So now you have all the numbers. The puzzle is very big. And - going back to the initial issue, that of Russians wanting to buy the Greek state gas company - this move from Gazprom/Sintez (= private or state, we talk essentially about Russian state interests) is all about putting a major milestone in their future plans for expansion of their energy (and not only) trade (and not only) networks.

The y have already provided Germany directly from Russia via North-stream. North-stream is more than enough to provide much of central-western Europe. The current formation of Southstream (via Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia) reaches the Austrian borders which are already reached via Germany afterall. Hence this second southern leg is of course a nice complementary network for a more secure provision. But Greece - while out of the pipeline for the moment - remains the target.
As said, the 2nd biggest concentration of natural gas is in North Africa, mainly in Libya and then in Algeria and some in Egypt. Libya's pipelines end in the port of Benghazi which is less than 300 km from Greece (island of Crete). If Russia connects via its ''natural satellite'' Bulgaria to Greece, then Russia that has already the world's biggest quantities of gas (and which borders with the worlds' 3rd or 4th biggest concentration of gas, in central Asia) finds itself only 300km away from the worlds' 2nd biggest concentration of gas, that of North Africa. A short pipeline and game over (or WWIII?)!

In terms of energy there is no ''magic solution''. The world consumption of energy is divided to :- Industries and infrastructure (all types) : 35%- Transportation (ships, cars, airplanes) : 25%- Residences : 15%- Service sector (retail, offices etc.) : 5%Rest 20% (and probably more than that) is actually energy ''wasted'' to produce energy as fossil-fuel plants have energy efficiencies ranging from 25% for old coal plants to  35% for oil plants to 55% for gas-fired plants.
Overall the world consumes about 150 TWH per year from:- Oil : 33% (much goes for transportation, some for electricity production)- Coal :  27% (majority % for electricity production)- Gas : 22% (for electricity production as well as heating etc. but can be expanded to transportation)- Nuclear: 6% (electricity production)- Hydro : 3% (electricity production)- Other (wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels etc.) : 9%
However, one has to note that for transportation (25% of overall energy)
oil : 92%
gas, biofuels, electricity and all other : 8%.

And here is the catch! No matter if industries are the biggest consumer, it is the transportation energy currency that will eventually dictate the overall prices more than the industries themselves! So one that wants to dictate world energy prices on the overall must control in majority the primary transportation energy source. Today, clearly this is oil. But this has not to be the only solution. Gas is the ONLY other viable solution (in fact more viable than oil) which is also more efficient and more clean environmentally (85% more clean than oil!!!).
So the question is : why natural has not yet attracted the interest for transportation? The answer is simple. Europe and China have not a lot of it! US of course has lots of gas (2nd biggest producer after Russia) but prefers to channel it to industrial use than to transportation simply because it gains from the oil-based economies all over the world. But for Russia it is the opposite that holds true. Russia gains not really as much from oil-based economies as people think. The bet for Russia is to convince the world to turn to gas not just for energy production and heating but really for transportation. And extending its network to Europe is a primary step to turning the oil-based economies to gas-based.
And this is precisely what makes the oil-based Anglo-Americans lose their sleep.

Cymro Mark wrote in #6
@Danaos Thank you that was an informative read.


Thank you Cymro Mark. I do apologise for writing too much too fast in a hazy manner but I see you got the basic point. It is much less mumbo-jambo, much less politics and much more mathematics and geography, i.e. pure good old geopolitics.

Gas is the prime fuel, maybe not ''of the future'' but certainly of the next 100 years. We have consumed half of our known oil reserves on this planet. There was more natural gas reserves even back in the 1960s when we had not even consumed the 1/3rd of the known reserves. Oil is precious : we make so many other things with it. Natural gas SHOULD had been already our main fuel until we develop a viable other solution (i.e. reduce our overall consumption of energy and increase the % of renewable energy). The only impedement to this has been the fact that in a gas-based (and not oil-based) world economy it would be Russia that would dictate the prices.
This is all what they ''play'' about. Americans, Europeans, Russians and Chinese.