U.S. to Iran: Warships to remain in Persian Gulf

The Obama administration on Tuesday brushed aside Iran’s warning to keep U.S. aircraft carriers out of the Gulf, dismissing its threats as a consequence of hard-hitting American sanctions on the Iranian economy. Provoking a hostile start to what could prove a pivotal year for Iran, the country’s army chief said American vessels were unwelcome in […]

Anatolia gas pipeline races towards reality

Competition in the Southern Gas Corridor from the Caspian Sea basin to Europe continues to heat up, with more details about the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline emerging and Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin bringing forward construction of the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea. Putin ordered construction of the Russian-Turkey-Europe South Stream pipeline to start […]

War Imminent In Straits Of Hormuz? $200 A Barrel Oil?

The pieces and policies for potential conflict in the Persian Gulf are seemingly drawing inexorably together. Since 24 December the Iranian Navy has been holding its ten-day Velayat 90 naval exercises, covering an area in the Arabian Sea stretching from east of the Strait of Hormuz entrance to the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of […]

China, Oil And Ethnic Cleansing In Horn Of Africa

Chinese oil workers once again seem to be at the center of a nasty counterinsurgency in the Horn of Africa, in the Ogaden, located in south east Ethiopia. The Ogaden is home to what is reported to be major deposits of gas and oil, though as in South Sudan, just how much is actually there […]

Putin piles on Arctic pressure

Russian foreign policy under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is increasingly resorting to gunboat diplomacy. However, another key element in Putin’s agenda has been his aggressive campaign to assert Russian interests in the Arctic. The aggressiveness has been manifested in earlier rhetorical exchanges and the resumption of Russian military flights over and from the Arctic, as […]

Middle East: Chalk up another landmark year for the region’s oil

Four years stand out as landmarks in Middle East oil: 1951; 1973; 1979; and 1991. In those years, the old certainties burned in revolutions and wars, oil prices soared, and the world’s energy affairs were set on an entirely different course. To those memorable dates, we can now add 2011. The regimes that crumbled in […]

Outcry in Nigeria as fuel prices more than double

Irate drivers in Africa’s most populous nation paid more than twice the usual price Monday after the government quietly removed a long-cherished consumer subsidy that had kept gas affordable, prompting fears of strikes and unrest. Gas powers Nigeria’s generators because the national electricity supply is sporadic at best, and fuel also keeps engines running in […]

To green or not to green? UK’s energy dilemma

f you think the UK is in a difficult position as far as its relationship goes to the rest of Europe and the ongoing euro debt drama, consider the circumstances surrounding its energy and climate policies. It’s all enough to make Prime Minister David Cameron wish he had never pledged to usher in “the greenest […]

U.S. steps up sanctions as Iran floats nuclear talks

U.S. President Barack Obama signed new sanctions against Iran into law on Saturday, shortly after Iran signalled it was ready for fresh talks with the West on its nuclear programme and said it had delayed long-range missile tests in the Gulf. Tensions between Iran and the West have grown since EU leaders said they wanted […]

Lindsey Williams Predicts: Total Collapse of The Dollar and Skyrocketing Oil Prices in 2012

Alex also talks with pastor Lindsey Williams about the crisis now threatening to erupt in the Middle East and the possibility of skyrocketing oil prices that will decimate national economies. http://www.lindseywilliams.net/ Lindsey Williams, an ordained Baptist minister went to Alaska in 1970 as a missionary. While in Alaska, Pastor Williams found out about the Trans-Alaska […]

U.S. Raises Alarm Over Oil Lanes

Iran said it will launch missiles and torpedoes as part of an ongoing naval drill in the Persian Gulf, an Iranian news agency reported, following a week of saber-rattling in which Tehran threatened to close some of the world’s most vital oil-shipping lanes. Tehran said this week it could easlily block oil deliveries through the […]

Was the Kyoto Protocol a Failure?

This year’s COP17 United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa increased awareness of the uphill effort required to establish an international emissions reduction treaty. But Durban was just the latest in a long line of attempts to limit global warming. Almost 15 years ago, the world gathered in Japan to negotiate the Kyoto […]

Saber-rattling in Persian Gulf Escalates

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have rejected a warning issued by the United States not to close down the Strait of Hormuz in response to crippling sanctions. Iran’s “response to threats is threats,” said Brigadier General Hossein Salami, a Revolutionary Guards commander. He added that the United States is not in a position to tell Tehran “what […]

Middle East wealth there for the sharing

In the euphoria of the “Arab Spring”, observers began predicting the blooming of Arab economies after a temporary slowdown attributed to demonstrations, shortages, bottlenecks and ensuing dislocations. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was forecast to bring democratic change, with Islamists as the only roadblock to Nirvana. The move toward democratic governance was assumed […]

