Why won’t Obama mention peak oil? Blame Rush Limbaugh

Earlier this month, the one-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident came and went with barely a whimper. Now, with the two-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon spill coming up in April, the media probably won’t do much better. Instead, all the talk these days seems to be about drill-baby-drilling our way back to the […]

Big Oil, Big Government, and Big Hypocrisy

In a speech last week Newt Gingrich exulted that the estimated Bakken shale oil reserves in North Dakota had recently been revised upward to 24 billion barrels. So much, he said in a tone of patronizing dismissal, for the “Peak Oil doomsayers.” These remarks by Gingrich, who also says he’d lower gasoline prices to $2.50 […]

Threat of diesel rationing in Europe

At the homepage of the Stock Market Guide, (a service provided by the Swedish magazines Private Business and Business Weekly), is an excerpt from Gunnar Lindstedt’s article “Dark cloud over new oil” that was published in this week’s edition of Business Weekly. The headline they chose to use was “Threat of diesel rationing”. The following […]

Iran threatens Hormuz and world oil supply after trade links cutoff

Intelligence Minister Ali Falahian, Iran’s senior spokesman on sanctions, said Sunday, March 18,  that if the US and Europe think they can ignore international law to promote their interests, they should know that Iran will respond in kind everywhere it can. “I suggest that the West take seriously our threat to close the Strait of […]

America in the Muslim world: War, intervention, and nation building

Americans view their country’s activities in the Muslim world as a necessary part of the “war on terror.” Nation building and spreading democracy are activities whose popularity spans the American ideological divide. But these activities raise questions about such fundamental concepts as the nation-state and sovereignty, and they raise fears in the Muslim world that […]

Power Struggles at the Persian Gulf – is Another Gulf War Imminent?

Iran is currently the fifth-largest oil producer in the world, the second-largest producer in the OPEC, and the third-largest oil exporter worldwide. Of the total production of almost 3.5mn barrels/day, 2.285mn barrels/day were exported last year. 0.8mn barrels/day are shipped to the OECD countries in Europe, 0.6mn barrels/day of those to the EU and 200,000 […]

Kurds say Exxon still working in North Iraq

Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) has not suspended its work in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, an aide to the region’s president said on Saturday, after Baghdad said Exxon had frozen its Kurdish deal. Iraq’s oil minister said on Friday that Exxon had written to Baghdad informing it that it had suspended work in the Kurdish region, under […]

Tapping oil from the SPR may be trickier than ever

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve isn’t quite as strategic as it used to be. As President Barack Obama moves closer to an unprecedented second release of the U.S. emergency oil stockpile in a bid to bring down near-record fuel prices, experts say dramatic logistical upheavals in the U.S. oil market over the past year may […]

Iran cut off from global financial system

Dozens of Iranian banks were blocked from doing business with much of the world as the West tightens the financial screws on a country it wants to prevent from developing nuclear weapons. The Belgium-based company that facilitates most international bank transfers on Thursday took the unprecedented step of blocking 30 Iranian banks from using its […]

Goldman Sachs Op-Ed, Strategic Oil Reserve

U.S. Representative Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, talks about the New York Times op-ed by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Greg Smith criticizing the company’s culture. Welch, speaking with Peter Cook on Bloomberg Television’s “Bottom Line,” also discusses his call for President Barack Obama to tap the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

U.S., Britan set to agree emergency oil stocks release

Britain has decided to cooperate with the United States on a release of strategic oil stocks that is expected within months, two British sources said, in a bid to prevent fuel prices choking economic growth in a U.S. election year. A formal request from the United States to the UK to join forces in a […]

The federal government’s clunky imposition of the Renewable Fuel Standard

With US gasoline prices averaging nearly $4 per gallon, not many Americans would sympathize with what it has come to know as “Big Oil” industry when it complains about the regulatory mandates that it faces from Congress and the Obama administration. This includes the industry’s longstanding grievances about the government’s Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires refiners […]

Oil Truth Part 2: The Keystone XL Pipeline

This video shows how propaganda streams through our political system and our media with no difference between commercials on TV from financially interested parties and political speeches. Most of the Oil Truth series could likely also be Media Fail because it is clear that the media is not interested in bringing forth the proper analysis […]

Is Coal India Selling Coal at a 70 per cent discount?

The Children’s Investment Fund sounds like the cuddliest toy in the nursery. As executives at Japan Tobacco and railroad company CSX will testify, however, it is a tireless activist investor. Always alert to any danger to its interests as a minority investor, TCI is now focusing on Coal India . It has threatened the company’s […]

Big Brother and the Oil Company

In the midst of an election year, tied to a flurry of headlines about high prices for gasoline, there have been a lot of questions about the value and significance of government subsidies for the oil and gas industry. On a global scale, a closer look at the role of government subsidies reveals that they […]

U.S. asks Saudis to lift oil output

The United States is pressing Saudi Arabia to boost oil output to fill a likely supply gap arising from sanctions on Iran, Gulf oil officials said, adding that an increase in production is unlikely to be needed before July. Saudi Arabia is the only producer with spare capacity and oil importers will rely on Riyadh […]

Israel to delay strike on Iran until after US elections?

