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European parliament calls for cancellation of South Stream

In a resolution adopted Thursday, the European Parliament called on the EU leadership to cancel agreements with Russia, including on the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline.

The European Parliament “calls… on the Member States to cancel planned agreements with Russia in the energy sector, including the South Stream gas pipeline,” the resolution reads.

Aiming to diversify export routes from Russia to Central and Southern Europe, Russia began construction of the South Stream gas pipeline across the Black Sea in 2012. The pipeline, which will allow gas transfers to travel to Europe without crossing Ukraine, is expected to become fully operational by 2018. The first gas supplies are scheduled for late 2015.

Intergovernmental agreements were signed with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Austria and Croatia in order to implement the construction of onshore pipeline sections. However, in August, Bulgaria suspended operations saying that they did not meet the requirements of the European Commission.

The commission has long been trying to hamper the project saying it violates the EU’s Third Energy Package, which stipulates that pipelines in the European Union cannot belong to natural gas extractors. Moscow insists that the construction of the pipeline does not contradict the regulations in any way.

Source: RIA Novosti

Washington’s War Against Russia

The new sanctions against Russia announced by Washington and Europe do not make sense as merely economic measures. I would be surprised if Russian oil and military industries were dependent on European capital markets in a meaningful way. Such a dependence would indicate a failure in Russian strategic thinking. The Russian companies should be able to secure adequate financing from Russian Banks or from the Russian government. If foreign loans are needed, Russia can borrow from China.

If critical Russian industries are dependent on European capital markets, the sanctions will help Russia by forcing an end to this debilitating dependence. Russia should not be dependent on the West in any way.

The real question is the purpose of the sanctions. My conclusion is that the purpose of the sanctions is to break up and undermine Europe’s economic and political relations with Russia. When international relations are intentionally undermined, war can be the result. Washington will continue to push sanctions against Russia until Russia shows Europe that there is a heavy cost of serving as Washington’s tool.

Russia needs to break up this process of ever more sanctions in order to derail the drive toward war. In my opinion this is easy for Russia to do. Russia can tell Europe that since you do not like our oil companies, you must not like our gas company, so we are turning off the gas. Or Russia can tell Europe, we don’t sell natural gas to NATO members, or Russia can say we will continue to sell you gas, but you must pay in rubles, not in dollars. This would have the additional benefit of increasing the demand for rubles in exchange markets, thus making it harder for speculators and the US government to drive down the ruble.

The real danger to Russia is a continuation of its low-key, moderate response to the sanctions. This is a response that encourages more sanctions. To stop the sanctions, Russia needs to show Europe that the sanctions have serious costs for Europe.

A Russian response to Washington would be to stop selling to the US the Russian rocket engines on which the US satellite program is dependent. This could leave the US without rockets for its satellites for six years between the period 2016 and 2022.

Possibly the Russian government is worried about losing the earnings from gas and rocket engine sales. However, Europe cannot do without the gas and would quickly abandon its participation in the sanctions, so no gas revenues would be lost. The Americans are going to develop their own rocket engine anyhow, so the Russian sales of rocket engines to the US have at most about 6 more years. But the US with an impaired satellite program for six years would mean a great relief to the entire world from the American spy program. It would also make difficult US military aggression against Russia during the period.

Russian President Putin and his government have been very low-key and unprovocative in responding to the sanctions and to the trouble that Washington continues to cause for Russia in Ukraine. The low-key Russian behavior can be understood as a strategy for undermining Washington’s use of Europe against Russia by presenting a non-threatening face to Europe. However, another explanation is the presence inside Russia of a fifth column that represents Washington’s interest and constrains the power of the Russian government.

Strelkov describes the American fifth column here.

Saker describes the two power groups inside Russia as the Eurasian Sovereignists who stand behind Putin and an independent Russia and the Atlantic Integrationists, the fifth column that works to incorporate Russia in Europe under US hegemony or, failing that, to help Washington break up the Russian Federation into several weaker countries that are too weak to constrain Washington’s use of power.

Russia’s Atlantic Integrationists share the Brzezinski and Wolfowitz doctrines with Washington. These doctrines are the basis for US foreign policy. The doctrines define the goal of US foreign policy in terms of preventing the rise of other countries, such as Russia and China, that could limit Washington’s hegemony.

