Today’s news that the national champion hailing from my native Canada is pulling out of its $3.5 billion Baltic LNG project with Gazprom on the Yamal Peninsula offers a reminder of the perils of the energy business in Russia. According to CEO Ron Brenneman, “There’s a lot of gas up in the Yamal Peninsula and at one time we were in discussions with the licence holder, but subsequent to that the licence holder got bought out by a consortium of Russian businessmen. So we are no longer in those discussions.” Yikes – that sure is an unfortunate and unexpected turn of events for Petro-Canada, which is still looking to lock up LNG suppliers for its planned Gros Cacouna regasification plant in Quebec. No doubt Gazprom is driving an exceptionally hard bargain against the Canadians, who appear to have at least stopped denying that they are considering major asset swaps of heavy oil licenses in Canada with Gazprom. Looks like the Shtokman Syndrome is still alive and well.