Is Tellurian over?

                             

                        This should be the moment when Tellurian Inc. is doing its star turn, applauded by a packed house of investors, European heads of state and consumers grateful for relief from cold and hunger. Tellurian’ s promise of American LNG ready for immediate sale (at high prices), if fulfilled right now, could have turned Aspen-based promoter Charif Souki into a multi billionaire who was in the right place at the right time.

            Instead, he and Tellurian, are inside jokes in the US energy industry, and Souki himself merely an irrelevant conference-junkie. There is still $1.77 billion “worth” of common equity listed on the American Stock Exchange. This is based on a staggering 568,220,000 outstanding shares, the detritus of Tellurian’s true core business: selling new equity.          

There is no functioning LNG plant built, and the key “site” is a muddy hurricane target with some giveaway plastic safety helmets for visiting stockbrokers. Tellurian’s plans are, so to speak, yellowing with age, and the costs it projects are based on pre-inflation numbers. Souki has kept a derisory “Limited Notice to Proceed” contract with Bechtel, the engineering giant, which allows him to pretend Tellurian’s “Driftwood LNG” is a real project. There is no financing for a real “Notice to Proceed”.

Eventually, Bechtel has to get tired of of its walk-on part in the production. On the way out, Bechtel will be well protected by its contracts’ “scope” language and Aesopian cancelation clauses.

And there is probably one last sucker’s rally in the shares, coming when the enormity of Europe’s energy crisis reaches mainstream media headlines.

Take the opportunity before the zero-G moment.

How can I be so confident I’m right on this one? Where to begin…