Washington is in a position to exploit the tensions between these two Russian power groups. Washington’s fifth column is not best positioned to prevail. However, Washington can at least count on the struggle causing dissent within the Eurasian Sovereignists over Putin’s low-key response to Western provocations. Some of this dissent can be seen in Strelkov’s defense of Russia.

Russia, thinking the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, opened herself to the West. Russian governments trusted the West, and as a result of Russia’s gullibility, the West was able to purchase numerous allies among the Russian elites. Depending on the alignment of the media, these compromised elites are capable of assassinating Putin and attempting a coup.

One would think that by now Putin’s government would recognize the danger and arrest the main elements of the fifth column, followed by trial and execution for treason, in order that Russia can stand united against the Western Threat. If Putin does not take this step, it means either than Putin does not recognize the extent of the threat or that his government lacks the power to protect Russia from the internal threat.

It is clear that Putin has not achieved any respite for his government from the West’s propaganda and economic assault by refusing to defend the Donbass area from Ukrainian attack and by pressuring the Donetsk Republic into a ceasefire when its military forces were on the verge of a major defeat of the disintegrating Ukrainian army. All Putin has achieved is to open himself to criticism among his supporters for betraying the Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine.

The European politicians and elites are so deeply in Washington’s pocket that Putin has little chance of courting Europe with a Russian show of good will. I have never believed that this strategy could work, although I would be pleased if it did. Only a direct threat todeprive Europe of energy has a chance of producing within Europe a foreign policy independent of Washington. I do not think Europe can survive a cutoff of the Russian natural gas. Europe would abandon sanctions in order to guarantee the flow of gas. If Washington’s hold on Europe is so powerful that Europe is willing to endure a major disruption of its energy supply as the price of its vassalage, Russia will know to cease its futile attempts at diplomacy and to prepare for war.

If China sits on the sidelines, China will be the next isolated target and will receive the same treatment.

Washington intends to defeat both countries, either through internal dissent or through war.

Nothing said by Obama or any member of his government or any influential voice in Congress has signaled any pullback in Washington’s drive for hegemony over the world.

The US economy is now dependent on looting and plunder, and Washington’s hegemony is essential to this corrupted form of capitalism.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

New EU sanctions to target Russian oil, defence

The FT reports that Europe’s latest sanctions will target a number of key Russian oil and defense industry companies and banks. The new round of economic sanctions is due to be imposed by Brussels Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal also reported on the latest round of sanctions, referring to leaked EU documents.

Rosneft, Gazpromneft and Transneft are among the oil sector companies, included in the sanction list the Wall Street Journal said it examined. They will reportedly be banned from raising funds with the maturity period exceeding 30 days. The same restriction will be imposed on five Russian state-controlled banks, including Sberbank and VTB Bank, already forbidden from raising bank loans in the European Union member states for longer than 90 days, the newspaper said Sunday.

Russian defense industry access to the EU capital markets will also be seriously complicated, according to the documents cited by the Wall Street Journal. Oboronprom aerospace holding, United Aircraft Corporation and Uralvagonzavod scientific industrial corporation are among the defense industry companies Wall Street Journal said would be able to get a bank loan with maximum maturity of 30 days in the European Union.

Nine companies, producing equipment for the Russian army, including Kalashnikov, Sirius and Stankoinstrument, will reportedly no longer be able to purchase dual-use technology (with possible military applications) from the EU member nations.

Brussels and Washington started to impose economic sanctions against Moscow since Crimea’s reunification with Russia in March, which the West considers illegal, and Russia claims to be fully legitimate. The latest round of restrictions has, in particular, limited capital raising in the European Union for a number of Russian banks.

As a responsive measure, Moscow issued a one-year ban on certain food products importation from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway.

New Sanctions against Russia in energy or finance sectors could trigger an asymmetric response from Moscow, such as closing its airspace, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the Vedomosti newspaper in an interview released Monday.

“It is them [the West], who should be asked whether there will be new sanctions. But if there are sanctions, linked with energy, [or] further restrictions on our finance sector, we will have to respond asymmetrically. For instance, [with] restrictions in transport area. We act on the premise of friendly relations with our partners, and this is why the sky above Russia is open for flights. But if we are restricted, we will have to answer,” Medvedev added.

