Iraq’s Maliki Threatens to Cut Funds If Kurds Pipe Oil to Turkey

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki threatened on Sunday to cut Kurdistan’s share of the federal budget if the autonomous region exports oil to Turkey via a new pipeline without central government consent. The Kurdistan Regional Government said last week that crude had begun to flow to Turkey and exports were expected to start at the […]

Another Iraq War?

Many Americans are surprised to see Fallujah back on the front pages of newspapers. How did things get so bad that the Iraqi government was compelled to call for American support in its battle against an al-Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria? This crescendo of violence is the culmination of two well-established […]

Saudis implementing massive public transit expansion

Properties and lands expropriated for the King Abdulaziz Public Transport Project (metro and bus system) have ranged between 1.8 to 2 million square meters. On the other hand, the Higher Commission for the Development of Riyadh (HCDR) has expropriated lands in 140 locations of which 80 percent of the lands lying on the city’s outskirts […]

Violence not hitting Iraq oil for now, but raises concern

Iraq’s oil industry and its foreign investors see no cause to panic after al Qaeda militants seized major towns last week – troubled Anbar province, they note, could hardly be further from the main oilfields. Yet the violence, in part a spillover from Syria’s civil war into Iraq’s western desert, has brought new unease about […]

Safety alert issued over dangers of fracked oil

The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an unprecedented safety alert on the transport of hydraulically fractured oil from North Dakota’s booming Bakken oil fields that could also cool Canada’s unconventional oil rush. “Recent derailments and resulting fires indicate that the type of crude oil being transported from the Bakken region may be more flammable […]

Key senator urges end to ban on U.S. crude oil exports

The top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee on Tuesday urged an end to a decades-old U.S. ban on exporting crude oil, saying it will disrupt supply and discourage U.S. production rather than keep domestic gasoline prices stable. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, at an event at the Brookings Institute in Washington, professed her support for […]

The politics of bread

An Egyptian holds a piece of bread during a protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square Fifth Avenue is laid in gold, every mansion a citadel of money and power. Yet here you stand, a giant, starved and fettered . . . You too will have to learn that you have a right to share your neighbours’ […]

Wonders yet to come: A sound basis for energy policy?

Last week when I laid out seven misconceptions about energy shared by the public and policymakers, the pushback I received had little to do with the actual data I used to demonstrate my point. This is probably because the data are from official public sources and available to anyone with an Internet connection to inspect […]

Gov SWAT Teams Target “Rugged Individuals” Who Grow Their Own Food, Produce Their Own Electricity

The dream of many Americans is to get out of the hustle and bustle of the daily city grind. And what better dream to have then to move your family outside of city limits to the countryside so that you can grow your own food, produce your own electricity with solar power, and live outside […]

Al-Qaeda Militants now control Fallugah

Rebels and Iraqi police in the volatile Anbar province say the Iraqi government has lost control of the city of Fallujah to al-Qaida militants after days of fighting. The al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which is active in both countries, pushed police out of the city center after shelling in the city […]

Massachusetts Makes Smart Grid Mandatory

Massachusetts has joined a growing list of states demanding that its investor-owned utilities invest in the smart grid — and find new models for how those investments should be valued. Consider it the latest move in a state-by-state reconfiguration of utility business models, aimed at creating new rules for sharing the costs and benefits of […]

Gloomy Americans foresee a downhill slide to 2050

Ask people to imagine American life in 2050, and you’ll get some dreary visions. Whether they foresee runaway technology or runaway government, rampant poverty or vanishing morality, a majority of Americans predict a future worse than today. Whites are particularly gloomy: Only 1 in 6 expects better times over the next four decades. Also notably […]

Iran Says Saudi Intelligence Ordered Embassy Bombing in Lebanon

Iran insists that the deadly terrorist bombing of its embassy on November 19 was ordered by Saudi intelligence boss Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The Iranian news channel, Alalam, made the claim on Thursday, citing unnamed sources in Lebanon. The sources said Majed al-Majed, the Saudi ringleader of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an al-Qaeda connected terrorist […]

Kurdistan Oil Flow to Turkey Begins, Exports Await Iraqi Consent

Crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan has started flowing via a new pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean export hub of Ceyhan but will not be shipped to world markets without the consent of Baghdad, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Thursday. Yildiz hopes a deal can be reached this month for exports to begin, he […]

UN Unveils Plot to Reduce African Population

The United Nations and its oftentimes barbaric population-control apparatus are under fire again after releasing a deeply controversial report claiming that the African population of Kenya is too large and growing too quickly. To deal with the supposed “challenge,” as the UN and its “partners” in the national government put it, international bureaucrats are demanding […]

