The Chaos In Iraq Is By DESIGN

Neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz planned regime change in Iraq more than 20 years ago … in 1991. But the goal wasn’t just regime change (or oil).  The goal was to break up the country, and to do away with the sovereignty of Iraq as a separate nation. The Guardian noted in 2003: President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt predicted devastating consequences […]

It’s the oil, stupid! Insurgency and war on a sea of oil

Events in Iraq are headline news everywhere, and once again, there is no mention of the issue that underlies much of the violence: control of Iraqi oil. Instead, the media is flooded with debate about, horror over, and extensive analysis of a not-exactly-brand-new terrorist threat, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). There are, in addition, elaborate […]

Iraq asks US for air strikes on ISIL rebels

Iraqi FM asks Obama administration to launch attacks as his country’s armed forces struggle to stop fighters’ advance. Iraq’s foreign minister has asked the US to launch air attacks on Sunni rebels to put down a week-long rebellion by fighters led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Hoshyar Zebari told a news […]

Russia Says Ukraine Took Gas Despite Cutoff; Sends More Tanks/Troops To Border

The deadline passed on June 16th for Ukraine’s payment for gas already provided and upfront ‘pre-payments’ for ongoing deliveries. So what the Russian Energy Minister wants to know is how Ukraine took 3.8mcm on June 19th, 4.5mcm on June 20th, and 1mcm on June 21st. It appears Ukraine is claiming the gas supplies are reverse […]

Tech Talk – More on Iraq

A single picture is sufficient to tell the story of the fate of the Baiji Refinery in Iraq. Recently reached by the ISIS forces, it has been the largest refinery in Iraq, with a capacity of 310 kbd, and has been used to provide products for domestic use. Since it would provide fuel for both […]

Iraq Government Condemns Kurds for ‘Illegal’ Oil Sale to Israel

Iraq’s government condemned the country’s semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities for “illegally” selling crude oil to Israel for the fourth time. The SCF Altai tanker carrying crude oil from the Kurdish region docked in Ashkelon, Israel, June 20, according to an e-mailed statement from the Iraqi Oil Ministry. The Kurdistan Regional Government also continues to smuggle crude […]

Iraqi insurgents capture fourth town since Friday

Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq captured their fourth town in a little more than 24 hours late Saturday, hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the Middle East to try to shore up Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s faltering government. Iraqi officials told the Associated Press that the Islamic State in Iraq and […]

Will OPEC’s Geo-Political Crackup Put Russo/Iranian Alliance into Global Oil Driver’s Seat?

The lightning-fast econo/political changes impacting the world’s oil alliances have critically undermined the solidarity of OPEC, while strengthening the new Russo/Chinese/Iranian block against the U.S./Canada/Mexico (NAFTA Alliance) and a weakening Saudi Arabia. While the Saudis and Russia still represent the world’s only potential exporters of near 10 million barrels of oil per day, most OPEC […]

Hacktivist Group Threatens Attack on Global PetChem Companies

Petrochemical companies with well-defined incident response programs are best positioned to mitigate the possible cyberattack announced for Friday by hacktivist group AnonGhost. AnonGhost has threatened to disrupt petrochemical company operations in the United States, Germany, Russia, China, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. ThreatTrack Security CEO Julian Waits told Rigzone that major companies such as Exxon Mobil […]

The Return of the Bad Old Days of Oil Shocks

And we thought the bad old days of oil shocks were over. Embargoes, price spikes, gasoline lines in America, a sweater-bedecked president ordering the end of hot water in many facilities, collapsing retail sales as high gasoline and energy prices hit stores as much as a big tax increase would, economic stagflation, or worse. Well, […]

Heinberg on peak oil and options for energy transition

Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg was interviewed on peak oil and energy transition options at RT.

Obama sends U.S. military advisers to Iraq as battle rages over refinery

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was sending up to 300 U.S. military advisers to Iraq but stressed the need for a political solution to the country’s crisis as government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country’s biggest refinery. Speaking at a news conference after a meeting with his top national security […]

China’s oil operations in Iraq unaffected

PetroChina, the single biggest investor in Iraq’s oil sector, is pulling some of its staff out of the Middle East nation, but production remains unaffected as militant Islamists threaten the unity of OPEC’s second-largest producer. China is Iraq’s largest oil client, and its state energy firms, which also include Sinopec Group and CNOOC Ltd, together […]

Sunni militants control ’75 percent’ of Iraq’s Baiji refinery

Sunni militants have taken control of most of Iraq’s largest oil refinery, located in Baiji in northern Iraq, an official at the refinery said on Wednesday. “The militants have managed to break in to the refinery. Now they are in control of the production units, administration building and four watch towers. This is 75 percent […]

