This is actually probably a net plus for the US, and even if it isn't, it's wholly predictable that they would announce something like this at present.
There are no assurances that we would have the terminal capcity to accept great volumes of LNG, recent pricing has been in the crapper (they've been redirecting ships en route to the US b/c the price environment's so poor), and there's another Alaska pipeline in the works that will supply large daily volumes. Against such a backdrop there's very little enthusiasm to tangle oneself up in a huge project with uncertain upside. I think the author of that piece was wrong that the move "escaped attention." It was more indifference (of course, the audience is extremely short-sighted).
If you were to project today's environment out to when these projects come online (a somehwat dubious exercise, but still...), the immediate benefit is to the US as it's likely the bottom would fall out on LNG pricing once European demand dries up.
Further, there's probably no way they can build a subsea pipleline at that latitude (I think it'll be something like 2-3x times the length of the longest existing such pipeline) absent non-Russian technological and engineering assistance. With the notorious cost over-runs of such projects, the uncertainty of natural gas pricing and the massive capital expenditure requirements of unconventional energy products, it may well be better to be an engineering contractor on such projects rather than an owner.
I know a guy who once talked about starting an investment partnership focused on situations where the heat of received opinion obscured the light of empirical/engineering circumstance. He told me about this when everyone was convinced Chavez or someone would seize a particular mine outright - despite it being obvious to those familiar with mining that there is no way that he could commission/operate the mine w/o Western assistance and that it would be vastly more efficient to simply tax the Western manager-operators at stepped-up rate. I believe that one worked out quite well for him. He's gotta be looking at this one for an angle.
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