interesting article Oldwine, the EU met recently with Russia in the Russian far east. The EU let the Russians know that this year they may have lower consumption than last year, and that in the long run they intend to cut gas consumtion by 5% by 2020. Also the EU said that they intend to increase the use of nuclear power and they would buy Russian nuclear fuel (same as the US). None of these things will happen fast. Building nuclear reactors takes time, so for the foreaseable future nothing will change in terms of gas demand, except for the trough expected due to the current global recession. Once we are over this, consumtion of gas will resume and increase, before a single new reactor is built.

As for Falcon, and how all this affect it, I would say we are extremely lucky to be contemplating the prospect of starting production in the next 2 to 4 years, the timing will be just right. The share price will benefit from all positive news related to testing in the meantime.

Falcon's decision to raise capital now to spend it in Mako, is a good show of confidence in their lands. If they are confident, the investors will follow. My guess is that Falcon has seen enough positive clues coming from the JV to enable them to give this step at this time. One oddity is that Salman is the driver.

Hopefully, the Australian play will fizzle out sooner rather than later so we can stop wasting money there.

db