closure of many clinics in his state — could help Trump in an area where he has struggled to speak to the base.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson
Trump has said he’s looking at an insider to help him bridge the gap to Capitol Hill, which would seem to eliminate Carson from consideration.
But Carson is deep inside Trump’s inner circle now.
Trump told The New York Times on Wednesday that Carson will play an important role in the VP search. That would seem to take him off the board, although Dick Cheney had the same charge for President George W. Bush in 2000 and ended up finding himself.
Trump and Carson’s combined celebrity and penchant for headline-grabbing comments would be off-the-charts.
As a candidate, Carson was an internet sensation. He was also a fundraising juggernaut — an area of campaigning where Trump could use some help.
And as the only black man to run for president this year, Carson adds diversity to the ticket.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
It’s hard to envision a Trump-Rubio ticket after the two spent weeks hurling personal insults at one another before Trump finally triumphed over “Little Marco.”
Last week, Rubio appeared to be warming to the idea of Trump, saying the businessman’s “performance has improved significantly.” But in a CNN interview on Tuesday, Rubio spokesman Alex Conant called reports of any détente between the two “false.”
Still, if Rubio believes Clinton must be stopped and that Trump is the only one who can do it, he might reconsider. Rubio’s decision not to run for reelection to the Senate has at least freed him up professionally to consider the possibility.
Despite his failed presidential bid, Rubio still checks all the boxes as an ideal candidate: He’s bright, young, Hispanic, one of the premier conservative communicators and hails from a critical swing state.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
The New Jersey governor’s decision to back Trump at an early stage shocked and baffled many Washington insiders.
He was condemned as an opportunist and a sell-out and someone to be shunned by many mainstream Republicans.
Now that gamble might pay off by landing him in the second highest office in the land.
Christie doesn’t bring a swing state with him, and as the primary showed, he has a large national profile but not much of a base.
But Trump prizes loyalty and could reward Christie for being one of the first establishment figures to publicly back him.
The New Jersey governor is sharp and charismatic and would be ferocious in his attacks against the Democrats.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich
Trump said Wednesday he’s looking for a candidate with “great political experience” who speaks the language of Washington and will help him with outreach to lawmakers.
It would be hard to find a more experienced candidate than former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the architect of the Republican takeover of the House in the 1990s.
The Georgia Republican has been advising Trump in private while praising and defending him in public.
Gingrich was a surprise insurgent candidate in 2012, winning two states and reminding political watchers that he’s a skilled debater and a natural on the campaign trail.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott
Trump has said he’s considering Scott as a vice presidential candidate.
The Florida governor has said he’s not interested, but that’s a common reponse at this point in the process.
Scott, a former healthcare executive, is a business-minded Republican from a state that Trump must carry if he hopes to win the White House.
However, Scott’s favorability rating is underwater at home. That’s led to some awkward public moments, like a viral video of a woman shouting at him in a Starbucks.
And Scott didn’t exactly stick his neck out for Trump during the Florida primary, sitting on his endorsement until the day after the vote.
Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis
Trump is passionate about historical military leaders, often lionizing Gens. George Patton and Douglas MacArthur at campaign rallies while bemoaning the lack of strong leadership in the military today.
Mattis, a legendary, straight-talking four-star retired Marine Corps general whose nicknames include “Warrior Monk” and “Mad Dog,” might be right up Trump’s alley.
Mattis hasn’t spoken publicly spoken about his thoughts on Trump.
Anti-Trump conservatives spent months trying to recruit him to launch an independent bid. He officially removed himself from consideration for a third-party run last week.
The outspoken Tennessee Republican is a veteran legislator with more than a decade of experience on Capitol Hill.
She’s vice chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, a member of the Budget Committee and leading the House investigation into Planned Parenthood.
Trump has stumbled on abortion and failed in the eyes of some conservatives as a fierce enough critic of Planned Parenthood.
