The Money and Law of Natural Gas / LNG

Please tell me if you want a brochure for more information. They are only available upon request.

Email: info (at) methanist (dot) com
Call me at +43 699 1518 9273
Skype: rudolf.huber.office

or fill out the form.

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Natural Gas contracts especially those from LNG are among the most complex in the energy world. Contrary to what some may have you believe, there are no good templates. So, this will not be an exercise in checking boxes but in building contract foundations that resist any test.

In LNG, a metaphorical asteroid hit us in the shape of gas market liberalization in the Atlantic basin. Decade-old certainties have gone away almost overnight and kicked in the rise of an unimaginatively complex, new world. Just like the dinosaurs, the old contractual mechanisms in LNG have staged a fierce defense battle but as Victor Hugo used to say: “No army on earth will stop ideas when their time has come”.

Now that the monolith LNG has cracked wide open, the contractual LNG world will experience an explosion of diversity just like the Cambrian explosion. LNG as a fuel, LNG bunkering, multiuser terminals, commingled tank space and island meshing, flare conversion, and resource nationalism are already leaving their imprint on classical contracts.

In times of great change, it is always good to go back to the roots. Back where everything has begun and examine anything that exists for its residual value. Otherwise, you start putting pieces of corpses together. That’s a Frankenstein then.

This workshop will do away with old dogmas. We will have no patience with old mechanisms just because they have always been here. We will expose some really crucial LNG mechanisms to the fire of the new world. And see what the next 10 years might look like.

The future is uncertain, but that’s scary only to those who are unprepared.

This unique interactive training course:

  • Addresses the key skills required to draft and negotiate modern Gas and LNG agreements;
  • Explains pricing mechanisms in various regional gas markets and their effect on Gas and LNG agreements;
  • Enables you to understand the various issues special to the LNG sector;
  • Learn how to establish a risk matrix and how to deal with risk in contracts;
  • Examine how modern multi-user capacity agreements can increase flexibility in terminals;
  • Show how the different agreements work with each other on a back-to-back basis;
  • Highlight mechanisms of dispute resolution;

Each module takes 2 hours to complete. Modules can be rearranged and stacks can be adapted according to individual requirements in case of in-house training.

All modules without further denomination are lecture modules. General information on modules can be found on the modules page.

I work with your company to structure effective training programs, either using an existing course or tailoring a course to your specific needs. I will:

  • Evaluate your specific requirements
  • Design a tailored solution
  • Plan the delivery
  • Implement the approved solution
  • Report on the course and propose follow-up

Read more on in-house courses and coaching.

My courses are suitable for anyone who desires to get quick, yet deep and structured instruction in LNG matters. All 3 courses are designed to cover a wide range of potential commercial situations from big, base load LNG to small scale and LNG as a fuel development.

With the 3 duration modes, I also provide for those who just want to get a good but ultimately quick primer on LNG matters down to those wishing to get cracking on very nuanced and detailed issues.

Depending on what department or team structure you work in you might be interested in one or the other course type. All 3 basic course types respond to requirements in the below-mentioned players and beyond.

Targeted industries:

  • Government Bodies & Regulatory Bodies
  • National and International Oil Corporations
  • Exploration & Production Companies
  • Energy Consulting Firms
  • Power Generations Company / Utilities Companies
  • Consultants, Research Firms, Law Firms and Academics
  • Venture Capitalists in LNG, Gas Infrastructure Development Banks
  • Logistics, Transportation & Infrastructure Companies
  • Service Companies
  • Gas Supplier
  • Utilities
  • Truck/Bus Fleet Operators
  • LNG/Gas Retrofit companies
  • Bunkering companies
  • Traders that get in touch with energy sometimes

The LNG world has changed more in the last 5 years than in the 45 years before that. LNG was an exotic solution for getting stranded gas to paying markets in Europe, Asia, and to a limited extent North America in the past Now it has become THE clean energy flexibility option for the planet. New LNG players spring up every year bringing fresh blood into the petrified LNG world.

