Archive for the ‘energy geopolitics’ Category
February 2, 2012
One of the earliest theoretical disputes in classical geopolitics was the relative value of sea power vs. land power. Alfred T. Mahan was a proponent of the primacy of sea power, while Halford MacKinder believed that if any nation was able to obtain primacy in the Eurasion heartland, then the corresponding landpower would overwhelm the advantages of seapower.
From the perspective of Long Cycle Theory, the conflicts of the modern world system have always been between a sea power and a land power – and the dominant power has always been the nation that can rule the waves.
Nor is this dichotomy is not limited to Anglo American perspectives on geopolitics and hegemonic power. Russian geopolitical theorist Aleksander Dugin argues that it is the core of international conflict (he uses the terms “thalassocracy” for sea power and “telluocracy” for land power) and, in a geographically deterministic conclusion, contends that the two different positions create profound cultural differences that will always be in conflict.
In the original dispute between Mahan and MacKinder, the latter feared that the connecting of the Eurasion Heartland via a network of railroads would give the land power a mobility equal to or surpassing that of the naval powers; that a land power would be able to project power as efficiently as formerly only sea power could, and that would allow a nation to dominate all of Asia and bring its vast resources to bear in creating an inexorable global empire.
Today, the Eurasian Heartland and its vast resources are once again the field of contest among great powers. The technology brought to bear has changed, however. Whereas a century ago, it was railroads pitted against battleships, today it is pipelines vs. super tankers. The resource of primary interest in Central Asia is energy – oil and natural gas resources that the energy-dependent economies of the world hunger and thirst for. The pipelines would seem to have the upper hand, as described in the purple prose of Pepe Escobar, who foresees a MacKinderian nightmare of an Asia integrated on energy trading that he dubs “Pipelineistan.”
Escobar’s vision would be a nightmare development for the West. Europe would be dependent on Russia for energy and the United States would be marginalized. It is through this lens that Escobar understands US military and foreign policy, and he may be correct. But, the shale revolution may completely reshuffle the deck. The gas bonanza that hydraulic fracturing promises would collapse the price structure on which the intricate network of pipelines depends; it is conceivable that, within 25 years, the United States could at once become the world’s greatest consumer, producer and exporter of energy. The Pipelineistan behemoth would be stillborne, and the US would remain the world’s greatest power. All that such an outcome requires are the proper policy decisions in Washington, DC over the next decade.
Posted in energy geopolitics, Eurasianism, geopolitics, Long Cycle Theory | Tagged Dugin, MacKinder, Mahan, Pepe Escobar | Leave a Comment »
January 25, 2012
BP has published its second version of Energy Outlook 2030. It presents a very favorable global energy picture over the next few decades – despite a continued reliance on fossil fuels. While BP does foresee a growing use of renewable resources, the biggest changes in the future energy outlook are (1) increasing efficiencies in energy use and (2) the massive reserves of unconventional resources that new technology has made economically feasible. At first glance, this might seem to be a repudiation of the very rationale for this blog – the singular importance of energy as a geopolitical driver over the next quarter century. However, I contend that is quite the opposite. It is likely that only the US and Canada among developed and rapidly developing nations will enjoy security of supply (an argument that I have been making since before I began this blog), and that security combined with the relative insecurity of other nations will allow the United States to use both its resources and its growing geostrategic military reach to maintain its lead position on the world stage for the foreseeable future.
However, there is a glaring omission in BP’s projections: there is little attention paid to the impact of growing (even if decelerating) fossil fuel use on global warming. However, it is my belief that growing supply could very well outstrip growing demand over this time frame, which would cause prices to fall. That would leave room for carbon taxes, the revenues from which should be diverted to mitigation efforts. The latter will be a hard sell – there are entrenched interests on both sides that will fight it (from the right, carbon taxes are anathema while forces on the green left are hostile to a geo-engineering approach), but as water seeks its own level, so, too, do obvious policy choices.
