middle east

China's methanol industry

Balancing dependence on Middle East oil against increasing fuel demand continues to challenge China in its ongoing urbanization and industrialization.[read more]

It has long been speculated that oil can be a driver for civil conflict, and one needs to look no further for evidence than the sectarian power politics that is threatening the possible devolution of the Iraqi state. The recent announcement by the government that Iraq is seeking to build a 1 million b/d pipeline to Aqaba, Jordan, is not evidence that Iraq is seeking to boost its economic building efforts, but rather a geopolitical hedge.[read more]

American oil industry leadership groups such as the National Petroleum Council and the American Petroleum Institute have been meeting in recent months to fashion new frameworks for the industry to ensure best practices for oil and natural gas drilling. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the task at hand is proving highly complex, and so far, the industry seems to lack consensus on how to move forward, especially on the topic of how far it can go in policing itself.[read more]

In response to the ongoing violence plaguing Syrian cities, the Obama administration is toying with a new plan to sanction Syria’s oil and gas industry. The plan rests on two assumptions: first, that sanctioning Syria’s energy industry sector will wreak havoc upon state finances, and second, that the ensuing havoc will debilitate every last shred of legitimacy that the Assad regime still holds. In the increasingly complex network of Middle Eastern interdependence, however, forces at play seem to render these two assumptions implausible.[read more]

BINGAMAN:  The starting point for the [Senate briefing by oil experts] was one fundamental truth: the primary driver of the price for gasoline at the pump is the price of crude oil.  This chart [above] was one of the key ones used by EIA Administrator Newell.  It shows the price trends since 2005 for gasoline (in...[read more]

The political events in the Middle East and North Africa are raising global oil prices and causing economies to wobble.  The easy and inexpensively extracted oil has been exploited, and what sources remain, like tar sands, consume ever more energy, water, and money for extraction.  Oil, as one of the primary fossil fuels in our...[read more]

There have been a number of alternative energy announcements coincident with COP15. A Treehugger from Ottawa, Canada Michael Richard Graham reports on announcement from the World Bank. Photo: Sandia National Laboratory, Public domain MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) is one of the principle regions around the globe that benefits...[read more]

Support in Congress is off to a strong startThe US and the United Arab Emirates have a deal pending before Congress that would allow transfer of civilian nuclear energy technologies and fuel to the that country.  In return, the UAE would agree not to develop uranium enrichment or fuel reprocessing capabilities.  The deal is a...[read more]