Last month, Earth Day came and went. Perhaps you missed hearing about it. For 2013, the theme was “The Face of Climate Change.” Other than a change in the Post Office cancellation mark on your letters from the usual wavy lines, to the four stick-like wind turbines and a sun symbol, there was little note of what was once an event celebrated by 20 million Americans.  More »

For the last few years, along with a bunch of other folks, I’ve been receiving the web blasts of Mieko Mahi, an unusually named photographer who works in the oil and gas industry. Eventually I met her, entirely accidentally, and we struck up an acquaintance. I was impressed by her work, but I was even more intrigued by what motivates her, what makes her tick.  More »

Forget the Arab Spring. Islamists have already hijacked it. But, as if internally extinguishing the hope of democracy isn’t enough, dark clouds are now gathering to blot out the economic ‘sun’ for the oil-powered Middle East states, ushering in – courtesy of the West’s technological fracking ‘miracle’ – a new Arab winter.  More »

Since its inception in 1960, OPEC has never been shy in flexing its energy-fuelled power over the West. But those days are gone. And it’s not just the US and Israeli shale gas and oil revolution which threatens OPEC decline. OPEC is already grappling with a whole bunch of serious energy problems that are colluding to hasten its demise.  More »

In honor of Margaret Thatcher’s memory, favorite quotes from the Iron Lady have popped up everywhere. This one came across my Facebook newsfeed: “Global warming ‘provides a marvelous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.’”  More »

In an era of political pygmies whose greater concern is for opinion polls and dubious consensus politics, it is hard not to look back with nostalgia to a very different era. An era when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – both conviction politicians – represented a style of leadership that is so glaringly absent from today’s world stage.  More »

Israel’s transformation from a land of milk and honey into a land awash with oil and gas money is underway. The country’s offshore Tamar field finally started pumping domestic natural gas direct to Haifa in March, meaning Israel is no longer in the thrall of its Arab neighbors for gas imports.  More »

Indonesia and Iraq’s oil trajectories have intersected: one going up, the other going down. While Indonesia, a one-time OPEC member, has seen its glory days fade as a major international oil player, Iraq is making a comeback, like a heavyweight boxer sidelined with injuries going back into the ring again for the title.  More »

Israel’s transformation from a land of milk and honey into a land awash with oil and gas money is under way. When the country’s offshore Tamar field finally started pumping domestic natural gas direct to Haifa on the last day of March 2013, it meant that Israel was no longer in the thrall of its Arab neighbours for gas imports. And it also signalled the beginning of what could be an Israeli energy superpower status.  More »

Ever since massive quantities of natural gas were discovered in Israeli and Cypriot territorial waters, the reaction of Russia under the ubiquitous Vladimir Putin became a giant question mark. After all Russia’s energy hegemony over Europe was at stake.  More »

Recently, I published a piece in Energy Tribune that noted the folly in the effort by Dow Chemical and others to attempt to slow the export of liquid natural gas (LNG). In response, America’s Energy Advantage (AEA) published a blog attempting to refute the points I laid out.  More »

Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has passed away after a very public illness, evoking sympathy by all those in the world admiring his firebrand rhetoric against the devil incarnate himself, the United States (Chávez own preferred allegory.) The most prominent will be Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who will fly to Venezuela to pay his respects to his “hermano”.  More »