Group items tagged

Russia is out to raise the stakes for U.S. military intervention, which it sees as destabilizing for the world order; to minimize the impact of Islamist radicalism and extremism born out of the Arab Spring; and to try to find political solutions to a host of issues, from the civil war in Syria to Iran’s nuclear issue to post-American Afghanistan

In Russian society, the long and painful experience of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan gave rise to what was called “Afghan syndrome,” i.e., shunning involvement, especially with military forces, in the Muslim world. Focused on itself and its immediate neighborhood, the Russian Federation physically quit and then neglected whole regions of former Soviet influence, including the Middle East. It continued selling arms to some of its ex-allies, including Syria, but now on a commercial rather than ideological or strategic basis.

Iran turned out to be a responsible neighbor and a useful partner, staying away from the Chechen conflict and even helping Russia negotiate an end to the bloody civil war in Tajikistan

As Iraq's northern Kurdistan region signaled plans to build a second new oil export pipeline to Turkey, the claim brought neither confirmation nor denial from the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources.

The construction of the first pipeline to Turkey is complete, and the pipeline is now being tested in preparation for the start of commercial shipments in the first quarter of 2014, according to ministry officials. Energy-dependent Turkey has quietly built up a large commercial presence in Northern Iraq, and its courting of Iraqi Kurds in order to form a closer energy partnership has infuriated Baghdad, which claims sole authority over Iraqi oil

Turkish armed forces began the largest naval exercise in the country's history on Wednesday, with 103 military vessels and thousands of soldiers conducting operations in three seas surrounding the country. The drill, dubbed “Blue Homeland”, will be held until Saturday, covering over 462,000 square metres in the Black Sea, Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean.

tensions have been building in the waters to Turkey's west with its neighbours Greece and Cyprus, as the countries vie over subterranean energy resources, particularly natural gas

Blue Homeland has already caused disturbance in neighbouring countries, as Greek media reports suggest Athens has perceived it as a source of “renewed concern given the recent tension in bilateral relations”.

Forty years ago today, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) voted to raise the posted price of their oil by 70 percent.  The next day, several Arab oil producers decided to impose an embargo on oil sales to the United States to punish it for supporting Israel in the unfolding Yom Kippur War.  While the two decisions were not formally linked, policymakers have worried ever since that OPEC could again restrict the global supply of oil. A lot has changed since 1973.  Oil embargoes used to happen fairly frequently: There was one in 1956, and another in 1967.  Until 1973, they didn’t attract much attention.  But due to structural changes in the oil market in the early 1970s, the one in 1973 had a huge impact.  Since that time, there hasn’t been a single international embargo. (The current sanctions against Iran are an importers’ boycott, not an exporters’ embargo.)  What happened?

Even without an embargo, policymakers worry that OPEC manipulates the oil market. For example, James Woolsey, a former CIA director and self-proclaimed energy hawk, argues that OPEC has a grip on global oil and gasoline prices so tight that the U.S. will never be free of its influence.  Like most people, Woolsey wrongly believes that OPEC is a powerful cartel. Many economic studies cast doubt on that idea, but there are still some scholars who support the proposition. OPEC rarely if ever influences its members’ oil production rates.  It has almost no impact on prices.  My research looked at OPEC’s behavior since 1982, when it first adopted formal production quotas for its members.  I found that joining OPEC has little influence on new members’ oil production rates; members cheat on their quotas a whopping 96 percent of the time; changes in OPEC quotas have little impact on changes in production; and members of OPEC produce oil at about the same rate as non-members of the group, all else equal.  Any of these findings would cast doubt on OPEC’s status as a cartel; collectively they are damning.

Most OPEC members – from Venezuela to Nigeria to Iraq – are pumping their oil as fast as they can, with no spare capacity

Saudi Arabian King Salman traveled to China Thursday to deepen economic ties between the world’s biggest oil exporter and the world’s second-largest oil consumer. It’s a key stop in the king’s six-week trip to Asia that comes as Riyadh struggles with a slumping oil market and a desperate need to diversify its economy.

up to $65 billion worth of economic and trade deals, spanning sectors from energy to space

more than 20 agreements on oil investments and in renewable energy

Competition over gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean has combined with bitter regional rivalries to fuel dangerous tensions between Turkey and its neighbours in recent months. Many fear this could lead to direct military confrontation between Turkey and Greece, as the two Nato members and their allies square up over control of the seas.

the Turkish Cypriot self-declared state is not recognised by the international community, which views the government on the Greek Cypriot side as the legitimate authority for the whole island. Cyprus was contentiously admitted to the EU in 2004

Turkey believes that the government that sits in southern Cyprus should not have the right to auction blocks of its surrounding seabed to international energy companies until Turkish Cypriots can share the benefits. But peace talks have failed multiple times in the past 45 years

If the Iran nuclear deal boosted carbon emissions because the easing of sanctions brought an additional 2 million barrels per day of Iranian oil onto the market, that was a price well worth paying to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon

climate change obviously needs to be at the center of U.S. energy diplomacy. For example, dialogue with OPEC nations or cooperation on strategic oil stocks to address global supply shocks should include discussion of how to prepare for an uncertain and potentially volatile period of transition away from oil

Expanding energy access for the 840 million people who lack access to electricity, the majority of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa, is critical for global health and development, yet support for efforts to achieve this goal must avoid following the carbon-intensive paths of other emerging economies such as India

The Ukraine conflict may be a matter of global concern, but states’ responses to it continue to be conditioned by internal political debates and foreign policy priorities.