The prime minister argued that certain Western airlines could go bankrupt in case they are banned to use Russia’s airspace.

“But this is a bad option. I just would like our partners to realize it at a certain moment. Especially, [considering the fact] that the sanctions do not help to establish peace in Ukraine. They miss [beside the mark], and an absolute majority of the politicians understand it. There are just an inertness of thinking and, unfortunately, the will to use force in international affairs,” Medvedev stressed.

Republic of Mthwakazi by 2018?

In a shock move Paul Siwela’s Matabeleland Liberation Organisation (MLO) has signed an agreement with an investment firm which deals in natural resources to set up and operate an oil, gas mining company in Matabeleland.

MLO signed the agreement on Tuesday with Kilimanjaro Capital Ltd which is based in the offshore-financial centre Belize City, following a year of talks.

Belize stands out as one of a dwindling number of “safe” tax havens where privacy and assets are respected for Anglo-American citizens.

Siwela is currently on the run after skipping bail just before he was due in court to hear whether treason charges against him and his colleagues stood.

He was charged with treason for allegedly planning a violent overthrow of the government.

In a Press release, Kilimanjaro Capital Ltd said the company would be jointly administered by Kilimanjaro Capital and the MLO.

Siwela said this marks MLO’s total take-over of all economic resources in Matabeleland.

“We are talking of taking over all economic resources in Matabeleland territory. Talks have been going on for more than a year and stand to change the economic face of Matabeleland and give economic resources back to the people of Matabeleland,” Siwela said in an e-mailed response.

Kilimanjaro Capital Ltd focuses on the acquisition, development and management of natural resource assets in Africa.

The company is listed on the Danish GXG Exchange and has obtained a secondary listing on the United States Over The Counter markets exchange as a foreign issuer.

Siwela added the agreement with Kilimanjaro would change the face of Matabeleland.

“The memorandum of agreement shall change the politics of Matabeleland forever and MLO is now taking over the affairs of Matabeleland and will not interfere with Zimbabwe. This means all businesses operating in Matabeleland must know the authority that must give them valid licences to operate in Matabeleland.

“We respect the Zimbabwean border and would not take anything over our borders. Zimbabweans would remain with their land and their government and we would not interfere with that as it is for Zimbabweans to sort their own problems,” he added.

Siwela’s MLO has been leading calls for a separate Matabeleland state saying the province was being sidelined from national development programmes.

MLO says a separate Matabeleland state is necessary to put an end to the marginalisation of the region which lags behind in development.

The 50-year-old Siwela, is thought to be domiciled in Sweden after skipping the country.

“Zimbabwe is a failed State and heading towards the abyss,” Siwela told the Daily News from self-imposed exile.

“It is for this and other reasons like gross abuse of human rights, corruption, Matabele genocide and lack of accountability and abuse of office by the government and failure to address Matabeleland political grievances that the current situation shall deliver the birth of the Republic of Matabeleland.”

Siwela together with Charles Thomas and John Gazi, former leaders of the Matabeleland Liberation Front, were arrested in 2011 on allegations of treason and attempting to subvert a constitutionally-elected government.

The trio distributed fliers calling on members of the public and the army to rise up against the government. The High Court has since acquitted Gazi but ruled that Thomas and Siwela have a case to answer.

Speaking to the Daily News, from his base yesterday, Siwela said: “The people of Matabeleland have been suffering discrimination since November 3, 1893 when the British colonial masters annexed the region.

“As if that was not enough, they further lost their independence and sovereignty and suffered genocide under President Robert Mugabe who has dismally failed and falsely projected himself as a pan-Africanist yet he is an anti-thesis of pan-Africanism.”

While not giving a time frame when the plan will likely be put into motion, Siwela said MLO intends to raise the national flag of the “Republic of Matabeleland” by 2018, claiming they have already penned a national anthem that is set to be sung during the inaugural hoisting of the flag.

He claimed Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces were ready for the so-called separation.

“At the moment, the agenda is to commit to the independence of our country,” he said.

“We have finished our constitution for the Republic of Matabeleland and we have our coat of arms as well.

“The people of Matabeleland have resolved to combine their efforts and work towards establishing their independence from Zimbabwe which is a colonial master being a successor to Rhodesia. Remember, there was no country called Zimbabwe before April 1980.”

Spelling out his ambitions for the new State, Siwela said they would recruit 30 000 civilians to form the Matabeleland Defence Force “to defend and protect our political integrity.”

He added: “We will have a 10 000-member police force, 3 000 correctional services, 1 000 civil servants that would include district, provincial and central government; some would be absorbed in the agriculture, mining, tourism services, a few parastatals and State-owned entities, industry and wildlife.”

Source: Harare24/Daily News

EU will lift sanctions on Russia says Danish bank

The European Union will lift the sanctions it has imposed on Russia over the situation in Ukraine in one to three months, according to research conducted by the Danske Bank.

“We believe an escalating trade war would be unbearable for both Russia and the EU and that the EU will revoke the sanctions within one to three months,” the bank said in a report released Tuesday, adding that Russia will also lift the trade restrictions it has imposed on Europe.

According to the analysis, the Ukrainian crisis will only have a “modest” direct impact on the European economy. Of the Nordic countries, Finland was named the most vulnerable due to its trade, tourism and foreign direct investments links with Russia. However, Norway’s economy might even strengthen due to the potential EU gas substitution from Russia toward the country.

The report suggests that it is highly unlikely that the European sanctions will be able to influence the current political situation in Russia, as support for President Vladimir Putin inside the country is currently “very strong.” It also notes that Russia is currently strengthening its ties with its Latin American and Asian partners.

Danske Bank is the part of the Danske Bank Group, the largest bank in Europe and one of the leading financial organizations in Europe. Danske Bank Group is headquartered in Copenhagen.

SA expanding nuclear

The department of energy will be devoting almost R1-billion to cementing South Africa’s nuclear energy expansion ambitions.

In her budget vote speech on Monday, Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said that R850-million had been allocated to the department and its relevant agencies to undertake further research and development into nuclear energy, especially in regard to nuclear safety matters.

“Regulations for the handling of hazardous materials, in terms of international obligations, and the development of nuclear policies and legislation to ensure the peaceful use of nuclear energy will also be pursued,” she said.

How South Africa will finance the expansion of nuclear energy, beyond its single atomic power station Koeberg remains key. The procurement of 9 600MW of nuclear power is expected to cost between R400-billion and R1-trillion.

The state in the meantime has worries of its own, including a large budget deficit and rising government debt levels.

The minister did not reveal the final details of the new Cabinet subcommittee on energy security, which will be integral to plotting the course of nuclear in the country’s energy mix. It will replace the erstwhile Cabinet body responsible for nuclear procurement – the national nuclear energy executive coordinating committee. But she said the “process is being refined and Cabinet will pronounce on this matter shortly”.

Alongside nuclear plans, the department will be turning a renewed eye on the opportunities for gas, including shale gas, in the country’s energy mix.

The lack of infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilitates had made it difficult for gas to feature as a major energy carrier in South Africa, said Joemat-Pettersson. This was despite the discoveries of extensive reserves in the region, including in neighbouring Mozambique, and off South Africa’s west coast.

The much-anticipated gas utilisation master plan would outline the infrastructure necessary “to open up the gas market for the residential, commercial and industrial sectors”. A draft of the plan was being finalised and would be taken through the Cabinet before being opened for stakeholder consultation, Joemat-Pettersson said.

The plan’s scope includes “investigating the development of a gas- receiving and storage terminal for liquefied natural gas, and to meet the gas to liquids requirements at the Mossel Bay refinery, as well as investigating the conversion of Eskom’s diesel plants,” she said.

This year, the department would also continue to refine the Independent Systems and Market Operators Bill. The Bill, which foundered in the legislature last year, is key to overhauling the electricity sector and improving the access of independent power producers.

Source: M&G

Sasol, ENI partner on SA hydrocarbon exploration

Eni has agreed to buy a 40 percent interest in an exploration permit granting rights to explore an offshore area of 82,000 square kilometres off South Africa’s east coast for hydrocarbons, the Italian oil and gas group said on Tuesday.

Eni sealed the deal with Sasol Petroleum International, the upstream oil and gas subsidiary of Sasol Limited, it said in a statement without disclosing any financial details.

Sasol had been granted the permit by the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) in late 2013 and the accord is subject to government approval.

The deal “reinforces Eni’s position on the East Africa coast, where Eni is already present with exploration activities in Mozambique and in Kenya,” the group said in a statement.

The exploration right (ER) permit 236, of which Sasol would transfer a 40% ownership to Eni, was granted to Sasol in November last year and comprised the right to explore for hydrocarbons in the Durban and Zululand basins offshore KwaZulu-Natal.

Sasol would retain the remaining 60% interest in the permit.

“The establishment of our partnership with Eni in respect of our offshore South African interests complements Sasol’s strategy to develop sustainable energy solutions, which will serve to ensure all-important economic growth and development in Southern Africa and the broader region,” Sasol CEO David Constable said.

He (David Constable, CEO SASOL) added that the accelerated exploration of ER236 would have many positive benefits for South Africa and the broader region, in terms of energy security and increasing levels of international investment.

Eni was among a number of international energy companies to have entered South Africa – the continent’s largest oil importer – in recent months.

If like the geologically similar northern Palma-Mamba gas fields, the Zululand gas basin holds up to 75tcf of reserves, gas industry experts expect the Zululand basin gas to postpone and even replace the Karoo shale gas development too.

Source: Reuters

Race for Arctic could become uncivilized

The discovery of large hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic has sparked international competition over resources in frozen waters. Regional powers are quickly filing claims for the sea shelf, with Russia preparing to bring in the biggest bid to the UN.

Ahead of Moscow preparing to file a 1.2 million square kilometer Arctic waters bid to the UN later this year, President Vladimir Putin commissioned Russian ministries to get ready to take the new territories in the Sea of Okhotsk under full control and protection.

The Russian president ordered maintenance of border patrols of the extended sea shelf be in place by July 1, 2014.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has been instructed to ensure maritime authorities extend the Russian shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk beyond the generally recognized 200 nautical miles zone by December 1, 2015.

The Foreign Ministry is obliged to bring all the necessary documents, including new maps of the Sea of Okhotsk and scientific data serving as proof of Russia’s bid, to the UN by March 1, 2015.

Experts say the future of the world economy, to some extent, is dependent on the Arctic.

Last year, Russian energy giants, Gazprom and Rosneft, were granted rights to develop large hydrocarbon deposits recently discovered in the Pechora and Kara seas. The find could be a pot of gold for Russia’s gas industry.

The melting Arctic ice cap has made way for shipping routes and the exploration of resources at the bottom of the world’s smallest ocean. The North Pole icecap has decreased by 40 percent since 1979, opening up two shipping routes, the North Sea route and the Northwest Passage, with extremely high economic potential.

Approximately 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15 percent of its oil lie in the Arctic. But the majority, 84 percent, of the estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and 47.3 trillion cubic meters of gas remain off shore.

According to the UN’s sea convention, any country has sovereign rights to resources within 200 nautical miles of its territorial waterways. There are five countries with territories in the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US.

As the icecaps are melting, a military race is also building up in the region.

The US Navy recently debuted a revised roadmap focused on expanding America’s muscle in the world’s coldest ocean over the next decade, increasing the number of personnel trained in Arctic operations, advancing technical equipment and surveillance needs.

The ultimate goal appears to be establishing international order under US leadership.

Earlier this year, NATO countries participated in a Norwegian-led Cold Response exercise in the Arctic, rehearsing high intensity operations with 16,000 troops deployed in extreme conditions. Non-NATO participants, Sweden and Switzerland, also took part.

“The United States is anxious to militarize the Arctic Ocean. It has to do it via its relations with Canada and it is also seeking to do it via NATO, through the participation of Norway and Denmark in NATO. And now it is calling upon Sweden and Finland to essentially join NATO with a view to establishing a NATO agenda in the Arctic,” Michel Chossudovsky, from the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal, revealed.

Meanwhile, Canada has been staging its own independent drills with hundreds of soldiers participating in cold-weather winter warfare exercises.

Not to be left out, last year Russia announced the resumption of a constant armed presence in the Arctic, which was abandoned by the military after the fall of the USSR.

Back in 2012, Russia’s former envoy to NATO and current Vice Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin, said that by the middle of the 21st century the fight for resources between various states will become “uncivilized.”

In about 40 years, Russia may lose its sovereignty if it fails to clearly set out its national interests in the Arctic, Rogozin said.

“It’s crucially important for us to set goals for our national interests in this region. If we don’t do that, we will lose the battle for resources which means we’ll also lose in a big battle for the right to have sovereignty and independence,” Rogozin stated at a Marine Board meeting in Moscow.

Source: RT

Drill, Baby Drill!

America is poised to displace Saudi Arabia as the world’s top oil producer with fracking. With that could come a hobbling of Opec and unforeseen shifts in US foreign policy.

So rapid has been the change in its energy fortunes that even some experts, as well as policy-makers in Washington, are struggling to keep up. Nor are we just talking oil. So much natural gas is being released by the shale also that for now outlandish quantities of it are simply being burned off into the atmosphere.

Even predicting future oil output isn’t the precise science you’d expect. “We keep raising our forecasts, and we keep underestimating production,” Lejla Alic, an analyst with the International Energy Agency noted recently. Last year US production reached 7.4 million barrels a day, an increase over 2012 of 15.3 per cent. A jump that large hasn’t been seen since 1951. This year the US should produce 8.3 million barrels a day.

Take another indicator – the volumes of crude being moved by trains, often a mile long, from the shale fields to refineries and terminals. In all of 2008, train companies moved 9,500 wagons of the black stuff. Last year, 400,000 of them rumbled across America.

How long America’s shale boom will last is hard to forecast also. In Texas, which on its own is set to increase production to 4 million barrels a day this year, the drilling peak still hasn’t been reached, but it’s the politicians around the world who set the price and make the markets. Increasingly, the decisions that matter will rest with the US, as it adjusts to its new status as a glut producer.

“The United States is now poised to become an energy superpower,” write By Robert D. Blackwill and Meghan O’Sullivan, in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

The consequences are likely to be far-reaching, notably affording Washington a chance it hasn’t had since the energy crisis of the early 1970s to reassess its relationships with those countries, often ruled by unappetising despotic governments – Saudi Arabia included – on which America has had to depend for so long to feed its fossil fuel needs.

“Since 1971, when US oil production peaked, energy has been construed as a strategic liability for the country, with its ever-growing thirst for reasonably priced fossil fuels sometimes necessitating incongruous alliances and complex obligations abroad,” they write. “That logic has been upended, and the newly unlocked energy is set to boost the US economy and grant Washington newfound leverage around the world.”

Among the determinations Washington must make is whether to overturn a federal law, also dating back to the early ‘70s, that forbids US companies from exporting crude in all but a few circumstances. Full energy independence may still be many years away, but proponents of ending the ban argue it would not only further boost the US economy – fracking added 0.3 per cent to GDP growth last year – but also help America mitigate or even end Opec’s market influence and lessen Russia’s leverage also.

The Russia equation has, thanks to the Crimea crisis, raced to the fore, though it is more about gas from fracking than oil. America will see captured output touch 70 billion cubic feet a day in 2014, reaching over 100 billion cubic feet per day by 2040. In the past days, Bills have been tabled in both houses of Congress demanding that the federal government speed up the granting of licences to companies to export natural gas across the Atlantic precisely to reduce the dependency of Western Europe and Ukraine on Russian supplies.

Among those wading in is House Speaker John Boehner. “The US Department of Energy’s excruciatingly slow approval process amounts to a de facto ban on American natural gas exports that Vladimir Putin has happily exploited to finance his geopolitical goals,” he said in a statement last week.

Building the infrastructure to export quantities needed to alter the energy politics of Europe will take several years. Nor will changes in America’s foreign policy stance because of its newfound oil fortunes become obvious overnight.

Indeed, some experts warn against over-stating the likely effects. “The US has a lot of interest in what’s going on around the world, in the Middle East and elsewhere, regardless of whether it is independent or self-sufficient in fuels,” Adam Sieminski, the administrator of the Energy Information Administration in Washington told the Financial Post. “Those political and economic interests will remain whether we become an exporter or not.”

As vivid as the gas flares in the Texas sky at night, however, is America’s new-found love affair with fracking. Environmentalists warn loudly of water contamination disasters and some home owners speak of being rattled by man-made earthquakes, but there is no giving it up now. It’s a whole different world to 2008, when US oil production was at a historical low and Sarah Palin was drawing liberal ire declaring that “Drill, Baby Drill!” was the answer to all of America’s problems. Suddenly she seems to have been right.

Source: The Independent