White House tells Sunday Times Obama pressed Netanyahu to postpone Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities until after November, adding president ‘might visit Israel in summer’ Israel will only strike Iranian nuclear facilities in September or after the United States presidential elections in November, a White House official told the British Sunday Times newspaper after […]

Why The American Empire Was Destined To Collapse, Nomi Prins Interviews Morris Berman

Several years after the Wall Street-ignited crisis began, the nation’s top bank CEOs (who far out-accumulated their European and other international counterparts) continue to hobnob with the president at campaign dinners where each plate costs more than one out of four US households make in a year. Financial bigwigs lead their affluent lives, unaffected, unremorseful, […]

How releasing government oil stockpiles could raise, not lower, crude prices

Two questions hang over the salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana that hold the US government’s emergency stockpile of crude oil: Will President Barack Obama sell any of those reserves this year? And will a release bring down prices? Politicians in Washington have spent weeks answering those questions in ways that suit their broader views […]

Japan Shutting Down Its Nuclear Power Industry

All but two of Japan’s 54 commercial reactors have gone offline since the nuclear disaster a year ago, after the earthquake and tsunami, and it is not clear when they can be restarted. With the last operating reactor scheduled to be idled as soon as next month, Japan — once one of the world’s leaders […]

Pentagon ‘very worried’ about Iran war

A top US official has revealed that the Pentagon is “very worried” about the prospects of a military confrontation with Iran, despite the escalating war threats emanating from Washington and Tel Aviv. “[The] military is very worried about what they’re confronting with budget cuts and are just not anxious to take on another war,” Lee […]

Protracted Iran Conflict Could Drive Oil Prices Up $60 Barrel

“Nobody’s announced a war, young lady,” President Barack Obama said in New York on March 2, wagging his finger at an audience member who decried the possibility of U.S. military action against Iran. “But we appreciate your sentiment.” The crowd cheered, and a smile crossed the president’s face. It’s too soon to say when, or […]

John Michael Greer: America Origins of an Empire

To understand the decline and approaching fall of the American empire, it’s necessary to understand how that empire came into being. That’s a complex issue, as all historical questions are these days, and a grasp of the tangled role of history in today’s political discourse may make it a little easier to avoid certain common […]

Sunnis United with Israel against Shia Iran

The sectarian gulf between the Sunni Arabs and Shia Iranians runs deep. Recent reports suggest that Arabs, while being motivated by their abhorrence of the Shias, appear willing to support Israel in her not-so-covert plans to attack Iran. Peter Cohan, writing in Forbes.com, reports that “Saudi Arabia’s rage against the Shias exceeds its dislike of […]

UK: Fuel protesters target Parliament as anger boils over at record pump prices

Campaigners will pile pressure on Chancellor George Osborne to lower motoring taxes through a mass lobby of Parliament today. Organised by the FairFuelUK group, the protest will include the delivery of a key report to 10 Downing Street. The handover will be followed by a mass lobby of MPs after average petrol prices reached a […]

Oil Rich Eastern Libya declares autonomy

Cyrenaica, the eastern region of Libya, has elected a regional congress and declared semi-autonomy from the capital Tripoli. The “blatant call for fragmentation” of the country was condemned by Libya’s ruling NTC. Thousands of major tribal leaders and militia commanders attended a celebratory ceremony in the region’s center Benghazi on Tuesday. The congress stated that […]

Obama says he is concerned about global oil outages

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he is concerned about oil output around the world as gasoline prices soar and is looking to ease bottlenecks at U.S. refineries to help ease prices at home. Republicans have slammed Obama for oil prices that are trading at more than $100 a barrel in New York ahead of […]

Global Powers Agree to Resume Nuclear Talks With Iran

The global powers dealing with Iran’s  disputed nuclear program said Tuesday  that they had accepted its offer to resume negotiations broken off in stalemate more than a year ago — a  move that could help relieve increased pressure from Israel to use military  force against Tehran. “I have offered to resume talks with Iran on […]

Iran, Canada and the Petro State

Whenever North Americans fill up their vehicles with gasoline these days they should reflect on their ongoing contribution to the dysfunctional status of petro states and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular. Iran’s civilian nuclear power ambitions, of course, have set off a grand political tiff with the United States and Israel. Both suspect […]

Iran May Halt Oil Sales to Three More EU Members

Iran will probably stop sales of crude to Belgium, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, the state-run Mehr news agency reported, without saying where it obtained the information. The final decision on halting sales to the three European Union countries will be made soon by the Iranian oil ministry, Mehr said. Those countries haven’t accepted […]

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