Emerging Global Energy Crisis
Security Of Supply
Rises To Top Of Agenda
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/EnergyJune2006.htm
The Only Secure Energy Supplies Are Ones That Are Local
Renewables Must Be Given Much Higher Priority

Energy Update, June 2006

"The scarcity of energy supplies and the energy imbalance between nations is a threat to our prosperity and national security. As resources contract, oil-hungry economies will compete for dwindling supplies of hydrocarbons. Competition for fossil fuels will increase.... Energy resources have long been a major strategic concern: access to secure sources, control over supply lines: these are issues of national security.... The energy challenge is now more pressing than ever.... Global oil production is apparently nearing its peak.... current estimates seem to be converging on some point between 2010 and 2020.... [there] are five factors which are changing the energy landscape: rising demand; dwindling supply; greater concentration of resource in the hands of a few; limited spare capacity; and the environmental impacts of energy use.....This is not a problem that can wait ten years."
Sir David Manning, British Ambassador To The United States Of America
Speech at Standford University, 13 March 2006

"People are worried about energy supply in the future.
What countries do in their energy policy ... matters enormously to all of us."
Tony Blair, EU Summit, Vienna
Press Association, 12 May 2006

"We are aware of what is going on in the world."
Vladmir Putin's response to Dick Cheney's complaint that Russia is using energy as a geopolitical weapon
BBC Online, 13 May 2006

Mona Sahlin Sweden's Minister For Sustainable Development Sweden is the only significant country which is developing a coherent response to the emerging global energy crisis

"Oil is transforming world politics. Iran can afford to face down the wrath of the West and be robust about becoming a nuclear power because it has the cast-iron support of China - secured by oil. In November 2004, Iran gave China the rights to exploit the giant Yadavaran field. Importantly, China plans to bring this oil into China, not across the Indian Ocean and through the Malacca Straits, but by pipeline across central Asia, free from the surveillance of the US fleet.... It's a new world. Henry Kissinger thinks that the 21st-century struggle for oil reserves will match the 19th-century fight for colonies.... The case is usually made in terms of climate change, but it is more than that. Unless we confront and change the emerging balance of world power, the consequent oil conflagrations could make the conflicts of the 20th century look tame."
A battle for oil could set the world aflame
Observer, 30 April 2006

"The real energy crisis is just around the corner. It should compel a revolution in mindsets. We must, for example, surmount the now-archaic opposition within governments between those responsible for industry and those responsible for the environment. The two concerns should go hand in hand."
Energy Challenge
Le Monde, 18 April 2006

"European energy consumers face further big rises in gas prices in the coming years because of acute shortages of Russian supplies.... Eric Berglöf, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, told MEPs and senior EU officials that Gazprom, the Russian gas group majority-owned by the state, would struggle to offset declines in output, but demand from Europe and ex-Soviet Union countries would grow at 2-3% a year... He told the European Enterprise Institute that 70% of production at Gazprom, the world's third-largest energy group, came from fields whose gas was running out... Mr Berglöf, founder of a Moscow economic thinktank, warned that without serious reforms of both Gazprom and Russia's energy sector, prices for domestic use and export could double by 2010. Christian Cleutinx, head of EU-Russian energy dialogue at the European commission, said the EU would be 80% dependent on gas imports by 2030 as demand rose by 60%. But, he said, Russia planned to export only an extra 50m tonnes of gas to all countries, not just the EU, by 2020, leaving Europe 150m tonnes short and forcing it to use other countries.... Mr Berglöf added: 'We won't see progress at the G8 and, after that, further deterioration coming from fundamental trends in Russia and its economic and political system. But there is pressure for greater energy efficiency, investment in renewables and reform of the power market there.'"
Europe warned of steep rise in gas price as Russia runs out
Guardian, 11 May 2006

"'Europe should lead the new global energy agenda and take a 'quantum leap in the production of renewable and low carbon energy', according to EU energy commissioner Piebalgs..... In March 2006, the [European] Commission published a Green Paper on a European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy. Stakeholders and citizens are invited to contribute to this consultation until 24 September 2006. The Finnish EU Presidency (which starts on 1 July) will organise a major debate on energy security during the informal summit of EU leaders on 20 October in Lahti (Finland)."
Piebalgs: 'EU needs 'quantum leap' in use of renewable energy'
Euractiv, 19 May 2006

In This Bulletin

Sweden's Uniquely Coherent Response To Peak Oil, Peak Gas, Peak Uranium, And Peak War And Why Nuclear Power Cannot Offer Security Of Supply

Sir David Manning British Ambassador To Washington Issues Stark Energy Warning

'Demand Destruction' It's Time To Act As Affordability Of Oil Starts To Impact Global Economy

Leading Energy Consultants Warn Of 'Peak Gas'

Non-Local Strategy For Energy Provision Is Failing Security Of Supply Situation Deteriorates As Oil Producers Prepare To Switch Supplies To Asia

Eurasia Daily Monitor 'Stung By Cheney's Comments Moscow Plays Energy Card'

Who Will Control The Oil And Gas Rich States Of Central Asia? Energy At The Centre Of New Cold War With Russia And China

'Let's Not Play The Oil Game' President Of The Council On Foreign Relations (Who Knows It Is A Game OECD Countries Cannot Win)

Facing The Spectre Of Defeat In Afghanistan And Iraq And Replacing The Failure Of 'The Project For The New American Century' (For The US) With The Success Of 'The Project For The New Solar Century' (For Everyone)

Agence France Presse Gorbachev Urges G8 To Back Solar Power

"Russia's natural resources ministry called on Thursday for a review of the two largest foreign oil projects in the country, even as senior Russian officials sought to assure EU leaders that Russia was a reliable energy partner. The ministry said the legal agreements underpinning oil and gas developments on Sakhalin island, on Russia's eastern flank, were ineffective and should be reviewed."
Russian ministry seeks review of oil deals
Financial Times, 25 May 2006

"Making Iran the world’s leading oil power is the most important objective of the Islamic Republic’s 20-year Outlook Plan, Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here on Sunday.... The oil industry has become one of the most important industries in the world, he noted. He went on to say that energy plays a significant role in wars, world peace, and international security, so special attention should be paid to this issue.... the fact that the Islamic Republic is located on international oil and gas routes will make Iran a more important global player in the future, Rafsanjani noted."
Iran can become an oil superpower: Rafsanjani
Tehran Times, 22 May 2006

"Vice President Dick Cheney has been entrusted with a task regarded as vital to bolstering the Bush administration's sagging political popularity: the search for additional crude oil in order to help stabilize U.S. gasoline prices over the next few months. Mr. Cheney was recently sent to Central Asia and other regions to coax allies to significantly increase supplies to stabilize U.S. gasoline prices for the summer. Administration sources said Mr. Cheney has run into significant difficulties as he has found that many of the potential suppliers have become committed to China.  'We're in a race with China and so far we're losing,' an administration source familiar with Mr. Cheney's trip said.... The sources said Mr. Cheney, who has long-time contacts in the industry, has been designated to find oil supplies both for the short- and medium-term. They said Mr. Cheney's visit to Central Asia was based on the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Middle East oil supplies will become increasingly precarious after 2008.... The sources said Mr. Cheney found his hosts in Central Asia to be distrustful of U.S. intentions, with some Muslim countries fearful of a regime change as that which took place in 2005 in Kyrgyzstan, regarded as the most pro-American country in the region. Mr. Cheney also was informed of the contracts China has already signed with Central Asian republics. In April, Turkmenistan signed a deal to supply China with 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year from 2009 to 2039....A key target of Mr. Cheney's visit was Kazakhstan, regarded as the richest oil and natural gas state in the region. The vice president, in contrast to the other countries he visited, did not discuss the need for democracy in Kazakhstan, whom he described as a 'key strategic partner of the United States.'  'Obviously Kazakhstan is important given their considerable resources,' Mr. Cheney said on May 5 on his return to Washington. 'It's one of the few places where we're going to see an increase in oil production from a non-OPEC state over the next few years.' The sources said Mr. Cheney sought to exploit a rift between Russia and states in Central Asia. The vice president was highly critical of Moscow's use of energy, particularly transport rights, to intimidate its neighbors. At the same time, the Bush administration has been pressuring Kazakhstan to export oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that would bypass Russia and supply Europe and the United States. The sources said the Kazakh agreement to join the trans-Caspian project could be signed in June."
The great oil race: Cheney discovers U.S. is losing out to China
Insight Magazine, 16 May 2006

"The American government subsidizes gas in many different ways, big and small. As consumers, we do not pay for the enormous expense involved in policing the Middle East, an expense we would almost certainly not incur if its chief export was carrots. We do not pay for the environmental fallout from burning gasoline..... President Bush has set up an absurd investigation into price fixing and gouging, which at best will be an exercise in futility. But imagine if he set up a national commission on energy that explained to Americans why prices were high. If the president and Congress were to propose a powerful package of measures—higher gas taxes, fuel-efficiency standards starting at 30 and rising to 40 miles per gallon, tax credits for new technologies—it would begin to wean the United States off its addiction to oil."
The Real Story Of Pricey Oil
Newsweek, 22 May 2006

"Future historians may conclude that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a massive and unwarranted distraction from what Mr Blair really should have been doing in Britain's interests - sorting out where our energy was to come from and how we should lead the world into a low-carbon future."
Going nuclear is a half-baked strategy
Daily Telegraph, 18 May 2006

Sweden's Uniquely Coherent Response
To Peak Oil, Peak Gas, Peak Uranium, And Peak War
And Why Nuclear Power Cannot Offer Security Of Supply

"Sweden recently announced plans to become the world's first oil-free economy within 15 years, without building a new generation of nuclear power stations... "
India, China and the yellowcake supply problem
The Age (Australia), 31 March 2006

"Minister for Sustainable Development Mona Sahlin will be visiting Washington DC on 8-9 May. During the visit Ms Sahlin will meet representatives of the US Administration, members of Congress and representatives of The Pew Center for Global Climate Change. Ms Sahlin has also been invited to speak at the conference entitled Beyond Peak Oil on Sweden's goal to be oil independent."
Mona Sahlin to talk on Sweden's goal to be oil independent at 'Beyond Peak Oil' Conference in Washington DC
Ministry of Sustainable Development, Sweden, 4 May 2006

"In the west, we all live in economies that are heavily dependent on oil. We use oil for transport, for heating and for electricity. But oil is not an infinite resource. And the price of oil has actually tripled since 1996! Furthermore, the use of fossil fuels is contributing to global warming - probably the most serious environmental hazard of our time ... Our dependence on oil also has implications for security of supply as well as security policy. Many international conflicts today revolve around energy issues. As we know, oil reserves are not distributed equally around the world. Being able to rely on domestic and sustainable energy would also be beneficial in terms of security policy. In light of all these factors, the Swedish Government has set a new policy target: the creation of the conditions necessary to break Sweden´s dependence on oil by 2020. And there is, indeed, an increased sense of urgency. If we prepare now, the transition to a sustainable energy system can be smooth and cost-efficient. If we wait until we are forced by circumstances, the transition may be costly and disruptive. No country can escape from this transition; to act sooner or act later are the only options... A broad-based expert council, The Commission on Oil Independence, was appointed in Sweden in December 2005. This summer, the Commission, led by Prime Minister Göran Persson, will present actions necessary to achieve the new policy target. In both our countries, there is a discussion about the dependence on oil. I followed with great interest the State of the Union in January where President Bush described America as 'addicted to oil'.... I would like to mention six important measures for sustainable energy.... Breaking the dependence on oil is, in my view, a matter of political will. A consistent policy will turn obstacles into opportunities. To hide behind excuses of ignorance or economic considerations is not leading us to a sustainable future.... Breaking dependence on oil brings many opportunities for greater competitiveness, technological development and progress. Our aim is to break dependence on fossil fuels by 2020."
Speech by Mona Sahlin at the conference 'Beyond Peak Oil' on Sweden's goal to be oil independent in Washington DC
Ministry of Sustainable Development, Sweden, 9 May 2006

"For several years, the Swedish Government has adopted a coherent approach to sustainable development, not least to sustainable provisioning of energy. Our consistent work has enabled us to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil, and to promote initiatives to increase the share of renewable energy in our energy supplies. But we have to do more - as all countries have to. Fossil fuels will become scarcer and even more expensive, affecting poor countries and people in particular. The World Bank last week reported that as a result of the increase in oil prices over the past few months, poverty in a number of countries has increased by 4-7 per cent. Fossil fuels contribute to global warming, and the threat is real and imminent. Dependence on fossil fuels makes us all vulnerable. The Swedish Government has set the target to break dependence on fossil fuels by 2020 - a strict but possible goal. A Commission led by the Prime Minister is now in place, and is preparing concrete proposals. Enhanced energy efficiency and increased use of renewable energy sources are necessary for creating an environmentally sustainable society and can also be beneficial for economical growth."
Speech by Mona Sahlin at 14th Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, New York
Ministry of Sustainable Development, Sweden, 10 May 2006

