Iraq’s oil minister Abdul Kareem Luaiby anticipates his country’s exports for September to exceed 2.6 million barrels a day, a figure not reached in the last 20 or so years. Part of this increase stems from a deal cut between the central government and the Kurdish autonomous region. The Kurds had stopped exporting oil back […]
Canada may have the second largest oil reserves in the world, but the vast majority are locked up in Alberta’s oil sands, far from any ocean. That means that pipelines are needed to transport the oil west to ports on Canada’s Pacific Coast or south to markets in the United States. With President Barack Obama […]
An Emerging Power? The Council on Foreign Relations recently published an interesting memorandum titled “Renewed Violence in Iraq.” The contingency report, authored by Douglas Ollivant of the New America Foundation, offers suggestions as to how the U.S. can help the Iraqi government cope with myriad internal security threats. Ollivant begins by identifying the major social/national fault […]
There is much debate in the United States on the dominance of China in the current global economy. These discussions are quite valid as Latin America weathered much of the 2008 economic crisis based upon natural resource exports to China to bolster their booming economy. Canada was also able to rely on natural resources […]
I would like to point readers interested in the geopolitics of oil to a very interesting interview the Oilprice.com’s geopolitical editor Daniel J. Graeber gave to Infowars.com yesterday evening. Among the topics discussed, I would especially like to draw your attention to the following: How do the tensions in the Middle East impact oil prices? How to […]
Although American statesmen and Republican politicians of the Bush era hate to admit it, one of the foundational aims of the war in Iraq – the creation of a liberal democracy – guaranteed an increase in Iranian influence both within Iraq and across the region. The politics of Shi’a majority were immediately advantaged by electoral […]
By James Stafford World markets appear to be hovering over a precipice as Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, slowdowns in India and China and further bank downgrades threaten to send stocks and commodities down even further. Falling oil and gas prices may offer some respite to consumers but are they enough to help the economy or […]
The world gas market is currently dominated by gas exporting behemoths like Qatar, Russia, Algeria, and Iran. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel–compared to coal and oil–and therefore encourages an increase in power plants that run on natural gas. Many coal-fired power plants in the U.S. are being retrofitted right now because of the abundance […]
Third Time’s a Charm for Shell On May 25, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) August 2011 decision to permit Shell to drill in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off Alaska’s north shore. The Native Village of Point Hope and the Inupiat Community of the North Slope […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. Sudan and South Sudan continue to clash, with each side seeking to control lucrative oil fields near their border. However, as the crisis persists, there are many efforts to relieve some of the humanitarian problems that have emerged in South Sudan, according to Action Against Hunger. “Nearly half the population […]
Today the Foreign Policy Association hosted a conference on “The Future of Energy“. I had the pleasure of attending and, given that I am writing on energy, I also have some interesting insights to share. Especially interesting was the panel discussion “The Energy Picture, Redrawn.” The key insight is that energy is crucial for […]
According to data from the Joint Organization Data Initiative, Saudi Arabia has surpassed Russia as the world’s largest oil producer, a position which the latter country held for six years. The Middle Eastern kingdom’s oil production rose to a 31-year high last year, while Russia’s dropped. As Matthew Hulbert writes in his analysis for Forbes, […]
In a recent discussion on Argentina’s expropriation of YPF there was much commentary on how the Falklands issue was still one of great importance. Seeing Argentina as independent and able to move ahead, despite having poor relations with the Europeans, created a healthy debate on the issue. As the moderator of the posts I create, […]
Lloyd’s of London, the British insurance company, and Chatham House, a London-based think tank, have released a report together entitled, “Arctic Opening: Opportunity and Risk in the High North.” The report states that four key industries will be the “biggest drivers and beneficiaries of Arctic economic development.” They are: mineral resources (oil, gas, and mining), […]
Investors often fear one outcome to their investments beyond any natural disasters or recessions, one that has characterised possible nightmare results of investing in Emerging Markets, that of a nationally supported expropriation. Latin America as a whole has often fought and suffered as a result of state expropriations of American and European companies over the […]