Afghans ready to exploit country’s massive mineral wealth


Stratrisks

Afghanistan plans to put four or five oil and gas extraction and minerals mining projects out to tender for development this year, as the strife-ridden country reaches out to investors to help develop its vast resources.

The projects involves the exploration and development of oil, natural gas, iron ore, copper and gold, the country’s minister of mines, Wahidullah Shahrani, said last week.

“We plan to put out tenders in two new basins for oil and gas exploration this year and two more next year or 2015,” he said. “Afghanistan has the potential to be more than self-sufficient in oil and gas.”

Afghanistan aims to raise the contribution of the resources industry to the nation’s economic output to 45 per cent by 2024, up from 3 per cent last year, Shahrani said.

The nation, which has suffered decades of strife since the 1970s, including two civil wars, also plans to put one or two lithium and rare earth projects out to tender this year, he said. The minerals are used by battery and electronic product manufacturers.

While the country is currently one of the poorest in the world judged by GDP per capita, the US Geological Survey estimated in 2010 that Afghanistan’s mineral resources were worth some US$1 trillion.

But under-developed infrastructure, corruption and security problems have kept most Western firms away from investing in the nation, leaving Chinese and Indian state-backed firms as Afghanistan’s biggest infrastructure builders and resources developers.

The state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the parent of the listed company PetroChina and the mainland’s largest oil and gas producer, committed last year to investing US$600 million to explore and develop areas previously explored by Russian firms more than four decades ago.

Shahrani said commercial production is expected to start this year, with the output destined for domestic consumption.

Kabul is in negotiations with a consortium consisting of the state-backed company Turkish Petroleum, Dragon Oil, which is based in Dubai, and the independent oil and gas firm Kuwait Energy on an oil and gas exploration and development deal worth more than US$1 billion, Shahrani said.

Metallurgical Corporation of China joined Jiangxi Copper in 2007 to sign a deal to develop the Aynak copper mine near Kabul. The two companies committed to spend US$3 billion to US$4 billion to develop the mine, subject to the completion of feasibility studies.

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The Mother of All Conspiracies


(Part 7)


Dave Hodges
Activist Post

I bring this information to the public with a very heavy heart. Some journalists revel in being able to expose the type of dramatic conspiracy contained in this article.

I take no such pleasure in bringing this to your attention. I will receive no awards or accolades, nor do I seek any. I am setting myself up to be criticized as “one of those conspiracy theorists” with too much time on his hands who has nothing better to do with my time than to invent wild tales of corruption in an attempt to draw attention to myself. I will not be invited on Coast to Coast AM, to reveal my findings to an audience of 12 million people. Perhaps, 10-20 thousand people will actually take the time to read the stunning facts contained in the following paragraphs. What I am trying to accomplish is to start a chain reaction that will culminate in waking up a majority of the public in order to rise up against the abject evil that runs our country. This article is controversial, and I might not actually believe it myself except that every fact in this article is true.

This article is structured in such a way that if the reader takes the time to follow the evidence trail, there can only be one conclusion that makes any sense.

Specifically, this article will detail the following:
    1. The globalists through their government minions are in the process of destroying massive bodies of water including, but not limited to Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The destruction is not because of neglect, it is willful destruction with very ulterior motives in mind.
    2. The globalists are using nitrates from fertilizer and Corexit to accomplish their desire to create a dead zone in the aforementioned bodies of water.
    3. The globalists are creating water dead zones which will allow the proliferation of algae growth and the oil companies have initially led the charge to convert our energy usage from oil to algae.
    4. Prominent globalists are involved in this conspiracy and have contributed massive resources to this endeavor.
    5. Prominent globalists are attempting to buy up as much water as possible to exacerbate the destruction of water resources in the aforementioned areas. In other words, Americans are looking at extreme water scarcity from which the globalists can wage wars and force submission to their will, while at the same time carry out their stated depopulation agenda.
    6. My instincts tell me that this conspiracy has more breadth and depth than what is revealed here and it is my sincere hope that my fellow researchers will afford some much needed attention to these issues, because I strongly believe there is more to learn and we do not have much time because humanity’s fate hangs in the balance.
How many times in the history of the insurance industry, have individuals or businesses been caught setting fire to their homes and businesses in order to receive a lucrative payout of insurance money? This is exactly what BP and Exxon are doing. They are intentionally burning down their own home (oil) in order to construct a behemoth palace (bio-fuels).

From Parts Five and Six of this series, it was conclusively proven that BP, Goldman Sachs, Transocean and Halliburton prepositioned (e.g. BP stock dumping) themselves to make money from the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. However, there is a lot more going on in the Gulf than a handful of corporations each making hundreds of millions of dollars from their contrived role in the oil spill. The motive to destroy the Gulf holds the promise of making certain entities and individuals multi-trillions of dollars.

The Obama administration and many others (individual billionaires, select politicians, BP, Exxon, Nalco, GM, GE, Goldman Sachs, University of Chicago, and many others including the Department of Defense) are all deeply invested in bio-fuels. These billionaire psychopaths will willingly sacrifice the Gulf and all of its residents for this multi Trillion Dollar industry representing a new era of energy applications.

Algae Will Replace Oil As the Nation’s Energy Source

algNitrogen fertilizers and Corexit are being used to systematically create dead zones in large bodies of water in the United States. The use of nitrogen fertilizers and Corexit are accomplishing the same result. This is no coincidence, as the tragedy in the Gulf was perpetrated to accomplish this end.

Farmers apply nitrogen fertilizer to crops to increase yield. Farmers are compensated by the government for crop yield. Therefore, farmers overload the soil. Plants absorb only 30 to 50% of the nitrogen, so as much as 70%, or 87 pounds per acre will end up running off into the nearest body of water. The only thing that grows in this environment is algae. Therefore, nitrogen has a decided evil side as it is creating huge problems with major bodies of water that we are only now beginning to understand. The EPA is aware of the problem, yet remains silent on the issue.