Some Others 'Get It' Too
But So Far They Are In The Minority

"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a preliminary report on Wednesday that calls for technology development and government policies to avert a 'perfect storm' forming around energy. MIT's Energy Research Council report (click here for PDF) was the result of a year-long study. It concluded that industrialized nations need to accelerate a switch to cleaner and more efficient sources of fuel, a transition that could take 50 years. During a presentation at the university on Wednesday, MIT President Susan Hockfield said that addressing the world's energy problems 'is one of the most urgent challenges of our time.' ....She said a combination of rising energy demand around the world, security issues related to energy, and environmental problems - notably global warming and climate change - from pollution 'are not going away.' 'I think the energy challenge is far more pressing than the energy challenge that presented itself 20 years ago,' Hockfield said."
MIT issues call to arms on energy
CNET News.com, 3 May 2006

Peak Oil

"Global oil production is apparently nearing its peak. Although there is intense debate about exactly when this will happen ....current estimates seem to be converging on some point between 2010 and 2020.... I end where I began: energy is central to our foreign policy because it is central to national security."
Sir David Manning, British Ambassador To The United States Of America
Speech at Standford University, 13 March 2006

"Many experts predict that global peak oil is imminent. Chinese government officials have projected global peak oil in 2012. ... the year won’t be known until after it has occurred. Energy advisor Robert L. Hirsch in his recent World Oil article cautions that peak oil was not apparent in the 48 continental United States, Great Britain or Norway [even] one year in advance."
Transitioning to a New Paradigm
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, Solar Today, March/April 2006

"The European Union has shrugged off a threat by Russia's state-owned oil pipeline company Transneft that it may reduce oil supplies to Europe once a planned pipeline to Asia is completed. Semyon Vainshtok, who heads Transneft, was quoted today as saying Russia has 'overfed' Europe with oil, driving down prices through oversupply. He said that, once the projected pipeline to Asia is built, Transneft may redirect some of the oil supplies from Europe to China."
EU Shrugs Off Russian Threat To Cut Oil Supplies
Radio Free Europe, 25 April 2006

"Enough of this meaningless showmanship of putting the Federal Trade Commission on the dock in search of 'price gouging' that no one ever really expected to find. That's just a ruse. We want something real. We want a national energy policy that deals firmly, fairly, sensibly with the reality that oil is running out."
News Flash: We're Running Out of Oil. Get Used to It.
Washington Post, 29 May 2006

Peak Gas

"European energy consumers face further big rises in gas prices in the coming years because of acute shortages of Russian supplies.... Eric Berglöf, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, told MEPs and senior EU officials that Gazprom, the Russian gas group majority-owned by the state, would struggle to offset declines in output, but demand from Europe and ex-Soviet Union countries would grow at 2-3% a year... He told the European Enterprise Institute that 70% of production at Gazprom, the world's third-largest energy group, came from fields whose gas was running out... Mr Berglöf, founder of a Moscow economic thinktank, warned that without serious reforms of both Gazprom and Russia's energy sector, prices for domestic use and export could double by 2010. Christian Cleutinx, head of EU-Russian energy dialogue at the European commission, said the EU would be 80% dependent on gas imports by 2030 as demand rose by 60%. But, he said, Russia planned to export only an extra 50m tonnes of gas to all countries, not just the EU, by 2020, leaving Europe 150m tonnes short and forcing it to use other countries.... Mr Berglöf added: 'We won't see progress at the G8 and, after that, further deterioration coming from fundamental trends in Russia and its economic and political system. But there is pressure for greater energy efficiency, investment in renewables and reform of the power market there.'"
Europe warned of steep rise in gas price as Russia runs out
Guardian, 11 May 2006

"Gazprom may not have enough gas to supply Europe over the next decade, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday... Concern over Gazprom’s output has been mounting in recent years as evidence emerged of the company’s flat indigenous production profile. While Russia has the world’s largest gas reserves, the giant utility relies on a small number of giant gasfields and has not yet invested in developing new resources in the Arctic.... Gazprom is the monopoly buyer of gas for export from Turkmenistan, which is used to supply the utility’s domestic customers in Siberia, while the Siberian gas is shipped to Europe. Gazprom’s monopoly over Central Asian gas exports is a deterrent to new investment by those countries, Mr Mandil said."
Gazprom risks serious shortfall of gas for export
London Times, 23 May 2006

"Deepening ties between Russia and Algeria are causing concern among Europe’s gas importers, raising fears that recent talks between Gazprom and Sonatrach, the Algerian state energy company, could be the first step to the formation of a natural gas cartel. Paolo Scaroni, the chief executive of ENI, the Italian oil and gas group, told the European Parliament on Thursday of his fear that the dwindling number of supplier nations could encourage the formation of an Opec of gas. 'We are increasingly dependent on a small number of suppliers,' he said, noting that an alliance of the top three or four gas exporters would be more effective than Opec."
Gazprom talks spark fears of gas cartel
London Times, 24 April 2006

Peak Uranium

"U308 noted that the price of uranium had risen from US$10 per pound to over US$30 a pound over the last two years as supply fall well short of demand.  'There is a global deficit in uranium with annual mine production supplying less than 60% of current world demand for power generation,' the company said."
U308 listed 228% premium to its issue price
Shaw Stockbroking, 9 May 2006

"While demand for uranium is soaring as more countries increase their use of nuclear power, Canadian production is constrained by bureaucracy, says the chief executive officer of Denison Mines Inc. '. . . you've got huge growth,' Peter Farmer said after the Toronto company's annual meeting yesterday. 'Russia's going to go up 9 per cent, to 25-per-cent [nuclear], Japan wants to go up 12 per cent, so they'll be 41-per-cent nuclear, India, China -- all of them need power. We're going to have a deficiency."
Denison boss warns of uranium shortage
Canadian Press, 20 April 2006

Peak War

"NATO's executives are ready to use warships to ensure security of offshore oil and gas transportation routes from Western Africa, said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO’s Secretary General, speaking at the session of the foreign committee of PACE.....On April 30 General James Jones, commander-in-chief of NATO in Europe, reportedly said NATO was going to draw up the plan for ensuring security of oil and gas industry facilities. In this respect the block is willingto ensure security in unstable regions where oil and gas are produced and transported. In particular, NATO’s executives are willing to control air and water space in production areas and along transportation routes, and raise the exchange of investigation information among involved parties."
NATO to secure oil and gas transit from Western Africa to Europe
Trend.az, 3 May 2006

The Alternative Swedish Model
And Why Nuclear Power Cannot Offer Security Of Supply

"Sweden recently announced plans to become the world's first oil-free economy within 15 years, without building a new generation of nuclear power stations... "
India, China and the yellowcake supply problem
The Age (Australia), 31 March 2006

"While demand for uranium is soaring as more countries increase their use of nuclear power, Canadian production is constrained by bureaucracy, says the chief executive officer of Denison Mines Inc. '. . . you've got huge growth,' Peter Farmer said after the Toronto company's annual meeting yesterday. 'Russia's going to go up 9 per cent, to 25-per-cent [nuclear], Japan wants to go up 12 per cent, so they'll be 41-per-cent nuclear, India, China -- all of them need power. We're going to have a deficiency."
Denison boss warns of uranium shortage
Canadian Press, 20 April 2006

"Australia and China signed a nuclear safeguards deal on Monday that set the stage for huge uranium exports to Beijing for its power industry.... [Resources Minister] Macfarlane said China's predicted uranium consumption was estimated at 20,000 tonnes a year, while Australia currently produced only about 10,000 tonnes a year ... " Australia and China sign deal on uranium trade Reuters, 3 April 2006

"Cameco is the world's largest low-cost uranium producer accounting for 20% of the world's uranium production... Existing uranium supply is expected to fall short of demand over the next decade demonstrating a need for new primary mine production which will require higher sustained prices. Cameco is positioned to benefit from this shortfall through our control of more than 60% of known new uranium production." Cameco Corporation, July 2005 "Utilities are scrambling to buy uranium now because they are worried they might not be able to find enough uranium to keep their plants running." Ray Goldie, Salman Partners Calgary Herald, 27 November 2005

"Uranium is responsible for about 16 per cent of the world's [electricity] energy supply, but the amount of uranium available to fuel the world's 440 reactors, never mind those planned or under construction in emerging economies like India and China, is dwindling. This year, total global demand for uranium will be 178 million pounds, while the total supply from mines is 105.5 million pounds, says analyst Ray Goldie of Salman Partners. While part of the gap is being filled by recycled uranium and weapons uranium from Russia, totalling some 38 million pounds, that still leaves a shortfall of 35 million pounds this year, he says. 'Utilities are scrambling to buy uranium now because they are worried they might not be able to find enough uranium to keep their plants running,' Goldie says. Meanwhile, demand is growing at 1.1 per cent a year, he says, and there's not much new supply coming on stream.... According to Cameco Corp., the world's largest uranium producer, global demand is predicted to outpace existing supply over the next decade by more than 400 million pounds.... the fall of the Iron Curtain, particularly between the U.S. and Russia, saw the agreement to decommission nuclear weapons, and that enriched uranium was used to fuel existing reactors, so supply wasn't an issue, says Olson, now leader of the Northern Resources Development section of the Alberta Geological Survey. That cycle ended about two years ago, he says.... "
The Rush for Alberta's Uranium
Calgary Herald, 27 November 2005

Sir David Manning
British Ambassador To Washington Issues Stark Energy Warning

First, Who Is Sir David Manning?

"Sir David Manning, short, greying hair, open-neck shirt, comes in and searches for a briefing paper in the corner. He is Blair's foreign policy adviser and one of the most powerful people in the Prime Minister's entourage."
'You can't talk... you've got to go and beat them'
Observer, 14 October 2001

"Condoleeza Rice, a key member of the Bush war cabinet, is in regular contact with Sir David Manning, Blair's National Security Adviser.... It is Manning, Campbell and Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, who are seen as the Prime Minister's real war cabinet."
It's Bush's War - But Blair Is The Brains
Mail On Sunday, 14 October 2001

"On [Blair's post Sept 11 overseas war coalition building] trips his constant companions have been Alastair Campbell, Anji Hunter - Blair's friend from his teenage years who was head of government relations before announcing she was leaving No 10 to join BP - and his chief foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning. The fact that they, rather than the Foreign Secretary, have accompanied Blair on his diplomatic whistle stops has given ammunition to those like Mo Mowlam who claim that the Prime Minister has been sidelining his Cabinet in war..."
How the war was run
Observer, 18 November 2001

"Downing Street has two foreign affairs advisers, Stephen Wall and David Manning, who people say are more influential than [Foreign Secretary] Straw himself."
Duty bound but loth to keep taking the tablets
Guardian, 28 January 2002

"The perfect civil servant has one big drawback as a candidate who will protect the Prime Minister: he is not planning to quit politics. At 54, Sir David Manning has a career ahead of him, and a reputation to protect. Sir David has been one of the unsung heroes of the Blair operation. Since joining two years ago, he has been the real foreign secretary - it is his advice that the Prime Minister will take over all others. Appointed as the next UK ambassador to the US, his Washington job is arguably the most important in the Foreign Office. But he has been retained by No10 for so long because he is so highly-regarded. A quiet, straight-talking and charming official, he joined the Foreign Office in 1972, serving in Paris and Moscow, and took part in negotiations to bring peace to Bosnia. He was appointed ambassador to Israel in 1995, served as Britain's representative to NATO in 2000 and was personally recalled by Mr Blair to Downing Street a year later. As he replaces Sir Christopher Meyer in Washington, Sir David will want a quick and faultless exit. He is unlikely to have had a hand in anything untoward. But his importance as a witness at the Hutton inquiry is what he knows, not what he did."
The powerful advisors who will be exposed by Hutton
The Scotsman, 16 August 2003

What Is Sir Daving Manning Saying Today
As The War Campaigns In Central Asia And The Persian Gulf Face The Increasing Prospect Of Mission Failure?