The Third Russia-Ukraine Gas War

At 10 am on Monday, June 16, 2014, Gazprom, a Russian gas monopoly, cut off supplies of gas to Ukraine. This is the third time in the last ten years when Gazprom has tried to use a cut-off to force the Ukrainian government to accept a deal it did not want to accept. In the […]

Iraq Foretells Oil’s Dystopian Future

When things go down in the Middle East, oil prices go up. Even axioms have their nuances though. Amid what may be the unraveling of Iraq, oil prices have characteristically risen, with Brent crude breaking back above $112 a barrel. Yet Iraq’s real significance for oil may have less to do with what transpires this […]

Iraq blowback: Isis rise manufactured by insatiable oil addiction

Following the bulk of western reporting on the Iraq crisis, you’d think the self-styled ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria‘ (Isis) popped out of nowhere, took the west completely by surprise, and is now rampaging across the Middle East like some random weather event. The reality is far more complex, and less palatable. The meteoric […]

Iraq Breaks Down, Oil Surges – The Context Underlying The Growing Crisis

The situation in Iraq is serious, and is probably going to get worse before it gets better. The potential for this recent action to morph into a regional conflict is very high. That that means that oil could go a lot higher, and if it does, we can expect the odds of a global economic […]

The Kurds take Kirkuk, now what?

The long-standing dispute over an oil-rich Iraqi city may have reached a critical hour as Kurdish Peshmerga forces now claim to have taken control of Kirkuk. As neighbouring countries and the international community scramble for an appropriate response to the so-called Sunni rebellion rapidly gaining ground across Iraq, Kurdish troops have stirred controversy by stepping […]

As Massacre Claim Shakes Iraq, Militants Seize New City

Wielding the threat of sectarian slaughter, Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come. The possible mass killing came as militants cemented control of the city […]

Russia cuts gas supply to Ukraine

Russia on Monday cut gas supplies to Ukraine as a payment deadline passed and negotiators failed to reach a deal on gas prices and unpaid bills amid continued fighting in eastern Ukraine. The decision does not immediately affect the gas flow to Europe, but could disrupt the long-term energy supply to the region if the […]

America’s Covert Re-Invasion of Iraq

Heavily armed, well funded, and organized as a professional, standing army, the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) swept southward into Iraq from Turkey and northeastern Syria, taking the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and now threaten the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad itself. The United States was sure to prop up two […]

How Isis have rampaged towards the capital

+2   Who are ISIS? The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) grew out of Al Qaeda In Iraq, a militant group that emerged in the chaos engulfing the country after the 2003 invasion. They rebranded themselves after the Syrian uprising, attracting foreign fighters and controlling areas with extreme brutality, such as beheadings […]

Russia’s Smart Move to Asia

In my previous post at Ugo Bardi’s blog, I suggested that “Russia but not the U.S. has been pivoting to Asia just now”. Since then several landmark events happened in the Asian arena, such as, Vladimir Putin’s successful visit to China and the conclusion of a $400 billion gas mega-deal between Russia’s Gazprom and China’s CNPC […]

Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown

Social science is being militarised to develop ‘operational tools’ to target peaceful activists and protest movements A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is […]

Coal is out, natural gas is in

It’s pretty clear by now that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon rules for power plants will hit the coal industry hard. But the big winner, it seems, will be natural gas. The EPA predicted in its regulatory analysis that by the time the rules fully take effect in 2030, natural gas will overtake coal […]

Al Qaeda Insurgents Surround Iraq’s Largest Refinery

While there had been sporadic reports over the past few days that Al Qaeda’s ISIS spinoff had surrounded or even taken control of Iraq’s largest refinery in Baiji, the government was quick to deny such rumors. As was reported earlier, the Baiji refinery remained under government control on Thursday after Sunni rebels’ offensive through northern […]

Insurgents take control of second major city in Iraq

Al-Qaeda-inspired militants have seized the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit — hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein — in a move that represents the second major advance this week for rebel forces in an escalating insurgency that has left the government on the defensive. Witnesses described hearing heavy gunfire Wednesday from different parts of the […]

Militants Seize Second-Biggest City in Iraq

Iraqi army soldiers abandoned their weapons and fled the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, as Sunni militants freed hundreds of prisoners and seized military bases, police stations, banks and the provincial governor’s headquarters. The insurgent attacks were among the most audacious assaults on the Iraqi government since the American military withdrawal more than […]

Central Banks’ Balance Sheets, Interest Rates and the Oil Price

In this post I present a more detailed look at developments in central banks’ balance sheets, interest rates and the oil price since mid 2006 and as of recently. Paper and digital money are human inventions. Most people truly believe it is money that powers the society and their lives because they have never had […]

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