Chesapeake Bay is polluted beyond repair in which massive fish kills, general habitat degradation and bacteria proliferation threatens the health of humans.  The damage is rampant. This massive pollution, resulting from the nitrogen runoffs resulting from agricultural endeavors, fills the Chesapeake Bay and, again, the only substance which flourishes in the bay is algae.

Each and every spring, excess fertilizer is deposited into the Mississippi River which eventually ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, thus causing a massive algae bloom that leads to a giant oxygen-deprived “dead zone” where fish can’t survive. And the same thing is going on in the Great Lakes in places like Lake Erie.

Following the Gulf oil spill, and against all common sense, the most lethal form of dispersant, Corexit, was used to treat the oil spill. Instead, what happened is that the spill has resulted in the creation of the second largest dead zone body of water in the world; second only to the Baltic Sea. And, as the reader will discover later in this article, the new energy craze among the so-called environmentalists is algae.

In isolation, we seem to only be looking at a pollution problem that the EPA should deal with. Simply put, the use of nitrogen fertilizer and Corexit should be banned. However, when we look at the totality of the Corexit/nitrogen problem being used to destroy our water supplies, one should immediately sit up and take notice.

Once one understands that Algae proliferates in an otherwise dead zone of water, then one will understand why Corexit was used in the Gulf. And when one understands that fact, one can only conclude that Gulf oil spill was not an accident as it marks the ushering in of a new era in which the bio-fuel, algae, will replace oil. And, amazingly, the oil companies are among those who are behind this plot to destroy major bodies of water in order to allow for the propagation of algae.

President Obama is also participating in this conspiracy against humanity. On March 15, 2013, President Obama announced that it is his intention to move American vehicles away from oil to bio-fuels. Obama, amazingly in this period of Sequestration, has asked Congress for two billion dollars to expand research in this area. And isn’t it an interesting coincidence that the President’s science advisor, John Holdren, in 2009, advocated for “fertilizing” the oceans? I remember that most people thought Holdren had lost his mind when he proposed this as a solution for global warming. However, in the context of creating dead zones through the use of Corexit and nitrogen fertilizers, his suggestion makes a great deal of sense in light of today’s heightened interest in bio-fuels. This cannot be described as anything but psychopathic thinking in that the EPA would allow nitrogen fertilizers to destroy major bodies of water in which only algae can grow. And that this administration would even entertain the idea of creating oceanic dead zones through fertilizing these bodies of water is nothing but pure insanity. It is dangerous to the entire well-being of the planet. But of course, we are dealing with psychopaths.

How many brush fires equals an all-out forest fire? How many coincidences does it take to make a conspiracy? For those who think that there are some interesting thoughts presented here, but the conspiracy angle of destroying major bodies of water to foster the growth of algae needs more proof, let’s take a look at a variable which will connect all the dots.

Amazingly, the oil companies are attempting to lead the way in the process of converting our energy sources from oil to bio-fuels such as algae.

Burning Down Their Own Houses

I began to realize that many of our major bodies of water were being destroyed and all that was necessary to reverse the destruction was to halt the use of nitrogen fertilizers. Then I discovered that Corexit creates the same kind of dead zones just like nitrogen which also was unnecessary in its use because a less virulent dispersant could have been used in the Gulf. Did you know that Corexit is banned in 19 countries? It was at that moment that the light went on for me as I realized that we were witnessing the systematic destruction of major bodies of water on a grand scale. This was coupled with my discovery that the oil companies appear to be preparing to transition from oil to algae.

In August of 2009, BP entered into a partnership with Martek Biosciences to study the use of algae to convert sugar into biodiesel. Eight months later, BP’s and Transocean’s “negligence” led to the oil spill which gravely impacted the food chain, poisoned all life forms in the Gulf and dealt an eventual death blow to the Gulf by creating a massive series of dead zones where nothing will grow, except for algae, for generations to come.

BP is not alone with regard to a major oil company’s foray into the algae business. ExxonMobil entered into a partnership with Synthetic Genomics in order to develop energy’s next king, bio-fuels from algae. From this work, it was discovered that Corexit increases the bioaccumulation of petroleum hydrocarbons into golden-brown algae. For oil companies to be involved in algae conversion is the metaphorical equivalent of burning down your own house in order to collect the insurance money, and this is precisely what they did to the Gulf.

These facts certainly beg the question as to why BP and Exxon Mobil would be investing in a technology which would threaten their only viable product, namely oil?

Why Algae?

Algae has the potential to avoid most of the problems of conventional bio-fuels production, such as competition with food crops, and in principle can have dramatic effects on carbon dioxide emissions, even consuming emissions from sources such as coal-fired power plants.

The major problem with using algae as the next bio-fuel is that the fuel yields from algae are still too low for it to be a break-even proposition. However, if that problem were to be solved, algae would be king because it is such a low-maintenance substance. In a related and stunning development, Exxon has partnered with Craig Venter, the pioneer of DNA research. Venter has a stellar record of achievement in his work on the human genome. If anyone can solve the algae yield problem, Venter would the guy. However, if Venter cannot solve the problem of algae yield, OriginOil, Inc. is developing a novel technology which will transform algae into a source of renewable oil. Below is a depiction of the process.


It Is Not a Conspiracy Until You Follow the Money

Readers need to keep in mind, that Exxon and BP began moving into the algae business several months prior to the Gulf oil spill and BP and its partners have been caught pre-positioning their stock moves to maximize profits and minimize losses IN ADVANCE of the oil spill event. And now they are leading the way to convert the nation from oil to algae energy use. These twin giant oil companies have had a lot of help in making this massive conversion a reality. George Soros is involved in “clean energy conversion” away from oil. Readers may recall from Part Six of this series proved that Soros financial interests were among the top five of financial institution which dumped BP stock a few short weeks before the oil spill, thus, making him a co-conspirator. And now Soros is heavily invested in Gulf algae farms as he has invested $1 billion dollars in the endeavor.