"The British government, the European Union, the US Administration, and the multilateral institutions are all faced with a common problem. How can the international community secure reliable, affordable, sustainable and, perhaps above all, safe sources of energy?..... The scarcity of energy supplies and the energy imbalance between nations is a threat to our prosperity and national security. As resources contract, oil-hungry economies will compete for dwindling supplies of hydrocarbons. Competition for fossil fuels will increase.... Energy resources have long been a major strategic concern: access to secure sources, control over supply lines: these are issues of national security.... The energy challenge is now more pressing than ever.... Global oil production is apparently nearing its peak. Although there is intense debate about exactly when this will happen - something Daniel Yergin discusses in the Foreign Affairs article I referred to earlier - current estimates seem to be converging on some point between 2010 and 2020.... [there] are five factors which are changing the energy landscape: rising demand; dwindling supply; greater concentration of resource in the hands of a few; limited spare capacity; and the environmental impacts of energy use.....energy is central to our foreign policy because it is central to national security. Wherever we look, problems are energy driven. The imperative to collaborate may now be as strong as that which forced us to build collective security structures during the Cold War. A final thought. This is not a problem that can wait ten years."
Sir David Manning, British Ambassador To The United States Of America
Speech at Standford University, 13 March 2006

"T'was Ever Thus"
Some More History Sir David Might Have Added

"It was the wartime petroleum shortage of 1917 and 1918 that really drove home the necessity of oil to British interests and pushed Mesopotamia [Iraq] back to center stage. Prospects for oil development within the empire were bleak, which made supplies from the Middle East of paramount importance. Sir Maurice Hankey, the extremely powerful secretary of the War Cabinet, wrote to Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour that, 'oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British Control is the Persian [Iranian] and Mesopotamian [Iraqi] supply.' Therefore, Hankey said, 'control over these oil supplies becomes a first-class British war aim.' But the newly born 'public diplomacy' had to be considered..... Foreign Secretary Balflour worried that explicitly pronouncing Mesopotamia a war aim would seem too old-fashionably imperialistic. Instead, in August 1918, he told the Prime Ministers of the Dominions that Britain must be the 'guiding spirit' in Mesopotamia, as it would provide the one natural resource the British empire lacked. 'I do not care under what system we keep the oil,' he said, 'but I am quite clear it is all-important for us that this oil should be available.' To help make sure this would happen, British forces, already elsewhere in Mesopotamia, captured Mosul after the armistice was signed with Turkey."
Daniel Yergin - The Prize, 1991
First published in Great Britain by Simon and Schuster Ltd, 1991

Winston Churchill's Quest For Oil And The Seizing Of Mesopotamia (Iraq) - Click Here

"Fifty years ago this week, the CIA and the British SIS orchestrated a coup d'etat that toppled the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh [in Iran]. The prime minister and his nationalist supporters in parliament roused Britain's ire when they nationalised the oil industry in 1951, which had previously been exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company [later renamed as BP]. Mossadegh argued that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves. The British government tried to enlist the Americans in planning a coup... The crushing of Iran's first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah... The author of All the Shah's Men, New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer, argues that the coup planted the seeds of resentment against the US in the Middle East, ultimately leading to the events of September 11.... The coup and the culture of covert interference it created forever changed how the world viewed the US, especially in poor, oppressive countries. For many Iranians, the coup was a tragedy from which their country has never recovered. Perhaps because Mossadegh represents a future denied, his memory has approached myth."
The spectre of Operation Ajax
Guardian, 20 August 2003

'Operation Ajax' - More Details
New York Times document web archive - Click Here
US National Security Archive at George Washington University - Click Here
Secrets of History: The CIA in Iran,  By James Risen, New York Times, 16 April 2000 - Click Here

"The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980's, including the renewal of diplomatic relations that had been suspended since 1967. The documents show that during this period of renewed U.S. support for Saddam, he had invaded his neighbor (Iran), had long-range nuclear aspirations that would 'probably' include 'an eventual nuclear weapon capability,' harbored known terrorists in Baghdad, abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid to ensure Iraq would not be defeated by Iran, and to send a high-level presidential envoy named Donald Rumsfeld to shake hands with Saddam (20 December 1983). The declassified documents posted today include the briefing materials and diplomatic reporting on two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, reports on Iraqi chemical weapons use concurrent with the Reagan administration's decision to support Iraq, and decision directives signed by President Reagan that reveal the specific U.S. priorities for the region [which included] preserving access to oil...."
U.S. DOCUMENTS SHOW EMBRACE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN IN EARLY 1980s
DESPITE CHEMICAL WEAPONS, EXTERNAL AGGRESSION, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
US National Security Archive, George Washington University, Press Release 25 February 2003

"An investigation of US corporate sales to Iraq, headed by Republican Congressman Donald Riegle and published in May 1994, listed some of the biological agents exported by US corporations with George Bush's approval as head of the CIA and later as vice-president under Ronald Reagan. The Iraqis are reported to have acquired stocks of anthrax, brucellosis, gas gangrene, E. coli and salmonella bacteria from US companies."
Who Armed Iraq?
Janes Defence News, 17 March 2003

"For just so long Kuwait, a small country at the head of the Persian Gulf, had been set free and independent from its long-time British protector. And during that time Kuwait had developed its oil fields and become immensely rich. Saddam Hussein claimed that Kuwait was part of Iraq. To have and to hold it would put him on the way to achieving something that the Soviets had yearned for right after the Second War and been denied by the intervention of the United Nations, which was to be sovereign of the Gulf - and so, as Churchill foresaw and warned about, soon to be able to conquer Europe without a war by possessing 60% of the oil Western Europe lived by and so be able to dictate to countries like Britain, France, Germany, that they should abandon their precious democratic ways and get themselves governments friendly to Iraq.....[Following Saddam's invasion of Kuwait] President Bush - the first that is - called a dawn meeting of the National Security Council at which the likely commander of any military action, one General Schwarzkopf, expressed the general feeling that the United States might fight for Saudi Arabia but hardly for Kuwait. President Bush told the press there was no thought of American intervention. The United Nations anyway had voted to impose a total embargo on Iraq. Two days after the invasion President Bush took a half day out to keep a promise to the British prime minister who was addressing a conference in Aspen, Colorado, a resort town in the Rockies. He found Mrs Thatcher in finer fighting fettle than all but one of his own advisers. She stressed that fighting for Kuwait now might be a necessary step to saving Saudi Arabia from invasion later on. ..... What so swiftly transformed the views and policy of the United States and the onlooking allies-to-be was the recognition, first pressed on President Bush by Mrs Thatcher and then rather late in the day realised by the King of Saudi Arabia, that once he held Kuwait there was nothing to stop Saddam from seizing the Saudi oil fields."
Alistair Cooke's Letter From America
BBC Online, 24 June 2002

"We're there because the fact of the matter is that part of the world controls the world supply of oil, and whoever controls the supply of oil, especially if it were a man like Saddam Hussein, with a large army and sophisticated weapons, would have a stranglehold on the American economy and on — indeed on the world economy."
Dick Cheney, US Secretary of Defense 1990
New York Times, 24 February 2006

"Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz wrote to President Bill Clinton in 1998 urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a 'hazard' to 'a significant portion of the world's supply of oil'. In the letter, Rumsfeld also calls for America to go to war alone, attacks the United Nations and says the US should not be 'crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council'. Those who signed the letter, dated January 26, 1998, include Bush's current Pentagon adviser, Richard Perle; Richard Armitage, the number two at the State Department; John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, under-secretaries of state; Elliott Abrams, the presidential adviser for the Middle East and a member of the National Security Council; and Peter W Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. It reads: ' We urge you to seize [the] opportunity and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the US and our friends and allies around the world. 'That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power..... If Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil, will all be put at hazard."
Rumsfeld Urged Clinton to Attack Iraq
Sunday Herald, 16 March 2006

"Those people and others have been telling the various US administrations, especially the current one, that if you want to control the world you need to control the oil. Therefore the destruction of Iraq is a pre-requisite to controlling oil. That means the destruction of the Iraqi national identity, since the Iraqis are committed to their principles and rights according to international law and the UN charter. It seems that this argument has appealed to some US administrations especially the current one that if they control the oil in the Middle East, they would be able to control the world. They could dictate to China the size of its economic growth and interfere in its education system and could do the same to Germany and France and perhaps to Russia and Japan. They might even tell the same to Britain if its oil doesn't satisfy its domestic consumption. It seems to me that this hostility is a trademark of the current US administration and is based on its wish to control the world and spread its hegemony."
Saddam Hussein - Interview with Tony Benn
Guardian, 5 February 2003

"Optimists about world oil reserves, such as the Department of Energy, are getting increasingly lonely. The International Energy Agency now says that world production outside the Middle Eastern Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (opec) will peak in 1999 and world production overall will peak between 2010 and 2020. This projection is supported by influential recent articles in Science and Scientific American. Some knowledgeable academic and industry voices put the date that world production will peak even sooner—within the next five or six years. The optimists who project large reserve quantities of over one trillion barrels tend to base their numbers on one of three things: inclusion of heavy oil and tar sands, the exploitation of which will entail huge economic and environmental costs; puffery by opec nations lobbying for higher production quotas within the cartel; or assumptions about new drilling technologies that may accelerate production but are unlikely to expand reserves. Once production peaks, even though exhaustion of world reserves will still be many years away, prices will begin to rise sharply. This trend will be exacerbated by increased demand in the developing world..... The recent report by the President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology... concluded  'A plausible argument can be made that the security of the United States is at least as likely to be imperiled in the first half of the next century by the consequences of inadequacies in the energy options available to the world as by inadequacies in the capabilities of U.S. weapons systems.  It is striking that the Federal government spends about 20 times more R&D money on the latter problem than on the former.'... The nearly $70 billion spent annually for imported oil represents about 40 percent of the current U.S. trade deficit.... Research is essential to produce the innovations and technical improvements that will lower the production costs of ethanol and other renewable fuels and let them compete directly with gasoline. At present, the United States is not funding a vigorous program in renewable technologies.... The United States cannot afford to wait for the next energy crisis to marshal its intellectual and industrial resources....Our growing dependence on increasingly scarce Middle Eastern oil is a fool's game—there is no way for the rest of the world to win. Our losses may come suddenly through war, steadily through price increases, agonizingly through developing-nation poverty, relentlessly through climate change—or through all of the above."
Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey (Former Director of the CIA)
The New Petroleum - Foreign Affairs January/February 1999

"For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Dick Cheney, Chief Executive of Halliburton, now Vice President of the United States
Speech at London Institute of Petroleum, Autumn Lunch 1999

"....For the most part, U.S. oil policy has relied on maintenance of free access to Middle East Gulf oil and free access for Gulf exports to world markets, relying heavily on military preparedness. The U.S. has forged a special relationship with certain key Middle East exporters that had an expressed interest in stable oil prices and, we assumed, would adjust their oil output to keep prices at levels that would neither discourage global economic growth nor fuel inflation. Taking this dependence a step further, the U.S. government has operated under the assumption that the national oil companies of these countries would make the investments needed to maintain enough surplus capacity to form a cushion against disruptions. But recently, things have changed. These Gulf allies are finding their domestic and foreign policy interests increasingly at odds with America’s strategic considerations. They have become less inclined to lower oil prices in exchange for security of markets, and evidence suggests that adequate investment is not being made in a timely enough manner to increase production capacity in line with growing global needs. The opening of new media outlets in the Middle East has also increased the likelihood that a linkage will emerge in the minds of citizens there between the U.S. alliance with Israel and cooperation on oil prices. Moreover, a trend toward anti-Americanism could affect regional leaders’ abilities to cooperate with the U.S. in the energy area. The resulting tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key 'swing' producer,  posing a difficult situation for the U.S. government."
STRATEGIC ENERGY POLICY: CHALLENGES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
JAMES A. BAKER III INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY AND THE COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS, APRIL 2001

“Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is import dependent. We base our policy on diversity of supply. You in the US import from 50 different countries, no one of which supplies more than 15 per cent of total imports. The EU pursues roughly the same policy. So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of supply are, is a vital strategic question. We have the best energy companies in the world. Yet I don't believe that collectively, we have a sufficient strategy for ensuring that the political and corporate world co-operate together in ensuring the diversity of supply continues or in our policy towards energy. The Middle East, we focus on naturally. But the Caspian, Russia and Angola will be vital sources of supply in the future.”
Tony Blair, Speech at George Bush Snr Library
10 Downing St, 7 April 2002

"The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday pinpointed for the first time security of energy sources as a key priority of British foreign policy. Mr Straw listed energy as one of seven foreign policy priorities when he addressed a meeting of 150 British ambassadors in London. The US and British governments officially deny that oil is a factor in the looming war with Iraq, but some ministers and officials in Whitehall say privately that oil is more important in the calculation than weapons of mass destruction.... Mr Straw told ambassadors that, following a review he ordered last year, the Foreign Office drew up a list of seven medium to long-term strategic priorities, including 'to bolster the security of British and global energy supplies'."
Straw admits oil is key priority
Guardian, 7 January 2003

".... our energy system faces new challenges.... Our energy supplies will increasingly depend on imported gas and oil..... we need access to a wide range of energy sources."
British Prime Minister, Foreword to DTI Energy White Paper, February 2003

"The UK is a net exporter of oil, so we have no need of the Iraqi oil."
British Prime Minister, House of Commons, 14 April 2003

