Saudi dynasty moves to forestall succession crisis

Saudi Arabia’s appointment of Prince Muqrin as deputy crown prince is a first step towards addressing its biggest dynastic challenge for 50 years and forestalling a possible succession crisis in the world’s top oil exporter. The ruling al-Saud family is fast approaching the moment when it must decide how to jump down a generation from […]

Paul Craig Roberts: Pushing Toward The Final War

Does Obama realize that he is leading the US and its puppet states to war with Russia and China, or is Obama being manipulated into this disaster by his neoconservative speech writers and government officials? World War 1 (and World War 2) was the result of the ambitions and mistakes of a very small number […]

The battered state of EU-Russia energy relations

Russia’s annexation of Crimea presents the EU with a terrible dilemma. It cannot let the flouting of international borders and use of military force go unanswered, nor does it want war. That leaves it with political and economic sanctions. But it remains hamstrung by its dependence on Russian gas. Given the high level of mutual […]

James Schlesinger on peak oil

In August 2012, I interviewed James Schlesinger over the phone as part of research for my upcoming book, The Oracle of Oil, the first biography of maverick geologist M. King Hubbert. Schlesinger and Hubbert shared a deep interest and concern in the issue of peak oil—specifically, the question of when world oil production might reach […]

Obama visit gives fresh impetus to Saudi-US ties

Iranian nuclear deal, Syria’s three-year-old civil war and their repercussions on the neighboring countries were the central themes of the talks between Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and US President Barack Obama on Friday. The two-hour discussions between the king and Obama also focused on key bilateral and regional issues such as […]

Oil Exports: The Rhetoric And The Reality

If not natural gas, then oil. That seems to be the latest reaction to breaking Russia’s energy grip on Europe. Harold Hamm, the chief executive of Continental Resources CLR +2.79%, reciting a new meme in the energy industry, told members of Congress this week to forget all the breathless banter about natural gas exports to […]

Saudi Arabia Appoints Prince Muqrin as Second Crown Prince

Saudi Arabia named Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz as second in line to the throne, the latest royal promotion as King Abdullah confronts unprecedented political instability in the Middle East and economic changes at home. Muqrin, the king’s half-brother who was born in 1945, was made second crown prince alongside his duties as second deputy prime […]

German economy minister says no alternative to Russian gas

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said there was “no sensible alternative” to Russian natural gas imports and it was unlikely Russia would stop deliveries because of the crisis over Ukraine, a German daily reported on Friday. “Even in the darkest hours of the Cold War Russia respected its contracts,” the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung reported Gabriel, […]

An SPR bazooka and the central bank of oil

In a perfect world of crude pricing, there would exist a mechanism to soak up excess length when prices were low, and add length into the market when prices were high. In the world of money, this is called a central bank, with a dual mandate of keeping inflation low and employment as full as […]

China Two-Child Policy?

Family planning commission to study impact of moving away from one-child rule as experts warn of demographic timebomb After decades of enforcing a one-child policy, China may in the future allow every couple to have two children, a senior family planning official has said. China’s national health and family planning commission will study the impact […]

The outlook for Russian oil output in a post-Crimea world

Could economic sanctions finally halt Russia’s crude production growth? In June last year, I wrote a blog post for The Barrel making much of the fact that Russia is the world’s biggest oil producer and has been for quite a while. Its output has consistently ranked above that of Saudi Arabia in the past few […]

Russia offers India crude oil supplies, stakes in blocks

As the US and Europe try to isolate Moscow over its action in Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trusted lieutenant Igor Sechin today courted top Indian officials, offering to ship its vast crude oil reserves and stakes in oil and gas acreages. Sechin, who heads Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company, led a delegation of about […]

Russian Oil Seen Heading East Not West in Crimea Spat

The Crimean crisis is poised to reshape the politics of oil by accelerating Russia’s drive to send more barrels to China, leaving Europe with pricier imports and boosting U.S. dependence on fuel from the Middle East. China already has agreed to buy more than $350 billion of Russian crude in coming years from the government […]

Russia Is Slowly Turning The NatGas Tap Off To Europe

While Naftogaz (Ukraine’s gas pipeline operator) states that all gas transportation from Russia to Europe is running normally, Bloomberg reports that Russian natgas exports to Europe are declining. Shipments are down over 4% from the prior week and also lower to Ukraine. This ‘adjustment’ follows increased sanctions by the West as Medvedev’s notable statement this […]

US could start energy war with Russia

Debate has raged over whether the United States can fight Vladimir Putin on the Russian president’s most favourable ground: energy politics. It can, and it should, particularly because there’s an obvious path forward that coincides with American — indeed, world — economic interests. That path is lifting irrational restrictions on exports and making it easier […]

The Hydraulic Fracturing of Saudi Arabia…

Since the early twentieth century, Saudi Arabia has enjoyed a close relationship with the United States. From the development of the Saudi oil fields,to the First Gulf War, this relationship has been an uneasy cooperation—each side received something out of the alliance while nervously watching the other.  So recently we have the first open break […]

Is an Economic War Replacing the Cold War?

