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Iraqi oil exceeds pre-war output
BBC
Iraqi oil production is above the levels seen before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA said Iraqi crude production is now running at 2.3 million barrels per day, compared with 1.9 million barrels at the start of this year.
It puts the rise down to the improving security situation in Iraq, especially in the north of the country.
But the IEA warned that attacks on Iraqi oil facilities remain a threat.
(14 December 2007)
Iraq and Climate Change
Michael T. Klare, Foreign Policy in Focus
When our grandchildren and more distant descendants assemble in such classrooms as may be available and ask their teachers, “Why did our ancestors not take effective action to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change?” one of the answers will surely be, “The war in Iraq.”
Long after this war is over, its legacy will live on in terms of this nation’s abject failure to address the climate change challenge during the early years of the twenty-first century, when it was still possible to avert global warming’s most horrendous effects. When these effects became more widely apparent, in the decades ahead, humanity will no doubt take vigorous action to deal with the problem – but by then it will be too late to prevent some of its most damaging consequences, such as dramatic sea-level rise, widespread drought and desertification, increased severe storm activity, and the collapse of vulnerable societies.
Why is the Iraq War so closely tied to our failure in addressing climate change?
Let’s begin with the obvious: the war is primarily being fought by the United States, the world’s leading producer of climate-altering “greenhouse” gases and the one country whose leadership is required for genuine progress toward solving the climate change problem. But instead of providing such leadership, the United States has been totally embroiled in conducting a losing and debilitating war.
Transformation
Overcoming the global warming problem won’t be easy. In fact, it may prove the most difficult challenge humanity has ever faced. Its successful management will require a total transformation in the way we power and organize our cities, industries, farms, and transportation systems. This, in turn, will require the full attention, imagination, ingenuity, and determination of our leaders, scientists, engineers, farmers, and industrialists.
It’s not something you can successfully attend to in the rare few minutes between briefings on the war, visits to the war zone, consultations with top generals, endless discussion of a new winning strategy to replace all those that have failed, arm-twisting conversations with reluctant members of Congress to convince them to approve additional funds for war, visits to troops going off to battle, visits with troops returning from battle, meetings with the families of soldiers lost in battle, more meetings with generals, more arm-twisting, more strategy sessions, and so on. Yet every account of the Bush presidency since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 has indicated that the conduct of the war has occupied almost all of President George W. Bush’s attention – and that of his senior staff – when it was not focused on getting re-elected or satisfying the purely venal interests of Republican insiders.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that the White House has devoted little sustained attention to the global warming issue and come up with few meaningful proposals for addressing it.
It’s the Oil
But, of course, this is just the beginning of the problem. What, after all, is the Iraq War all about? Pundits and historians will no doubt argue about this for decades to come, but few in the end will dispute the conclusion of former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan that, at root, it was about the control of Middle Eastern petroleum. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he wrote in his 2007 memoir, The Age of Turbulence.
(7 December 2007)
Also posted at Common Dreams.
Angola: Energy profile
Energy Publisher
Angola, a significant Sub-Saharan Africa oil producer, joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in January 2007.
On January 1, 2007, Angola became the 12th member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). As an OPEC member, Angola will have to pay $2 million per year in membership fees and might be restricted by OPEC quotas on oil production. Angola is the second largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa behind Nigeria.
Angola is set to experience oil production increases over the next five year period as new offshore projects come online. Angola exports crude oil primarily to China, the United States, Europe and Latin America.
The majority of natural gas produced in Angola is either flared or used in oil recovery. To help reduce flaring, Chevron and Sonangol are planning to build a five-million-ton liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, which could be operational in 2010.
(5 December 2007)