"Britain has been given its first alarming glimpse into a future when the North Sea's oil begins to dry up. In September, oil imports exceeded exports for the first time since August 1991. The turnabout from a £400 million surplus to a £63 million deficit helped to widen the trade gap to a record £3.9 billion.... the UK Offshore Operators Association predicts a bleak trend for oil production in the UK. North Sea oil output peaked at 2.9 million bpd in 1999, but is expected to be just 1.6 million bpd in four years' time."
UK dips toe in nightmare future of disappearing oil
London Times, 12 November 2003

"The super-giant fields of southeastern Iraq are the largest concentration of super-giants to be found anywhere in the world....unlike neighbor Saudi Arabia, Iraq has been unable to deploy the latest technology, such as 3-D seismic, to find its reserves. Present reserve estimates of Iraq's oil are based on 2-D seismic technology from the 1980s. Still, the estimated success rate in Iraq ranges from one in two in the Mesopotamian Basin to one in four in the western and northwestern stable platform, with the overall success rate exceeding 72 percent - perhaps the highest success rate achievable anywhere in the world. Oil exploration costs are among the cheapest globally, with the current cost estimated at around 50 cents per barrel....To date, petroleum geologists have delineated and mapped over 526 prospects - drilling 131 prospects to discover 73 major fields. They have identified some 239 as having a high degree of certainty, but those prospects remain undrilled. Thirty fields have been partially developed and only 12 fields are actually onstream. Undrilled structures and undeveloped fields could represent the largest untapped hydrocarbon resource anywhere in the world.....Clearly, large parts of Iraq are still virgin - its large hydrocarbon reserves are still waiting to be developed to their full potential, while most other Middle East countries are fully exploiting their reserves. The main challenges facing the new Iraqi authority are to establish law and order as well as security. Once these issues are resolved, Iraq will perhaps be the most exciting place on Earth with regard to oil development and exploration....International oil companies are looking forward with great anticipation to the opening of Iraq, as they have been waiting for the past 40 years. Hopefully, Iraq will soon be able to offer them acreage, thereby allowing proper development of its huge potential. Open and fair competition will enable oil companies to apply the latest technologies in the search for, and development of, the country's hydrocarbon resources - thus helping Iraq realize its full hydrocarbon potential."
Assessing Iraq’s Oil Potential
Geotimes, October 2003

"The global market will need increasing volumes of oil from members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries after non-OPEC production reaches a maximum of about 50 million b/d between 2007 and 2011... A question crucial to future oil supply, therefore is: Can OPEC's old fields deliver.... The oil fields of Iraq are the least depleted and least developed of any of the Persian Gulf oil producing countries, and Iraq has the potential to rapidly increase oil output....  Only Iraq has undeveloped supergiant oil fields (West Qurna, Majnoon, and East Baghdad) and the potential to rapidly increase production to 8-10 million b/d...... .As the different components of supply reach their maximum production rate, a series of crises in oil supply is likely over the coming decades. The first, related to the peak and decline of non-OPEC production, is practically upon us and underpins the currently high oil prices. Other factors are burgeoning world oil demand, driven primarily by China and the USA, and restricted output from Iraq. The imminent inability of non-OPEC production to meet incremental demand and its decline after 2010 precipitates the second crisis as OPEC’s diminishing spare capacity (even with Iraq’s production back to preinvasion levels) becomes less and less able to accommodate short-term fluctuations. The timing and depth of the crisis depend on world oil demand and OPEC investment in new capacity. While OPEC countries will have every incentive to make the necessary investments, the pace of past decision-making is not encouraging, and enough spare capacity may not be available in time. The third crisis, due to OPEC’s incremental supply being unable to meet incremental demand, follows in the first half of the next decade. This assumes that OPEC’s reserves are as published. If OPEC’s reserves are higher than published, this crisis may not occur until the latter half of the next decade and may be muted, particularly if demand moderates. These crises will have global economic and geopolitical significance: The oil price will be high and volatile, and demand growth will have to be curtailed..."
Oil Supply Challenges - 2: What Can OPEC Deliver?
Oil and Gas Journal, 7 March 2005

"The U.S. and China, the world's top two oil consuming nations, must work together to avoid a competition for foreign supplies that might lead to military conflict, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman said.... China's demand for oil is forecast to grow 2.9 percent a year between now and 2025, and U.S. demand will grow 1.5 percent a year. Efforts by each nation to use imports to meet growing demand may escalate competition for oil to something 'as hot and dangerous' as the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, Lieberman, 63, said in a speech today in Washington.... 'There is a problem because China, like the United States, is tying its energy deals to military assistance,' said Michael Klare, author of  'Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum.' 'In the short term, it's more a case of stirring up local conflicts, where the U.S. and China are competing for the loyalty of oil producing countries, but that does have a tendency over time to escalate into something bigger,' said Klare, a professor at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts." U.S., China Must Cooperate or Risk Oil Conflict, Lieberman Says Bloomberg, 30 November 2005

"The world faces the real threat of a new conflict over oil as China competes with existing world powers for scarce resources to feed its growing economy, according to a report published today. The State of the World 2006, released by the Worldwatch Institute, says that last year China became the second- largest importer of oil, after the US...  While environmentalists are concerned about the impact on the world's climate and the drain on its resources, strategists fear that the competition for energy, particularly oil, could destabilise the planet. According to the report, China was nearly self-sufficient in oil in the mid-1990s. But over the past decade its consumption has doubled and it has now overtaken Japan as the second-largest importer of oil, with 3.2 million barrels a day in 2004. It predicts that if the economies of China and India continue to grow at their current rate, the world will not be able to produce enough oil to meet demand by 2050, when consumption will have grown from the current 85 million barrels a day to 200 million barrels. 'Few geologists believe that output will reach even half those levels before beginning to decline,' the report says.  As a result China is already looking for new oil suppliers from Siberia to Sudan, often dealing with notorious regimes, such as the junta in Burma. Of even greater concern is the possibility that open conflict could break out between nations competing for resources or trying to protect their supply lines, such as key trade routes, currently patrolled by the US Navy."
'Find a couple of spare planets or face global oil war'
London Times, 12 January 2006

'Demand Destruction'
It's Time To Act As Affordability Of Oil
Starts To Impact Global Economy

High Oil Prices 'Here To Stay'

"You'll likely hear howls of protests from consumers, but current record oil prices are a new reality, delegates at a Calgary energy conference heard yesterday. 'We're still working on a base case where we see prices averaging close to $70 (US a barrel) this year assuming the geopolitical element didn't get too hot,' said Dr. Paul Horsnell, managing director and head of commodities research at Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank. 'Clearly if the geopolitics came on a bit quicker, especially the concern in Iran, then all bets are off and we're going to get higher averages,' he said. Horsnell was a panelist at a Canadian Energy Research Institute conference looking at the short- and long-term outlook for oil prices....Horsnell said current prices have nothing to do with speculators or what many analysts refer to as the 'fear factor.' 'If demand does continue to rise and there's no extra relief from supplies than it's pretty clear that high oil prices are here to stay,' said Neil Atkinson, a senior consultant for Petroleum Economics Ltd. "
Oil prices 'realistic'
Calgary Sun, 25 April 2006

"Barclays Capital analysts predict U.S. oil prices will average more than $70 a barrel by the end of 2006 on strong global demand and supply uncertainties from major oil exporters. U.S. crude prices are unlikely to fall below $60 this year, they said.... 'The coincidence of minimal spare capacity - brought on by several years in which demand has exceeded capacity increases, with enhanced geopolitical risk - has produced a market that is prone to upward spikes,' they said."
Oil over $70 seen as average by year's end
Reuters, 11 April 2006

Supply Is Not Growing

"According to Katherine Spector, head of energy research for JP Morgan Securities, market fundamentals point to petrol prices reverting to a higher mean in coming years. 'The world is running out of easy barrels of crude production,' she said, adding that marginal costs of production were rising. Other delegates told the forum that global oil market fundamentals pointed to the possibility of higher prices given that demand is robust and tends to grow every year, especially from China and India. Edward Morse, executive adviser with Hess Energy Trading, said that between 1965 and 2004, total Asian oil demand had risen 620 per cent while world oil demand was up by only 158 per cent.  On the supply side, spare capacity was gone, traditional areas of oil production were mature and areas with growth were geopolitically or demographically challenged, Mr Murti said. 'We believe oil markets are in the early stages of what we are calling a multi-year 'super-spike' period."
World running out of easy oil
Reuters, 30 May 2006

"Skyrocketing operating costs are stopping oil and gas producers from developing new projects to meet growing demand, Woodside Petroleum boss Don Voelte said.Mr Voelte said at a Gold Coast conference yesterday global demand for oil was rising but costs of steel, oil rigs and staffing was doubling.  'We as an industry are struggling to meet demand. We just contracted a rig for $500,000 per day and we've got between five to 10 rigs (operating) at a time.'"
Oil costs on fire
Daily Telegraph (Australia), 13 May 2006

"Pressuring oil companies to invest more has become a popular refrain among activists and lawmakers seeking to ease the burden of rising energy prices. But oil economists and regulators this week expressed doubt over the wisdom of throwing more money at the problem, warning it may only drive costs even higher, not relieve prices at the pump... Oil companies say it will take years before any investments they decide to make now come online in the form of new production or refining capacity. "
Boost in oil spending not seen as magic wand
Reuters, 26 May 2006

"U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Tuesday that soaring energy prices could damage economic growth but there was little the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could do to help bring them down. U.S. crude prices have hovered around $70 a barrel in recent weeks after striking a record over $75 last month, raising concerns that high energy costs may push inflation higher and curb consumer activity. But Bodman said the economy of the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer, was holding up well so far under the strain.' Am I concerned about the impact of high oil prices on the economy? Sure,' Bodman told the Reuters Global Energy Summit in New York.... Asked if oil cartel OPEC, scheduled to meet next week in Caracas to decide on production policy, can do nothing to bring down prices, Bodman said, 'Not in my judgment.' Only top exporter Saudi Arabia has spare oil capacity to bring on to ease prices or counter supply disruptions, and that crude is too heavy to be useful to refiners, he added. 'The Saudis say they have an extra 1 million barrels (per day) but I take that with a kind of a grain of salt. I know they have the capacity (but) my sense is it is heavy oil and that's not easily refined by most refineries,' the U.S. official said... In addition, the United States has permanently lost some 10 percent of Gulf Coast oil production and 5 percent of natural gas output due to hurricane damage last year, Bodman said. 'I don't expect it to come back,' the energy secretary said. 'The hurricanes have inflicted a lot of damage already.'"
Oil price may hit economic growth: Bodman
Reuters, 23 May 2006

"Canadian Oil Sands Trust (COS_u.TO: Quote) on Friday forecast annual Syncrude production of 90 to 100 million barrels and said it would take up to two months to restart production at a facility where it halted work earlier this month....The trust said it had lowered its forecast for second-quarter Syncrude production to approximately 22 million barrels from 24 million barrels because of the problems, which centered on 'odorous emissions' that prompted residents' complaints and forced the shutdown of a new expansion.... The shutdown came just 10 days after an C$8.4 billion expansion to the oil sands project began operation. Residents had complained of odors from the site, where a refinery converts the tar-like bitumen into synthetic crude oil."
Canadian Oilsands cuts output forecast after shutdown
Reuters, 26 May 2006

No Further Light Crude Capacity Available
Saudi Arabia Turns To Heavy Crude Processing

"Saudi Aramco and French oil firm Total signed an agreement on Sunday to build a 400,000 barrel per day (bpd), export-oriented refinery in the kingdom at a cost of around $6 billion. The full-conversion refinery in Jubail on the Gulf coast is designed to process Arabian heavy crude oil and is scheduled to start up in 2011, state oil firm Aramco said in a statement... Saudi Arabia holds the bulk of OPEC's spare output capacity. But most of Riyadh's unused capacity consists of heavy sour crude that refiners find difficult to process into transport fuels."
Saudi, Total sign $6 bln Jubail refinery deal
Reuters, 21 May 2006

"It’s well known that U.S. oil production has been declining for many years. And, in Alaska, oil production is well past its peak. But has worldwide oil production peaked? And what impact might worldwide oil production capacity have on already soaring oil prices? On May 1 Petroleum News discussed these topics with Alaska oil industry consultant Roger Herrera. 'I really have to believe that the world is very close to, if not past, peak oil,' Herrera said. Coming from a background as an oil geologist in the days when there might be a one in 20 chance of striking oil with a wildcat well, Herrera was trained to be an optimist about finding oil. So, anticipating declining production really goes against the grain with him. 'Yet here I am,' Herrera said. 'I find myself a very strong proponent of the problems associated with world peak oil, which in most people’s minds is a negative position to take.' Herrera sees the statistics of oil field discovery and production as providing the pointers towards peak production. 'If you look at the sizes of the oil fields that are added every year, they are smaller and smaller and we’re not replacing the oil that we’re using,' he said. And Herrera sees the dwindling likelihood of finding more giant oil fields as a key parameter in the production equation. 'The giants which are the real feeders to world supply are simply a thing of the past,' Herrera said. 'So just on the basis of statistics you have to be very, very concerned.'.... Another issue is that it is not generally possible to recognize a production peak straight away. 'I believe from just looking at history and peaking oil in individual countries that you inevitably don’t recognize the peak until after it’s happened,' Herrera said. So, if world oil has peaked it may take a couple of years for data to indicate the production summit. Herrera also thinks that the production of unconventional oil, such as heavy oil, is complicating the picture — rising oil prices have enabled an increase in unconventional oil production. 'Unconventional oil is already playing a relatively major role,' Herrera said.  However, Herrera doesn’t see unconventional oil dramatically changing the situation; it just makes forecasting oil production more difficult."
Has oil production peaked?
Petroleum News, 7 May 2006