U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran

The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports exclusively. When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the […]

Iran navy chief says closing Gulf “really easy”

Closing off the Gulf to oil tankers will be “easier than drinking a glass of water” for Iran if the Islamic state deems it necessary, state television reported on Wednesday, ratcheting up fears over the world’s most important oil chokepoint. “Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran’s armed forces is really easy … or as […]

Watching The World: Oil diplomacy in action

The oil and gas industry might want to tip its hat out of respect for work done by the Atlantic Council in the past year—especially its recently concluded Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum. Held in Istanbul, this year’s BSEE was remarkable for many reasons, not least the ability of the Atlantic Council to bring […]

Resilience: The Next Big Word for 2012

Create a “sustainable ad­vantage” to win in this new age of sustainability. – From yet another sustainability consultancy newsletter. Big symbolic words come and go, and for various reasons they often annoy. That is not the fault of the actual words: articulating ideas like “corporate social responsibility” and “social entrepreneurship” in just one word is […]

Maybe that war with China isn’t so far off

The year 2011 has been a tough one for Sino-United States ties. And 2012 does not look like it’s going to be a good year either, with a presidential election year in the United States. For both the Democratic and Republican parties, bashing the Chinese economic, military and freedom-averse menace will probably be a campaign-trail […]

Oil interests push China into Sudanese mire

At a restaurant along the River Nile offering crocodile and ostrich meat, officials of the world’s newest — and desperately destitute — nation hosted a lunch this month for Liu Guijin, China’s visiting envoy for African affairs. Liu’s visit to Juba, the dirt-track capital of South Sudan, which split from Sudan in July, came at […]

Iran ‘rehearses closing gulf oil route’

Iranian naval forces launch a massive 10-day exercise Saturday near the Strait of Hormuz, the only way in and out of the Persian Gulf, in what is widely seen as a rehearsal for a threatened closure of the strategic global oil artery if the country is attacked. The Iranians have billed the Velayat-90 drill as […]

Tens of thousands rally as Russian protests resume

Tens of thousands of Russians took part in demonstrations Saturday to protest against suspected fraud in the Dec. 4 legislative polls. Participants braved freezing temperatures in the largest public show of discontent since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Tens of thousands of people on Saturday filled an avenue in Moscow to protest against the alleged rigging […]

China warns EU of carbon tax ‘trade war’

China has warned the European Union to abandon its controversial carbon tax on airlines or risk provoking a global trade war. Adding weight to the warning, an industry insider told the Financial Times that the Chinese government was seriously considering measures to hit back at the EU if it insists on charging international airlines for […]

Chris Nelder: Energy politics at the piano bar

She was dressed up for a night on the town, her blond hair teased into a frisky friz, but her makeup couldn’t completely hide decades of hard living, drinking and sorrow. Looking like she would have been more at home in a dive bar than a piano lounge in a nice family restaurant, she belted […]

Did the Federal Government Invent the Shale Gas Boom?

In the Washington Post the folks at the Breakthrough Institute try to learn us some history about the shale gas boom. Maybe you think the shale gas boom was some big surprise suddenly made real after the decades-long work of a hard-headed oil and gas guy – George Mitchell – willing to spend millions of […]

Nations Meeting in Rome Agree to Increase Pressure on Iran

Italy said participants in talks in Rome on stiffening sanctions on Iran called on the nation to answer questions about its nuclear program and vowed to step up pressure against the world’s No. 3 crude exporter. Participants in what was described as a meeting of “like- minded nations” asked Iran “to satisfy requests by the […]

Canada ‘very serious’ about selling its oil to China, Harper says

Stephen Harper says Canada is on a “different track,” committed to selling its oil to China even at the risk of angering Americans. In a year-end interview with CTV the Prime Minister said though many senior American officials remain hopeful that the Keystone pipeline will get built, connecting Alberta’s oil sands to the United States, […]

How Maliki and Iran Outsmarted the U.S. on Troop Withdrawal

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s suggestion that the end of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is part of a U.S. military success story ignores the fact that the George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military had planned to maintain a semi-permanent military presence in Iraq. The real story behind the U.S. withdrawal is how […]

Protests spread in troubled Kazakh oil region

Protests in Kazakhstan’s oil-producing Mangistau region, unprecedented in the Central Asian state’s recent history, spread Sunday to the regional capital, where hundreds of angry protesters faced reinforced police troops. Late Saturday, one person was killed and 11 people were wounded in a fresh clash with police in the village of Shetpe, bringing the total official […]

Senate approves Keystone Pipeline Provision in Budget Deal

The Senate on Saturday voted to extend the payroll tax cut by two months, after both sides were unable to reach a comprehensive agreement to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for a full year. The deal, passed in a 89-10 vote, includes a provision to speed up a decision on the Keystone […]

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