Oil Dinosaurs Face Extinction: State Oil Companies And The Meteor-Strike Of Low Oil Prices

State-owned oil companies that don’t slash expenses to align with revenues and boost critical investment in the infrastructure needed to maintain production will suffer financial extinction. Domestic and international energy companies are responding to the 50% decline in the price of oil by doing what’s necessary to remain in business: they’re slashing payroll, postponing capital investments, […]

President Barack Obama to pay respects to new Saudi King

U.S. President Barack Obama will travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday in order to meet and pay his respects to the newly appointed monarch, King Salman, and the family of the late King Abdullah, the White House said Saturday. Saudi Arabia’s order of succession explained 02:15 PLAY VIDEO Vice President Joe Biden was originally to […]

Saudi Arabia’s Succession Line Is Set, but the Nation’s Path Remains Uncertain

Saudi Arabia’s new king moved with unprecedented swiftness on Friday to appoint not only the heir to his throne but the heir to his heir as well. If all proceeds according to plan — as most Saudis and some analysts assume it will — the chain of succession dictated by King Salman after the death […]

The Saudi Succession: Its Impact On Oil, Markets And Politics

 As reported earlier, several hours ago Saudi Arabia announced that its 91-year-old King Abdullah had passed away, in the process setting off what may be a fascinating, and problematic, Saudi succession fight which impacts everything from oil, to markets to geopolitics, especially in the aftermath of the dramatic political coup in neighboring Yemen. As a […]

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz dies

Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was the fifth of his brothers to take the throne Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has died, royal officials have announced, weeks after he was admitted to hospital. Abdullah, who had ruled since 2005 and was said to be aged about 90, had been suffering from a lung infection. His 79-year-old half-brother, […]

Oil price drop is ‘economic warfare against US enemies’

The current oil price decline can be explained by heavy selling in US future markets which is part of an all-out economic war between the US and countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela, says financial journalist, Willem Middelkoop. RT: Falling oil prices are a serious problem for some producers. What hope is there that a […]

What Do Weak Oil Prices Mean for the South China Sea?

When it comes to territorial tensions in the South China Sea, it’s more about what goes through it than what lies beneath it. Oil last week dropped below $46 a barrel to more than five-year lows. The biggest collapse in energy prices since the 2008 global recession has prompted companies from Royal Dutch Shell Plc […]

Obama: America is No. 1 producer of oil, gas

The United States is on top of the world in terms of energy production, President Barack Obama said during his sixth State of the Union. “We believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our planet,” he said during his Jan. 20 address. “And today, America is number one in oil and gas. […]

Crushing The U.S. Energy Export Dream

Exporting crude oil and natural gas from the United States are among the dumbest energy ideas of all time. Exporting gas is dumb. Exporting oil is dumber. The U.S. imports almost half of the crude oil that we use. We import 7.5 million barrels per day. The chart below shows the EIA prediction that production […]

Saudi Arabia: 1 Beheading Every 4 Days

Oppression is extreme in Saudi Arabia, which has strong ties to U.S. politicians As long as Saudi oil is seen as a valuable resource for US oil corporations, the US will maintain relations with the feudal regime regardless of what that means for the rights of Saudi people, Sara Flounders, of the International Action Center, […]

Falling oil prices hit Venezuela, Iran and Russia hard

As oil prices continued to plunge last week, it was instructive to watch the disparate reactions of three governments whose whopping losses are likely to produce some of the biggest international stories of 2015. There was the panicked scrambling of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who skipped his own state of the union speech for a […]

Yemeni Government Admits It Has Lost Control Of Nation Amid “Attempted Coup”

 In what Yemen’s information minister described as an “attempted coup” Shia Houthi rebels (backed by Hizbollah and Iran) have surrounded the Yemeni Presidential Palace putting them, as The Telegraph reports, in direct confrontation with al-Qaeda and the Yemen government. Amid hopes of a compromise deal or cease-fire in the conflict that has been under way […]

Iran says oil industry could withstand $25 crude

Iran sees no sign of a shift within OPEC toward action to support oil prices, its oil minister said, adding its oil industry could ride out a further price slump to $25 a barrel. The comments are a further sign that despite lobbying by Iran and Venezuela, there is little chance of collective action by […]

Dumb and Dumber: U.S. Crude Oil Export

Exporting crude oil and natural gas from the United States are among the dumbest energy ideas of all time. Exporting gas is dumb. Exporting oil is dumber. The U.S. imports almost half of the crude oil that we use. We import 7.5 million barrels per day.  The chart below shows the EIA prediction that production will slowly […]

Is Moscow bluffing on redirecting European gas supplies?