The US military invested $35 million dollars in algae jet fuel. Blackstone Group consulted with the Chesapeake Bay region energy provider Constellation Energy to sell company to Warren Buffet and his company Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet is majorly involved in bio-fuels and the algae laden Chesapeake Bay is prime hunting ground for this globalist. Al Gore is also involved in various algae projects as well. The same cast of characters keep rearing their ugly faces in their attempt to subjugate humanity while at the same time make a King’s ransom in the process.

Conclusion

T. Boone Pickens is well on his way to controlling the vast Ogallala Aquifer. Pat Stryker and Koch brothers are involved in garnering Colorado’s water resources in the beta test battleground for Agenda 21. Did you know that that it is illegal in Colorado to reuse irrigation water and to catch rain water? We should be asking ourselves why. Additionally, the Bush family controls the biggest water aquifer in South America. Meanwhile, the globalists are destroying vast amounts water resources in the United States. It seems that the globalists are hell-bent on creating water scarcity.

I do not believe that the globalists only motive is to destroy the Gulf and fresh water supplies so that their new biofuel craze can take hold. I think this is a byproduct to what the central planners are truly after, control over all water which will result in control over who lives and dies. This and more will be covered in the next installment of the Great Gulf Coast Holocaust.

Dave is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedoms PhoenixNews With Views andThe Arizona Republic.

The Common Sense Show features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and national sovereignty.

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First Nuke In Currency Wars: Venezuela Launches Devalues Currency By 46%

Before It’s News

While the rest of the developed world is scrambling here and there, politely prodding its central bankers to destroy their relative currencies, all the while naming said devaluation assorted names, “quantitative easing” being the most popular, here comes Venezuela and shows the banana republics of the developed world what lobbing a nuclear bomb into a currency war knife fight looks like:

  • VENEZUELA DEVALUES FROM 4.30 TO 6.30 BOLIVARS
  • VENEZUELA NEW CURRENCY BODY TO MANAGE DOLLAR INFLOWS
  • CARACAS CONSUMER PRICES ROSE 3.3% IN JAN.

And that, ladies and gents of Caracas, is how you just lost 46% of your purchasing power, unless of course your fiat was in gold and silver, which just jumped by about 46%. And, in case there is confusion, this is in process, and coming soon to every “developed world” banana republic near you…



















…and just as we (and Kyle Bass) have warned – this is what happens to the nominal price of a stock market as currency wars escalate… how do those US investors who flooded Venezuela with cash feel now? bringing back those VEF gains is going to hurt…



















The chart above is a free lesson in nominal vs real: the hardest lesson for some 99.9% of the world’s population to grasp. One person who certainly knows how to devalue a currency in real terms FDR, whose 70% devaluation of the USD courtesy of executive order 6102, is merely an appetizer of what is about to be unleashed upon the US… READ MORE

RELATED:

James Rickards: Currency War Has Started. I Expect The International Monetary System To Destabilize & Collapse. There Will Be So Much Money-Printing By So Many Central Banks That People’s Confidence In Paper Money Will Wane, & Inflation Will Rise Sharply.

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ENERGY PRICE: ‘OIL AND THE NEW RENTIERS’

Andrew McKillop
21st Century Wire

WHY ARE OIL PRICES SO HIGH?

Any body who wants a snapshot of how extreme high oil prices are at present only has to look at market prices for oil, gas and coal expressed in barrel equivalent prices, that is the price for 1 barrel equivalent of energy, about 1600 kWh. Oil prices on world markets are close to $100 per barrel for the US benchmark WTI blend, and nearly $115 a barrel for the European and Asian benchmark Brent blend.

Taking the US energy market, rapidly transiting from energy scarcity to energy abundance due to shale gas and shale oil output growth, natural gas prices on the Nymex market struggle to exceed $20 per barrel equivalent. Coal prices for the USA’s literal Sunset Industry of coal mining and extraction are now as low as $8 per barrel equivalent. Looking at the world’s very fast growing wind and solar power industries, although these are still relatively high capital cost, their “fuel” cost is strictly zero dollars per barrel equivalent. Each additional kiloWatt of solar and windpower comes cheaper than the previous.

So why are oil prices so high?

The old style answer was OPEC and Russia, the world’s biggest oil exporters, but those days of “the exporters” driving up prices, or supposedly driving up prices are long gone. This however has a close link with the real cause of why oil prices are so high – and could go higher before they crash. The two word term of oil economists for explaining why OPEC and Russia could “exert a stranglehold” both on oil importers and oil prices, was “oil rent”.

This concept which includes the idea of hard-to-substitute and limited supply, can even be applied to the unreal world of carbon pricing. Although very unlikely, if a carbon price was implemented worldwide, the cost of using substitutes for conventional oil, such as shale oil, tarsand oil, synthetic diesel fuel from coal or natural gas, or the biofuels from cleared forest and wetlands will increase even more than the cost of using conventional oil. So “ordinary oil” would increase further in cost. The “oil rent” would remain or would increase.

THE NEW RENTIERS

One reason oil prices are so high at present, and can increase, is because OPEC states and Russia are more than prepared to cut their production, and in the case of OPEC are already doing it, because their “netback” on oil exports is either stagnant or declining – but oil market prices are increasing. Their netback is declining for the simplest of all possible reasons: world demand for oil exports is growing very, very slowly: the IEA forecast is below 1% growth for 2013, and possibly zero. For certain markets such as the US and Europe taking over 60 percent of world oil exports, their demand is falling. The decline is rapid in the case of the US, as its domestic oil production increases at the fastest rate in more than 35 years and domestic oil demand flatlines since its most-recent high point of 2007, already 6 years back in time. European oil demand has declined every year since 2006.

Oil market brokers, bankers, traders and operators are however totally uninterested in these “supply/demand fundamentals” because they are a side issue, for them.