Going For The Tougher Alternatives

"Enbridge Inc. on Tuesday sounded shippers for support to build a $920-million pipeline from the U.S. Midwest to Canada's oil sands region to import diluent used to leaven tar-like oil sands bitumen. The proposed Southern Lights pipeline will have a capacity of 180,000 barrels per day, and will involve a combination of new construction, reversals and expansions of Enbridge's existing crude oil pipeline system. It will also make use of existing facilities, the company said. The line will run from Chicago to the refining center in Edmonton, Alberta. Southern Lights will carry diluent, an ultra-light form of oil or natural gas liquids that's blended into bitumen so the extra-heavy crude can be shipped on pipelines. As production from the oil sands expands, diluent is in short supply in Western Canada."
Enbridge garners support for $920-mln pipeline
Reuters, 30 May 2006

Countries Stockpile More Oil In Anticipation Of Shortages

"Japan is considering a five-day increase in its national oil reserves to 95 days, the trade minister said Friday, moving to boost the resistance of the world's second-largest economy to wide swings in energy supplies....The report recommended an increase in national reserves to match increases in other countries."
Japan May Increase National Oil Reserves
Associated Press, 19 May 2006

'Demand Destruction'
Rising Price May Hit Consumption

"The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) says the price of oil could rise above $US100 a barrel from just over $US70 now. Claude Mandil, who is about to visit Australia for a major oil conference, told The Australian Financial Review factors now pushing prices to near record levels were unlikely to change in the near future. The fossil fuel markets were in a 'vicious cycle', the IEA executive director said. Higher prices and stretched capacity were encouraging 'nationalistic' governments and groups with political gains from actions that threatened to further increase prices. 'This is alarming,' said Mr Mandil, whose key agency oversees energy markets. The best chance of easing pressure on the oil price, he said, was for the rapid adoption by government, industry and consumers of efficiency measures to slow the rise in demand for oil. "
Oil price could reach $US100
Daily Telegraph (Australia), 8 May 2008

"The IEA's latest monthly Oil Market Report attracted wider attention than usual because it made a sharp cut in its forecast for the growth in world oil demand for the year from 1.47 million barrels per day to 1.25 million barrels per day, saying that high prices are at last cutting into global energy demand, including in the U.S. The agency, which advises 26 industrialized countries, is now forecasting that the world will consume 84.83 million barrels per day this year--200,000 barrels per day less than previously forecast. That would reduce this year's annual consumption growth to 1.5%, less than the forecast growth of the global economy..... Remember, though, that the world is just using more oil less rapidly. It is not using less oil. As the world economy continues to grow, the demand-supply balance for oil remains tight, with little spare capacity. The swing supplier to world markets, the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, have been pumping more oil."
Oil: It's All About Supply
Forbes, 12 May 2006

"OPEC, the international oil cartel which is based in Vienna, trimmed its forecast Wednesday for this year`s growth in world demand for crude oil. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pegged global oil demand growth at 1.4 million barrels per day or 1.7 percent to total 84.6 million barrels per day.That`s a 60,000-barrel-per-day reduction from OPEC`s last worldwide growth forecast. 'High oil prices have contributed to a slowing of incremental demand mainly in the developed countries, especially for those countries where product subsidies have been reduced,' OPEC said in a statement."
OPEC, like IEA, cuts oil demand outlook
United Press International, 17 May 2006

Poor Countries Hit Hardest First

"Rising fuel prices in Thailand have led to increased numbers of people in this northern province to change their diets, as the public switch to eating vegetarian fare, instead of more expensive meat and seafood.... The rising preference for vegetarian food in Phichit may not be indicative of the entire country, but rising oil prices is having a wider impact on society. Where is the energy-crisis taking the country?"
Rising oil prices raises vegetarian profile in Phichit
TNA News (Thailand), 13 May 2006

But Wealthy Not Immune

"J Sainsbury tried to calm fears that it would be forced to pass on escalating energy costs to shoppers, after its chairman suggested the company could not absorb all of its hefty fuel bills. Finance director Darren Shapland said: 'We know that if we lower prices, sales go up. If we increased prices we'd lose momentum and traction and we're not going to do that.' The supermarket was warning that its energy bill had tripled, increasing £75m, as a four-year, fixed-price contract came to an end. Mr Shapland's comments came just moments after the chairman Philip Hampton warned that rising energy bills were a serious threat. Mr Hampton said: 'It's hitting all businesses. The question is, do businesses contract or do they get it passed on as inflation? And when you look at supermarkets, you're looking at businesses with very thin margins.' Sainsbury's operating profit margin edged up last year from 2.07pc to 2.24pc.The company later tried to smooth out any contradictions between the two positions, but Mr Hampton made it clear that if higher costs weren't passed on, 'retail profit margins will be hit'. The soaring utility bill overshadowed the company's return to pre-tax profit. In the year to March, pre-tax profits were £104m, compared with 2005's huge loss of £238m after restructuring costs."
Sainsbury's energy bill rises £75m
Daily Telegraph, 18 May 2006 

China Contintues To 'Clean-Up'

"Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday wrapped up his trip to Africa after clinching oil deals that highlight Beijing’s search for fresh energy sources to power its booming economy. As Hu headed home after a five-nation tour that ended in Kenya, analysts and critics argued that China’s demand for energy and other resources is helping unsavoury African governments heavily criticised by the international community. Under one of the deals, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) will explore six blocks off the coast of Kenya, a country grappling with graft, and in another will buy a 45% share in an oilfield in Nigeria, where oil-related clashes have intensified in recent months. In addition, Hu proposed a strategic petroleum reserve with Riyadh, and a Chinese company Sinochem agreed to buy a large but undisclosed amount of phosphates from Morocco in 2007. During his energy-shopping spree, China inked deals to improve his host countries’ floundered economies and shoddy infrastructure, prompting a cautious welcome. 'These agreements (between China and Morocco) will certainly benefit the relationship between the two countries,' a Moroccan news agency said."
China’s Hu wraps up oil safari with fresh deals
Agence France Presse, 30 April 2006

"Chinese Ambassador to Tehran Lio G. Tan has said that the oil and gas deal between Iran and China has been thoroughly studied by experts and is ready to be signed. The Chinese ambassador was clearly referring to an energy agreement between Tehran and Beijing which is worth over 100 billion dollars. 'No country can prevent the deal,' the ambassador told the Mehr News Agency correspondent in Tehran last week. When asked whether China was under U.S. pressure not to sign the deal, Lio responded by asking, 'Would the U.S. export oil to us if it didn’t let you (Iranians) give it to us?' The ambassador said that even if there were no dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. would have tried to halt the deal, but China will not be swayed.'.. A delegation from Iran’s Oil Ministry is due to visit China soon to conclude the huge oil and natural gas deal. A memorandum of understanding was signed in October 2004 between Iran and Sinopec, China's largest refiner, to buy 250 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) over 25 years. In exchange for developing Yadavaran, one of Iran's largest onshore oil fields, China would agree to buy 10 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year for 25 years beginning in 2009."
No one can prevent cooperation between Iran and China: envoy
Tehran Times, 30 April 2006

"Vice President Dick Cheney has been entrusted with a task regarded as vital to bolstering the Bush administration's sagging political popularity: the search for additional crude oil in order to help stabilize U.S. gasoline prices over the next few months. Mr. Cheney was recently sent to Central Asia and other regions to coax allies to significantly increase supplies to stabilize U.S. gasoline prices for the summer. Administration sources said Mr. Cheney has run into significant difficulties as he has found that many of the potential suppliers have become committed to China.  'We're in a race with China and so far we're losing,' an administration source familiar with Mr. Cheney's trip said.... The sources said Mr. Cheney, who has long-time contacts in the industry, has been designated to find oil supplies both for the short- and medium-term. They said Mr. Cheney's visit to Central Asia was based on the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Middle East oil supplies will become increasingly precarious after 2008.... The sources said Mr. Cheney found his hosts in Central Asia to be distrustful of U.S. intentions, with some Muslim countries fearful of a regime change as that which took place in 2005 in Kyrgyzstan, regarded as the most pro-American country in the region. Mr. Cheney also was informed of the contracts China has already signed with Central Asian republics. In April, Turkmenistan signed a deal to supply China with 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year from 2009 to 2039....A key target of Mr. Cheney's visit was Kazakhstan, regarded as the richest oil and natural gas state in the region. The vice president, in contrast to the other countries he visited, did not discuss the need for democracy in Kazakhstan, whom he described as a 'key strategic partner of the United States.'  'Obviously Kazakhstan is important given their considerable resources,' Mr. Cheney said on May 5 on his return to Washington. 'It's one of the few places where we're going to see an increase in oil production from a non-OPEC state over the next few years.' The sources said Mr. Cheney sought to exploit a rift between Russia and states in Central Asia. The vice president was highly critical of Moscow's use of energy, particularly transport rights, to intimidate its neighbors. At the same time, the Bush administration has been pressuring Kazakhstan to export oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that would bypass Russia and supply Europe and the United States. The sources said the Kazakh agreement to join the trans-Caspian project could be signed in June."
The great oil race: Cheney discovers U.S. is losing out to China
Insight Magazine, 16 May 2006

"The oil boom and the Putin Administration’s fiscal prudence deprive the US and Western Europe of the leverage they enjoyed over Russia during the 1990s. Russia is flush with cash, and no longer needs loans from the IMF or debt relief from Western governments. Nor does Russia want to join the EU or Nato. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has some powerful cards to play — none more powerful than its gigantic reserves of natural gas....One possible lever is to try to break Russia’s stranglehold over Central Asian gas. As things stand, gas from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan can be brought to market only through Gazprom’s pipelines. So after lambasting Russia’s retreat from democracy in Vilnius, Mr Cheney flew on for discussions with that well-known democrat, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, about a new pipeline to carry Kazakh gas under the Caspian and through Azerbaijan and thence to Turkey and Europe. But it seems unlikely that such a pipeline could ever be commercially justified."
Russia holds all the aces in gas confrontation
London Times, 19 May 2006

"The rift between Moscow and Washington widened yesterday when the Kremlin threatened to block US participation in a giant liquefied natural gas project if America continued to oppose Russia’s admission to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). A Kremlin spokesman confirmed that an aide to President Putin had warned Washington last month that obstacles to Russia’s WTO membership could jeopardise America’s access to the Shtokman project in the Barents Sea, the world’s biggest undeveloped gas resource.... Washington’s criticism of Russia’s nationalist energy policy has angered President Putin. Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, accused Russia this month of using its oil and gas reserves as weapons of 'intimidation or blackmail'”.
Kremlin threatens to block US role in giant gas project
London Times, 19 May 2006

"The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, a regional security group that includes Russia and China as well as Kyrgyzstan, last month demanded that member states hosting U.S. forces set a timetable for withdrawal. Bakiyev subsequently asked the U.S. to set a date, prompting a visit by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The U.S. last year was evicted from a base in neighboring Uzbekistan after the U.S. called for an investigation into that government's crackdown on opposition demonstrators in Andijan in May that left hundreds dead. Russia and China 'smell blood now'' after the U.S. were asked to leave Uzbekistan and will 'seek to exert influence to get them out' of Kyrgyzstan, said Svante Cornell, research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. 'It would be a major strategic defeat for the west in Central Asia.' ... 'There is pressure on Kyrgyzstan, which is a financial beneficiary of the base,'' said Colonel Christopher Langton, head of the Defence Analysis Department at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Kyrgyzstan's stance 'has to do with changing regional politics -- the invisible pressure of Russia and China more than anything else.'"
U.S. May Lose Kyrgyz Base Used for Afghan Operations
Bloomberg, 19 May 2006