And having a woman on the ticket could be critical for Trump, who will likely face a rival in Hillary Clinton eager to highlight his past disparaging remarks about women.
Blackburn said she’d be open to being Trump’s vice president as far back as February, when most lawmakers were loathe to be associated with the businessman.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
The South Carolina governor backed Marco Rubio in the open primary and has harshly criticized Trump, even signaling that she wouldn’t support him as the nominee.
But that was before Trump became the likely nominee. On Wednesday, Haley told Reuters she’d support Trump as the nominee, although she sought to tamp down speculation she had any interest in being his vice president.
Haley would be on any candidate’s vice presidential wish list.
The fast-rising GOP star is a young, telegenic, charismatic Indian-American and one of the most popular governors in the country.
I simply cannot stress enough how important Greece is to freedom, liberty and civilization across the globe. Greece is not a one-off, or merely a small nation in big trouble that holds little relevance for the rest of us. Greece is everything.
What is happening to Greece follows the exact same game plan of what will eventually happen to every other supposedly sovereign nation. First there is an explosion of debt. Then a crisis. Then a bailout. Then creditor imposed hardship is forced upon the average population, in conjunction with unlimited bailouts for the bankers and other oligarch criminals. Finally, when a public which mistakenly believes it is living in a democracy exercises its right to national sovereignty, the sad truth is exposed. They are not a people living under a free political system.
A recent German study just confirmed what tens of millions of Greeks already knew. That they are a people fully conquered by criminal mega banks and the corrupt politicians and technocrats in their employ.
Shortly before this week’s Trumpocalypse actually came to pass, Jonah Goldberg of National Review laid out his reasons for why he would never vote for the billionaire developer. You can probably guess the reasons, which are solid enough, and you can read them at length here (though I disagree with him on many things, Goldberg is always a good read, too). Toward the end of his piece, he admitted to some anxiety at severing himself from the Republican Party, at least this time around and with regards to the top of the ticket.
“If Trump is the nominee or the president,” he splained, “I will for the first time be working outside the familiar binaries of the two-party system. I guess I should ask the guys at Reason magazine or Cato how they cope.”
In a new Daily Beast column, I engage that question while taking a tour through other pro-third-party statements from libertarian legal genius Randy Barnett, former Politico head Jim Vandehei, and the “great unwashed rock god” Andrew W.K., among others. And after admitting to my one major-party vote—like about 40 percent of America, I fell for Walter Mondale’s low-wattage Norwegian charisma in 1984, the first presidential election I voted in—I think I bring some warm comfort to Goldberg. Since that mistake, I’ve pulled the lever, tapped the screen, or punched the hole for the Libertarian Party’s candidate.
I expect to be voting LP again come November, but that could change. If not this year, maybe down the road. I don’t expect my vote to really count, I use it to express my feelings (cue the music, maestro):
I’m open to voting for a major-party candidate the minute either offers up either a person or a platform that comes close to conforming to my beliefs in “free minds and free markets” and social liberalism and fiscal conservatism. But until then, I’ll “cope” being outside the “familiar binaries of the two-party system” the best way I know how: By trying to change it, so that either we have more parties that allow more of us to express ourselves by voting for policies and people we actually believe in, or shrinking politics to a smaller and smaller part of our lives so that we have more time to enjoy all the different flavors of Astroglide and deodorant and Ben & Jerry’s that are out there waiting for us to sample.
There ain’t no party like a third party. Except for a fourth, fifth, or even sixth party. No apologies—much less coping—necessary.
It appears the credit market's dead-cat-bounce party is over. Following the almost unprecedented bounce off the February lows, the last few days have seen HYG (the largest high yield bond ETF) tumble back below its 200-day moving average as credit spreads (in IG and HY) start to widen significantly. The driver of this sudden weakness is now clear – a $2.3bn 4-day outflow which is the most sudden and largest redemption ever.