Continents such as Latin America and Africa that had never seen LNG imports suddenly appear on the map, floating solutions abound, mid-scale and small-scale LNG became important industries in their own right and LNG as a fuel for vehicles as well as bunkering started to make a serious impact.

At the same time, crazy project prices, tumbling oil prices, the impact of shale, and Russian pipeline politics require creative thoughts in order to save your project or salvage what can be.

The journey is still far, but this time of heightened uncertainty also carries the seeds of untold riches and boundless opportunities.

Still, LNG is not for the fainthearted, and as Thomas Jefferson candidly observed in the adolescent years of the United States, luck smiles to those who work hard and are prepared.

The road to success is littered with broken dreams. They are the dreams of all those who thought they would succeed by doing what has been done before. Those afraid often take the past as their most important yardstick, and they are wrong.

I will give you a hard dose of fundamentals and I will deliver them straight in your face. Once you understand the underlying fabric of the LNG world, I will show you where you have to bend the rules (or break them) in order to adapt to new challenges and respond to opportunities as they arise.

I will push you over the cliff and teach you how to grow wings while you fall. Because I cannot predict the winds – but I can teach you how to be better at setting sails.

I have led more than 100 industry courses and workshops, the vast majority in-house and on LNG plus Business Development in Africa and the Middle East.

I am a well-known figure in the LNG world through my loud and incisive opinions and social media presence – most famously the “PitBull of LNG” blog which was integrated into the Methanist website in 2019 which is a pro-methane energy and environment feature advancing the debate on clean energy solutions.

Read more about me

  • SHORT STACK
  • 3 Modules
    6 hours
    1 day
  • $ 380
  • REGULAR STACK
  • 12 Modules
    24 hours
    3 days
  • $ 2,700
  • TALL STACK
  • 20 Modules
    40 hours
    5 days
  • $ 3,900

* Price per participant

** You must register with this Web Service in order to receive the detailed course sheet.

Day 1

  1. LNG Contracts
  2. LNG Pricing
  3. Negotiation, Disputes & Risk

Day 1 – Contracts

  1. The Contract Chain
  2. The Terminal Use Agreement
  3. LNG SPA’s
  4. The Quantities Game

Day 2 – Pricing

  1. Prices & Products in Trading
  2. Oil based Formulas
  3. Developing the Contract Price (Exercise)
  4. Gas & LNG Price Drivers (Discussion)

Day 3 – Contracting, Disputes & Risk

  1. Negotiation & Disputes
  2. Financing LNG
  3. Building the Contract (Exercise)
  4. Risk Management in LNG (Discussion)

Day 1 – The Contractual Environment

  1. Fundamentals of the Contract Chain
  2. Capacity Contract Principles
  3. Terminal Management Clauses
  4. Umbrellas & Shippers Cooperation

Day 2 – The Contracts (Specifics)

  1. Time Charters & Upstream Agreements
  2. Commercial Structure of the SPA
  3. The Quantities Game
  4. Contract Walkthrough (Exercise)

Day 3 – Pricing

  1. The impact of gas trading on pricing
  2. Formulas
  3. Developing the Contract Price (Exercise)
  4. Drivers of LNG Pricing (Discussion)

Day 4 – The Contracting Process

  1. Negotiation Strategy & Structure
  2. Disputes & Price Review
  3. Negotiation Simulation (Exercise)
  4. The Value of Cooperation (Discussion)

Day 5 – Finance and Risk

  1. Financing LNG
  2. Risk in LNG and it’s Management
  3. Risk Matrix & SWOT (Exercise)
  4. New contractual Challenges (Discussion)

IMPORTANT: Messages sent on this website will be treated as inquiries only and have no contractual nature. This means that just by sending a request for information (or any other message on this website) you are not obliged to do anything. 

If you want to book me, I will contact you and we will agree on the terms of a possible engagement in a separate agreement.