"Oil is transforming world politics. Iran can afford to face down the wrath of the West and be robust about becoming a nuclear power because it has the cast-iron support of China - secured by oil. In November 2004, Iran gave China the rights to exploit the giant Yadavaran field. Importantly, China plans to bring this oil into China, not across the Indian Ocean and through the Malacca Straits, but by pipeline across central Asia, free from the surveillance of the US fleet.... It's a new world. Henry Kissinger thinks that the 21st-century struggle for oil reserves will match the 19th-century fight for colonies.... The case is usually made in terms of climate change, but it is more than that. Unless we confront and change the emerging balance of world power, the consequent oil conflagrations could make the conflicts of the 20th century look tame."
A battle for oil could set the world aflame
Observer, 30 April 2006

“Moscow and Beijing have developed what they call a strategic partnership to oppose what they perceive as U.S. domination in global affairs. Russia and China are also seeking to check the presence of the United States in Central Asia and to consolidate their own influence in the volatile region”
Russia: Joint Military Exercises With China A Result Of New Strategic Partnership
Radio Free Europe, 18 August 2005

“Peace Mission 2005, the unprecedented Sino–Rus­sian joint military exercises held on August 18–25, should raise concerns in Washington ….. The growing geostrategic coop­eration between Russia and China against the U.S. in Central Asia also has a geo-economic dimension. While U.S. and other multinational major oil com­panies successfully developed large energy projects in the Caspian basin in the 1990s, China eyed oil and gas in Russia and the Caspian region to satisfy its own rapacious appetite. China has signed deals with Kazakhstan for the construction of oil and gas pipelines, multibillion-dollar deals with Russia on long-term oil and gas supply, and an agreement with Islam Karimov to supply Uzbek gas. China is also interested in build­ing an oil pipeline from Siberia to the city of Daikin in northeast China and has bid $4.2 billion for the Canada-based PetroKazakhstan oil company. To achieve its strategic goals, China is interested in keeping U.S. companies out of Eurasia and delim­iting U.S. power projection in the region.”
Sino-Russian Military Maneuvers: A Threat to U.S. Interests in Eurasia
Heritage Foundation, 30 September 2005

"Kazakhstan's oil will arrive at China's Alashankou of northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region April 30 through the Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline which spans about 1800 kilometers, said Xia Yishan, head of China Energy Strategy Research Institute. According to Xia, the Chinese section of the oil pipeline from the Alashankou to Dushanzi is ready to receive the oil now. This means Kazakhstan could formally supply its oil to China since May. It also marks the beginning of cross-border land oil supply from other countries."
Kazakhstan oil to arrive in China soon
People's Daily (China), 29 April 2006

AlterNet: Cheney Starts New Cold War Over Oil - Click Here

'Let's Not Play The Oil Game'
President Of The Council On Foreign Relations
(Who Knows It Is A Game OECD Countries Cannot Win)

Richard N Haass is former director of policy planning at the State Department
and currently President of the highly influential US think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations

"....waiting to develop a serious energy policy until catastrophe hits only increases the pain. It takes years to increase supply or introduce meaningful energy efficiencies that will not prove overly disruptive or costly. The good news is that we know what needs doing. The bad news is that we remain largely unwilling to act. And by not acting, the United States and other oil-consuming nations leave themselves at the mercy of the market, or to individual producers who would manipulate it. America's reaction to the recent energy crunch is not reassuring. Proposals for $100 gasoline rebates. Threats to investigate oil companies. Calls to suspend the already low federal gas tax. None would make an appreciable difference. Energy politics is one thing. Energy policy is fundamentally different. We have too much of the former and not enough of the latter... Today's situation may lack drama in the sense that there has been no successful terrorist attack on some tanker or refinery. But current energy policy (or the lack of one) empowers some of the most repressive and reckless regimes in the world, further impoverishes hundreds of millions of the world's poor and contributes to global climate change. If this isn't a crisis, what is?"
Richard Hass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations
Let's Not Play The Oil Game
Newsweek, 15 May 2006

Facing The Spectre Of Defeat In Afghanistan And Iraq

And Replacing The Failure Of
'The Project For The New American Century'
(For The US)
With The Success Of
'The Project For The New Solar Century'
(For Everyone)

Oil Not Evenly Distributed
As Britain And America Face Real Possibility Of Military Defeat In Afghanistan And Iraq

"Our dependence on oil also has implications for security of supply as well as security policy. Many international conflicts today revolve around energy issues. As we know, oil reserves are not distributed equally around the world. Being able to rely on domestic and sustainable energy would also be beneficial in terms of security policy.. Breaking dependence on oil brings many opportunities for greater competitiveness, technological development and progress. Our aim is to break dependence on fossil fuels by 2020."
Speech by Mona Sahlin at the conference 'Beyond Peak Oil' on Sweden's goal to be oil independent in Washington DC
Ministry of Sustainable Development, Sweden, 9 May 2006

"The U.S.-led coalition has faced a resurgence of violence this year in Afghanistan, including a spate of suicide bombings, and resistance from Taliban fighters. Last month, coalition forces killed more than 150 rebels in southern Afghanistan during a series of air and ground raids. This week, rioting in the Afghan capital, Kabul, left more than 100 injured.... Richard Armitage, former U.S. deputy secretary of state, said in a speech in Singapore yesterday that the success or failure of the U.S. in Asia was being 'held hostage' by Afghanistan."
Rumsfeld, Asian Counterparts, Gather Amid Regional Violence
Bloomberg, 3 June 2006

"The Taliban are gaining strength in Afghanistan and are determined to intensify their attacks against foreign and government forces, a Taliban commander said on Sunday. Violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent weeks to its worst since the 2001 overthrow of the hardline Taliban government but the district commander, Mullah Hayat Khan, said the violence was winning the militants more support. 'Now the people of Afghanistan are giving full cooperation to us,' Khan told Reuters in the southwestern Pakistani border town of Chaman. 'There is more anger against foreign forces and their brutality against the people,' he said, referring to recent bombing by U.S. forces that he said had killed many civilians. 'The people of Afghanistan have become fed up with Americans,' said Khan, who said he was Taliban commander of the Spin Boldak area, in the southern province of Kandahar, opposite Chaman. 'They break into houses, arrest people indiscriminately and torture them. These brutalities have increased anger among the people,' he said. 'They are providing us shelter. They also lend us their arms and even take part in our jihad (holy war). Even people within the government are cooperating with us.'... Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has sacked dozens of senior police officials in an effort to boost security in Kabul, an official said on Saturday, days after anti-U.S. riots in the capital."
Taliban gaining strength in Afghanistan - commander
Reuters, 4 June 2006

"During the last few weeks it's become clear that the Taliban movement in Afghanistan has succeeded in reorganizing itself and now is a real threat to the fragile power of President Hamid Karzai and the NATO forces deployed in many provinces.... Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani writer seen as senior expert in Afghan affairs, is accurate in saying, 'For the past five years President Hamid Karzai has tolerated Pashtun warlords as governors, police chiefs and administrators in the south. Most of these warlords were discredited and defeated by the Taliban in the 1990s, but were resuscitated by U.S. forces to help defeat the Taliban in 2001. Unlike Northern Alliance warlords who tended to defy President Karzai's authority, these Pashtun warlords were friends of the government and helped secure the Pashtun vote for Karzai in two Loya Jirgas and two elections in 2004 and 2005.' He added, 'Despite pledging loyalty to President Karzai, these warlord-governors became visibly corrupt, by their open involvement in the drug trade, cutting deals with criminal gangs and the Taliban and showing supreme incompetence in dealing with development issues. For the majority of southern Pashtuns, the corruption of these warlord-governors unfortunately symbolized the intentions of the Kabul government.'... Regardless of the explanations of the resurgence of the Taliban, Afghanistan seems to going on to a new phase, and the conflict is getting very tough... "
Resurgence of the Taliban: the outcome of its tough efforts and the failure of others
New Anatolian (Turkey), 1 June 2006

"The conduct of the war in Iraq has turned out to be the greatest military blunder since Vietnam, says the former head of the Australian Army in Vietnam, Major-General Alan Stretton. General Stretton, who warned more than 12 months ago that Iraq would end up just like Vietnam, says his worst fears have been realised. In a Sunday Focus comment, he said the military blunders in Iraq paralleled the 'debacle in Vietnam' 30 years ago. 'In Iraq, the Americans are bogged down by guerrilla attacks whenever they leave restricted safe areas,' he said. 'Civilian casualties continue to mount on a daily basis and America seems to have no strategy that would improve the present situation.' .... He said Australia's blind faith and lack of honesty in following the US into Iraq was 'a stain on the proud history of our country that used to value, above all, truth and independence. The belief that Australian involvement was necessary so we could rely on American support in the future, was not well founded."
Iraq just like Vietnam, says general
Canberra Times, 4 June 2006

"At Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, the president read a poignant letter that First Lt. Mark Dooley, killed by a bomb last September in Ramadi, wrote to his parents. What Mr. Bush did not say was that now, nine months later, insurgents rule Ramadi. As he spoke at Arlington on Monday, the Pentagon was preparing to announce that 1,500 emergency reinforcements were being sent from Kuwait to Anbar province, home to Ramadi, Haditha and Falluja, to try to stanch the bleeding. There is more than a little something wrong with this picture. The president reiterated his Plan for Victory in Iraq as recently as his appearance with Tony Blair on May 25: 'As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down.' He said then that the Iraqis were 'taking more of the fight' and 'more territory' and more missions.' The State Department concurred: Iraqi security forces are participating in 'more than 80 percent of operations' ... 'When you open up the strategy for victory, there's nothing inside,' Representative John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and Marine veteran, argued in a speech last month. What the White House has always had instead of a strategy for victory is a strategy for public relations. That, too, fell under siege over Memorial Day weekend. Call the P.R. strategy 'attack, clear and hold': the administration attacks the credibility of reporters covering the war and tries to clear troubling Iraq images from American TV screens so that popular support might hold until a miracle happens on the ground. ... Mr. Bush routinely chastises the press for reporting on bombings rather than "success" stories like Tal Afar. His new top domestic policy adviser, Karl Zinsmeister, has called American war correspondents "whiny and appallingly soft," and he declared last June that "our struggle in Iraq as warfare" was over except for "periodic flare-ups in isolated corners." That's the news the administration wants: the insurgency is always in its last throes. We'd realize that this prognosis was "basically accurate," Dick Cheney has explained, if only the non-Fox press didn't concentrate on car bombs in Baghdad. Now more than 70 journalists have died in Iraq, more than in any modern war, including two members of a CBS News crew killed in the bombing that injured the correspondent Kimberly Dozier.... For all the politicians' talk about honoring those who serve, Washington's record is derelict: chronic shortages in body and Humvee armor; a back-door draft forcing troops with expired contracts into repeated deployments; inadequate postwar health care and veterans' benefits. And that's just the short list. Now a war without end is running off the rails and putting an undermanned army in still greater jeopardy. 'Today, the Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy,' Nir Rosen, who has covered Iraq since the invasion, wrote in The Washington Post last weekend. We can't pretend we don't know this is happening. It's happening in broad daylight. We know that 'as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down' is fiction, not reality. We know from the Pentagon's own report to Congress last week that attacks on Americans and Iraqis alike are at their highest since American commanders started keeping count in 2004. We know that even as coalition partners like Italy and South Korea bail out, we are planning an indefinite stay of undefined parameters: the 104-acre embassy complex rising in the Green Zone is the largest in the world, and the Decider himself has said that it's up to 'future presidents and future governments of Iraq' to decide our exit strategy. Actually, the current government of Iraq already is. On Thursday the latest American-backed Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whom Mr. Bush is 'proud to call' his 'ally and friend,' invited open warfare on American forces by accusing them of conducting Haditha-like killing sprees against civilians as a 'regular' phenomenon. If this is the ally and friend we are fighting for, a country that truly supports the troops has no choice but to start bringing them home."
Supporting Our Troops Over a Cliff
New York Times, 4 June 2006

"Police set up roadblocks Thursday around the oil-rich southern city of Basra as a monthlong state of emergency declared by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went into effect..... Tensions have been worsening in the Shiite-dominated area, where Britain has about 8,000 soldiers, and mostly Shiite militias have been attacking Sunni Arabs and each other. Iran's hand also is rumored to be behind Shiite militias in Basra, although little evidence of a direct link has been made public. U.S. officials have long accused the Iranians  though not necessarily the Tehran government  of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias in Basra. In the months after the 2003 invasion, British troops enjoyed relative peace in southern Iraq compared with the restive Sunni regions further north."
State of Emergency Takes Effect in Basra
Associated Press, 1 June 2006

"If the killings at Haditha have undermined American public support for the war, the violence in the southern city of Basra is having the same effect on British public opinion. Ever since the operation to remove Saddam Hussein ended three years ago, thousands of British troops have been based in the Basra region. It was considered a relatively peaceful area. But in the last month Basra has been plagued by sectarian clashes and factional rivalry that have resulted in the deaths of more than 100 Iraqis. Nine British soldiers have also been killed."
Basra violence affects British public opinion on war in Iraq
ABC (Australia), 4 June 2006