HYG tumbles below its 20-day moving average after the panic buying off the lows…
Driven by the largest 4-day cumulative fund outflows ever…
Which has smashed HYG back to a 'zero' premium to NAV as HY spreads push back to 2-month highs. We had argued previously that HYG (and the bond ETFs) had become cash storage facilities for credit funds unable to find enough cash bonds and new issuance to dump their flows into and so the massive outflows this last 4 days could be a sign of a preparation for a heavier HY calendar going forward (silver lining) or perhaps it is just time to get back to cash and reduce exposure after the biggest v-shaped recovery on record (amid tumbling earnings and macro).
By now it should be common knowledge that having suffered an embarrassing impeachment vote last month, the political career of Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff is for all intents and purposes over, even as she refuses to step down. However, what may not be as known is just how corrupt the entire political administration in Brazil currently is, and that includes both those who spearheaded the campaign against her, as well as those who stand to benefit from her ouster.
Here, in under 150 words, is the best summary of the utter political chaos and corruption that is playing out behind the scenes in Brazil at this moment.
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice ruled on Thursday that the powerful lawmaker who orchestrated the effort to impeach President Dilma Rousseff must step down as he faces graft charges, ratcheting up tensions in the country.
And in a further blow to Brazil’s scandal-plagued political establishment, Vice President Michel Temer, the man preparing to take control of the government from Ms. Rousseff, had his conviction on charges of violating limits on campaign financing upheld earlier this week, a ruling that makes him ineligible to run for elected office for eight years.
The rulings are not expected to save Ms. Rousseff’s presidency. Support for her ouster remains strong in the Senate, which is preparing to vote next week on whether to remove her from office and put her on trial over claims of budgetary manipulation. But the decisions reflect the potential for greater political turmoil in the country.
The Atlanta Braves are currently baseball’s worst team, with a 7-20 record (and just 1 win in their home stadium, Turner Field), and a manager whose job is reportedly in jeopardy.
However, the team’s billionaire owner, Liberty Media chairman John Malone, recently told Braves shareholders that they need not worry about their investment because “the Braves are now a fairly major real estate business as opposed to just a baseball club.”
Malone knows that of which he speaks. Turner Field is only 20 years old and is widely considered a perfectly nice ballpark with all the modern amenities, but 2016 will be the final season in the House that Ted Turner Built because the team is building a brand-spanking new stadium in the Cobb County suburbs called SunTrust Park. More than half of the financing for the Braves new home will come from the taxpayers, as will the funding for the buses shuttling fans from the mall to the stadium.
But the Braves (valued at $1.175 billion) and Malone (reportedly worth $6.5 billion) aren’t done with goosing the public to pay for their ballparks. The team’s minor league system is dotted with publicly-financed ballparks throughout the Deep South. According to Boudway and Smith, “Over the last 15 years, the Braves have extracted nearly a half a billion in public funds” for three minor league parks to go with their soon-to-be christened major league home.
The Braves’ modus operandi is consistent: they court a downtrodden city’s political class, then threaten their current host city with leaving, and pit the two against each other as the cities offer up public money they don’t have in order to keep or import a Braves minor league team.
The team wines and dines local pols with owner’s box seats at Turner Field and visits from team legends like Hank Aaron. In turn, local officials impose new sales taxes and property taxes, as well as surcharges on tickets, parking, and purchases at local businesses to cover the costs of the stadiums. The elected officials generally negotiate with the team behind closed doors, often without providing any transparency of the process to the city commissioners tasked with approving the deals.
But it can always get worse, as in the case of Pearl, Mississippi, a city described by the Braves’ hired “dealmaker,” Tim Bennett, as “the trailer park capital of Mississippi, so that basically means it was was the trailer park capital of the world.”
