Maggie's Farm

This kind of thing just makes my head hurt. Natural gas is sold on a set BTU content, but let's gut that value by taking it, chilling it down to about -260°F, load it on to a tanker, and transport it to the EU, where they'll offload and re-gassify it. Let's gut the energy value of the material in its produced state, by investing more energy, burning up electricity and bunker / diesel to put it through this cycle - rather than down the pipeline to the market, directly. 'Cuz we're Green!

That sounds like a reasonable answer, but because you haven't stated any of your assumptions, it's really just the wrong answer because it's over-generalized. The economics of the LNG/pipeline comparison is specific to each case and very often the numbers don't work. They didn't for decades - but with directional drilling advances and the technology for handling LNG efficiently, they have begun to make sense more easily.

Where pipelines are not in place, or are cost-prohibitive because of the distance to market, LNG can be a cost-effective alternative - depending on the long term contracts that underpin the economic investments. But in Russia's case, were pipelines have already been put into place, but are not in use because they've been sanctioned, the economic sense is thrown out the window and the EU instead is paying a premium for its gas, via LNG cargoes.

And I can tell you: Once the scheduled contracted cargoes for the LNG investment have been delivered, and the LNG trains have been optimized to exceed their nameplate capability, the surplus cargoes that are generated go out to the spot market and sometimes fetch 5 - 10x the normal contracted price, and even sometimes more. We are seeing that now. People that buy on the spot market are often desperate.

The same imbeciles that are sanctioning pipelines and then buying LNG cargoes to replace the supply (and they are the same people), are paying a premium price on the backs of their citizens while they order additional (unnecessary) carbon waste into the ecosystem, and they are generally the same imbeciles that are demanding more windmills and unicorn dust, while putting their boots on the necks of our farmers and telling us to eat insects. They make my head hurt, these policy geniuses, and I'm not alone.

If you see those two as incongruous, then I suggest your biases are at fault. Re-examine!