China has hewed to a non-position on Russian aggression – neither condemning nor supporting the act, and declining to label it as an invasion – while lamenting the current situation as “something we do not want to see”. With an eye to the West, Beijing abstained on rather than vetoing a Security Council resolution calling on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, and reports indicate that two major Chinese state banks are restricting financing for Russian commodities. Beijing now emphasises the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty in its statements, a point that had either been absent from earlier statements or more ambiguously discussed as “principles of the UN Charter”.

the worldview that major powers can and do occasionally break the rules

Abramovich is perhaps the most visible of the “oligarchs” surrounding Putin, who are widely perceived as extensions of the Russian president and keepers of a vast fortune that is effectively under the Kremlin’s control. Much of this wealth was extracted from Russia’s enormous energy and mineral resources, and is now stashed in secret bank accounts in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, in empty mansions and condos from London to Manhattan to Miami, and in yachts and private jets on the French Riviera.

as much as 60% of Russia’s GDP is offshore

The reserved, gray-bearded Abramovich is notoriously litigious toward critics who seek to detail his close ties to Putin. Last year, he successfully sued the British journalist Catherine Belton, who claimed in her 2020 book Putin’s People that the Russian president dictated Abramovich’s major purchases, including his decision to buy Chelsea. He also extracted an apology from a British newspaper for calling him a “bag carrier” for the Russian president.

an overview of the key factors shaping the region’s changing strategic importance. It then focuses on the oil and gas exports, which are the key factor shaping the region’s strategic importance, its role as a group of major trading partners, its role as a key line of global communication between regions, and its role in global migration

provides a country-by-country overview of the key quantitative and trend data on oil and gas exports. It shows that there is only a limited consensus between various sources and just how different the resources and exports of given countries are.

several key issues affecting the future of the region’s exports of fossil fuels in detail, with supporting graphs, maps, and charts. These issues include major changes in the patterns of future energy demand and the potential impact of global warming, the changing expert needs of developed and developing states, the impact of the war in Ukraine on energy demand, the impact of strategic competition with Russia and China on energy security, and the real level of U.S. dependence on the stable flow of oil and gas exports from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

an increasingly close economic and security relationship. Saudi Arabia supplies China with 18 percent of its energy needs, and it is expanding orders for petrochemical, industrial, and military equipment, much of which it previously obtained from the United States

Beijing is offering Riyadh a deal: Sell us your oil and help us stabilize global energy markets; choose whatever military equipment you want from our catalogue; and benefit as you like from cooperation with us in defense, aerospace, the automotive industry, health, and technology. In other words, the Chinese are offering the Saudis a bargain that appears to be modeled on the U.S-Saudi deal that stabilized the Middle East for 70 years.

many young Saudis naively tout the idea of replacing the United States with China. As graduates of U.S. universities and voracious consumers of U.S. pop culture and consumer technology, most educated Saudis feel close to the United States—close enough to feel bullied by what we see as unfair attacks by U.S. media and policymakers against us, our country, our leaders, and our culture. The alternative, for many, is to learn Mandarin and imagine future careers promoting Chinese industry and trade.

A $30 million, high-tech agricultural facility covering 10 hectares in the desert in Tunisia’s south is scheduled to open in 2018. The facility, which is a highly sophisticated green house, will use solar energy to power its operations and seawater to irrigate crops and maintain humidity. The extracted salt from the seawater will also be sold commercially.

hoped to be a new environmental solution to create green jobs through profitable production of food, water, clean electricity and biomass in desert areas. The first pilot project opened in Qatar in December 2012, and another facility will be launched in Jordan later this year

Although there are no numbers or estimates available for Tunisia yet, the Qatar facility directly employs 6,000 people, with a further support staff of 30,000. Tunisian unemployment is estimated around 15 percent countrywide and even higher among young college graduates

while supporting the development of its nuclear technology, America is insisting that Jordan purchase its reactor fuel on the nuclear market (it will “allow” Jordan to mine the uranium ore, but not convert it into fuel).  The Obama administration stresses that it will refuse to help Jordan if it makes use of its own uranium, and intends to model any deal with Jordan on the USA's recent nuclear agreement with the United Arab Emirates, who agreed to purchase their uranium on the international market, but reserve the right to renegotiate this deal if another country concludes an agreement on more favourable terms. Pursuing its right to enrich uranium without America's agreement would prove difficult for Jordan: the USA plays a powerful role in the Nuclear Supplier Group which monitors the sale of nuclear technology.  Moreover, many reactors from countries outside the USA contain American components which would require Jordan to gain America's approval to purchase.  But the USA's insistence that the country give up the right to use its own uranium seems to be a strategic miscalculation with the potential to alienate one of America and Israel's key Arab allies.  While the Jordanian government under reformist King Abdullah can certainly be criticised for its benign and even not-so-benign authoritarianism, it remains a positive presence in the Israel-Palestinian peace process (and the strongest ally of the USA in the Arab world). In fact, it was its willingness to 'help' in the war on terror that caused concern for human rights campaigners. Undermining the country's nuclear intentions when Jordan has done more than it is required to do in terms of tranparency and negotiation gives the impression that America will always treat Middle Eastern nuclear projects with suspicion, and that there's little incentive to cooperate.

To knowingly alienate Jordan by undermining the country's right to energy independence would be an act of masochism by Israel, particularly when the country's nuclear programme presents an opportunity to develop a model of transparency in nuclear energy development, and a chance to strengthen a more moderate presence in the region at a time when it is sorely needed.

“We told them we don't feel obliged to adhere to sanctions other than those imposed by the UN,”

the US and EU sanctions cover a broader range of activities than those enacted by the UN and are aimed at squeezing Iran's energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran

Cumhuriyet daily, quoting an unnamed US official, said Washington had sent the delegation to warn Turkey it intended to target Turkish companies deemed to be trading with the Islamic republic in violation of US sanctions