Posted in energy geopolitics, energy policy, energy security | Tagged BP Energy Outlook, energy policy, energy security | Leave a Comment »
November 11, 2011
The central government of Iraq has a fractious relationship with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to the north, so much so that the central government forbids any oil company doing business in the south and central regions from also doing business in Kurdistan.
Exxon Mobil has a very large contract developing the West Qurna field in Basra. The West Qurna field is highly productive, delivering over 2.8 million barrels per day. Nonetheless, ExxonMobil has chosen to risk losing that contract by signing a huge deal with the Kurdistan government to explore and develop six large oil blocks in the northern region.
So, the question is: does Exxon Mobil believe the potential of these blocks are greater than the highly productive field that the Iraqi government is poised to take away, or do they believe that the central government will back down and allow them to keep both that contract and the Kurdistani deals?
The ramifications here are huge. Due to years of poor governance under the Hussein regime and the near-decade long period of war and insurrection that begin with the US invasion in 2003, Iraq’s oil potential has never been systematically explored. Although it’s proven reserves are already among the largest in the world, only about 20% of the known fields have been developed. It is conceivable that, once a full exploration and development regime is instituted, Iraq could have more oil than even Saudi Arabia. At the end of the day, this is what will make the US invasion of Iraq worthwhile – not US firms getting the oil, but any firm or combination of firms that is able to unleash that potential and pump that oil onto the world market would deliver instant price relief around the globe.
There are still important issues to resolve – the aforementioned relationship between Kurdistan and the central government, settling on a hydrocarbon law, and developing export capacity (which already bottlenecks even current production levels). But, this announcement is a big development in getting Iraq’s oil capacity flowing.
Posted in energy geopolitics, Iraq, oil | Leave a Comment »
November 10, 2011
Petroleum Economist calls this the possible beginning of an oil war:
South Sudan declared its independence from the north on 9 July this year. However, a number of issues remain outstanding between the new neighbours, the most crucial of which hinges on oil. Sudan lost 75% of its pre-independence output of 500,000 barrels a day after South Sudan’s secession, but controls the country’s only export pipeline and deep-water port. The only viable export route for South Sudan’s oil production – which accounts for 98% of the new nation’s income – is through Sudan. But the two sides have yet to agree a deal allowing South Sudan access to export infrastructure. A border demarcation dispute has also added to tensions. In the past two months, relations between the two countries have deteriorated severely.
Posted in energy geopolitics | Tagged oil war, South Sudan, Sudan | Leave a Comment »
November 10, 2011
The US State Department has demanded changes to the route of the Keystone XL pipeline that will delay the pipeline for at least another year:
The State Department is ordering the developer of a pipeline that would carry oil from western Canada to Texas to reroute the project away from environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska.
That decision could delay a final U.S. decision on the project until after the 2012 election.
The decision will require an environmental review — and that could take at least a year.
TransCanada Corp. is seeking to build the $7 billion pipeline. Part of the 1,700-mile pipeline would pass through Nebraska’s Sandhills region and an aquifer that supplies water to eight states
Two senior State Department officials who are familiar with the project described the decision to The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the decision before an official announcement.
Petroleum Economist states that this is more than a mere delay – that the pipeline is now “all but dead.” This means that the oil from the Alberta tar sands will instead flow west, through a vastly more sensitive ecosystem, and be shipped via tanker to Chinese markets rather than to US markets. I wrote yesterday that Obama is poised to run as a Warrior President; however, for all those victories, it is difficult to paint any of them as beneficial to US energy security, which I believe is our most vital foreign policy concern for the next half century. This decision further weakens the president on that front ahead of the election campaign, even as he tries to defer a formal decision until after the election.
