Stories tagged with "geopolitics"

Turkmenistan, Nabucco, Azerbaijan, and Russian natural gas

Posted by Heading Out on November 7, 2009 - 10:25am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: azerbaijan, gas supply, geopolitics, nabucco pipeline, natural gas, russian natural gas production, turkmenistan [list all tags]

Robert Cutler has an interesting article in Gundogar recently in which he asks, concerning the recent articles questioning the size of Turkenistan’s gas reserves “Who stands to gain?” from the imbroglio. His conclusion is that it is likely the Russians, and certainly not the Turkmen.

The story, in brief, is that after a steadily rising projection of the size of the gas reserves in the country, the Turkmen President called in a Western auditing firm to look over the books and validate that the projections were real. The British firm, Gaffney Cline & Associates, came, looked at two fields, South Yolaton and Yashlar and certified, a year ago that they held probably 6 and 0.7 Tcm each. To put this in context, it would make South Yolaton the fourth or fifth largest gas field in the world, and would mean that Turkmenistan might have reserves as large as 80% of those reserves in the entire Russian nation. Turkmenistan is currently getting its gas from the Dovletabad field and it is this that was supplying natural gas to Russia and points west prior to April this year.

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Geopolitical Peak Oil Feedback Loops Revisited

Posted by jeffvail on February 14, 2009 - 10:49am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: export land model, feedback loops, geopolitics, mercantilism, nationalism, peak oil, privateering, return on investment [list all tags]

The world has changed a great deal since this post was written in October 2007. I think we would all say it is a lot less stable. It is worthwhile to stop and think how the things Jeff points out still apply, and what has changed.- Gail

It is quite common to hear experts explain that the current tight oil markets are due to “above-ground factors,” and not a result of a global peaking in oil production. In reality, geological peaking is driving the geopolitical events that constitute the most significant “above-ground factors” such as the chaos in Iraq and Nigeria, the nationalization in Venezuela and Bolivia, etc. Geological peaking spawns positive feedback loops within the geopolitical system. Critically, these loops are not separable from the geological events—they are part of the broader “system” of Peak Oil.

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Geopolitical Disruptions #2: Identifying the Feedback Loops

Posted by jeffvail on September 8, 2008 - 10:30am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: corruption, export land model, feedback loops, geopolitical feedback loops, geopolitics, nationalism, original, resource ownership, roi, targeting [list all tags]

This post, the second in a series on Geopolitical Feedback Loops (see part 1 here), will outline the various geopolitical feedback loops that operate to disrupt oil and resource production. I've tried to link most of these feedback loops around a common theme of ownership dispute, illustrated below. There are several examples for each feedback loop, but in the interest of time I've just listed them and linked to further information--each could be a post in its own right.

lines of dispute over who owns oil and other resources

Figure 1: Does the state own oil reserves or the nation? When the two are contiguous it makes little difference, but as they become increasingly dissimilar the dispute drives conflict. While I haven't divided the feedback loops explicitly along ownership lines, this graphic may help conceptualize these processes as a single system.
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Geopolitical Disruptions #1: Theory of Disruptions to Oil & Resource Supply

Posted by jeffvail on August 14, 2008 - 10:17am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: above ground factors, geopolitical feedback loops, geopolitics, gfl, original, supply disruption [list all tags]

The peak and gradual decline in world oil production is beginning to spawn a set of geopolitical positive-feedback-loops that seem likely to exacerbate depletion and accelerate the effective rate of decline of world oil production. Rather than isolated incidents, these geopolitical feedback loops are the direct result of geological peaking in oil production. Unlike geologically driven peaking, however, the effective rate of decline caused by geopolitical feedback loops has the potential to continually accelerate. This post will lay out a theory to better understand the impact of this system of geopolitical phenomena.

While geological peaking presents a significant challenge (black line = geologically determined oil production rate), it also acts as a catalyst for a system of geopolitical feedback loops that may catastrophically exacerbate the situation (red line = potential impact of accelerating geopolitical feedback loops on oil production rate)

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Nigeria – The Significance of the Bonga Offshore Oil Platform Attack

Posted by jeffvail on June 24, 2008 - 9:45am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: bonga, geopolitical feedback loops, geopolitics, mend, militants, nigeria, offshore, original, shell [list all tags]

On the heels of this weekend's Saudi Oil summit, Nigerian production has dropped to the lowest level in 25 years. This was in part because militant attacks shut in as much as 345,000 barrels per day of Nigerian production in the past few days. The Nigerian militant group MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) has demonstrated a continuing ability to interrupt production from Nigeria's mature, onshore fields. However, the future promise of Nigerian oil is not onshore. Rather, it is the 1.25 million barrels per day of offshore production scheduled to come on line in the next 6 years. Analysts previously believed these offshore facilities were out of MEND's reach.

This assumption--that far offshore facilities are beyond the reach of militants--must now be reconsidered. The week's most successful attack, shutting in 225,000 barrels per day, came against Shell's Bonga facility. At 120 km offshore, the Bonga attack demonstrated a new militant capability in the offshore environment. As Nigeria is one of the few states with the geological potential to significantly increase oil production and exports, the Bonga attack may prove to be an extremely important development.

Shell's offshore Bonga fpso off the coast of Nigeria

Shell’s $3.6 billion “Bonga” Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading vessel (FPSO), 120km from shore in 1000m deep water, was recently attacked by MEND militants.

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Geopolitical Feedback Loops in Resource and Oil Depletion

Posted by jeffvail on October 30, 2007 - 10:22am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: export land model, feedback loops, geopolitics, mercantilism, nationalism, original, peak oil, privateering, return on investment [list all tags]

This is a repost of an article that ran a few weeks ago. It was linked to by Professor Deffeyes, so it seemed a good time to bring it forward again.

It is quite common to hear experts explain that the current tight oil markets are due to “above-ground factors,” and not a result of a global peaking in oil production. In reality, geological peaking is driving the geopolitical events that constitute the most significant “above-ground factors” such as the chaos in Iraq and Nigeria, the nationalization in Venezuela and Bolivia, etc. Geological peaking spawns positive feedback loops within the geopolitical system. Critically, these loops are not separable from the geological events—they are part of the broader “system” of Peak Oil.

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ODAC Newsletter, Saturday 20 October

Posted by Doug Low on October 22, 2007 - 1:30am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: caspian sea, china, coal, economy, europe, geopolitics, iran, kyoto, natural gas, russia, united kingdom, wheat exports [list all tags]

Topics include:

Economy – UK and Europe; Geopolitics - Caspian; Coal / China / Kyoto Protocol; Natural Gas - Iran; Russia - Wheat Exports; ASPO-USA P.O. Conf. – Media Response; Economy - USA

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Geopolitical Feedback Loops in Peak Oil

Posted by jeffvail on October 3, 2007 - 10:00am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: export land model, feedback loops, geopolitics, mercantilism, nationalism, original, peak oil, privateering, return on investment [list all tags]

It is quite common to hear experts explain that the current tight oil markets are due to “above-ground factors,” and not a result of a global peaking in oil production. In reality, geological peaking is driving the geopolitical events that constitute the most significant “above-ground factors” such as the chaos in Iraq and Nigeria, the nationalization in Venezuela and Bolivia, etc. Geological peaking spawns positive feedback loops within the geopolitical system. Critically, these loops are not separable from the geological events—they are part of the broader “system” of Peak Oil.

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Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves?

Posted by jeffvail on September 10, 2007 - 9:50am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: cantarell, geopolitics, mexico, pemex [list all tags]

(Repromoted due to today's explosions in Pemex's pipelines and JHK's story and link to us today...originally posted 7/12/07)

In my annual new years predictions, I said that the most significant, and surprising, development of 2007 would be the collapse of both Mexico’s economy and its very existence as a viable Nation-State. While there hasn’t been a spectacular, single event confirming my prediction, there has been a steady erosion on all fronts—with five months left in the year, I’m not yet willing to push back my prediction of Mexico’s “collapse” to 2008. The decline of the Mexican Nation-State is a bellwether for the massively complex network of geopolitical influences sometimes termed above ground factors. It provides some insight into how symptoms of oil scarcity already being felt in poorer parts of the world will increasingly spill over into our own back yard…

UPDATE: After I wrote this story (July 7th), things took a serious turn for the worse with a series of rebel attacks on Mexican oil infrastructure: Bloomberg, Forbes (research credit: Dantes Peak).

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Nigeria: A Closer Look at "Above Ground Factors"

Posted by jeffvail on June 22, 2007 - 1:45am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: geopolitics, nigeria, peak oil [list all tags]

Oil prices recently passed $69/barrel in New York (and above $72/barrel for Brent) over fears that a looming general strike in Nigeria will exacerbate already tight oil supplies.

The “indefinite strike” is scheduled to start Wednesday, June 20th, and will include both major union groups in the country. The prospect of a strike successfully shutting down Nigeria’s remaining oil exports is rightly driving world markets, but what is the relationship between this strike and the background of violence and attacks in the Niger Delta? Buried below headlines of the looming strike, this week saw two significant attacks: one on a Chevron facility that cut 42,000 barrels of oil production, and a separate takeover of an ENI facility taking 27 people hostage and cutting 40,000 barrels of production.

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