"Once seemingly immune to the violence that has plagued the rest of the country, Basra Province, the heart of Iraq's Shiite south, has sunk into chaos. Shiite political parties and their militias are fighting to control the provincial government and the region's oil wealth, contributing to some of the worst rates of killing since the invasion, with 174 killings in the past two months - double the number from the previous two months, according to the Basra police. Trying to stamp his authority on the region, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al- Maliki arrived here in an American helicopter with Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president and three other senior Iraqi officials on Wednesday, and he berated local leaders for the chaos. He ordered the Iraqi Army to take over Basra's streets - a demand that apparently came as a surprise to the British Army, which patrols the region, and that could prove difficult, as Iraqi units would have to be brought from outside the city.... To a large degree, the violence has resulted from a power grab by Shiite factions that had been left practically on their own to run the region while American and Iraqi officials in Baghdad have fought insurgents elsewhere. 'Freedom of speech, freedom of expression: it just hasn't quite worked out the way it was planned,' Everard said. 'They're not prepared to debate. They tend to do things at the end of a gun.' In a city that welcomed the American invasion, threats against Iraqis working for the U.S. diplomatic mission are now so widespread that they have not picked up its trash or pumped its sewers for three weeks. One large prize is control of Basra's oil exports. The city is near the country's only seaport, and nearly all of Iraq's current exports flow through it. Political parties accuse one another of skimming from the flow and trying to control it."
Chaos overtakes once-peaceful Basra
New York Times, 1 June 2006

"Many parties - there are six in the Basra Provincial Council - have their own militias, and those armed groups have been fighting battles over political causes in recent months. The result has been a soaring murder rate, the second- highest casualty month for the British military since the start of the war and an absolutely terrified population. 'I cannot talk with you,' said Sajid Saad Hassan, a professor at Basra University's agriculture college. 'I haven't joined a party and no militia is protecting me.' As military planners contemplate the future of this war, they are seeing a southern Iraqi landscape that is infinitely more complex than it was at the start of their effort. For the last three years, Baghdad has put its resources into fighting an insurgent war in central and western Iraq, and the predominantly Shiite south has been allowed to go its own way.  But rules fell away along with the regime of Saddam Hussein, leaving a broken landscape of sagging state institutions. Ambitious political parties, criminal gangs and the region's vast network of tribes, stepped in to fill the vacuum."
State has 'melted,' leaving Basra in chaos
New York Times, 3 June 2006

"Violence raged across Iraq on Sunday as new Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki prepared to name interior and defense ministers critical to restoring stability in the country bloodied by sectarian and insurgent killings. In one of the worst incidents, gunmen dragged 24 civilians out of their cars at a makeshift checkpoint in a town north of Baghdad and shot them 'execution style,' police said. The victims included students, children and elderly men, said the senior police official in Diyala province, scene of frequent attacks by insurgents waging a campaign of bombings and shootings to topple the U.S.-backed, Shi'ite-led government. In Iraq's south, a Sunni religious group accused security forces in the Shi'ite-run city of Basra of killing 12 unarmed worshippers in a mosque, but police said they had returned fire and shot dead nine 'terrorists.' The mosque shooting early on Sunday came just hours after a car bomb killed 28 people in Basra, challenging a state of emergency declared by Maliki to crack down on criminal gangs and Shi'ite factions whose feuding threatens oil exports. It was among the worst violence Iraq's second city has seen since U.S.-forced invaded to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. Security in Basra has deteriorated sharply over the last year as Shi'ite groups tussle for power in the key oil hub, source of most of the country's export revenue."
 Violence Flares in Iraq as PM Moves on Security Jobs
Reuters, 4 June 2006

"What is British policy in Iraq? This week, as four more Britons die, it is more obscure than ever. Iraq is becoming a 21st-century Dardanelles, a lethal project sustained only because exit is too painful for politicians to contemplate. Tony Blair has long stated that British troops are in that country to establish democratic institutions and guarantee security and prosperity. Since security and prosperity are as distant as ever, democracy is vitiated. Rising violence has rendered the policy incoherent. Blair and his colleagues must rely for public support on an increasingly false narrative of their purpose, as false as the reasons for the original invasion. They are prisoners of denial.... Civilian deaths in Iraq are running at 1,000 a month. Kidnappings take place daily, and ethnic cleansing is rife. Some 10,000 professionals have fled the country. The police are nowhere trusted. This is beyond any tolerable definition of security. Chaos was previously described by Downing Street as 'isolated' and 'not to detract' from the success of the occupation. Progress was allegedly being made away from the cameras. This is denied by all available statistics of power, water and petrol supplies. The defence secretary, Des Browne, was reduced last week to claiming that 'things are better in the country areas' - long the last cry from the bunker of defeat.... There is no sense in which Britain is any longer in command in Iraq. It must even fight to recover its casualties. Basra has become a battleground between rival militias. Soldiers patrol intermittently and bravely show the flag (which is more than the Italians do), but they offer little more than target practice. This is not countering violence, nor does it constitute control. British troop deaths are devoid of any rationale. The government's fallback position has been that, irrespective of peace, securing it can soon be handed over to local troops. Yet there is no evidence that, however many Iraqis take the coalition shilling, they can reliably be deployed against the ever more brazen militias and gangs. 'Iraqisation' depends not on numbers or weapons but on morale. In the present climate there is no such morale, except in Kurdistan where militias have become the army. British policy accepts the de facto partition of the Kurds, yet not that of the Sunni and Shia regions. Why? There will be no stability in Iraq until this happens and yet the policy is to deny it. A final fallback has been that British troops would leave when asked to do so by the Iraqi government. Most of the 110 coalition bases would be handed over to local brigades. A start would be made this summer with the British vacating Maysan and Muthanna provinces. The Americans would retreat initially into their dozen or more super-bases, and perhaps be offered long-term leases. This exit strategy was galvanised last week when the new Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, said that he expected coalition troops to leave 16 of Iraq's 18 provinces by the end of the year. The only remaining American troops would be in lawless Sunni Anbar and in Baghdad, where Maliki needs the Americans to protect his green zone fortress and airport. His statement implied a total withdrawal from all Shia provinces, including the British from the south.... The suspicion is that Washington and London will withdraw only at the moment of their choosing, when it can be orchestrated as a victory. With violence and anarchy on the rise, such a prospect is implausible - not just by the end of this year but in the foreseeable future. Knowing that things are not getting better, London now finds itself claiming that they are getting worse before they can get better. It no longer matters what Iraqis say. The hidden premise of Blair's position is that British (and American) troops must by definition be a blessing to any nation they occupy. It is inconceivable that they could increase anarchy or that their departure might alleviate it. This arrogant assumption runs through every argument about Iraq at present. It is the last shred of imperialist illusion, held even by many who opposed the invasion. It is encapsulated in the brainless Tory proposition that in Iraq we must 'finish what we started'.... Iraq is a failed state. Its democracy is meaningless without order, and order is beyond Britain's capacity to deliver. Now Blair has been asked by the elected ruler of Iraq to leave by the end of the year. By what conceivable right does he refuse?"
Blair has been blinded by an imperialist illusion
The Guardian, 31 May 2006

"Tony Blair faces an unprecedented revolt from the wives and mothers of serving soldiers, who want British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. Dozens of women whose sons, husbands and daughters are now in the Gulf or have served there, have joined a national campaign to be launched this week calling for Britain to pull out of Iraq. In a strongly worded statement passed to the IoS, they claim the war in Iraq "was based on lies", and call for British withdrawal 'as a matter of urgency'.... The campaign comes in the wake of the bloodiest few weeks for British troops and civilians since the end of the war three years ago, with nine armed forces personnel and two journalists killed last month.... Twenty-eight people were killed and dozens were injured yesterday in a car-bomb attack in the British-held city of Basra, while in Baghdad insurgents killed a Russian diplomat and kidnapped four others. Outside the capital, eight severed heads were found; in Baquba, six policemen were killed at a checkpoint.... The outgoing commander of Sandhurst officers' training college admitted yesterday that the "mum factor" was having a significant impact on army recruitment, which is 15 per cent below target. Maj-Gen Andrew Ritchie said the Army's involvement in an unpopular conflict and the dangers of serving in Basra and Baghdad had undermined support... Several mothers have told the IoS their sons are increasingly unhappy about doing further tours in Iraq, because of the increasing hostility from ordinary Iraqis and the growing strength of the insurgency.... The women going public said they have a moral and personal duty to protest because, they claim, the coalition has clearly failed to bring peace and stability to Iraq. Their sons and husbands signed up to defend 'Queen and country', not to fight 'cowboy actions'."
Bring our boys home: Mothers say war was 'based on lies'
Independent On Sunday, 4 June 2006

"Almost 1,000 fed-up British soldiers have deserted since the start of the Iraq War, it was disclosed yesterday. Out of 8,600 AWOL between 2003 and 2005, 932 are still missing, with the numbers rising each year. One NCO still in hiding after deserting a year ago told the Mirror that hundreds of young recruits were demoralised by Iraq and bullying. Claiming many threatened suicide and took drugs in a desperate attempt to be discharged, he said: 'Iraq has played a huge part in lack of morale. People feel let down. I couldn't take any more.'... The 23-year- old NCO who spoke to Mirror absconded after four years' service, including a combat tour in Iraq. He said: 'There are some soldiers who are gungho about Iraq but most feel it's America's war. 'The pretext they sent us in under was wrong. We were told it was about weapons of mass destruction. Really it was about securing oil fields. It may sound selfish but I joined the army to defend Britain's interests not America's.'"
Deserter Storm
Mirror, 29 May 2006

"The United States does not have the military means to take over Baghdad and will lose the war against Iraq, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said. 'The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we can not win,' he told private radio TSF in an interview broadcast here on Tuesday evening. 'We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of the United States in this war is inevitable,' he said. 'Every time we confront Iraqi troops we may win some tactical battles, as we did for ten years in Vietnam, but we will not be able to win this war, which in my opinion is already lost,' Ritter added."
US defeat in Iraq 'inevitable'
News24, 26 March 2003

"Our dependence on oil also has implications for security of supply as well as security policy. Many international conflicts today revolve around energy issues. As we know, oil reserves are not distributed equally around the world. ."
Speech by Mona Sahlin at the conference 'Beyond Peak Oil' on Sweden's goal to be oil independent in Washington DC
Ministry of Sustainable Development, Sweden, 9 May 2006

So Where Is Most Of The Surplus Exportable Oil To Be Found?
Project For The New American 'Disaster' In The Middle East

"America’s global leadership, and its role as the guarantor of the current great-power peace, relies upon the safety of the American homeland; the preservation of a favorable balance of power in Europe, the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region... Nearly a decade after the Gulf War, U.S. air, ground and naval forces continue to protect enduring American interests in the region.... In the Persian Gulf region, the presence of American forces, along with British and French units, has become a semipermanent fact of life. Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.... In the decade since the end of the Cold War, the Persian Gulf and the surrounding region has witnessed a geometric increase in the presence of U.S. armed forces, peaking above 500,000 troops during Operation Desert Storm, but rarely falling below 20,000 in the intervening years....Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region...."
Rebuilding America's Defenses
Project For The New American Century, September 2000

"A secret blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.... The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'"
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
Sunday Herald, 15 September 2002

"....For the most part, U.S. oil policy has relied on maintenance of free access to Middle East Gulf oil and free access for Gulf exports to world markets, relying heavily on military preparedness. The U.S. has forged a special relationship with certain key Middle East exporters that had an expressed interest in stable oil prices and, we assumed, would adjust their oil output to keep prices at levels that would neither discourage global economic growth nor fuel inflation. Taking this dependence a step further, the U.S. government has operated under the assumption that the national oil companies of these countries would make the investments needed to maintain enough surplus capacity to form a cushion against disruptions. But recently, things have changed. These Gulf allies are finding their domestic and foreign policy interests increasingly at odds with America’s strategic considerations. They have become less inclined to lower oil prices in exchange for security of markets, and evidence suggests that adequate investment is not being made in a timely enough manner to increase production capacity in line with growing global needs. The opening of new media outlets in the Middle East has also increased the likelihood that a linkage will emerge in the minds of citizens there between the U.S. alliance with Israel and cooperation on oil prices. Moreover, a trend toward anti-Americanism could affect regional leaders’ abilities to cooperate with the U.S. in the energy area. The resulting tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key 'swing' producer,  posing a difficult situation for the U.S. government."
STRATEGIC ENERGY POLICY: CHALLENGES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
JAMES A. BAKER III INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY AND THE COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS, APRIL 2001