Moscow says it’s planning to build a pipeline to the Turkish-Greek border and no longer ship natural gas to Western Europe through Ukraine within 3 years. The project is far more about political competition than economics. Russia has announced that it will stop supplying Europe directly with natural gas via pipelines that transit through Ukraine […]

Argentina: Oil and trouble

THE enemies of Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, have accused her of all sorts of transgressions during her seven years in power, from cronyism to pushing through unconstitutional laws. On January 14th a federal prosecutor leveled what may be the gravest accusation yet: that she obstructed justice in the investigation of the country’s deadliest […]

Ruin is America’s future

Neoconservatives arrayed in their Washington offices are congratulating themselves on their success in using the Charlie Hebdo affair to reunite Europe with Washington’s foreign policy. No more French votes with the Palestinians against the Washington-Israeli position. No more growing European sympathy with the Palestinians. No more growing European opposition to launching new wars in the […]

How Middle Eastern Governments Are Buying Off the U.S. Political Process

The quaint notion that the U.S. political system remotely resembles either a Republic or a Democracy should have been abandoned long ago. Any lingering illusions were surely extinguished last year, when an academic study empirically proved that the USA is nothing more than a corrupt oligarchy. I highlighted this groundbreaking piece of research in the post: New Report […]

Russia Cuts Off Ukraine Gas Supply To 6 European Countries

Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian state energy giant Gazprom to cut supplies to and through Ukraine amid accusations, according to The Daily Mail, that its neighbor has been siphoning off and stealing Russian gas. Due to these “transit risks for European consumers in the territory of Ukraine,” Gazprom cut gas exports to Europe by 60%, […]

Russia Just Pulled Itself Out Of The Petrodollar

Back in November, before most grasped just how serious the collapse in crude was (and would become, as well as its massive implications), we wrote “How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed“, because for the first time in almost two decades, energy-exporting countries would pull their “petrodollars” out of world markets in 2015. This […]

Iran out billions of dollars in oil revenue

A decline in oil exports, largely because of Western economic sanctions, has cost the Iranian economy more than $100 billion, a senior official said. Iran under the terms of a November 2013 agreement is allowed some oil exports in exchange for commitments to curb some of its nuclear research activity. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the […]

Saudi Oil Minister Holds Talks With US Energy Deputy

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi met U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall on Tuesday in Riyadh where they discussed oil markets, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. SPA gave no specific details about the meeting in a brief statement but said the officials looked into cooperation on energy and environmental issues, climate change, solar […]

Why Europe no longer fears the Russian gasman

A MILD winter and robust European Union policy have blunted the edge of what was once Vladimir Putin’s most effective foreign-policy weapon: the politicised export of gas. Contrary to some expectations, Russian gas has been flowing to Europe across all four main export pipelines this winter, while the Kremlin’s flagship new pipeline project, South Stream, […]

Venezuela’s Maduro seeks support from Saudi Arabia on oil prices

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman in Riyadh on Sunday as part of a diplomatic tour of OPEC members to discuss falling oil prices, which have hit its economy hard. The Saudi side in the meeting included Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and several princes including Deputy Crown Prince Muqrin, intelligence chief […]

Strategic Petroleum Reserve needs ‘modernization’

Rapid changes in the location and type of oil production inside the United States require a “modernization” in the way the country stockpiles crude for emergencies, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Wednesday. More specific recommendations about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — 691 million barrels of oil stashed in underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas […]

All Over America, Government Officials Are Cracking Down On Preppers

Why would the government want to punish people that are just trying to work hard, become more self-sufficient and take care of their families?  There are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today, and often they appear to be singled out for punishment by bureaucratic control freaks that are horrified at the thought […]

House of Saud: Generational shift seen in royal succession battle

The deteriorating health of King Abdullah, a son of the founding monarch Ibn Saud, has Saudi royals preparing for a succession battle that will focus mostly on who will be the next crown prince. The deteriorating health of King Abdullah is casting a shadow over Saudi Arabia, where a growing dispute over succession is dividing […]

Iran Accuses Saudis of Oil Conspiracy

Iranian hard-liners are lashing out at Saudi Arabia, accusing it of conspiring with the West to keep oil prices low in a bid to harm the Islamic Republic’s economy and pressure the country to conclude a nuclear deal with West.  In retaliation, Iranian hawks are urging restive Shia Muslims in eastern Saudi Arabia to rebel […]

‘ISIL is losing’: Iraqis optimistic for 2015

Iraqi security forces backed by Shia militias, Kurdish forces and Sunni Muslim tribesmen will drive the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from all Iraqi lands before the end of 2015, Iraqi security officials and analysts say. Iraq has been witnessing its worst security crisis since the 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam […]

Libyan warplane bombs Greek-operated oil tanker at port, two dead

A Libyan warplane from forces loyal to the internationally recognized government bombed a Greek-operated oil tanker anchored offshore, killing two crewmen in an escalation of a battle between the country’s rival factions. The air strike on Sunday damaged the Liberian-flagged ARAEVO that was carrying 12,600 tons of crude oil when it was off the eastern […]

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