Posted originally on CTH on March 7, 2026 | Sundance
When President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin met in Alaska on August 15, 2025, the focus of the geopolitical world was on discussions surrounding Ukraine. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long, merely a few hours, for both the U.S. and Russia to say that no progress was made. However, also noted at the time was both the USA and Russia saying sideline discussions took place surrounding the possibility for a strategic relationship surrounding energy development.
What follows below is a review of the current energy dynamic, specifically surrounding LNG, against the backdrop of the Iran war with a hindsight review of that previous discussion between Putin and Trump.
What most people are missing in their current analysis was something that took place immediately following that Alaska summit six months ago. Something that did not make any sense until now. {GO DEEP PART I HERE}
Three days after that summit meeting, on August 18, 2025, Russia announced they were restarting Russia’s Arctic-2 LNG production facility. Russia would be more than doubling their capacity to generate and store liquified natural gas (LNG).
It absolutely did not make sense that Russia would start producing even more LNG considering the previously imposed western sanctions against them, and the fact that Russia was already overproducing LNG. As noted by analysts at the time:
AUGUST 18, 2025 – Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 export facility, which is sanctioned by the United States, is coming back to life after a year of no activity and is looking for buyers in Asia.
[…] The U.S. and EU sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG 2, which was billed as Russia’s flagship LNG project, have effectively frozen the start-up of the export facility in the Gydan Peninsula.
[…] Last year, Russia started shipping LNG from its flagship Arctic LNG 2 project—but not to customers. The shipments were made from the Arctic project to floating storage units either in Russia or in European waters, as potential customers were unwilling to buy the sanctioned LNG. {SOURCE}
In August of 2025, Russia was essentially producing more LNG than they could sell into the available market. Russia was storing the overproduction from Arctic-1 on floating storage units and slowly selling to countries that did not align with the sanctions, specifically China and some Asian buyers. Then suddenly, after the Trump summit, Russia decides to bring Arctic-2 online and produce even more LNG. You can see how this did not make sense.
If they could not even sell all the Arctic-1 LNG output, then why would Russia bring Arctic-2 LNG production online?
That was six months ago.
Suddenly, with the war in Iran being triggered, and with Qatar almost immediately announcing they were shutting down all LNG production, there are dozens of new markets for liquified natural gas. And that current LNG is now worth 50% more than it was when Russia inextricably decided to start producing and storing it.
Apply some hindsight to this timeline. Did Russia know or discover something in August of 2025 that the world would not discover until six months later?
Russia’s behavior in increasing LNG production, then storing that LNG in strategic venues, during a time when there was no reasonable incentive to trigger an LNG output increase, would seem to answer that question in the affirmative.
One thing is certain, all of that previously produced LNG is now worth double what it was when Russia created it, and now the global market is scrambling to get it.
Here is where it gets really interesting….
In October 2025, do you remember me asking why President Trump decided to fly East, to go West to the ASEAN summit in Asia? It just didn’t make sense.
Previously in 2017 when President Trump went to the ASEAN summit, he flew West; Airforce One refueled in Guam. This time in 2025, a few weeks after the meeting with President Putin in Alaska, President Trump flew East, to go West.
Where did he refuel?
That’s correct. President Trump refueled in Qatar, and during the ‘unexpected’ stop he met, yet again, with Qatari leadership.
♦ In May 2025 President Trump traveled to Qatar and had numerous and lengthy conversations, signing multiple strategic defense and trade deals. ♦ In August 2025, President Trump meets with Vladimir Putin, who then begins ramping up production of LNG. ♦ In October 2025, President Trump travels back to Qatar for a curious and unexpected visit.
Less than 36 hours after President Trump began “Operation Epic Fury” Qatar announces they are halting the production of LNG, and as a consequence the price of LNG jumped and a massive supply shift in global trade was created.
The Financial Times – […] The global battle for gas is underway, with Europe on the front lines. Since Wednesday, March 4, at least four liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers – factory ships with large, refrigerated tanks used to transport LNG over long distances – suddenly changed course. Initially headed for France, Belgium or Spain from Africa and the United States, they rerouted for Asia, according to data from the maritime analytics company Kpler. (read more)
MOSCOW, March 4 (Reuters) – Russia could halt gas supplies to Europe right now amid a spike in energy prices triggered by the Iran crisis, President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday, linking the possible decision to the European Union wanting to ban purchases of Russian gas and liquefied natural gas. (read more)
MOSCOW, March 6 (Reuters) – “Our companies are considering opportunities, without waiting for further restrictions from Europe, to conclude new long-term contracts with our partners and redirect some of the gas from Europe to other countries, including India, Thailand, the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said.
Next announcement:
[SOURCE]
Six months ago, following a summit in Alaska with President Trump, President Vladimir Putin began producing and storing LNG at a scale and capacity that did not make sense. Six months later, the now massive Russian inventory is worth twice as much as it was, AND the number of global buyers for the Russian LNG has exploded.
Meanwhile, “while China would suffer from oil outages, a Middle East crisis with disproportionate LNG outages might benefit the PRC. Natural gas accounts for a relatively small share of China’s primary energy consumption, the country enjoys substantial domestic production, and it can tap pipeline imports from Russia, Central Asia, and Myanmar. Significantly, many of the PRC’s competitors or rivals—the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—are substantially or even wholly reliant on LNG imports for their natural gas consumption. Dutch TTF natural gas prices are up more than 50 percent against last Friday’s close, fueling concerns of an energy-induced inflationary spike.”
Where is President Trump scheduled to go next?
WASHINGTON/BEIJING, March 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. military campaign against Iran has put Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the back foot ahead of an expected summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, who for the second time in as many months has turned America’s military against one of Beijing’s close partners.
Trump is set to arrive in Beijing at the end of March following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a risky Caracas raid in January and the U.S.-Israeli air war that on Saturday killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the former leaders of two countries that have been major oil suppliers for China.
[…] Xi now faces the awkward prospect of feting Trump on the world stage or backing out of the proposed March 31 to April 2 meeting. Beijing has yet to confirm the summit dates. (read more)
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Huh, imagine that….
Centinel2012 