In today’s “Global Outlook,” Bloomberg’s Trish Regan and Peter Cook examine the relationship between the United States and Russia and the impact of economic sanctions on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop.” Bloomberg

Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce “Holy Grail” Gas Deal With China

If it was the intent of the West to bring Russia and China together – one a natural resource (if “somewhat” corrupt) superpower and the other a fixed capital / labor output (if “somewhat” capital misallocating and credit bubbleicious) powerhouse – in the process marginalizing the dollar and encouraging Ruble and Renminbi bilateral trade, then […]

The Challenges Facing Saudi Arabia Include More Than Oil

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently issued a call for Saudi Arabia to sustain its current oil output during the upcoming seasonally weak global oil demand period in order to rebuild global crude oil inventories following the harsh winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the uptick in developing country oil needs. The IEA estimates that […]

Merkel Says US Shale Gas Might Help Europe Diversify Energy

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that imports of U.S. shale gas could eventually be an option for European countries seeking to diversify their energy sources but the United States must first build the infrastructure to export. “Many people think that this could be one component, if the United States decided to export shale […]

Imposing ‘High Costs’ on Russia Would be Costly for All Involved

One day after a disputed and widely deemed unlawful referendum in Crimea, the Crimean Parliament declared Crimea’s independence from Ukraine, formally asking Russia to annex it, the New York Times reports. This comes after 96.6% of voters in Crimea support joining Russia. With this, the crisis in the Ukraine hit its peak to date and […]

Iraq invasion was about oil

Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of the 2003 Iraq War – yet to this day, few media reflections on the conflict accurately explore the extent to which opening up Persian Gulf energy resources to the world economy was a prime driver behind the Anglo-American invasion. The overwhelming narrative has been one of incompetence and failure […]

US Approves Natural Gas Pipeline To Mexico

U.S. energy regulators on Thursday approved a plan by a unit of Energy Transfers Partners LP to build a natural gas pipeline from Texas to Mexico. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a presidential permit to Energy Transfer’s Houston Pipe Line Co, which will allow the company to build the pipeline across the federal […]

U.S. natural gas to Europe? Not so fast…

European nations are begging the United States to send them natural gas to blunt dependence on Russia, but a lack of infrastructure and market realities are calling into question America’s ability to flex its new muscles as the world’s leading energy power. The crisis in Ukraine is deepening European alarm over reliance on Russian energy, […]

Iranian Nuke Sites Hit with ‘Sabotage’

Iranian officials revealed on Monday that several “new acts of sabotage” had taken place at its controversial Arak nuclear reactor facility and that other so-called “enemy plots” had been carried out at separate key nuclear sites. Iranian security forces told the country’s state-run press early Monday that these “new acts of sabotage” had been discovered […]

Orlov: The Madness of President Putin

Of all the various interpretations Western leaders and commentators have offered for why the president of the Russian Federation has responded the way he has to the events in Ukraine over the course of February and March of 2014—in refusing to acquiesce to the installation of a neo-fascist regime in Kiev, and in upholding the […]

Crowd Control: Political revolt and the accumulation of more

In case of rain, the revolution will take place in the hall. — Erwin Chargaff For the last several years, the word “revolution” has been hanging around backstage on the national television talk-show circuit waiting for somebody, anybody — visionary poet, unemployed automobile worker, late-night comedian — to cue its appearance on camera. I picture […]

Iran pursuing banned items for nuclear, missile work

Iran has pursued a longstanding effort to buy banned components for its nuclear and missile programs in recent months, a U.S. official said on Sunday, a period when it struck an interim deal with major powers to limit its disputed atomic activity. Vann Van Diepen, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and […]

Orlov: Is anyone really in control in Ukraine?

[While everyone is concentrating on the referendum in Crimea, let’s not lose sight of what’s happening in the rest of (formerly independent) Ukraine. As we already know, the government in Kiev is dead broke; the aid that is forthcoming from the US is barely enough to cover its debt to Russia’s Gazprom, for natural gas. […]

World War 1 All Over Again

“If you reduce the lie to a scientific system put it on thick and heavy, and with great effort and sufficient finances scatter it all over the world as the pure truth, you can deceive whole nations for a long time and drive them to slaughter for causes in which they have not the slightest […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy