Energy Archive

With the Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline project a casualty of U.S. opposition and persistent mistrust between New Delhi and Islamabad, India has increasingly turned to Qatar to meet its growing natural gas requirements over the past decade. Holding the world’s third-largest gas reserves after Russia and Iran, Qatar is a natural choice for such a role. But after the recent visit of Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani to India, the two states are looking to broaden their economic ties beyond trade in energy. Qatar is set to emerge as a strategic investor in India’s infrastructure plans, while […]

Citing a payment dispute, Egyptian Natural Gas Holding has announced that it is terminating its deliveries of natural gas to Israel, bringing an end to a deal that, since it was signed in 2005, had supplied Israel with 40 percent of its natural gas. Media reports have focused on the impact this sudden termination of the deal might have on the fragile peace agreement between the two countries. But Brenda Shaffer, an energy policy expert at the University of Haifa in Israel, told Trend Lines that the news does not have serious implications for Israel’s longer-term energy security, as the […]

In March, the Mexican Senate ratified an agreement with the U.S. governing the exploration and development of transboundary oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico. In an email interview, Duncan Wood, director of the international relations program at Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology and a senior associate in the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discussed the U.S.-Mexico transboundary energy agreement. WPR: What is the history of energy cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico? Duncan Wood: Since the nationalization of Mexican oil in 1938, the relationship between the two countries in energy matters has […]

Jiang Jiemin, the chairman of the China National Petroleum Corp., has reportedly floated the idea of building an undersea pipeline that would deliver Russian natural gas to South Korea via China, as an alternative to a long-discussed plan to build a pipeline connecting Russia, North Korea and South Korea. In an email interview, Se Hyun Ahn, chair of the department of international relations at the University of Seoul, discussed the prospect of a Russia-China-South Korea pipeline. WPR: What are South Korea’s sources of natural gas, and how is it delivered? Se Hyun Ahn: South Korea imports all of its natural […]

U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere has suffered a series of setbacks over the past month. The first, the Washington summit earlier this month between Presidents Barack Obama and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, was simply lackluster. The second, last weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, was an outright fiasco. Instead of laying out a common agenda for the hemisphere and rebuilding America’s leadership role in the region, the U.S. found itself isolated in a diplomatic corner over Cuba, to say nothing of the Secret Service prostitution scandal that soon overshadowed the proceedings. More generally, Obama’s Latin America policy […]

In Rajasthan, one of India’s poorest states, mustard plants that used to be burned are now a source of income for many farming families. They sell the plants to a biomass power plant. Science News by NewsLook

International relations experts are pretty much down on everything nowadays. America, we are told, is incapable of global leadership: too discredited overseas, too few resources back home, too little will — period. For a brief moment there, while China held up the global economy during the recent financial crisis, much credence was given to the notion that we were on the verge of a Chinese century. But that popular vision has also waned surprisingly quickly, and now the conventional wisdom centers on China’s great weaknesses, challenges and overall brittleness. Amazingly, where we spoke of a U.S.-China “G-2” arrangement just a […]

Spain has threatened unspecified retaliation if Argentina moves ahead with plans to nationalize Spanish oil company Repsol’s operations in Argentina — known as YPF.

Poland wants to build its first nuclear power plant near the German border. Protest is coming not only from politicians in Germany, but also from people living near the sites under consideration for constructing the plant. World News Videos by NewsLook

Over the past decade, rising energy prices and new techniques and technologies have allowed global energy companies to bring online new oil and gas reserves in East African countries, including Tanzania and Mozambique. But as the demand for fossil fuels grows among energy-hungry emerging economies, investors are also opening up production in previously unexplored areas. And in East Africa, this means major opportunity as well as major uncertainty. “What could really make a difference is if these countries coordinate their strategies and their resources effectively,” said Richard Downie, deputy director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and […]

It is no surprise that piracy has steadily climbed up the ranks of threats to India’s security, given India’s energy trade with the Middle East. But now, with vast untapped oil reserves reported in Somalia and just off its coast, piracy emanating from the Horn of Africa is impinging on India’s future energy sourcing opportunities as well. Further complicating India’s plans for the region is the nexus between Somali pirates and the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab, which still has a significant presence in central Somalia and provides sanctuary to pirate fleets operating out of the central Somali city of Harardhere in […]

Argentine officials have been ratcheting up the pressure on Spanish-owned oil company YPF-Repsol, demanding increased investment in hydrocarbon production against a backdrop of declines in output that have made Argentina one of the fastest-growing import markets for natural gas. The threat of a similar scenario with oil has the government on the offensive against the nation’s top energy company. The gas shortage is reverberating throughout the rest of the economy, driving import restrictions to shore up the trade balance and tighter currency controls to ensure the availability of dollars for purchases of foreign gas. Looking forward, the government’s posture on […]

Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the bloody 74-day war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas, in the South Atlantic. It was an anniversary that did not go unnoticed in either country, with the islands’ offshore oil reserves largely driving the renewed attention. Exploratory oil drilling commenced in early 2010 in the waters off the string of islands where sheep have long outnumbered people. Several British oil concerns have spent the past two years drilling to assess the potential in the waters surrounding the islands, with increasing success. Though relevant for […]