Although Europe is still enjoying warm fall weather, Gazprom is shipping record-breaking quantities of gas westward. Those deliveries topped out at a historic high on Oct. 21, at which point Gazprom was supplying its European customers with precisely 590 million cubic meters of gas each day. As Alexey Miller, the chairman of Gazprom, has noted, winter isn’t even here yet, but European demand for Russian gas is already at levels consistent with deep-freeze conditions…

It’s finally happened! For so many years the world has been alternately frightened, reassured, and blackmailed by the idea of European and Asian markets getting massive amounts of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) sourced from shale. And now that has come to pass…