Using the U.S. oil and gas industry as a salient example, the authors provide a thorough and detailed analysis of world energy markets. They prove that faith in the universality of the regulatory functions of the market is clearly exaggerated. The Obama Administration has decided to halt (at least partially) the process of de-industrialization and thus reduce the mounting unemployment, stubbornly sticking to a rather particular method of re-industrialization - so-called “shale gas revolution.” However, the trends of the past year and a half cast doubt on the ability of U.S. businesses to increase exports of shale liquid natural gas (LNG), in 2016-2017, due to the lack of profitability of this kind of energy resource. The article argues that the term “revolution” looks like a PR campaign, designed for consumption by the general population, and, most importantly, targeted at competitors. It lacks any significant feature of a “revolution”: neither an original product but the same methane and oil, nor any qualitative breakthroughs in mining techniques. Based on American sources the article discusses in some detail the technical features of the sector, and points to some negative aspects of this “shale bubble.” The authors argue that Obama was bluffing in saying that the United States was ready to supply Europe with a significant quantity of shale gas. Advocates of U.S. hegemony, in the opinion of the researchers, would like to use the decline in oil prices as an instrument of pressure on Russia. They favor a quick return to the situation of the 1990s. This turn of events would make concessions to Moscow unnecessary, as, according to Washington's plans, Russia would become so weak that Washington could easily bargain on major political issues on its own terms. The shining image of the United States, until recently the undisputed world leader, has faded, and the nation has turned into the world's biggest debtor stooping under the weight of all conceivable deficits. Washington apparently overlooked the obvious fact that globalization and the use of energy prices as an economic weapon can hit back like a boomerang. Currently, the main factor affecting pricing in the global energy industry, the authors argue, is geopolitics, and the main “volcano” of turbulence on world markets is the United States of America.