Of the consequences suffered by Pearl taxpayers because the stewards of their government decided to subsidize a billionaire’s vanity project, Boudway and Smith write:
Altogether, the taxes and fees were supposed to be more than enough to pay the debt back. But just in case, Pearl pledged to cover as much as $950,000 annually from other sources if money didn’t come in as planned. It hasn’t. In 2014, the most recent year on record, the city paid $911,748, more than 5 percent of its general fund spending for the year, to cover shortfalls. The year before, it paid $967,944. [Mayor Brad] Rogers says he isn’t sure why Pearl paid more than it pledged.
Boudway and Smith also note that the city of Pearl paid Bennett (the architect of the deal who so colorfully described the city as the “trailer park capital”) more than $1 million as a finder’s fee, or “about a fifth of what the town collects each year in property taxes.”
Watch Todd Krainin’s recent Reason TV doc on a taxpayer-funded minor league ballpark boondoggle in Hartford below.
The first U.S. shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) arrived in Portugal last week and Gazprom did not immediately cut its own gas prices for Europe. While European media has hailed the entry of U.S. gas into the market as a game-changer and a monopoly-breaker, in the short term, nothing has changed at all.
Let’s first get things straight: Gazprom is not a monopolistic supplier for Europe, though it’s often called that. The Russian state giant actually supplies about one-third of the gas that Europe consumes. Norway supplies another quarter; so together, the two countries satisfy less than 60 percent of European gas needs. That’s not a monopoly, although the current supply mix means that Gazprom is the single biggest player on the European market.
The U.S., on the other hand, has quickly turned into the world’s biggest natural gas producer thanks to the shale boom. With prices pressed down hard by oversupply, U.S. gas producers are looking for international markets—and Europe is one obvious choice, but not the most lucrative.
According to calculations from one energy industry expert, the price for U.S. LNG landed in Europe could come in at $3.59 per MMBtu. Gazprom’s average price this quarter was $180 per 1,000 cm3, or about $5.14 per MMBtu.
Numbers can be misleading, however, as different calculations make different price assumptions as evidenced by an Oxford Institute for Energy Studies estimate for U.S. and Gazprom prices laid out in an FT article from February.
Now, at first glance things look promising for Cheniere – the company that shipped LNG to the LNG terminal in Lisbon last week. Its gas is competitive. However, we should not forget that the above calculations are based on a price assumption, which, like all assumptions, allows for a wide margin of error. Still, let’s accept the assumption that Cheniere gas is for the moment meaningfully cheaper than Gazprom gas for Europe.
The most logical move for Gazprom, and the scenario considered most likely by media, is to lower prices in order to preserve its market share, much like Saudi Arabia did with oil.
Gazprom is profitable, and it has long-term contracts with its European clients, as the company’s deputy chairman Aleksandr Medvedev told RT. Outside these contracts, it could increase production, of course, but can it “drown” Europe in cheap gas? Perhaps, if it’s cheap enough. But such a scenario is not at all certain. After all, the “drowning strategy” did not exactly do wonders for Saudi Arabia, and it’s now taking steps to diversify away from oil. Russia is aware of this.
But there is something else besides gas prices and Gazprom’s flexibility in this respect that could trip up hopeful U.S. gas suppliers looking for new markets in Europe. In three years, a new gas pipeline will come on stream that will supply Caspian gas to Europe. Initially planned to have a capacity of 10 billion cm3 annually, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline could eventually accommodate double that amount.
Now, that’s not a whole lot of gas, compared with the 172.6 billion cubic meters supplied by Gazprom to Europe in 2013. Still, it is a new source of gas for the continent; in other words, a new competitor.
Gazprom is being watchful of such developments, in the light of Europe’s stated ambition to diversify its natural gas sources. It should also be food for thought for U.S. gas producers: Gazprom has three years to come up with new ways to remain the leader in a market in which it already has a very firm presence.
Without very strong political support from Europe, U.S. gas producers will be at a disadvantage in a market packed tightly with competitors. Since consistently low gas prices have left them with less cash for price maneuvering, conquering the European gas market might prove to be a bigger challenge than expected.