Posted in energy geopolitics, energy policy, energy security, oil sands | Tagged Keystone XL | Leave a Comment »
November 8, 2011
Robert Cutler provides a terrific summary of the convoluted long game of trans-Caspian gas pipelines:
The Caspian Sea energy “chessboard” is much more complex than the traditional black-and-white board: There are more than two players, there is no established order for making moves and there is no guarantee that every piece is visible to every player. Furthermore, the complex nature of all this means that some players themselves become pieces on the chessboards of other players who are playing bigger games. This particular endgame is, therefore, just the beginning of the middle game on a larger Eurasian board stretching from Brussels to Beijing.
Posted in Caspian Basin, energy geopolitics, natural gas | Tagged Caspian Sea, energy geopolitics, natural gas | Leave a Comment »
October 19, 2011
At its core, geopolitics is the analysis of spatial competition between nation states. Geoeconomics is a subset of geopolitics or, alternately, a softer version of geopolitics – the same spatial competition stripped of the hard (or, at least, harder) power aspects.
Within both realms, however, are not just competition but cooperation. Paolo Sorbello at e-International Relations provides an account of Russo/Kazakh cooperation on development of the Kurmangazy oil field in the Caspian Sea:
This quick account of Russo-Kazakh relations over the Kurmangazy oilfield is a good case in point in order to understand more complex dynamics that have characterized the relations between Moscow and Astana in the last ten years. Vacillations, misunderstandings, compromises, and accords followed each other during leading governmental meetings. Energy has played a peculiar role as the starter of the diplomatic dialogue and remained a cardinal foundation among the parties and in their relations with the exterior, as well as the other Caspian states, the EU, China, and the USA.
It might turn out that Kurmangazy will not yield as much oil as foreseen. In spite of this scenario, it is very probable that Russia and Kazakhstan will remain close, will continue to talk on energy matters, and will collaborate on current and new exploration projects. Thus, soft power aspect of the energy becomes highly relevant in both countries’ foreign policy decision-making. Thinking traditionally, in such countries, the hegemony of the executive on the other powers would lead one to predict the opposite. Therefore, it becomes necessary to start including the energy variable in geopolitical analyses in a more systematic and consistent way.
Posted in Caspian Basin, energy geopolitics, geoeconomics, geopolitics, Kazakhstan, new discovery, Russia | Tagged Caspian, geoeconomics, geopolitics, Kazakhstan, russia | Leave a Comment »
October 11, 2011
China’s largest petrochemical firm has purchased a Canadian company that holds 300,000 acres in the midst of the Alberta oil sands. Sinopec overpaid for control of the company – offering 70% more than the average price of the stock over the last 20 weeks, more than double the typical premium. The latest deal brings the total value of Chinese investment in Canadian energy reserves to over $30 billion.
Time is of the essence for US customers hoping to get a piece of the Alberta oil bonanza. By the time the Keystone XL pipeline gets approved, all the oil will be headed to China, anyway.
Posted in Canada, China, energy geopolitics, oil sands | Tagged Alberta, Canada, China, Keyston XL, oil sands | 1 Comment »
October 4, 2011
Vladimir Putin is formally spelling out his vision for the future of Russian foreign policy. Building upon the “common economic space” announced earlier this year with Kazakstan and Belarus, Putin has begun to spell out his plans for a Eurasian Union that would reunite the borders of the old Soviet Union under a different political structure. Eurasianism has enjoyed a revival in recent years, and it has a long history among Russian geopolitical thinkers, and the ultimate goal would be to expend the cultural/political/economic space from Berlin to Beijing, with Russia dominating the region, both from its central geographic position and from its control over the vast Eurasian mineral resources and other natural riches.