These are the “new rentiers” who operate an oil pricing system only able to deliver high prices. For OPEC and Russia, monitoring daily oil price moves on the Nymex, London’s ICE, Singapore’s IPE, or Tokyo’s Tocom the situation is starkly clear: the new rentiers get an awful lot more netback out of a $1 rise in the barrel, than they do. The percentage split varies, but at this time the new rentiers are running an oil price system – or racket – where they get at least 70 percent out of any daily rise in prices. In plenty of cases, plenty of deals, for example concerning the refining downstream and oil transport by
pipeline or rail, a $1 rise in the barrel price can bring 90 percent of the gains it generates, to the “new renties”, and a slim 10 percent for the oil producers whether they are OPEC, Russia or home-based.

This is a dramatic but “stealth-secret” turnaround in market psychology, market operation and market goals from the early years of this century, around 2000-2005. Before about 2005, the bankers, brokers and traders “investing” in, or operating oil market futures trading on major markets acted to keep prices down. They were “downside oriented”. Since then, they have shifted to “upside oriented”, most dramatically in 2008, when they were able to lever Nymex oil prices to very nearly $150 per barrel.

In the fallout from the 2008-2009 credit crunch, deprived of credit themselves, oil market fixers and operators savagely pushed down prices – but by 2010 they were back into “upside mode”. Today, as oil market trading in January 2013 has clearly shown, they are looking for prices above $120 a barrel.

RUNAWAY TRADING

John Law: crashed the markets in France.

This could be alright if the disc and the music stopped there, but the new rentiers – like the oldest of all in the history of market trading – cannot stop. The reference event and very first “modern type” market crash was the 1721 Paris stock exchange collapse, brought down by the Mississippi Company operated by Scotsman John Law on behalf of French monarchy. The Company crashed, after showing on-paper gains in “value” of more than 1100 percent in 1 year. At the height of the bubble, the French monarchy was able to offload all its debt, with Company shares it issued and exchanged against investors’ cash - with the investors headed by the monarchy’s former creditors!

Why the group of new nobles, new advisers and new court hangers-on of child King Louis and his Regent or stand-in acting King had amassed such huge outstanding dues against the throne was mainly because of new “rent situations”. The monarchy not only borrowed cash, but let concessions or “rents” to its backers, enabling them to tax and levy tolls and dues of all kinds – replacing or diluting the income and revenue take for the monarchy, the nobles, the clergy and “traditional rentiers”. Soon, the situation got out of hand, and a Ponzi-type or Bernie Madoff-type paper asset scam was needed.

The 1721 Paris stock market crash was a close to 100 percent wipeout, but both 1929 and 1987 were stock market crashes able to wipe out well over 60 percent of all nominal, paper, tradable “value” in a few days. Also, due to the simply vast level of “stock market capitalization” today, a few percent slide in average stock and commodity values, which now run together almost seamlessly, wipes out several trillion dollars of “nominal value”. The new rentiers cannot take even these smaller levels of losses for more than a short period of time, as we can clearly see from stock and commodity market performance,
that is manipulation, in January 2013. The market is now “locked on to growth”.

Oil prices can therefore easily go on growing. To be sure and certain however, they will then crash in a violent “traditional” way -the only question is the timing and the triggers.

Author Andrew McKillop is a former expert in policy and programming with the European Commission in Brussels. He writes and consults about the impact of oil prices on the economy and currently advises the ECOHABITAT sustainable housing and property development project near the French, Belgium and Luxemburg borders.

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TRENDS: THE NEXT OIL WAR IS DIFFERENT

Andrew McKillopAndrew McKillop
21st Century Wire

Was Iraq an ‘oil war? Probably in 50 years time, academics but not many other persons will still be talking about the subject. 

For plenty of historians, journalists, writers, paywrights and movie makers there is no problem at all: since the 1991 Liberation of Kuwait, the 9/11 atrocities in the US, the creation of ‘al Qaeda’ and the global war on terror, the Afghan war, the second Iraq war, and the overthrow and killing of Khadafi, we have had a succession of Oil Wars, either directly caused or promoted by the US and Great Britain. This is always denied, of course.

But 5 years ago – in 2008 – it would have been wildly controversial, or just plain wild to suggest that the US will soon stop being an oil importer: it will be oil self-sufficient. This year, US Dept of Energy and oil industry forecasters say that national oil production will rise at least another 7%, like it did last year, reaching about 11.4 million barrels a day at the end of 2013 – rivalling Saudi and Russian oil output, or even exceeding their output.

By 2020 or soon after it is logical and feasible to predict the US will become entirely self-sufficient for oil and a substantial exporter of natural gas – helped by its continuing near-flatline profile of domestic oil and energy demand, with 2007 still remaining a highwater mark.

Why would the US want oil wars in the Middle East, when it is oil self-sufficient? Is heavy US military presence in the Persian (or Arab) Gulf region a “protection service” it runs for the Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, South Koreans, Indians and any other major oil importer?

The idea of a global oil security protection service – designed by the US and applied by the US and for the moment, still free of charge – surely crops up, ever more frequently, in US political and strategic thinking. President Obama’s very recent announcement of a “zero military option” for Afghanistan – the complete removal of all US fighting forces perhaps this year – is basically a cost/benefit decision. The economic bottom line from staying in Afghanistan, despite the rumors of rare earths, gas, gold and high value buddhist prayer wheel trinkets in simply massive quantities, is negative. Also, no other major Western power wants to pay for the Afghan war. Ergo, the war is terminated.

IRAN WAR – ANOTHER COLLATERAL VICTIM

Despite the rabid tubthumping by Benyamin Netanyahu, and his supporters, lobbyists, activists and others, in Israel, the US, Europe and elsewhere beating the drum of Iran War, this is a failing theme and meme. To be sure, it is regularly recycled in the media by journalists short of supposedly “lurid” copy – because it would concern nuclear war – but the numbers simply do not add. Iran has plenty of oil reserves, certainly, it could produce more, probably, but who exactly needs radioactive crude oil? Iran war would be expensive, oh gosh yes, because the large and highly populated country would need military occupation on a long-term basis. Call it Afghanistan multiplied by 50 or Iraq times 10. Dreams that Iran’s “huge oil reserves” could one day, quite soon, bolster America’s failing reserves and output of oil are now as outdated as a bakelite telephone with a metal dial.

