Archive for the ‘Russia’ Category

OPEC on steroids

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Russia isn’t a member of OPEC, but has the attitude down pat:

Russia wants to influence global oil prices through output forecasts and mothballing deposits for future development, Shmatko said on Thursday.

Shmatko said Russia’s policy would not involve coordinated action with OPEC states, although he said Russia admired OPEC’s influence on prices and should do its part to smooth the oil price “roller coaster ride” of recent months.

“We think that since we have such a significant position in the high society of world oil, a Russian factor should appear. We want to formulate our approach,” Shmatko told reporters.

“We think we should be more actively engaged in the market … From the point of view of forecasts we could express our view, perhaps even actively engage in that in a practical way,” Shmatko said. “The idea of mothballing oilfields seems very interesting to me.”

Gal Luft discussed the Saudi oil mothballing attitude in a recent Baltimore Sun oped:

[Saudi] per capita oil reserves are 130 times that of the U.S. Upon recent discoveries of oil in the kingdom, King Abdullah ordered that those new finds be left untapped to preserve the nation’s oil wealth for future generations. “When there were new finds, I told them, ‘No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it,’” the king said.

So we can expect Russia to join the “Drill less” faction –(in case you missed Gal Luft’s recent Senate testimony: whenever non-OPEC countries drill more, OPEC drills less.) As the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency put it, focusing specfically on increased US drilling: “Assuming that world oil markets continue to work as they do today, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could neutralize any potential price impact of ANWR oil production by reducing its oil exports by an equal amount.”

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Get flexible

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

The newest Set America Free Coalition member, Admiral James Lyons, writes in the Washington Times:

Terrorist training camps and insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere are funded by Saudi and Iranian petrodollars. So are bounties for families of suicide bombers. It is incredible: by buying Saudi-controlled OPEC oil we finance a war against ourselves.

But the Saudis are not alone. Iran has used its vast accumulation of petrodollars to support terrorism throughout the Middle East as well as providing funds for their drive to develop a nuclear weapon. Oil has also given Iran, Venezuela and — in the past — Libya the flexibility to ignore economic sanctions by finding amoral partners such as China, Russia and some of the European countries who are willing to trade with them. Petro revenue has provided Vladimir Putin the means to centralize his power, bully his neighbors and steer Russia on an independent course that has been unhelpful to U.S. interests.

For all these reasons, as well as for our long-term economic and security concerns, we must break our addiction to oil…

We have technology that will underpin an energy strategy that will break our petro-addiction and OPEC’s hegemony. That strategy lies in something already available: mixed-fuel technology; vehicles that use a mixture of ethanol, methanol and gasoline.

Ethanol is produced from a variety of agricultural sources, primarily sugarcane and corn, at as low as $1.50 a gallon. In 2006, methanol, which can be made from coal, natural gas and agricultural waste, was being sold without any subsidies for 80 cents per gallon.

The engineering difference for a flex fuel car requires an additional sensor and computer chip that controls the fuel-air mixture. It also should have a corrosion resistant fuel system. The overall increase in costs for a flex fuel car will average about $100 per vehicle.

This year Detroit has offered two dozen models with a flex fuel option. To accelerate this program, Congress needs to put politics aside and enact legislation to require that 50 percent of all vehicles produced by our auto manufacturers must be flex fuel by 2012. This will not be easy. However, this is a figure the Big Three auto makers proposed to President Bush when they met last year.

Posted in Flex fuel vehicles, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia, ethanol, methanol | Comments Closed

West’s energy security ever-more at the mercy of foreign governments

Friday, December 29th, 2006

Set America Free Coalition member Frank Gaffney writes in the Washington Times:

As the Communist Chinese and fascistic Russian regimes move to forge close relations with energy-rich nations like Iran, Libya, Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia, and as the Kremlin consolidates its control over Russia’s own vast resources, America and her allies will find themselves increasingly imperiled by their dependency on such sources for oil products and/or natural gas.
As a result, President Bush needs to make increased U.S. energy security a central part of the overhauled war-fighting strategy that he is set to announce next month. To do so, he must clearly go beyond the lip service that he paid to our “addiction to oil” in last year’s State of the Union speech by taking steps that will make a difference.
Done properly, energy security could be one of the most promising areas for cooperation between the Bush Administration and Democrats in Congress. By concentrating on areas where considerable progress is possible (rather than on such neuralgic issues as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or increased CAFE fuel-efficiency standards), America — and in particular its gas-guzzling transportation sector — could be made significantly less reliant on oil supplied by unstable or hostile regimes.
Such a course of action has been laid out in a blueprint produced by the Set America Free Coalition — a group spanning the political spectrum — that forms the basis for the bipartisan, bicameral Vehicle & Fuel Choices for American Security Act (introduced in the last session of Congress as S.2025 in the Senate and H.R. 4409 in the House). It entails two principal steps: (1) ensuring all cars sold in America will be Flexible Fuel Vehicles, capable of burning not just gasoline but ethanol and methanol (or some combination thereof); and (2) assuring the availability of substantially increased quantities of such alternative fuels.
This legislation would also help make electricity a true transportation fuel, by promoting the manufacture of plug-in hybrid vehicles. Since scarcely any electricity is generated in America by burning oil, the widespread use of such vehicles could greatly reduce our dependence on foreign sources of petroleum. To realize the full potential of this option, however, President Bush and the Congress will need to join forces on one other important initiative: assuring large-scale U.S. production of advanced lithium ion batteries, an essential ingredient for our future energy — and national — security and the competitiveness of our auto industry.

Posted in Blogroll, Flex fuel vehicles, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, ethanol, methanol, plug in hybrids | Comments Closed

Victor Davis Hanson: How oil lubricates our enemies

Monday, June 12th, 2006

VDH:

“Take away the $300-500 billion in windfall profits piled up in the coffers of the oil-exporting nations recently, and Hugo Chavez becomes just another spluttering Castro, hardly able to pay for his bankrupt populism in Venezuela, much less export it beyond his borders. Without petroleum largesse, Iran’s Mohammed Ahmadinejad could afford neither a multi-billion-dollar nuclear weapons program nor costly subsidies for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on capitalists, political freedom, and further Russian reforms comes only because he controls energy exports vital to the world economy.

“And huge petroleum profits don’t just empower dictators, subsidize nuclear proliferation, and curtail economic reform. They also have pernicious psychological effects. Americans hit with gasoline price hikes of nearly a dollar a gallon have fallen to despairing over our economy. Try telling furious motorists that the extra cost for most drivers amounts only to about $500-700 per year–a pittance compared to sky-high housing prices that leap tens of thousands of dollars annually. No matter: people see the numbers on the gas pump, and less cash in their wallets, and figure the U.S. is teetering on the brink.

“Foreign policy is warped as well. Because of its dependency on Middle East gas and oil, Europe’s high talk about human rights doesn’t apply much to Arab extremists with energy-rich patrons in the Gulf. America is in a war against Islamic fascism, yet treads carefully around Saudi Arabia, despite the kingdomͳ subsidies to America-hating madrasahs. When poor oil-importing countries in Africa and Latin America make sacrifices to enact tough market reforms, their hard work only helps to enrich failed states like Iran, Libya, and Venezuela lucky enough to have an accidental resource beneath their feet that was found, exploited, and mostly purchased by the Westerners they demonize.”

Posted in Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela | Comments Closed