Iranian Ayatollah: “War Within Weeks”

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told top Iranian military chiefs to expect “war within weeks,” at a recent war council meeting, according to Israeli news outlet DebkaFile. “While retaliation had been exhaustively drilled in regular military exercises in the past year, Khamenei ordered the biggest fortification project in Iran’s history to save its nuclear […]

Checking the numbers on a gasoline claim in the WSJ

There was an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday, critical of the Obama administration on several fronts. We won’t comment on the piece as a whole, but one passage caught our eye: This administration’s policies — its refusal to allow a private company to build the Keystone XL pipeline, its reduction in permits […]

Natural gas driller warns New York: Stop the local bans, or we’ll sue

A natural gas drilling company is taking a new tack in the industry’s fight against local drilling bans: It’s threatening to sue if New York regulators don’t step in and extinguish the prohibitions. John Holko, president of Lenape Resources, sent a letter Thursday to state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens saying a moratorium […]

The Future of Our Oil Based Economy

Aaron Dykes is joined by Dan Graeber of Oilprice.com.

The Joy of National Default

At 78 pages of scholarly, somewhat jargon-laden prose, Trade-Off: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion by David Korowicz is not quick reading, nor is it light reading, but it is important reading. It puts a lot of definition to the concept of cascaded failure, in which financial collapse inexorably leads to political and economic collapse with no […]

New Frontiers: a debate over the prospect of US energy independence

The notion that the US could become “energy independent,” or at least “energy self-reliant” within a decade or so has taken on new life as crude gushes from North Dakota and cheap natural gas abounds. But what if that goal, long talked about and now tantalizingly within reach, is achieved? The almost giddy prospect of […]

Record number of coal-fired generators to be shut down in 2012

Facing declining demand for electricity and stiff federal environmental regulations, coal plant operators are planning to retire 175 coal-fired generators, or 8.5 percent of the total coal-fired capacity in the United States, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). A record-high 57 generators will shut down in 2012, representing 9 gigawatts of electrical capacity, […]

US Presents Israel With Iran Strike Plan

An Israeli newspaper reported Sunday that the Obama administration’s top security official has briefed Israel on U.S. plans for a possible attack on Iran, seeking to reassure it that Washington is prepared to act militarily should diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program. A senior Israeli official, speaking on […]

Saudi Arabia says arrests “troublemakers” in Eastern Province

Saudi Arabia said it arrested several “troublemakers” in its oil-rich Eastern Province on Friday while an activist said police wounded and detained protestors there after a peaceful demonstration. Among those arrested was Mohamed al-Shakhouri, one of 23 people wanted by the security forces, the official Saudi Press Agency quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying. […]

Exxon, Chevron spurned by Iraq after deals with Kurdistan Government

By virtue of signing contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government, ExxonMobil and Chevron simultaneously established a business deal in Iraq and were banned from doing business in Iraq. Confused? Don’t be. It’s just another day of doing business in the Middle East. The beef Essentially, the Iraqi central government has a problem with the autonomy […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Middle Eastern Chaos

In surveying the multiple, uprisings, insurgencies, insurrections, confrontations and what have you currently going on in the Middle East, it is hard to believe that all this turmoil will not eventually find its way to our local gas pumps. In the last week the overall situation clearly has taken a turn for the worse with […]

Israel hints at pre-emptive action against Iran

Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak has hinted that the Jewish state may take pre-emptive action against Iran to foil its nuclear ambitions in case sanctions against the Islamic Republic fail to deter it. Addressing a gathering at the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) National Security College, Barak said his country may have to take “tough and […]

Myths, Lies and Oil Wars

The myth of oil scarcity is one of the foundations that have allowed four giant oil corporations along with a handful of Wall Street banks to control the world’s largest and most essential commodity: oil. The myth originated in the 1950′s from a speech by a geologist at Shell and was revived in 2003 at […]

Chevron Barred from Central, Southern Iraq

The second largest U.S. energy company Chevron Corp. will be barred from contracts in central and southern Iraq because the Californian company bought stakes in two oil-exploration blocks in the Kurdish region of Iraq, an Iraqi oil ministry statement said Tuesday. Chevron is the second major western oil company to be banned by the central […]

Webster Tarpley: Why Price of Gasoline must keep Rising

Webster Griffin Tarpley is an American author, historian, journalist, lecturer, and critic of US foreign and domestic policy: (1) To keep dollar at the same exchange rate since dollar is tied to oil, and (2) To promote underdevelopment of Asia, Africa and south America, China and India in particular

On Our Radar: Canadian Oil and China

Taking issue with Canada’s leaders and Alberta’s provincial government, British Columbia’s premier warns that the environmental risks of selling Canadian oil to Asia through the Northern Gateway pipeline would outweigh the economic benefits. [The Globe and Mail] The Canadian oil and gas company Nexen agrees to be acquired by the China National Offshore Oil Company […]

Orlov: Politics of the Unconscious

Across the US flags are flying at half-mast in honor of the twelve people killed and 58 injured by James Holmes during the midnight premiere of the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado. Meanwhile, Norway is commemorating the 69 people shot dead by Andras Brevik at the Labor Party youth camp […]

Energy is God, Finding the Truth behind the American Hologram

Someone said in my last post that I’m making energy into a God. I’m here to tell you that energy is a God. Like a diehard cigarette addict smoking through their tracheostomy, we continue to use the stuff in the face of extinction-threatening effects to the climate. Our foreign policy revolves around how to get […]

Over half of Iran parliament backs Hormuz blockade bi

Just over half of Iran’s parliament has backed a draft law to block the Strait of Hormuz, a lawmaker said on Friday, threatening to close the Gulf to oil tankers in retaliation against European sanctions on Iranian crude, Reuters said. The assembly has little say in defense and foreign policy, where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali […]

U.S. missing out on Arctic land grab

There’s an international race to divvy up the Arctic Ocean’s oil and mineral bounty, but the United States could lose out on a big chunk of it because it hasn’t signed a United Nations treaty governing the area. Earlier this week two key U.S. senators announced they would not support ratifying the Law of the […]

Japan’s culture and Fukushima

Personal accountability trumps organizational loyalty U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s famous motto: “The buck stops here.” In a fiery essay published in the Financial Times July 10, Columbia University Professor Gerald Curtis makes the point that what people do matters. Organizations may come and go, but the actions of individuals are what make history. Curtis, […]

Oil, politics and resource wars

At the 10th conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas in Vienna, Austria, Dr Robert Hirsch, Professor Michael T Klare, Dr Karin Kneissl, Dr Daniele Ganser, and Jeremy Gilbert discussed for Asia Times Online and Matterhorn Asset MGMT different important aspects of oil . Robert Hirsch: Chaos is going to […]

Three US Aircraft Carriers Now In The Middle East With Fourth En Route

A week ago we reported news that Middle East veteran aircraft carrier CVN-74 Stennis was ending its brief sabbatical prematurely, and far earlier than previously expected, and heading right back into the field, er sea, of action. As Kitsapsun reported, “Bremerton-based aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis is returning to the Middle East much sooner […]

China plan to expand eastern oil reserve storage delayed by 2 years

China’s state-run Sinochem Corp has started expanding a facility that will become the country’s largest oil reserve storage site after a two-year delay due to environmental and safety concerns, local officials and industry executives said. The extension of the facility is part of the second phase of China’s plan to build capacity to store strategic […]

U.S. Energy Security and the Next Energy Crisis

  The U.S. recently increased our naval military forces in the Persian Gulf.  This action was in response to increased Iranian military activities within the Strait of Hormuz area and renewed threats to shutdown all oil transport through the Strait.  If the Strait of Hormuz is shutdown 20% of world crude oil supply would be […]

How states are regulating fracking

Armed with new drilling techniques, companies are spreading out across the United States, cracking open shale rock in search of vast new stores of natural gas. It’s not an exaggeration to say that hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has revolutionized the U.S. energy industry. Cheap natural gas has become America’s top source for electricity, displacing coal […]

Iran: Plan To Close Strait of Hormuz Finalized

First week of October earmarked for attack? Iran has confirmed that its plan to close the Strait of Hormuz has been finalized and is ready to be put into action as soon as confirmation is received from Supreme Leader Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei, amidst reports that President Obama has earmarked the first week of October […]

US Ship Mistakenly Fires On Friendly Boat Off Dubai, As Russia Condemns Saudi Treatment Of Religious Protesters

Those trigger happy US sailors are causing some diplomatic headaches again for Hillary Clinton who this time has no Syrian anti-aircraft missiles to blame, by firing on a friendly ship, killing one and injuring three, off the coast of Dubai. Per the AP: “A U.S. Consulate official in Dubai says an American vessel has fired […]

Saudi Security Forces Hurt by Gunmen in Oil-Rich Province

Four Saudi security personnel were injured in an attack by masked gunmen while on patrol in Awwamiya in the oil-rich Eastern Province, the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an Interior Ministry spokesman. Gunmen also fired at the police station in the village and threw a Molotov cocktail while riding motorcycles, the Riyadh- based news service […]

Iran Oil Minister: Tehran will soon make oil embargo ineffective

Iran’s Oil Minister says his office has drawn up plans to make newly tightened sanctions against the Islamic Republic ineffective. Rostam Qasemi says his ministry is at the forefront of an economic battle with the West. His remarks carried by ministry website shana.ir on Saturday did not elaborate on the plans. Qasemi’s comments come two […]

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