English law over New York Law.

If asked to generalise, I would at the risk of sounding biased, suggest that English law has the edge though the acceptance of and familiarity with its legal system, the predictability and certainty which that brings, its robust approach to arbitration, and likely lower level of costs and compensatory level of damages.

Also, with a post colonial world for England, many of these countries have built their legal systems on English law foundations which is certainly dominant in most Asian deals.

Change in Contractual Matrix: Another significant change for the LNG industry with the emergence of the new LNG markets is the change in contractual matrix leading to greater complexity in the LNG supply chain. Again, because of the characteristics of these new markets there has been a fundamental change in the risk equation.

Financiers cannot be certain that supply contracts into these markets will be sufficient to cover capital costs.

In addition, the shift in economic philosophy of many of these markets by the public sector with the encouragement of competitive markets and private sectors has contributed to a disorganisation of the traditional LNG supply chain.

More often than before, we now have major elements of the LNG chain being owned by a group of companies in consortium, often with different credit standing, risk appetite and access to cash. The net result is that the balance of risk sharing down the contract chain has become very different.

Furthermore, as with many of the projects in the new markets particularly in India, the LNG buyer is a project-financed IPP dependent on a PPA by a state electricity board. The key players in that chain will be the LNG seller, the LNG shipper; the import and regasification terminal (the gas project); the power generator (the power project) and the offtakers of the power (State electricity boards or industrial customers). The chain will look something like this.