Casualties of the Oil Stampede

A huge new oil pipeline, opened a week ago but not fully operational till August, is set to become an environmental, political and economic timebomb. Over 1,000 miles long, it is a classic example of pretensions to corporate social responsibility claimed by the BP consortium being trampled all over by the stampede for oil.

The new Great Game is the competition for control of the world’s few remaining big oilfields. Global oil production will probably peak in 2010-15, and for the last 40 years new annual discoveries of oil have been far short of the increase in annual demand. The end of Big Oil is in sight, and with it the oil-powered civilisation we’ve all grown accustomed to. The struggle to dominate remaining supplies is intense, nowhere more so than in the Caspian basin, with probably the largest remaining oil deposits after the Middle East.
The Guardian