After Train Explosions, US Warns About Bakken Oil

Shares of Whiting Petroleum Corp , Continental Resources Inc and other top crude oil producers in the Bakken shale formation plunged on Thursday after the U.S. government said oil produced there may be extra flammable. The warning came three days after a BNSF train carrying crude oil collided in eastern North Dakota with another train […]

Turkey says will continue natural gas trade with Iran

Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz says his country will continue importing natural gas from neighboring Iran. “Iran is our neighbor and brother country. We will continue our natural gas trade,” he told Turkish-language news network Kanal 24 on Monday. Yildiz further noted that USD 4.5 billion had been paid to state-owned […]

Why Saudi Arabia and the US don’t see eye to eye in the Middle East

Give credit to Vladimir Putin and his New York Times op-ed on Syria for sparking a new tactic for foreign leaders hoping to influence American public opinion. In recent weeks, Saudi Arabian political elites have followed Putin’s lead, using American outlets to express their distaste with the West’s foreign policy, particularly with regard to Syria […]

The New New Great Game: Geography, Energy, The Dollar And Gold

Sir Halford Mackinder’s 1904 speach in which he outlined his “Heartland Theory” was a founding moment for geo-politics. He argued that control of the Eurasian landmass (Europe, Asia and the Middle East), which contained the bulk of the world’s population and natural resources, was the major geo-political prize. As time passed, energy (first crude oil […]

talk of quota bargain at opec

In response to the aggressive outburst of Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh in Vienna where he stressed that ‘Tehran would increase output, come what may’, other leading Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) members are beginning to take position apparently in preparation for the ultimate bargaining round. On the sidelines of the Opec ministerial […]

Saudis: ‘We have been stabbed in back by Obama’

Arabs don’t trust Obama either. As 2013 ends, President Obama has lost credibility with many people who trusted him at the start of the year. Thanks to the Healthcare.gov debacle, polls find support for the president among women and independents has dropped to the lowest ebb of his presidency. Obama’s words — promising Americans they […]

Iran’s Oil-For-Cash Scheme

An unfolding corruption scandal in Turkey has uncovered transactions that may have allowed Tehran to circumvent harsh U.S. and E.U. sanctions—a revelation that could destabilize Obama’s nuclear deal and threaten the government of Prime Minister Erdogan. A massive unfolding corruption scandal in Turkey—which has already forced the resignations of three government ministers and threatens to […]

Norway’s shame: How a nation squandered its oil riches

Here’s a warning to America: Even a rich nation can be bled dry … by pandering to those who won’t work Some 50 years ago, Njord, the mythological Norsk god of wealth, smiled on the hardworking fishermen and lumberjacks, and presented Norway with the gift of oil. In financial terms, this was a handsome gift […]

Drill here? Maybe. Drill now? That’s impossible

Southern political leaders and the oil industry want to find out if there’s enough oil and natural gas off the Atlantic coast to justify drilling for it. That’s a reasonable request that should be part of the country’s energy plan. What’s not reasonable is some politicians’ leap to the conclusion that offshore oil and gas […]

Syria’s Assad ‘has secret Iraq oil lifeline’

Illegal oil imports from Iraq have helped Damascus government keep country running, Reuters news agency reports. The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad has received substantial imports of Iraqi crude oil from an Egyptian port in the last nine months, shipping and payments documents show, part of an under-the-radar trade that has kept his military […]

Iran Sanctions Bill Big Test of Israel Lobby Power

This week’s introduction by a bipartisan group of 26 senators of a new sanctions bill against Iran could result in the biggest test of the political clout of the Israel lobby here in decades. The government of President Hassan Rouhani has warned repeatedly that the demand that Iran dismantle its nuclear programme entirely is a […]

US Should Tap the Offshore Goldmine

Back in 2011, at a fundraiser in San Francisco, President Obama remarked that “We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge.” Since his comments there has no doubt been a dramatic increase in domestic production of oil, natural gas and renewable energy. Through […]

About that EIA Hail Mary

The key take-away from the US EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook released one week ago jumps out in the graph below: US crude oil production should peak in 2016 at a level 26% higher than that projected just one year ago.  That’s an additional 2 million barrels a day (mb/d), pushing the US total to 9.6 […]

China to ease one-child policy early next year

Beijing said last month it would allow millions of families to have two children, the most radical relaxation of its strict one-child policy in close to three decades. Changes to China’s strict one-child policy, which will allow more parents to have a second child, will begin to roll out early next year, state media said. […]

Civil war looming in South Sudan as president says army ready to take on rebels

South Sudan president has threatened rebel held areas with a major offensive despite diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in the world’s youngest nation The last British evacuation flight took off just after midday as thousands of expatriates remained behind, hoping a descent into civil war could be averted. Troops loyal to Salva Kiir, the […]

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