Much digital ink was spilled over the decade of about 1997-2007 on the theme that Peak Oil means Iran’s oil will be “vital to humanity”, that is Wal Mart shoppers and their ilk. Conversely, the oil and gas boom in the US, now subtitled “fracking”, was almost ignored until only the last 3 years. To be sure, a fuzzily defined lobby, including Lady Gaga, Yoko Ono, diehard global warmers and environmentalists say that fracking is close to Satanic, or in Yoko Ono’s gurgling prose “a death camp technology”, but the drilling goes on. Today, there is no longer any space or time for talking about whether or not it will lead to US energy independence: the US overtook Russia to become the world’s biggest natural gas producing nation in 2012, and by about 2014 can be the world’s biggest oil producer. Period.

The curious impacts and ramifications of this massive, unexpected and almost instant energy revolution are still hard to trace, and its results are hard to predict. One is however easy to predict: US Cow Boy Colonialism – or self elected world cop policing of the planet – is now as outdated as that Cold War era bakelite telephone for calling Krutschev’s translator to chat about mutually assured destruction. Another is easy to see and follow at this moment in time: Syria’s civil war and its outcome are of little interest to the US, today. The war’s spillover potential to the Gulf Petro-states with their curious blend of Islamic fundamentalism, dictatorial repression of their populations, and casino capitalism, is probably quite low but in any case, the US needs their oil less and less. Every day less, in fact.

Another predictable impact and sequel is shaping up in the fuzzily defined, always growing Sahel African Islamic insurgency. US participation in military response to “the Islamists” promises or threatens to be low – very low. Policing and paying this post-colonial mess will be the purview and pain of the European nations which set up the mess, but somehow expected the USA to pay for it.The outlook is therefore sombre: the Europeans have a track record of not only walking away from their obligations – but also not even walking up to them in the first place!

With a home-brewed domestic economic crisis of 1930s proportions, desert adventures in low income Africa are surely nice stuff for thriller films and books, but taxpayers will shirk from paying the real thing which will feature tens of thousands of permanently stationed ground troops. The game wasnt worth the candle.

CHINA VERSUS USA

A surprising source – the German Bundesnachrichtendienst - or BND spy agency – in a “restricted circulation report” issued January 17, 2013, says that its readout of the geopolitical results coming from the US energy revolution is not what most persons would predict.  It however starts with an unsurprising but blunt-language analysis of the reasons – perhaps the only reason despite the pretexts – for the US being so deeply involved in the Middle East. The BND includes its long and expensive wars in the region, and why the US gives such slavish respect and support to the “highly unpalatable regime” of Saudi Arabia:

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/wirtschaftspolitik/bnd-studie-amerika-wird-unabhaengig-von-der-golfregion-12028549.html

For German home consumers of spy stuff with an oil handle, the BND reports that the inevitably high price of oil, given the geopolitical intensity of action by the USA’s rivals inside and outside the region, and the belief that global oil production could only decline, led to post-communist Russia becoming a very dangerous and sombre force on the world stage. It says that the pending bailout of Cyprus which will cost German taxpayers a lot of money, will mainly and firstly be used to bail out rich Russians who placed their “petro money” stashes in Cypriot banks that are now collapsing as yet another blowback from the European and Eurozone crises. Russia, like Saudi Arabia got rich on petrodollars.

US independence from Gulf region oil will finally, and mostly affect the relationship and balance of power between the US and China, says the BND report. It suggests that China does not have enough time to ramp up its own shale gas, and then shale oil production. Struggling to meets its skyrocketing demand for oil, China will need to take about 50% of all the oil produced on the Arabian peninsula, and like the US before it, China’s dependence on Arab and Iranian oil will grow for decades. Due to China presently not having the military power to exert a permanent military presence in the region, and protect the region’s oil transport routes, China will have to kow-tow to the USA, which has the military hardware and the experience of policing the region.

The first and biggest loser in the worldwide geopolitical scramble caused by the US oil boom, will be China, but another if smaller loser will be Europe - including Germany.

The BND’s analysis is not simple: it argues that Putin’s Russia will become more aggressive and hostile to both the US and Europe, resulting in large-scale effort to drive Russian oil and natural gas out of the energy import mix, in Europe. This will cause Europe to much more intensely act to source more of its oil and gas supplies from Africa – notably Sahel Africa. Countries such as Nigeria, however, will be so intensely courted by China that they will break away from their traditional oil supply role to Europe – but will demand Chinese military presence in Africa to compensate. The BND also forecasts very siginficant, even massive increases in African oil and gas supply over the next 15 – 20 years, which will directly harm Russian producers and exporters facing ever-rising production costs in Russia’s frigid and remote northern and Arctic areas.

The bottom line is also not simple: for the BND, the US energy revolution spells the end of dependence of oil importer countries on Russia and OPEC and the end of their ability, with the banksters, brokers and traders who run the world’s oil markets to raise prices at the flick of a wrist. Conversely, it says, the US energy revolution will be slow to economically benefit the US – even if it liberates the US from its role of World Cop and Warmaker and gives the US the perspective of years of peace. Winners, according to the BND, will be those oil importers on a downward track in oil dependence – that is Germany – and those industries which are very energy intensive and can relocate to the US. With time, the BND says, even the USA’s gargantuan trade deficits can be trimmed, because US oil imports, and the barrel price, will both decline, propping up the dollar as a reserve currency for a while longer.

*****

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An Inconvenient Truth? Al Gore Sells Out to Big Oil


The television network Current TV was recently purchased by the international news outlet Al Jazeera. The transaction will leave $125 million in former vice-president Al Gore’s pocket. Gore, who is a green living advocate, ironically sold the company to a news outlet owned by Qatar – an oil rich country.