Disaster, What Disaster?
The Hope

"A U.S.-led war against Iraq with its massive oil reserves would probably inflict only modest and temporary pain on the world economy, analysts say, providing the conflict did not drag on and spread throughout the region. The immediate economic effect of hostilities would be a disruption in the production and export of Iraqi crude oil. Baghdad's reserves rank second in size to those of Saudi Arabia. 'The market is fairly laid back about a short, sharp and relatively confined conflict,' said Keith Morris, an oil industry analyst at French bank BNP Paribas ...  Iraq pumped 1.89 million barrels a day in September, or 2.5 percent of world supplies, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Because of the perceived risk of war in the Gulf, crude now costs about $25 a barrel, several dollars above what the price would be under normal market conditions. The Economist Intelligence Unit says this so-called war premium has already shaved 0.2 percent off annual growth rates in wealthy oil-importing countries. An attack on Iraq is widely expected to cause oil prices to spike at $30 or more per barrel."
War with Iraq spells disaster for oil production
Associated Press, 13 November 2002

Disaster, What Disaster?
The Reality

"With oil prices above $70 a barrel fouling the world economy, dismay is focusing on Iraq, whose exports have slipped to their lowest levels since the 2003 invasion. 'Iraq could be making a tremendous difference,' said Dalton Garis, an economist at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. Instead, its shortfall is 'a significant contributing factor to the high price of oil,' he said. Iraq, a founding member of OPEC, sits atop the world's third-highest proven reserves. Its estimated 115 billion barrels is more than any other OPEC member except for Saudi Arabia and Iran. But contrary to optimistic expectations, Iraq's oil production has slipped further and further since the U.S.-led invasion, to an average of 2 million barrels per day. It has never regained even the reduced production levels that prevailed in the 1990s, when Iraq was under tough U.N. sanctions. Iraq's oil could be providing relief to world markets, strained by high demand from China, the nuclear-related showdown with Iran and unrest near Nigeria's oil fields. Instead, it's not even covering its own needs.... exports from Iraq's southern oil fields have been hampered by the decrepit tugboats needed to pilot tankers to Persian Gulf terminals. The tugs, so old that spare parts can't be bought, frequently broke down or weren't seaworthy enough to handle rough winter seas. As a result, charges from tankers forced to delay loading cost Iraq $50 million during the past year, which the oil ministry paid by giving away oil, Orwel said. Insurgents have been so deft at shutting down the pipelines from the giant fields around the northern city of Kirkuk that Iraqi authorities tried to move crude by truck to its refineries and crudeburning power plants. But after insurgents attacked the trucks, drivers became difficult to recruit and the oil ministry was forced to cut production, Orwel said. Corruption has worsened the situation, according to a report release Tuesday by the oil ministry's inspector general. The loss of oil revenue to corruption and theft has become the biggest threat to Iraq's economy, costing Baghdad's beleaguered treasury billions of dollars, it said. Iraq's sputtering oil sector has defied optimists led by Vice President Dick Cheney and former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who hoped booming exports from Iraq could pay for its reconstruction and help satisfy world demand."
Crawling Iraq Oil Production Adds to Consumers' Woes
Associated Press, 29 April 2006

"New numbers this week from the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR) show oil production at 2.18 million barrels per day, 400,000 below 2003 prewar levels.  The World Bank estimates that just to stay at the current level, Iraq will need to invest at least $1 billion in additional revenue each year. The Iraqis want to achieve a 2.3 million-barrel-per-day rate.  The Bush administration once projected that Iraq would be rebuilt principally from Iraqi oil revenues, but that prediction has fallen by the wayside. U.S. taxpayers have funded more than $30 billion in reconstruction costs, plus tens of billions of dollars for military operations. 'Attacks on oil infrastructure remain a serous problem, despite attempts to bolster infrastructure security forces,' said the quarterly report by IG Stuart W. Bowen Jr. He said a program to train the Oil Protection Force to guard 4,340 miles of pipeline and 340 installations proved 'largely unsuccessful.' The Bush administration is now drafting a new defense strategy. The force was supposed to number over 14,000 troops, but today is at 3,400. Some units have been infiltrated by insurgents who provide critical information for plotting attacks. 'Although the number of infrastructure attacks has recently decreased, the complexity of the attacks has increased,' the IG report said. 'Insurgents have become more proficient at targeting critical infrastructure nodes, as well as intimidating personnel who deliver essential services.'  The report gave an example of how insurgents are hindering Iraq's primary source of income as it tries to build a new democratic nation. On Feb. 1, the enemy attacked a new desulphurization plant in Kirkuk. The Ministry of Oil then reverted to an older plant, which can only produce half of the new plant's 1 million barrels per day. Mr. Bowen said the industry is plagued not only by sabotage, but also by its dilapidated state during Saddam Hussein's rule, by corruption and by uncertainties over what laws govern production."
Report: Iraq oil production remains below prewar level
Washington Times, 2 May 2006

"In Iraq, insurgent attacks on the country's main pipelines north into Turkey have slashed hundreds of thousands of barrels a day from prewar exports of around 2 million barrels a day. Oil ministry officials said recently they hoped to reach those pre-invasion levels soon. But that requires a protracted pause in insurgent attacks -- and the assumption that Iran will not fan major unrest among the country's Shiites in retaliation for U.S. pressure on its nuclear program."
It's not just Iran: Across the globe, steady oil and gas supply at risk
Associated Press, 14 May 2005

"The American government subsidizes gas in many different ways, big and small. As consumers, we do not pay for the enormous expense involved in policing the Middle East, an expense we would almost certainly not incur if its chief export was carrots. We do not pay for the environmental fallout from burning gasoline..... President Bush has set up an absurd investigation into price fixing and gouging, which at best will be an exercise in futility. But imagine if he set up a national commission on energy that explained to Americans why prices were high. If the president and Congress were to propose a powerful package of measures—higher gas taxes, fuel-efficiency standards starting at 30 and rising to 40 miles per gallon, tax credits for new technologies—it would begin to wean the United States off its addiction to oil."
The Real Story Of Pricey Oil
Newsweek, 22 May 2006

".. The oil fields of Iraq are the least depleted and least developed of any of the Persian Gulf oil producing countries, and Iraq has the potential to rapidly increase oil output.......[However] The [post-invasion] political situation in Iraq is unlikely to be conducive to major investment in new oil production capacity for some years. .... It is quite possible that the Persian Gulf countries will not raise production capacity high enough or quickly enough, either for political reasons, the slowness of internal decision-making, or the hostile security environment. The consequences of this for world oil supply are immense, with the likelihood of further military interventions and conflicts within the Middle East …."
Oil Supply Challenges - 2: What Can OPEC Deliver?
Oil and Gas Journal, 7 March 2005

"Climate change and energy security were actually at the top of the agenda four years ago, but, let us remind ourselves, neither Mr Blair nor his ministers had the courage to make the necessary decisions..... Future historians may conclude that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a massive and unwarranted distraction from what Mr Blair really should have been doing in Britain's interests - sorting out where our energy was to come from and how we should lead the world into a low-carbon future."
Going nuclear is a half-baked strategy
Daily Telegraph, 18 May 2006

Solar Century - A Global Solution For All

"Peak oil is an emerging reality. With production already declining in all but a few major oil regions, an energy shortfall is inevitable. As demand for oil continues to grow, this shortfall can only mean disappointment for those around the world who aspire to live more like Americans, consuming their body weight in oil every week (150 pounds on average). Never mind price. Even if price is no object, production will begin to drop and shortages will become increasingly acute. There will be great temptation to exploit high-carbon, non-conventional fossil fuels that could accelerate global warming. To avoid disaster, solar energy must rise, and rapidly, to meet the challenge of oil depletion... Developed and developing countries alike are addicted to cheap oil. For the United States, depletion is going to be especially difficult. Americans use oil as if it will never run out.... Meanwhile, renewable energy technologies are being brushed aside by some peak oil 'experts' as too intermittent or diffuse to merit serious attention. Let’s examine a few of these objections to a full-scale transformation to renewables....sunlight is far more evenly distributed around the globe than is oil.... A hundred years ago, oil gushers yielded high net-energy recovery rates, but today solar, hydroelectric and wind power have net energy yields higher than conventional fuels such as oil, gas and coal, and an order of magnitude better than non-conventional fossil fuels. With their inherently high net-energy yields, renewables can be ramped up rapidly. (See table, 'Estimated Net Energy Yield of Conventional and Renewable Sources in the U.S.,' page 16.).... Transportation in a post-cheap-oil world poses special challenges. If non-conventional fossil fuels are untenable and transportation is powered almost exclusively by liquid fuels, it is tempting to propose biomass as a substitute for oil. In the United States, 1 billion tons of biomass are managed each year. To meet all our energy needs, 7 billion tons more would be required. Obviously, electric airplanes or cargo ships are impractical, so biomass will play an important role in our energy future. But liquid fuels exclusively from plant material will be possible for transport at only about one-tenth the present level worldwide. Something has to give.... We are ready for a good reason to get rid of the internal combustion engine in dense urban areas, where it is about as practical as a campfire in the kitchen. Efficiency in the face of oil depletion is that compelling reason. Solar technologies continue to improve, and so do electric vehicles. A battery with three times the energy density of lead-acid and a charging time under two minutes is scheduled for introduction in 2007 or 2008. Shanghai has an electromagnetic propulsion maglev train that travels at 270 miles per hour.... Developing similar growth rates for all renewables, it will be possible for sustainable solutions to realize their potential for oil, gas and coal substitution. The sidebar, 'Making the Transition,' (page 29), samples some industry proposals.... Renewable energy technologies have higher net-energy yield than nuclear by far and are faster to install, so it will be possible to ramp up in even less time. If others continue to insist that nuclear power, tar sands or coal-toliquids are options, the move to renewables will be even more critical as the only pathway that avoids potential nuclear terrorism and curbs global warming.... For the first time in history, all of humanity will share the same problem. This common challenge can help unify us, to recognize the futility of war and to make governments more responsive to our needs. We will need large national and international programs, similar in ambition and spirit to the Apollo 'Man on the Moon' program, to reduce our oil consumption and to create alternative energy sources. This transition will provide many good local jobs that cannot possibly be outsourced, and we will need a significant grassroots effort. If we get it right, we will be able to share a future of clean air and fresh water, viable oceans, thriving forests and peaceful coexistence. We must get it right, and be proud that we are members of the generation entrusted with the task."
Dawn of the Solar Era
Solar Today, March/April 2006

"Lennar announced a partnership with PowerLight Corporation and Roseville Electric to build the nation's largest solar community. The Sacramento division of Lennar will integrate photovoltaic systems and upgraded energy efficiency measures into 450 new homes slated to be built in Roseville over the next two years. The PowerLight SunTile solar electric system will be installed as a standard feature on each home. PowerLight's SunTile is a roof-integrated technology, blending beautifully and seamlessly into the homes' design. The benefits of this solar community include significant utility bill reductions for Lennar customers, and the generation of completely emissions-free electricity. By producing clean, renewable electricity, the solar community will reduce CO2 emissions and reduce dependence on fossil fuels – in quantities equivalent to planting more than 65 acres of trees, and not burning 57,000 barrels of oil."
Lennar to build nation's largest solar community
Construction and Maintenance News, 4 May 2006

Gorbachev Urges G8 To Back Solar Power

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No Solution In Sight? The Biggest Challenge Of All Is Changing The Way People Think Transforming Global Consciousness - Before It's Too Late

'PEAK OIL'
GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS LOOMING
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'Energy Update' Special - Inside The Chernobyl Nuclear Exclusion Zone - April 2006

What Use Are More Nuclear Power Stations? - April 2006

Ten Years To Prevent Catastrophe - 'Global Warming Ultra' The Climate Change Implications Of 'Peak Oil' As Conventional Oil Production Faces Accelerating Decline - March 2006

IEA Admits World Energy Policy Not Sustainable - Top Kuwaiti Field Enters Decline - Nov 2005

Dealing With Oil Pressure - September 2005

Chevron Urges Global Energy Crisis Debate - August 2005

G8 On Edge Of Acknowledging Potential For Global Energy Crisis - July 2005

After Peak Oil Do We Have The Technology? - June 2005

Bush 'Energy Policy' Precipitates New Global Anti-US Alliance - May 2005

Report For US Government Warns World Oil Production Fast Approaching Peak - April 2005

Record Shell Profits Mask More Oil Depletion - March 2005

Hot Leading Energy Consultants Tell US Peak Oil To Arrive As Early As 2014 As Deutsche Bank Report Warns Of Global Conflict Over Oil And Gas - January 2005 Hot

Yukos Reserves Commandeered As UK Diplomats Are Sent Out To Beg For Oil And Gas - December 2004

BP Executive Says World Oil Output To Peak In 5 To 15 Yrs - November 2004

Top Middle East Oil Figure Says Saudis Can't Deliver - October 2004

World Oil Demand Surges As Doubts About Saudi Oil Capacity Grow - August 2004

Why The Oil Crisis Is Different This Time - June 2004

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