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Abdul Bari Atwan on Al Qaeda, Oil and the Middle East
Abdul Bari Atwan and Tony Jones, ABC Lateline
Author, journalist and London-based Arabic newspaper editor in chief Abdul Bari Atwan speaks with Lateline about the time he spent with Osama bin Laden in 1996.
…TONY JONES: I’m sorry to interrupt. I want to move you on, because you write about a strategy designed, in fact, by Al Qaeda’s military strategist, the same man who helped design what was going on in Iraq with the insurgency there and the infiltration of Al Qaeda people into Iraq, has set out a plan which you’ve published right up to 2020. Where are we now in that plan? Where does that plan propose to end up?
ABDUL BARI ATWAN: Well, actually we don’t know what will happen. I believe now the American administration is facing a huge crisis in Iraq, and also another crisis in Iran.
What will happen to the Iranian nuclear program? What will happen to the situation in Lebanon which is turning to be a failed state, whether Al Qaeda will manage to set up bases there? What will happen to the oil industry, if there’s a far flare-up between the United States and Iran and the Iranians use their missiles to hit the oil fields and burn it again like Saddam Hussein did in Kuwait. What will happen? Is it going to be blocked? What will happen to Israel, for example, whether the Iranian, the Hezbollah missiles will hit Israel?
We are facing a huge problem in the Middle East. I believe that the coming 12 months is the most important period of this part of the world’s history. I think in 2020 we will see a completely different Middle East, because most of oil resources outside the Gulf, in particular, will be dried up simply because it’s very short-term production oil reserves. Even in Iran in 2020, 2025, the oil will run out completely.
China’s consumption of oil increases 7 per cent, 7.5 per cent, every year. India, which is another superpower, emerging its consumption of oil increasing by 5.5 per cent every year. United States’ consumption is increasing.
Where are we going to have this oil from? Who will control the oil in the Middle East? Who will put his hand on the tab there? Anybody who will control that part of the world will control the whole world, the whole economy. To be honest, it is very bleak picture.
So Middle East will be there in the news and there will be many wars to come, many, many conflicts. Many competitions between the emerging superpower, India, China and Europe with Soviet Union or Russia in particular. So, it is very interesting to see what will happen there.
TONY JONES: Abdul Bari Atwan, we’ll have to leave you there. We thank you very much for taking the time to come in and talk to us tonight.
(23 August 2007)
The full transcript of the interview is available from ABC Lateline.
Reports: Kazakhstan suspends operations at massive Kashagan oil development
Associated Press
Kazakh officials have ordered operations at the country’s largest oil development suspended and the Finance Ministry announced a criminal investigation, news reports said, signaling growing unhappiness with delays at the project led by Italian oil giant Eni SpA.
(28 August 2007)
Kazakhstan Orders Eni to Halt Work on Biggest Field
Nariman Gizitdinov and Greg Walters, Bloomberg
Kazakhstan ordered Eni SpA to halt work at the world’s biggest oil discovery in 30 years as the Central Asian country follows Russia’s lead in seeking greater control over its natural resources.
The Eni-led Kashagan development was suspended for at least three months because of “environmental violations,” Environment Minister Nurlan Iskakov said on state television today. Kazakh officials also told Eni to halt construction of a refinery for allegedly violating safety rules and opened a criminal probe into alleged customs violations by an Eni unit.
“This is an attempt to replicate Russia’s success with Sakhalin-2,” said Dmitry Loukashov, an oil and gas analyst at Alfa Bank in Moscow. Russia’s environmental watchdog threatened to derail Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s $22 billion Sakhalin-2 venture before the Hague-based company agreed to cede control to state- run gas exporter OAO Gazprom in December.
Kashagan holds 12 billion barrels of recoverable crude, enough to supply the U.S. for 19 months, according to the Kazakh Energy Ministry. Setbacks have pushed the total cost of the project to $136 billion, more than double earlier estimates, according to the government.
(27 August 2007)
Related from Reuters: Kazakhstan suspends Kashagan oilfield.
Why Fears of a U.S. Slowdown Aren’t Weakening Oil Prices
Bhushan Bahree, Wall Street Journal
Oil prices are supposed to be vulnerable to anything that threatens world economic growth, and thus demand for petroleum. That’s especially true when prices are high, as they are now, at more than $70 a barrel.
Nothing has worried oil sheiks more in recent years than the specter of a U.S. housing-market collapse drilling a hole in their pocketbooks. So, with the U.S. subprime-mortgage market in a meltdown and U.S. credit markets in turmoil, are fat oil profits about to end? Will some moderation finally come to the oil market, where price swings this year have been extremely volatile?
Experts say a sharp and sustained fall in oil prices would be unlikely unless financial and economic malaise infected Asia and the Middle East, reducing their fast-rising demand. That doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
“You need a serious recession in the U.S., not just an economic slowdown” for those regions to be affected, says Roger Diwan, an analyst at Washington-based oil-industry consulting firm PFC Energy. Oil prices will only weaken “when you see that China’s demand is not growing at 700,000 barrels a day, and the Middle East’s demand isn’t growing by 500,000” barrels a day, he says.
(27 August 2007)
The full article is behind a paywall.
Subprime crisis gives Opec dilemma
Ed Crooks, Financial Times
For anxious Americans worried about their homes and their jobs, there has at least been one piece of good news this summer: the price of petrol has fallen about 40 cents from its peak of more than $3.20 a gallon.
The fall is a consequence of an easing in the shortage of US refinery capacity and a drop in the price of crude, which is down about 9 per cent from its peak of $78.77 for West Texas Intermediate at the beginning of the month.
At a time when the subprime crisis is focusing attention on the financial health of US households, cheaper road fuel is particularly welcome.
However, that welcome decline in the price of oil has stalled in the past two weeks. The short-run outlook for the balance of supply and demand suggests that hopes of further relief for the US economy from that quarter are likely to be disappointed.
(29 August 2007)