Russia under Putin has been trying to reformulate classical geopolitics for half a decade. Eurasianism is seen, by the Russians, as a rebuke to Atlanticism (manifested by the US dominated NATO) and as a direct challenge to the Globalization sponsored by the Atlanticist powers. However, Russia has forever vacillated between its dual Western and Oriental outlooks. A reformation of the Soviet Union under a looser confederation is not necessarily a geopolitical threat. However, a sophisticated geopolitics (of which I believe Putin is eminently capable) would use Russia’s “energy weapon” to expand those old Soviet boundaries by drawing European states such as Germany into its orbit, and to forming a political condominium with China. Such a formulation – combining the vast natural resources of the Eurasian Heartland with the immense populations of East Asia – is the nightmare scenario that has worried Anglo American strategists since MacKinder. The need for energy already has the potential to drive Europe toward Moscow; a foolish currency war might provide more impetus for China to look that way, as well. Let’s hope that calmer heads prevail – on the one front, avoiding the conflict with China, while on the other, moving to open up the tremendous North American energy reserves and thus to defuse the Russian energy weapon. These are two clear policy goals that US leaders should coalesce around soon.
Posted in Atlanticism, Coalitioning, energy geopolitics, energy policy, Eurasianism | Tagged energy geopolitics | 1 Comment »
September 29, 2011
Wow, look at the title of this post from The Bug Pit:
The story is neither as straightforward nor as provocative as the headline, but it is still an important read for those interested in the geopolitics of energy – I encourage everyone to go read the whole post. For those who just want a summary: most of the nations in the Caspian basin are (at least potentially) energy rich but militarily weak. There are only two strong militaries in the region – Iran and Russia. Everyone seems to agree that Iran is a threat, and Russia would prefer to be the guarantor of security in the region, rather than see further encroachment of the US (already in the region through it’s NATO junior partners Georgia and Azerbaijan).
Posted in Azerbaijan, Caspian Basin, Central Asia, Coalitioning, CSTO, energy geopolitics, Russia | Tagged Caspian, coalitioning, energy geopolitics, Iran, russia | Leave a Comment »
September 28, 2011
In current research, the terms “Resource Nationalism” and “Resource Cartelization” are most frequently used in the context of oil and gas production. Both fields began to emerge in the 1970s as the result of several oil crises and the perception that resource nationalism and resource cartelization posed a significant economic and political threat to Western countries that heavily depended on oil and gas imports. Although both terms describe different political and economic practices, they are in many cases closely related. Roughly, resource nationalism denotes the perception that the natural resources of a country are the exclusive property of that country and should therefore be exploited through national, rather than free-market companies. In many cases, such as Venezuela, Kuwait, or Russia, resource nationalism is actively used to make political as well as economic gains and these countries are, as is the case with OPEC, willing to join intergovernmental organizations to coordinate output and price (cartelization). Resource nationalization/cartelization is the Russian-led version of the three competing visions of energy geopolitics in the early 21st century.
The National Bureau of Asian Research has a substantial new report on the rise of resource nationalism throughout Asia. This is a must read for anyone interested in the geopolitics of energy.
Posted in energy geopolitics | Tagged energy geopolitics, resource nationalism | Leave a Comment »
September 14, 2011
From Natural Gas for Europe:
Ukraine on Wednesday fired another salvo to Russia, seeking a categorical assurance from the latter
and the European Union on the need for maintaining the existing transit system to pump Russian gas to
Europe, failing which it may be scrapped.
The measured caution came from a spokesman for Prime Minister Mykola Azarov in the wake of the
recent launch of the Nord Stream pipeline project that bypasses Ukraine and links Russia and EU via
the Baltic Sea.
“Since Russia is constructing pipelines bypassing Ukraine, Ukraine needs to get a clear answer as to
whether Russia intends to continue using the Ukrainian gas transit system,” Azarov’s spokesman said.
“And if Russia is not going to use it, its maintenance will not be profitable for Ukraine, necessitating its
decommissioning or use elsewhere,” he said.
Urging a response from EU, the spokesman said ” If Ukraine stops the operation of its gas transit
system, it’ll be a very high risk factor for Europe and the EU (member states) need to speak out on
their plans for the Ukrainian gas transit route.”
more
Posted in energy geopolitics, Russia, Ukraine | Tagged energy geopolitics, russia, Ukraine | Leave a Comment »
September 14, 2011
James Rogers, Ph.D. candidate at Cambridge, presents a diagram of the strategic and security considerations that inform the developing pan-European grand strategic concept:
I would note two things. First, although Rogers has a sphere representing Atlanticism (the Atlantic Alliance in the lower right quadrant), he does not acknowledge the countervailing (if still nascent) force of Russian Eurasianism under Putin. Along those lines, to me, the obviously missing piece here is great power conflict. All possible peer or near-peer competitors with Europe are grouped as either Strategic Partners (BRIC) or true allies (US). Russia has already signaled a willingness to play upon Europe’s energy dependency (which Rogers does note in the upper left quadrant) and to use it’s “energy weapon;” while China is locking up exclusive energy rights across the globe. Energy is the lifeblood of both industry and modern agriculture, and the need to maintain access to it is more than a “post modern weakness,” it is a likely source of significant future conflict.
Posted in energy geopolitics, Eurasianism, Europe, geopolitics, Grand Strategy | Tagged energy geopolitics, Europe, geopolitics, grand strategy | Leave a Comment »
September 8, 2011
Prime Minister Erdogan, working without experienced military leadership to guide him (since his senior commanders have all resigned in protest over those lower ranking commanders who have been jailed for political reasons), has ordered his Navy to escort Gaza blockade runners and to court a serious military confrontation with Israel. Erdogan is also intent on limiting Israeli exploitation of the recently (2010) discovered gas fields beneath the Eastern Mediterranean. There is as much as 1.7 billion barrels of oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the region, not enough the change the global balance of power but certainly enough to change Israel’s strategic energy profile for the better.
Yesterday, we wrote that Turkey was risking the creation of another cold war with Israel not dissimilar from the one it has been engaged in with Greece. But, the Israelis will not back down, and this war could easily become very hot, very fast. The decline in Turkish/Israeli relations could end up being the most destabilizing event in the Middle East in decades.
Posted in energy geopolitics, Israel, strategic geography, Turkey | Tagged energy geopolitics, Israel, Turkey | Leave a Comment »
August 25, 2011
Thanks to a generous link from Instapundit, this site is experiencing a rush of new readers. I have received a couple of emails asking me just what the theme of this site is, and I do admit that, up until now, there has been no defining statement. I am a research analyst and geographer with a primary interest in classical and neo-classical geopolitics. In particular, I believe that energy will be the most important geopolitical driver for at least the first third of this century. I also subscribe to George Modelski‘s formulation of the Long Cycle Theory of hegemonic change, and from that I believe that we are nearing the end of the current US-dominated period and entering the final phase of coalitioning in advance of some type of macro-decision between the reigning hegemon (the US) and the challenger (China), which, in periods past, has meant global war (but which could involve conflict other than full scale war this time around). I blog about various aspects of energy and geopolitics that I believe fit into that ongoing story.
I am currently at work on a long monograph on energy geopolitics and long cycle theory. For those who may be interested, an introduction to that paper can be found here.
Posted in energy geopolitics | Tagged energy geopolitics | 1 Comment »
August 22, 2011
From Scientific American:
U.S. and Chinese officials heading up a series of joint advanced coal projects Friday signed an intellectual property agreement meant to ease the sharing of innovative technology while protecting patents and licensing agreements.
Companies collaborating on research and development projects tied to the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC), a program started in 2009, can enter into regular commercial contracts. But energy technology companies participating in the U.S.-China program must negotiate licenses “in good faith” to ensure both nations benefit.
Inventors of technology can set the terms, according to a description of the agreement, including royalties and limits on the use of an invention. But the terms cannot be so restrictive that they in essence bar the sharing of advanced coal technology by the United States and China.
Clean coal technology would be an energy game changer. Like all fossil fuels, coal is plentiful, (relatively) cheap and energy dense. However, also like all fossil fuels, it is a highly polluting energy source. The key to maximizing the coal resource lies in capturing and either sequestering or utilizing the emissions. The United States has far and away the world’s largest reserves of coal, while China has the third largest, and the two nations are also the world’s largest coal burners. While in the US, coal plants are shutting down due to a combination of environmental and economic pressure (from cheap, abundant natural gas), they remain a major source of electricity. Meanwhile, China is engaged in a 10 year project to build 500 new coal fired plants – about 1 per week.