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BP settles criminal charges for $4 billion in spill; supervisors indicted on manslaughter

Washington Post Stephen Mufson
BP has agreed to plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and will pay $4 billion over five years in a settlement with the Justice Department over the April 20, 2010, drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and unleashed the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, officials announced Thursday.
The fine is the largest criminal payment in U.S. history, Justice Department officials said, but BP still faces even bigger penalties from federal civil charges, including those under the Clean Water Act.The Justice Department also sought to attach faces to the disaster, filing manslaughter charges against two BP rig supervisors and obstruction charges against a BP executive who allegedly lied to Congress. The three are not covered by the BP settlement.“I hope this sends a clear message to those who would engage in this wanton misconduct that there will be a penalty paid,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said during a news conference in New Orleans on Thursday. The two top-ranking BP supervisors on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig — Robert M. Kaluza, 62, of Henderson, Nev., and Donald J. Vidrine, 65, of Lafayette, La. — were indicted on 23 counts, including involuntary and seaman’s manslaughter, for allegedly ignoring warning signs of the blowout that set fire to the rig, which later sank. A separate indictment accused David Rainey, a former BP vice president, of hiding information from Congress and lying to law enforcement officials by understating the rate at which oil was gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Rainey, 58, was BP’s deputy incident commander and BP’s second-highest-ranking representative at the Coast Guard’s unified command for the spill response. “Make no mistake: While the company is guilty, individuals committed these crimes,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, head of the criminal division. Of the two rig supervisors, Breuer said, “In the face of glaring red flags indicating that the well was not secure, both men allegedly failed to take appropriate action to prevent the blowout.” Attorneys for the men said they will fight the charges. Separately, the London-based oil giant will pay $525 million over three years to settle claims with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which said the firm concealed information from investors. The settlement is subject to U.S. federal court approval. BP said it would increase its existing $38.1 billion charge against earnings for the spill by $3.85 billion. BP and the Justice Department failed to agree on a separate settlement of federal civil claims, including federal and state claims of damages to natural resources. BP said it is “prepared to vigorously defend itself against remaining civil claims.” Clean Water Act fines alone could total $5 billion to nearly $20 billion, depending on whether BP is found to be guilty of gross negligence or willful misconduct. But the settlement resolves all criminal charges. BP agreed to plead guilty to 11 felony counts of “misconduct or neglect of ships’ officers.” Jane Barrett, an environmental law professor at the University of Maryland, said the seaman’s manslaughter statute, first passed in 1838 in response to steamboat accidents, has a lower threshold for guilt including “misconduct, negligence or inattention to duties.”
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WARMONGERS WILL BE PUSHING FOR IRAN SOON


21st Century Wire’s Patrick Henningsen explains why the current war plan being decided in Washington and Whitehall is half-baked and not in the public interest at all, and why it will cause many meaningless deaths, and also trigger a global economic depression:



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BLIND LEADING THE BLIND: ‘False Flag Energy’ and Syrian Regime Change


Andrew McKillop
21st Century Wire
Guest Columnist

For the Libya war and regime change, things seemed straightforward: Libya is a big supplier of oil and gas to Europe. Quickly replacing the Gaddafi regime was necessary, despite “the Colonel” being recycled back into grace with a Condoleeza Rice, Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi smile and handshake, only a few years before.

Once corporate penetration was underway, western central planners quickly replaced Gaddafi with a Shariah-proclaiming shaky government and its fundamentalist militias, who celebrated Sept 11th 2012 in a special way, by killing the US ambassador and staff in manner mirroring the demise of the late Colonel. But hydrocarbon supplies are vital!

On to Syria

Syria is a very minor exporter of oil (about 0.14 Mbd or 0.27% of world export supplies), with its exportable surplus on a slow downhill for more than 10 years. Kurdish separatists operating in and partly controlling eastern Syria have big plans to raise oil output, but their longstanding war with the el-Assad regime has blighted foreign drilling and related oil E&P activity. Most major oil investors (especially Canadian and Indian) have been tapering down their eastern Syria E&P for more than 3 years, since 2008-2009. Conventional gas resources are not large, mostly difficult access, and their development has been stunted by political and security concerns. Shale gas and shale oil potentials in Syria are however large, but like conventional gas resources are impossible to develop at present.

The country’s hydropower and water resource potential is also large, but any claim that Syria is a “resource-rich jewel” to be liberated, democratized and brought to market as soon as possible – but possibly not Libya-style – is way off the mark. The nearest-term regional economic role for Syria is development of its agriculture potential, which has been attempted by the father-and-son el-Assad regime, since the 1980s but bad planning, execution and management, and endemic corruption inside the regime only resulted in Syria attaining exporter status in a major agrocommodity (wheat) for a few years in the 1990s. Since that time Syria has tilted back into food import dependence – exactly like Saudia Arabia and the Gulf states whose leaderships pretend to believe in Syria becoming “the Arab world’s bread basket”, under strict Sunnite rule, of course.

Energy resource or energy transport issues are unimportant players in this regime-change experiment, but in a recent Market Oracle posting on the supposed energy drivers behind regime change, William Engdahl writes: “Huge gas resource discoveries in Israel, in Qatar and in Syria combined with the emergence of the EU as the world’s potentially largest natural gas consumer, combine to create the seeds of the present geopolitical clash over the Assad regime”.

He continued: “Natural gas is rapidly becoming the “clean energy” of choice to replace coal and nuclear electric generation across the EU most especially since Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear after the Fukushima disaster. Gas is regarded as far more “environmentally friendly” in terms of its so-called “carbon footprint.”

Too Much Gas – Too Many Pipelines

Huge unconventional (deep offshore) gas reserves have been discovered, and proven or are in the process of being proven in the territorial waters of the following countries:

Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Cyprus, Azerbaijan. Several other close-by countries are highly prospective, meaning likely also to possess very large reserves of deep offshore gas, called “stranded gas”. This only concerns local and regional, eastern Med and Caspian unconventional gas resource finds: worldwide finds are truly massive, and concern all continents. Any talk about world gas shortage, or control of gas resources by a small number of countries mostly hostile to the West has been exploded, since 2007-2009. This real world state of facts has yet to filter through to Think Tank strategists, deep in their bunkers mulling 1970s-vintage energy crisis issues with a Cold War mindset, in which War on Terror was as unknown as global stranded gas and shale gas resources and reserves. As recently as 2008 and playing a major role in the setting of Europe’s climate-energy package of policies and programs basically seeking energy independence and energy security, the dark shadow of these Cold War-era energy crisis issues – now bolstered by Al Qaida shadows, played a major role in the European quest to reduce gas import dependence by any means. Increased dependence on Qatari gas, let alone Libyan, Algerian, Russian and Norwegian gas – Europe’s 4 largest pipeline gas suppliers -  featured nowhere in this 2008 plan, and was in fact the exact opposite of the plan’s published goals.

The basic reason for this, despite the energy security, geopolitical and terror war trimmings, is economic. Europe’s 4 largest pipeline gas suppliers, utilising an already overcapacity pipeline system feeding Europe, with zero need for pipeline capacity growth, operate “oil indexed prices” for gas. In simple terms this prices gas imports to Europe at up to $16 per million BTU, equivalent to oil at $92.80 a barrel. US gas prices this year have average about $2.50 per million BTU before a very recent “surprise comeback” to a little over $3. Importing either Israeli gas (after 2020-2022 when the gas is developed) or Qatari gas through a hypothetical trans-Syria pipeline would have no interest at all to Europe, unless their offer price fell well below current prices operated by the 4 largest pipeline suppliers. Possibly unknown to the deep-thinking Think Tank community, too often based in the US – the southern, south-eastern and eastern European regions are now criss-crossed with gas pipelines at a variety of stages: existing and operational; in construction; planned and in project. The major problem is not the transport capacity – but filling the lines at prices Europe is prepared to pay. Many pipeline projects are now on hold, not for geopolitical reasons, but because at the same time and rapidly, LNG re-gasification terminals are under construction in all coastal EU27 states. Rates of construction are so fast, despite high costs, that certain countries such as France will by 2015-2016 have sufficient LNG terminals to handle LNG imports covering entire national gas consumption needs. At the same time, gas pipeline capacity to northern and western Europe, including France, continues to grow.

World LNG supplies are on an unstoppable upward growth track, running at well over 20% per year, as LNG suppliers and potential suppliers also grow at an unstoppable rate. Under any hypothesis, LNG prices will be far below present European and Asia gas import prices and will surely and certainly force down global gas prices. Arab suppliers of LNG such as Qatar will have no dominance in the coming global LNG supply system and will be price-takers, due to the vast size of new stranded gas resources discovered and proven in countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania, west African states, Australia and Brazil, as well as the eastern Mediterranean “new gas” countries. Gas shortage does not exist.

Pipelines (and Gas) the World Doesn’t Need

Energy resource shortage in Europe is decreasingly on the menu, and hard to defend under any rational study of European regional, west Asian, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), African and world energy resource potentials. The former dominance of oil from Arab states, and gas from Russia was in any case the focus of European Commission and member state energy policies – with the target of diversifying energy sources and supply sources – since the 1960s and has continued and intensified ever since. The current supposed “CO2 based” clean energy policies of the Commission, enacted as energy law in the member states since June 2009 (but in no way cast in stone) only push the quest for energy independence further. These long-term policies, concerning gas, have been responsible for the massive growth of pipeline gas capacity to Europe – which is now accompanied by the massive growth of LNG import terminal capacity, to feed national based gas pipelines, all of which are interconnected in continental Europe.

Washington self-styled White Witch, Hillary Clinton, is working overtime to try and dislodge the Assad dynasty from power in Syria.

Related to the Syrian regime change experiment, or simply the grisly end of a Mafia-type Arab dictatorship, getting rid of el-Assad is in no rational way the signal for yet another, one more, high cost natural gas pipeline linking West Asia and Europe – this would certainly be one more underutilized or even useless pipeline! Taking overpriced Qatari gas, by pipeline, is for the least eccentric: Qatar is able to export LNG to Europe at high prices, already. The real interest is to force Qatar to cut its prices – which will happen, however many football teams and luxury hotels the “western-friendly” Qataris can buy to curry favour with European political, media and corporate elites. The claim that the only “realistic way” that EU governments, from Germany to France to Italy to Spain, will be able to meet EU mandated CO2 reduction targets by 2020 is a major shift to burning gas instead of coal, is also unreal on technical grounds. This claim ignores the complex realities of EU27 energy, and world energy - especially fast-evolving technology in power generation. Heavily criticised by the Greens and Climate Crazies, Germany’s decision to build more coal-fired power plants takes no account of the Syrian situation, but pays plenty of attention to the fact that even if gas-fired power plants can reduce CO2 emissions by 50-60% over conventional coal-fired plants, they are distanced in CO2 reduction performance by new generation clean coal plants, like IGCC power plants developed and built, in Germany - by Siemens. Replacing old coal-fired facilities with IGCC technologies can reduce Germany’s current coal power related CO2 emissions by 40 million tons per year for the same amount of power supply (about 46% of total German power supply). For the US, Siemens pitches “clean coal” as follows. German hard coal resources, notably in the Ruhr basin, are now a highly politicised issue also confused by technology issues – especially concerning in situ underground gasification by fracking, extending to much greater depths than economically extractable “physical coal”. Even in IGCC power plants “physical coal” would emit as much, or more CO2 per unit kWh of electric power generated as gas-fired plants using gasified coal, making coal gasification a major focus of German energy R&D. Resource estimates for German remaining coal reserves range from as high as 75 to 100 billion tons coal equivalent, to less than 500 million tons, due to the politicised spin – very like the “imaginative” estimates of recoverable oil reserves in Arab countries of the Middle East, which always increase, on paper, at any time of geopolitical stress like the present.

Similar politicised and radical variations of coal reserve estimates apply to Poland’s USB, Ukraine’s Donbass and Russia’s western coalfields. Under any rational scenario however, these European coal resources could cover 350 – 500 years of current European and Russian coal needs.

The need for any kind of energy transported across Syria’s frontiers – either oil or gas – is zero in Europe. We should ask here that Washington and London’s brain-trust take note then, and think about ceasing to promote a bankrupt drive to break yet another nation state – and for the wrong reasons, whilst risking wider regional instability through their own reckless efforts.

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AFRICOM IS A GO: Obama Prepares A New Intervention in Mali Using Somalia as His Model

Patrick Henningsen 21st Century Wire Obama has been carrying the AFRICOM ball down the field after the directive was launched under George W. Bush in 2007. Washington DC, led by African Secretary, Jonnie Carson, speaks to its public at a level deserving of an uninformed, Helen Keller-esque populace, claiming that Somalia was ‘a big success’ because Washington spooks spent $500 million backing an “African Proxy Force” that allegedly “drove out al Qaida” in that country. And it is no coincidence that massive untapped oil reserves in the Puntland region in northeastern Somalia were recently announced in early 2012.  Just as Washington’s corporate interests are hidden behind ‘humanitarian interventions’, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron will run the same facade. Last February he hosted an international conference on Somalia, where he pledged more aid, financial help and measures “to fight terrorism” in Somalia. Cameron does not tell you that those so-called terrorist forces are funded and supported, and ultimately steered – by the western intelligence agencies – whereby they control all sides of the local conflict. Note they are using the same recycled narrative in Mali now, fighting “Islamic extremists” there – promoting freedom and democracy in the region etc. Mali’s vast potential wealth lies in mining, agricultural commodities, and oil - and these proven reserves are not currently exploited. Interestingly enough, Ghana and Mali together account for 5.8% of total world gold production. These assets are the true focus of US and UK interests in Africa – not humanitarian concerns. The 2012 Somalia Oil Conference was a mere pre-negotiation meeting to discuss how oil assets would be divided up between the US, UK and other remaining energy players – demonstrating what is the real agenda with AFRICOM. Obama supporters will naturally give this President a free pass on Africa because he is of part African descent, not realizing that he is running the exact same agenda as his Republican predecessor. What corporate agents like Jonnie Carson does not tell electorate plebs is that the US has recently  infested itself in Libya, Uganda, Somalia, North Sudan and elsewhere, and now has its eyes set on Mali. The initial goal of US domination of Africa is outlined in the AFRICOM documents, and names the eviction of China from the continent as task number one. Africa Pulse spells it out: “Strong economic growth in the past decade among African countries rich in oil and minerals has failed to make a significant dent on their poverty levels, according to a World Bank report.”  In other words, the Anglo-American imperialists would like to eliminate competition for Africa’s bountiful resources, continuing a centuries-old policy of raping the Dark Continent and leaving nothing but perpetual internal strife and poverty behind.

U.S. looks to effort in Somalia as model for Mali solution

Anne Gearan and Craig Whitlock The Obama administration is contemplating broad military, political and humanitarian intervention to stop a slide toward chaos and Islamic extremism in Mali, the top State Department diplomat for Africa said Thursday. The international but largely U.S.-funded effort to expunge al-Qaeda-linked militants and restore political order in Somalia could present a model for Mali, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson said. Since 2007, the United States has spent more than $550 million to help train and supply an African proxy force of about 18,000 soldiers in Somalia, which has brought a measure of stability to the war-torn country for the first time in two decades. Although the United States has not committed to replicating that approach in Mali, Carson and others are holding up the routing of the al-Shabab militia and conducting of elections in Somalia as a template for actions elsewhere. “It’s a model that should be reviewed and looked at as an element for what might be effective in that part of the world,” Carson said in an interview, “but it’s not there yet.” The Somalia comparison offers the clearest view yet of U.S. thinking about the growing terrorism threat from Mali, a landlocked West African country the size of Texas that has imploded politically since a military coup in March. As in Somalia, the threat to the United States and other countries from Mali is wrapped in a larger problem of lawlessness, poverty, tribal friction and weak governance. Somalia adopted a provisional constitution in August, and a new federal government was formed after years of chaos that had fueled terrorism, piracy and famine. Security has slowly improved under the proxy force, which is led by the African Union but bankrolled and trained by the United States, European Union and United Nations. Carson said the internationally backed plan for Somalia’s political reconstruction was working because the country’s neighbors, the United States, E.U. and United Nations had subscribed to a common set of goals. He cautioned that a regional and international consensus would be required for the approach to work in Mali. “There needs to be that kind of a clear understanding there as well,” he said. Mali’s military quickly lost control of the country after the March coup, which was led by a U.S.-trained army captain. Since then, Islamist militias affiliated with al-Qaeda have imposed strict Sharia law in northern Mali and, along with Tuareg rebels, declared an independent state. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled their homes. Last week, the remnants of Mali’s central government, France and west African nations led calls at the United Nations for the creation of an African-led force to help Mali confront the militants. The Economic Community of West African States has said it is willing to send about 3,300 troops to Mali if it gets the backing of the United Nations and Western countries. The United States has been leery of a French-backed proposal for quick deployment of an internationally backed African force in Mali, preferring a more comprehensive plan that addresses underlying political problems and tribal divisions. “We want to make sure that it is an African-led international response, and also be very clear that whatever is done out there should in fact be well planned, well organized and well financed,” Carson said. The U.S. diplomat has also said that it is important to enlist support from Mali’s northern neighbors, especially Algeria and Mauritania, which share a long border with the troubled country and have also fought their own long-running Islamist insurgencies. U.S. officials have ruled out sending American combat troops to Mali but have said the Obama administration could help train, equip and transport an intervention force drawn from other African countries. “There will be a need for some type of security response,” Carson said, adding that the United States could support one if it is drawn up correctly. Source: Washington Postfacebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest