New oil supplies are coming primarily from Central Asia and Iraq, where nearly a dozen major contracts have been finalized with foreign producers in 2010. The largest prize is the Rumaila Field, in southeast Iraq near the head of the Persian Gulf, with proven reserves 18 billion barrels. BP and China National Petroleum have signed [...]

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At the EIA’s International Energy Outlook (IEO) presentation this May the issue of future oil exports from OPEC nations came up, and in an interesting way. Readers may be familiar with the phenomenon of declining net exports, from major oil producing nations, as a result of internal demand from growing, domestic populations. The phenomenon was [...]

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At the beginning of 2011 Russia will exhaust its oil reserve fund. This is going to exacerbate Russia’s budget problems, and make Russia just “like everyone else.”
With discontent already rising in Russia during 2010, the loss of the oil reserve fund is sure to cause even more discontent.
It had long been a talking point amongst [...]

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A tiny mid-July ballet among American, Chinese and UN statisticians camouflages a growing geopolitical threat: China’s unquenchable thirst for and America’s dependence on imported oil.
Geopolitical threat: China’s and America’s growing need for imported oil

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to cut oil supplies to the United States in case of a military attack from Colombia as a dispute escalated over charges his country harbors Colombian rebels.
A vocal and frequent critic of the United States, Chavez broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia last week over the claims by [...]

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Last month, Shahat was among the first in Hurghada to discover, like other fishermen who inadvertently sailed through it, what some experts are already calling one of Egypt’s worst oil spills in recent years.
Many details regarding the source of Egypt’s latest spill, which washed up on the shores of an area rich in biodiversity and [...]

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In response to the BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, President Obama has launched a 6 month moratorium on new deepwater exploration contracts and other oil drilling restrictions.
But China isn’t stopping.
Just this month, state-owned Chinese companies have signed contracts worth over $50 billion in Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Iraq, Venezuela, and Nigeria.
Most deal include an export clause, locking [...]

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This second oil rig accident seems like a true accident, but it certainly makes one wonder if terrorism is somehow involved.
Even as the oil slick from the ruined Deepwater Horizon creeps onto the Lousiana shoreline, Reuters is reporting that another offshore drilling rig has overturned- this time among the inland waters near Morgan City, LA.
BREAKING: [...]

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On Saturday, the New York Times published an important story supporting the realist view.  It described the rapid expansion of China’s naval capabilities (a classic manifestation of great power status), as well as the more ambitious new strategy that this growing capacity is designed to serve. Briefly, as China’s economic power and dependence on overseas [...]

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One of the criteria for a major war to break out is weakened alliances. The fact that NATO’s purpose is unclear is a bad sign. Also, Europe wants to eliminate U.S. nuclear weapons from European soil, which is another bad sign.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is heading to a meeting of NATO ministers in [...]

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