My wife Marina and I are just outside London right now, in Berkshire, as the annual Windsor Energy Consultations get underway.

For those keeping score, this is my third major international energy meeting in the past month, after sessions in Paris and the Iranian natural gas summit in Frankfurt.

But Windsor is on a completely different level…

Each year, the Windsor Energy Consultation is the high point of my international travel schedule. This year marks the seventh in which I will be presenting – this time, two presentations.

Now, this is a gathering quite unlike any other. The location is totally unique, of course, but the sheer amount and quality of the global energy intelligence exchanged is second to none.

We only just landed back in South Florida from Paris. And I'm already preparing to move out again on Sunday, bound for Frankfurt (through Vienna).

You'll be hearing all about the energy meetings I'll be attending, right here in Oil & Energy Investor.

Now, I hope our trip back from Paris is not a harbinger of the trip back to Europe this weekend. We have enough concerns already.

Especially given who I'll be meeting in Frankfurt…

After a few days of meetings with energy financiers and insiders here in Paris, one thing has become clear…

And I needed to warn you even as we're getting ready for our flight back home to the U.S.

It involves the changes underway in the European energy sector… and how they may impact us on the other side of the pond.

I'm opening a bottle of decent red, a normal thing one does here in Paris.

Especially after the day I just had…

The meeting with international energy financiers has broken up for dinner and down time. But sitting on a balcony overlooking Avenue Kléber and its late afternoon bustle, I find my mind wandering. 

Something is approaching – something I've seen before. And it's causing to me to review earlier events in my life. These thoughts are not of the energy market – at least not directly. Rather, the path is back to a time when this city had a different feel.

So stay with me…

Marina and I are flying out to one of our favorite cities tomorrow – Paris. You'll be getting the next Oil & Energy Investor from there.

Paris is one of our main locations to relax and recharge. Over the past several years, it has likewise become a primary site for my meetings with financial and energy trend setters in an increasingly challenging market environment.

Once again, I find my stay divided. It has become an ongoing personal "tale of two cities." 

Upon each arrival, Paris contains what I expect and what has been necessitated by very recent changes in the energy terrain. As veteran Oil & Energy Investor readers well know, these revisions have sometimes occurred while we were in the air.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump signed executive orders to move forward on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. Both projects have been very controversial, and served as reminders that policy decisions in the energy sector have impacts well beyond it.

Of the two, the Dakota Access has been the more recent contest but also the one most fully advanced. About 90% of the line is completed and oil could begin flowing as early as the end of this year.

The route has been altered to address some of the Native American objections to having a pipeline crossing sacred land. But environmental concerns, especially over water reservoirs, remain.

In other words, the problems and protests in North Dakota will certainly remain.

Keystone XL has been a much longer, multi-year battle – and a very different matter. And regardless of what D.C. wants, there are some big hurdles to clear before the pipeline could be finished.

Here's why I wouldn't hold my breath…

Energy and national security have always been tightly linked, and never more so than today. That means that my own involvement in global energy sometimes turns rather geopolitical…

And as my suddenly packed travel schedule shows, another round of that is about to happen quickly.

Early next week I'll be flying off to Paris, to meet with a group of bankers and financiers. I'm afraid I'm not allowed to divulge any names, but suffice it to say that these people- whom I've advised for some time – are very influential…

And about a week later I'll be off to Frankfurt. Now, on the agenda of both meetings are major changes taking place in global oil and natural gas. As always, I'll be bringing you along, right here in Oil & Energy Investor.

But the parties in that second session will be quite different. You see, a new energy power is on the rise, and it's making its presence known…