Coal is a crucial part of the world energy mix. Making it cleaner and more efficient would relieve ecological pressure and turn it into an even more powerful economic resource. US companies would not only license the new technology, others could become energy exporters to the coal hungry developing nations of the world. This agreement can be a very important development, although it is curious that such a pact would be signed in West Virginia instead of China, where the US Vice President Joe Biden is currently touring. Seems like a missed political opportunity to me.
Posted in CCS, China, coal, energy geopolitics, energy security | Tagged China, coal, energy, energy geopolitics, energy security | Leave a Comment »
August 18, 2011
Peter Kirsanow has three questions for President Obama (and, really, for all of the GOP candidates, as well.
During your bus tour of the Midwest, you blamed the poor economy on, among other things, Arab Spring uprisings and oil prices.
We import approximately 65 percent of our oil. It’s estimated that the U.S. has up to 2 trillion barrels of oil-equivalent in shale rock deposits — nearly five times the stated oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Yet your administration has stymied or canceled the development of oil shale leases.
China imports approximately 50 percent of its oil. It’s estimated that Canada has up to 2.2 trillion barrels of oil-equivalent in oil sand deposits. China has invested billions in Canada to access that oil.
Why is China more aggressive in developing North American oil resources than your administration?
What, if any, national-security implications has your administration identified related to China’s investment in Canadian oil sands?
How many windmills need to be built to equal the energy produced by 2 trillion barrels of oil?
Posted in energy geopolitics, energy policy, oil, oil sands, shale oil | Tagged energy, geopolitics, obama, oil | Leave a Comment »
August 17, 2011
The Baker Institute’s Amy Myers Jaffe makes the point in an article at Foreign Policy:
For half a century, the global energy supply’s center of gravity has been the Middle East. This fact has had self-evidently enormous implications for the world we live in — and it’s about to change.
By the 2020s, the capital of energy will likely have shifted back to the Western Hemisphere, where it was prior to the ascendancy of Middle Eastern megasuppliers such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the 1960s. The reasons for this shift are partly technological and partly political. Geologists have long known that the Americas are home to plentiful hydrocarbons trapped in hard-to-reach offshore deposits, on-land shale rock, oil sands, and heavy oil formations. The U.S. endowment of unconventional oil is more than 2 trillion barrels, with another 2.4 trillion in Canada and 2 trillion-plus in South America — compared with conventional Middle Eastern and North African oil resources of 1.2 trillion. The problem was always how to unlock them economically.
But since the early 2000s, the energy industry has largely solved that problem. With the help of horizontal drilling and other innovations, shale gas production in the United States has skyrocketed from virtually nothing to 15 to 20 percent of the U.S. natural gas supply in less than a decade. By 2040, it could account for more than half of it. This tremendous change in volume has turned the conversation in the U.S. natural gas industry on its head; where Americans once fretted about meeting the country’s natural gas needs, they now worry about finding potential buyers for the country’s surplus.
And, shale gas is just the tip of the ice berg. The same or similar technologies are about to make economic recovery of America’s vast reserves of shale oil possible – and our shale oil reserves areou about three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia. Finally, eventually and inexorably, clean coal-to-liquid processes that capture and sequester carbon will make the massive coal reserves of the US yet another strategic economic resource.
Of course, readers of EGP know that for years we have been predicting that (given the political will), the United States could become the worlds largest user, producer, and exporter of fossil fuels all at the same time.
Posted in carbon capture and sequestration, CCS, coal, energy geopolitics, fracking, natural gas, oil, oil sands, Peak Oil, Uncategorized | Tagged energy, fracking, natural gas, oil, Peak Oil | 1 Comment »
