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Saudis Expand Regional Power as Others Falter

CAIRO — The rulers of Saudi Arabia trembled when the Arab Spring revolts broke out four years ago. But far from undermining the Saudi dynasty, the ensuing chaos across the region appears instead to have lifted the monarchy to unrivaled power and influence. As a new king assumes the throne in Riyadh, the stability-first authoritarianism that the Saudis have long favored is resurgent from Tunis to Cairo to Manama. The election-minded Islamists that the Saudis once feared are on the run. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the interior minister who spearheaded the push against them, was rewarded last week with his elevation to deputy crown prince, the first in his generation in the line of succession. The catch, analysts and diplomats say, is that the ascendance of the Saudis is largely a byproduct of the feebleness or near-collapse of so many of the states around them, including Iraq, Egypt, Syria, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Shiite rebels violently disperse demonstrators in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Shiite rebels armed with knives and batons have attacked and detained demonstrators trying to protest against them in Yemen’s capital. The Houthi rebels seized Sanaa in September and last week put the president, prime minister and top Cabinet members under house arrest. On Monday, Houthi militiamen attacked protesters and journalists at Sanaa’s Change Square. It wasn’t clear how many people they detained, though witnesses said they saw rebels attack those gathered there. Last week, the standoff in the capital grew violent and Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi resigned as the country’s president. His Cabinet also resigned, though parliament has yet to accept their resignations. In the time since, demonstrations against the Houthis have grown across the country.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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In Bold Push Forward, Islamist Militants Attack a Major Nigerian City

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Maiduguri, the major city in Nigeria’s northeast, came under sustained attack from Boko Haram terrorists on Sunday, and officials here called it the group’s most audacious assault on the city to date. By early afternoon, the attackers had been beaten back, but not before dozens of soldiers had been killed, officials said. They said the insurgents had taken a major military base to the north of the city, sending about 1,400 soldiers fleeing into the bush. The attack on this city of more than two million people, a commercial and administrative hub, began late Saturday when the militants from the Islamist insurgency rushed in from at least two directions. Loud explosions could be heard in the center of the city, as well as small-arms fire and artillery in its suburbs. The attack was a significant thrust forward in a creeping campaign that began last summer to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Nigeria: Trans-Forcados Pipelines Attacked Four Times This Year

Abuja — The Trans-Forcados pipelines which carries crude oil from production facilities to export terminals in Forcados has been attacked four times by vandals and oil thieves, since the beginning of this year alone. Executive Director, Gas and Power, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. David Ige who disclosed this in Abuja at the weekend noted that besides the loss of thousands of barrels every day, about 1000 million cubic feet per day of gas are lost too. Ige explained that the loss of gas from the pipelines means several power plants are also shut down. "We have had the vandalisation of Trans Forcados Pipeline almost once every week for the last couple of weeks and it is not just a recent outage. From the first of January this year and today, the pipe has been vandalized, we fixed it and it is vandalized again and again and we […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Where to Buy Gasoline for $0.002 a Gallon, Seriously

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro told lawmakers last week he’s considering raising gasoline prices. That might be a good idea. It’s been two decades since the government last lifted state-set local prices, the result of politicians’ concern that the move could spark protests like those that swept across the oil-rich nation following an increase in 1989. In the interim, a string of currency devaluations has pushed down the cost in dollar terms to levels that would seem implausible to consumers in other parts of the world, even after the recent oil tumble cut prices at the pump. The CHART OF THE DAY shows it now costs about 0.2 U.S. cent (that’s right; one-fifth of a penny) to buy a gallon of gasoline in Venezuela , based on black-market currency rates. Expressed another way, you can get 482 gallons with just one dollar. That’s enough to drive a Chevrolet Silverado pickup […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Rebels Tied to Blackout Across Most of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Towns and cities across Pakistan plunged into darkness early Sunday when what officials said was an attack by militants on a transmission line short-circuited the national electricity grid, presenting a new indictment of the government’s faltering efforts to solve the country’s chronic power crisis. Emergency efforts to end the blackout, widely described as Pakistan ’s worst ever, resulted in a partial restoration of power in the capital, Islamabad, and the most populous city, Karachi, by Sunday evening. Even so, 80 percent of the country remained without power, including the provincial capitals of Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, an official said. The minister for water and power, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, blamed separatist rebels in the western province of Baluchistan who, he said, had blown up a critical transmission line. But experts said the attack only highlighted the growing vulnerability of Pakistan’s power grid, which has come under severe […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Hype, Broken Promises, and Shales

Hype, Broken Promises, and Shales thumbnail The term shale revolution has been used so much that it almost has no meaning anymore. But were shales ever really the energy panacea promised or merely a self styled hype machine? Would the frenzy in drilling ever have truly taken off if it weren’t for cheap money? These are valid questions which have not been explored adequately because too many investors, journalists and elected officials were caught up in shale mania. But was this ever truly an exercise that would provide long term benefits to American consumers? It is an inarguable fact that shales have produced copious quantities of hydrocarbons in the past few years but this is not really surprising given that the wells, by their very nature, produce the most oil or gas they will ever produce in the first twelve months or so of their lives. So when the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China crude oil reserves down 4 pct

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) — China’s commercial crude oil stocks were down 3.89 percent at the end of December from a month before, while stocks of refined oil products dropped 4.02 percent. In December, China imported 30.1 million tonnes of crude oil, a sharp rise from the previous month, and produced 18.3 million tonnes domestically. Gasoline stocks fell 3.16 percent as lower oil prices boosted consumption. Diesel stocks rose 13.6 percent due to poor industrial demand. The stocks of kerosene fell 4.27 percent as the holiday travel peak increased air traffic.

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Obama Moves to Put Much of Refuge Off Limits to Drilling

President Barack Obama ’s call to restrict oil exploration on 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge probably won’t have much practical impact for an area already off-limits to drillers, though it’s created a new fault line with the Republican-led Congress. The White House on Sunday said it would ask Congress to designate “core areas” of the 19.8 million-acre refuge as wilderness, including its 1.5 million-acre coastal plain that geologists believe lies atop a rich oil reserve. “Designating vast areas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness reflects the significance this landscape holds for America and its wildlife,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in the statement. The practical impact is slight because Republicans, who now control both chambers of Congress, voiced immediate opposition. And oil and gas production is already prohibited in the Arctic refuge. It does add to the list of energy issues that the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The most important thing to understand about the coming oil production cutbacks

A mountain of damaged oil drums near the Exxon Refinery. Photographer: John Messina. Environmental Protection Agency. (1972) via Wikimedia Commons. (orig published at Resilience Dec 2014) What the current oil price slump means for world oil supply is starting to emerge. "Layoffs," "cutbacks," "delays," and "cancellations" are words one sees in headlines concerning the oil industry every day. That can only mean one thing in the long run: less supply later on than would otherwise have been the case. But perhaps the most important thing you need to understand about the coming oil production cutbacks is where they are going to come from, namely Canada and the United States. Why is this important? For one very simple reason. Without growth in production from these two countries, world oil production ( crude oil plus lease condensate  which is  the definition of oil ) from the first quarter of 2005 through […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple