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Meet Manifa and other giant oil projects that will add to the global oil glut

manifa-project-webWorld oil consumption is more than 90 million barrels a day. Between 2009 and 2014 oil was traded for about 110 dollars a barrel; now oil is changing hands for 32 dollars a barrel. Roughly a 7-billion-dollar cash flow a day is vanishing from the global market. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund that has accumulated a stake of 4.5 billion dollars in Apple over the past years1, will turn from an Apple buyer into an Apple seller.

The China Development Bank (a Chinese policy bank) has poured nearly 50 billion dollars into Venezuela in return for oil, with the country now collapsing under the Chinese debt, having no other choice but to drill for more oil. These are just some of the challenges the world is facing in 2016 as oil prices are heading towards 20 dollars a barrel.

Speculators and manipulators were able to manipulate the oil price to more than 120 dollars a barrel,  with the production cost being roughly between 20 and 80 dollars. With a huge profit margin the world was digging for more and more liquid gold. Continue reading →

The Syrification of South East Turkey is now a fact.

The Syrian war has spilled over into Turkey. The Kurdish fighters are now the preferred weapon recipients of the West. The US, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK are supplying Kurdish fighters with arms and training.

Turkish Tank Gets Hit While Shelling Cizre

Not only the Peshmerga troops in Northern Iraq, commanded by President Barzani, a key US ally in the region, but also the Syrian Kurdish factions that are run by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) are being armed by the US. The Syrian Kurdish militias solemnly promised not to hand over the US-supplied weapons to their PKK brothers in Turkey. There is no way to control this and the Turkish state media “Daily Sabah” is already complaining that Germany is delivering arms, and training PKK insurgents.

Erdogan is now transforming Turkey into an Islafascist state: a mixture of extreme nationalism combined with Islamism, a strong leader, backed by a strong army.

Continue reading →

Coal is not going to give up easily

The agreement reached at the Paris Climate Summit CO P21 at the beginning of December has been regarded as groundbreaking as it announced the end of the era of coal and other fossil fuels. Will, however, the proposed and inconsistent political declarations overcome the real circumstances that have greatly favored coal mining and use?

Coal, or rather the energy derived from it in coal power plants, has become almost a public enemy in many places in the world. The pressure applied by the ecologists and politicians, the resultant climate agreement as well as the ceremonial closures of mining pits in Germany and Great Britain, and the transformation of China’s economy make an impression that there is no future for coal in the modern world.

The first 13 years of the ongoing millennium have been a golden age for coal mining and exploitation. The end of prosperity does not, however, entail the end of the whole economic branch. The coal industry may still be developed in Asia, a continent that will be a new home to this fossil fuel; also the new technology may greatly contribute to its use if new applications of this black gold are developed, applications that do not negatively affect the environment. Continue reading →

Kanal Istanbul: Within 7 Years US Aircraft Carriers Will Enter the Black Sea

The tension between the USA and Russia has grown enormously over the couple of months. The case of yet another Russian jet shot down by Turkey pushed Ankara into the American embrace. Iran and Syria has stood by Moscow, the guarantor of their independence of the Western powers. Turkey, faced with no real choice, decided to throw in her lot with the USA. Wasn’t it the Allies that won in World War One? Was Turkey not defeated then because she backed the wrong horse? So Erdogan, Turkey’s president for life, has taken his decision: let the Americans make use of Kanal İstanbul and move their fleet into the Black Sea. The Montreux Convention forbidding passage of navies through the Bosporus does not apply. It is not the Bosporus, it is Kanal İstanbul. The year is 2023, the canal has just been completed.

That might be a scenario playing out in the nearest future. If. If the idea for cutting a waterway through the mainland will have materialized within several years from now. Continue reading →

Teasing Russia: with Montenegro as new NATO member Serbia will be entirely encircled

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NATO Secretary Stoltenberg visits Montenegro. Image by NATO 25 Nov. 2015

NATO is about to expand taking on a new member: Montenegro. Podgorica’s bid to start accession talks and become the 29th member of the alliance was accepted on 2 December1. Strategically the country is no gain, politically it is. Russia is being sent a signal that yet another state that used to be under her influence is being taken away. The alliance is taking the Balkans piece by piece. Serbia, too, is being considered as a prospective NATO member.

The move that has been spearheaded by PM Aleksandar Vučić is strongly resisted by the Montenegrin population and by Russia. Montenegrins staged protests long ago, even during the visit paid to Podgorica by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg2. People do remember NATO aerial bombings of former Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) that took place during the 78 days of the war of 1999, which left many casualties and areas radioactively polluted due to the NATO’s use of missiles with depleted uranium. The opposition Democratic People’s Party advocates a referendum as the only way of deciding whether the country should join the alliance, but the authorities refuse3. Is it because they are afraid of losing? Continue reading →