It’s settled now that Iraq’s oil riches pretty much sealed Saddam Hussein’s fate.   The Anglo-American conquest of Iraq was heavily an oil-driven decision.   And wasn’t it nice of the Americans to avoid bombing Iraq’s oil infrastructure and to make it the first of the few things they actually secured after they toppled Saddam?

And now, a decade later, Iraq is on the verge of becoming the world’s second-largest oil producer.  Oh boy, all those years of war and suffering are finally paying off.    Sure, that is if you’re China.

America, with its own homegrown energy bonanza, going after the petroleum that lies beneath Iraq’s sands nearly as aggressively as is China, a country hungry to fuel its rise as an economic power.

Iraq remains highly unstable in terms of security, infrastructure and politics. Chinese state-owned oil companies appear more willing to put up with that than Americans are. . . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: And How Did That Work Out For You?

It’s settled now that Iraq’s oil riches pretty much sealed Saddam Hussein’s fate.   The Anglo-American conquest of Iraq was heavily an oil-driven decision.   And wasn’t it nice of the Americans to avoid bombing Iraq’s oil infrastructure and to make it the first of the few things they actually secured after they toppled Saddam?

And now, a decade later, Iraq is on the verge of becoming the world’s second-largest oil producer.  Oh boy, all those years of war and suffering are finally paying off.    Sure, that is if you’re China.

America, with its own homegrown energy bonanza, isn’t going after the petroleum that lies beneath Iraq’s sands nearly as aggressively as is China, a country hungry to fuel its rise as an economic power.

Iraq remains highly unstable in terms of security, infrastructure and politics. Chinese state-owned oil companies appear more willing to put up with that than Americans are.

“The Chinese have a higher tolerance for risk,” said Gal Luft, a co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington research center focused on energy.

The International Energy Agency expects China to become the main customer for Iraq’s vast oil reserves. Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist, recently declared “a new trade axis is being formed between Baghdad and Beijing.” Birol said that about 80 percent of Iraq’s future oil exports were expected to go to Asia, mainly to China.

Isn’t America generous?  It spent trillions of dollars to make Iran the dominant power in the region and to allow China to stitch up Iraq’s oil reserves (hint, Beijing is doing the same with Iran’s oil).

All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men….

Why are so many people stealing the stuff?

The BRICS summits to all  intent and  purpose come across as meetings of grownups in an otherwise juvenile and insane world.  With two commie countries  as the two most prominent members of the 5-nation gang, we are inclined to discard this group in our traditional “hate communists” spit out.  Then on second thoughts many of us are looking at what the other side has to offer and going “hmmmmmmmm”.   I,  for one,  am liking the stance the BRICS are purposing to take.  It’s high time the USA and the Rothchilds and their manipulation and plotting to keep the US Dollar as the only trading currency, if you want oil for your nation’s engine, is given a rude awakening.   They have brought it on themselves by signing all those agreements with Saudi Arabia and OPEC.  IMO, the BRICS’s  ultimate goal is to have a petro currency of their own.  That’s what is scaring the US$ lovers more than anything else the BRICS might purpose.

Although the media in the West is undermining the BRICS and their efforts,  we can’t get away from the fact that  there will be  increasingly important roles these members will be playing in the financial future of our planet and by extension to the downgrading of the American dollar.  The US $ is gonna fall folks.  Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, maybe not for the next few years, but the fall is inevitable.  I hope our Canadian dollar can withstand that storm.
The first vid below is from the BRICS #4 summit in India.

From DW
“It’s done,” declared South African finance minister,   Pravin Gordhan, even before the official opening of the summit on Tuesday. Later, Gordhan and his counterparts from Brazil, Russia, India and China scaled back their plans. The final communiqué mentions the bank, but details such as capitalization, scope of the bank’s activities, how projects would be distributed and where the bank would be based are left unresolved. So the club of five has once again missed an opportunity to dispatch a clear signal to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Before the summit, Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations in Sao Paulo, had described the successful founding of the new bank as a “litmus test” for the BRICS states.
South Africa had applied to be the seat of the new bank, which would have $50 billion (39 billion euros) in starting capital and would make funds available for infrastructure projects within BRICS countries. There will be a fresh attempt to get the bank off the ground at the 2014 BRICS summit in Brazil…………


From The Economist:
…..In contrast, the tentative step taken towards   pooling the BRICS foreign-currency reserves came with a figure. A safety net with an initial size of $100 billion would be “feasible and desirable”, said the communiqué—as long as there were the right “legal frameworks and appropriate safeguards.” At least four of the five BRICS countries have ample currency reserves; the issue was whether and how to lend them to other, cash-strapped emerging economies. The frameworks and safeguards to make this work might not be all that feasible or desirable. On this evidence the IMF is likely to remain the world’s lender-of-last-resort for a while.
There will be an interim BRICS meeting when the G20 group of rich and soon-to-be-rich countries gathers in Russia in September. The next full BRICS summit will be held in Brazil in 2014, the year in which the country hosts the FIFA World Cup, the granddaddy of all football tournaments. Perhaps Rio or Sao Paulo will see the full graduation of the BRICS as a global force. The Durban summit did not quite make that mark…





From Reuters:
At a summit in South Africa on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin likened the BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to Africa’s “Big Five” game beasts of trophy hunting lore – the lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhinoceros.


The Russian president’s comparison captures the dilemma of these muscular emerging global powers, which together present a formidable potential economic and political counterweight to the developed West, but individually could hardly be more different.


The question is whether the BRICS five can run as a herd or hunt as a pack on the global stage, transforming their diverse but collective strength into real institutions and coordinating structures to project their voice in the world.


At a two-day summit in Durban, South Africa, the leaders of countries that make up more than 40 percent of the world’s population and a fifth of global GDP seemed to have little concrete to show from their mostly closed-door deliberations……

A team of Ecuadorean politicians is in Beijing.   They bring gifts – more than three million hectares of pristine Amazon rainforest that is to be auctioned off to Chinese oil companies.

On Monday morning a group of Ecuadorean politicians pitched bidding contracts to representatives of Chinese oil companies at a Hilton hotel in central Beijing, on the fourth leg of a roadshow to publicise the bidding process. Previous meetings in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, and in Houston and Paris were each confronted with protests by indigenous groups.

Attending the roadshow were black-suited representatives from oil companies including China Petrochemical and China National Offshore Oil. “Ecuador is willing to establish a relationship of mutual benefit – a win-win relationship,” said Ecuador’s ambassador to China in opening remarks.

According to the California-based NGO Amazon Watch, seven indigenous groups who inhabit the land claim that they have not consented to oil projects, which would devastate the area’s environment and threaten their traditional way of life.

Peru offers a look at what the future holds for Ecuador’s indigenous peoples of the Amazon when Big Oil comes to the rainforest.

Peru has declared an environmental state of emergency in a remote part of its northern Amazon rainforest, home for decades to one of the country’s biggest oil fields, currently operated by the Argentinian company Pluspetrol.

Peru’s environment ministry has given Pluspetrol 90 days to clean up the affected areas and reduce the risk of contamination to the local population.

In declaring the state of emergency, Peru’s environment ministry said tests in February and March found high levels of barium, lead, chrome and petroleum-related compounds at different points in the Pastaza valley.

Pluspetrol, the biggest oil and natural gas producer in Peru, has operated the oil fields since 2001. It took over from [California based] Occidental Petroleum, which began drilling in 1971, and, according to the government, had not cleaned up contamination either.

The Occidental Petroleum issue is highlighted because it might be a good indicator of what we’re going to face when Big Oil vacates Athabasca.

A team of Ecuadorean politicians is in Beijing.   They bring gifts – more than three million hectares of pristine Amazon rainforest that is to be auctioned off to Chinese oil companies.

On Monday morning a group of Ecuadorean politicians pitched bidding contracts to representatives of Chinese oil companies at a Hilton hotel in central Beijing, on the fourth leg of a roadshow to publicise the bidding process. Previous meetings in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, and in Houston and Paris were each confronted with protests by indigenous groups.

Attending the roadshow were black-suited representatives from oil companies including China Petrochemical and National Offshore Oil. “Ecuador is willing to establish a relationship of mutual benefit – a win-win relationship,” said Ecuador’s ambassador to China in opening remarks.

According to the California-based NGO Amazon Watch, seven indigenous groups who inhabit the land claim that they have not consented to oil projects, which would devastate . . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: China Grabs Ecuadorean Amazon for Oil

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By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: The two giant Chinese pandas, Da Mao, a four-year-old male, and Er Shun, a five-year-old female, jetted into Toronto today to much fanfare. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was on hand to give them the VIP welcome. Did you know that the Conservatives were prepared to keep Canadians [...]

The post Stephen Harper personally asked for the Chinese pandas, memo reveals appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis.

The complaints are familiar – “Asian immigrants are taking our jobs,” “Asian immigrants are buying our property and keeping us out.” Instead of being complaints found in the Richmond Review’s letters-to-the-editor section, however, these are the complaints that were found in a Liberal Party advertisement in 1921 that was posted on a Vancouver history site. [...]

This is really worth listening to if you are a fan of the mighty USA and want her to survive Obama.  I felt good after listening to Mr.Hanson especially because he was able to dispel my dread about  Russia and China becoming best buds. &nbsp…

The new Pope Francis comes from Latin America and has an understanding of the true depths of poverty that is uncommon in the United States and Western Europe. Outside the very Western urban part of downtown Buenos Aires lie the barrios and the shanties of the Argentinian poor. Life is more transient in neighborhoods where there is a lack of water, food, and opportunity, and where sanitation is a sometime thing. Government programs do not extend far enough or help many at the bottom of the ladder, and government statistics seem to hide much of the problem.

This holds true in many parts of the world. I was struck at the time of my first visit to China in 1987 by the contrast between the opulence of the walled community in which the “Western” hotels were located in Shanghai and the desperate poverty of the communities just the other side of that wall. Move forward some fifteen years and the cities of China are much different across much of the landscape. It is a transition that has been effected through large-scale industrialization and the vast quantities of power is expended in the growth and continuation of that industry. Such a transition is the vision for many countries in the world but the role of power in that change and the increasing costs that it imposes must be recognized. Just having a nominal power available is not, in itself, enough. Consider the case that India, a potential challenger to the Chinese in the marketplace, now finds itself in. As with China, the country has desperate poverty but it also has a developing industrial base that is driving change. But the rate of that change has been limited for some time by the amount of power available.

Power cuts in India are so commonplace that the Times of India recently ran an article detailing some things to do during these “incessant” cuts. And while it is only the major blackouts, such as the power failures at the end of last July that garner global headlines because of the scale, some 600 million people being without power in that event, it is the daily, smaller scale events that are making it increasingly difficult to run a business. In Coimbatore, for example, a city of some 3.5 million people, power outages can last up to 14 hours a day and “load-shedding”, where power outages are rotated around the neighborhoods is an accepted part of daily life in the country. The ubiquity of these cuts mean that many folk have purchased stand-by generators, which in turn drives up the demand for fuel. But it is difficult to run a business – whether it be a factory or a restaurant, if you don’t have a reliable source of power. And if cuts are frequent enough and the alternative power costs are too high, then business either closes or moves somewhere else. It is such a decision that is apparently facing small business owners in places such as Coimbatore, but it has the potential to spread to the larger and now more dependant communities such as Bangalore, the third largest city in the nation, and the Silicon Valley of India.

The city consumes some 2,300 MW a day which it draws from the state grid. About 1,000 MW is generated in the state from nuclear power stations, with the majority of the rest coming from coal, gas and diesel power plants. Because of the prestige of the community it is likely that the city won’t see the worst of the anticipated power shortages this summer, which already have the state trying to buy an additional 1,500 MW. Current supply shortage is around 180 MW but is expected to grow as the weather warms into summer. And since overall Indian supply is challenged by a greater demand, the state can only hope to acquire 1,000 MW to meet the expected demand. They hope that this will be enough to keep the lights and power on in their “Valley.”

This is one of the drivers, expanded to a national scale, that is facing India as it decides what to do over sanctions on Iranian oil. Earlier in that debate India switched out of paying for the oil with US dollars to paying in gold. Given the volumes involved, India imported around 285 kbd from Iran in January, this does nice things (if you are a gold miner) for the price of gold, in dollars. But that can only go so far, and there are suggestions that the payments are becoming more about barter. As a result India has become Iran’s top customer and it is a difficult relationship to change, since some of the Indian refineries are designed only to take Iranian crude. However, as sanctions are growing to include insurance companies, Indian refineries that process the Iranian crude are threatened with the loss of coverage. Whether this will force a change in source of supply, or whether the Indian Government will find a way around the dilemma is an ongoing debate, complicated by the “good deal” that India is getting as a price.

The other fuel on which India is critically dependent is coal. And although the country has large reserves of coal, it is not developing them fast enough to meet demand, and thus must increasingly import both thermal and metallurgical coal.

Figure 1. Indian Coal Statistics (Energy Export Databrowser)

By 2017 imports are anticipated to rise to some 266 million tons of coal, in total. And while much of the press has focused on the Chinese development of new coal-fired power plants, India is planning some 455 new plants, while China has only 363 on the books. This comprises the majority of the 1200 plants currently being planned around the world.

Apart from challenging the opinions of those who suggest that coal demand has or will soon peak, this speaks to the burgeoning need for fuel sources as nations struggle to bring their poor into a better standard of living. It may well be a debate that now acquires a religious overtone.

A visit to Beijing, China, isn’t complete without a hike along the Great Wall of China. As I began reviewing the available hiking tours, I was overwhelmed by the number of options. Popular routes include the Jinshanling to Simatai route and the section around Badaling. These options were not particularly interesting to me because they [...]

Read the original post A Different Tour of the Great Wall of China on Adventure Travel blog for Couples | The Planet D.

The two pandas are expected to go on display in May.

After several years of negotiations between the Chinese and Canadian governments, the Toronto Zoo finally announced, earlier today, that its two giant pandas are scheduled to touch down on Canadian soil on March 25. The male/female breeding pair, named Da Mao and Er Shun, are expected to go on display in May. For some reason, [...]

The Chinese keep taking the West by surprise with their technological advancement.   We’re pretty sure a fair bit of their knowledge is purloined via the internet.   Some, probably, but not all.And, speaking of the internet, it seem…

The Chinese keep taking the West by surprise with their technological advancement.   We’re pretty sure a fair bit of their knowledge is purloined via the internet.   Some, probably, but not all.

And, speaking of the internet, it seems China is poised to rock the world with a “next generation” internet that is expected to be a world-beater.

Just as our conventional internet is nearing it’s 4.3-billion full capacity, China is deploying a system that is supposedly 80,000 trillion trillion times larger.

Shanghai has a water problem.   Somehow more than 2,800 dead pigs wound up floating in one of the main rivers that supplies drinking water to the mega-metropolis of 23-million.Local authorities claim the river water is still safe to drink but…

Shanghai has a water problem.   Somehow more than 2,800 dead pigs wound up floating in one of the main rivers that supplies drinking water to the mega-metropolis of 23-million.

Local authorities claim the river water is still safe to drink but they are local authorities and this is China.

Nobody has figured out where the pigs came from yet.   How some farmer can conceal the absence of nearly three thousand pigs is a bit tough to understand.   Yet the animals show no sign of disease or any other obvious cause of death.

Apparently this is nothing new.

can see dead pigs here every year, but there are more now than in the past few years,” a local man told the [state broadcaster CCTV].

The Jiaxing Daily newspaper in northern Zhejiang province quoted a villager as saying that over the past two months almost 20,000 pigs in his village . . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: When Pigs Float

With the death of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the future production and exports of Venezuelan crude are gaining a little new attention. I had noted in the last post that there is a difference of around 400 kbd between the 2.379 mbd that outside observers report to OPEC that the country is producing, and the 2.768 mbd that Venezuela itself reported. The question now becomes one as to whether the new President will be able to resurrect an industry that has overseen a slow decline in overall production, with a more rapid decline in exports.

Figure 1. Venezuelan oil statistics (Energy Export Databrowser)

My short answer to that question is No! It is based on a number of reasons and may be swamped by the voices who note that the country has a vast remaining pool of oil in the Orinoco Basin, one that the USGS has estimated to be more than a trillion barrels in size, of which some 513 billion barrels are technically recoverable. But there have been a number of posts about those numbers and the more critical number, which is that of the rate of oil production.

Colin Campbell reminded us in his 2006 Review of the country that the Venezuelan Government was one of those urging the creation of OPEC, back in 1960. Back when that piece was written Colin expected that production, which had been falling as the reserves in the Lake Maracaibo region declined, would start to wind back up, as the heavy and extra heavy oils of the Orinoco were brought into a higher level of production. And he anticipated that, by now, the country would be producing around 3 mbd, which it is not.

One of the requirements before one can market the heavy oil is to have refineries that can process the oil. The United States, which imports around 1 mbd of Venezuelan crude, has the Citgo refineries that are wholly owned by PDVSA (the Venezuelan oil company). Whether that will influence their switch to Canadian crude if the Keystone pipeline is put in place is an open question. But easing the American demand might help with Venezuelan relations with China.

Figure 2. US Monthly imports of crude and Petroleum Products from Venezuela (EIA )

China, which has refineries Sinopec built that can also handle the crude, has stepped in here and spent over $40 billion with much of this in loans to be repaid through increased oil exports. Back in 2007 China had made the decision to pull out of Canada and to concentrate its investments in Venezuela instead. Since that time they loaned Venezuela over $20 billion in return for a commitment for oil exports that were to reach 1 mbd in 2012. The date to reach that target has now slipped to 2015 as overallproduction has continued to decline.

Last August President Chavez announced a $130 billion plan for investment in the Orinoco.

He said that there are 150 different clusters of oil wells in the Belt, but the goal in the next six years is to increase that number to 500. Before the nationalization of the Belt, there were just 37 clusters.

The clusters are comprised of 24 separate oil wells, each of which extract around 1,200 barrels per day. At these facilities, hydrocarbons are extracted using 45-meter drills purchased in Venezuela and assembled in Venezuela.

“All this has been nationalized, which before was the property of multinationals, and production has also been increased,” the president said. He recalled that before the government took control of the Belt, there were just 2,800 wells, while now there are more than 4,000.

Because the Orinoco crude is very heavy, to an API gravity of 9 degrees, it is difficult to produce and requires a considerable energy investment to extract and process the crude.

Last September two joint ventures came on stream. That at Petromiranda, where PDVSA has Russian partners who began producing 1,500 bd, after an investment of $800 million, with a goal of eventually reaching 45,000 bd. At the same time Petromacareo, where PDVSA is partnering with the Vietnamese, came on line at 800 bd, with an initial target production of 4,000 bd. (The project has slipped from a target start date of early 2011, and the ultimate goal of 200 kbd from Petrimacareo is in more doubt.)

The crude has to be upgraded and TNK-BP is partnering to double the capacity of the Petromangas upgrader from 120 to 250 kbd. Until that capacity is increased, Orinoco production may be limited.

There is thus a history of project slippage and missed targets that is unlikely to improve in the short term. New plans for further investment either by the Chinese, Indians or Russia are now on hold while the presidential election to replace President Chavez is decided, but the experience in the last couple of years is likely indicative that progress in increasing production will be difficult to achieve and when set against a rising domestic consumption (as the Export Land Model predicted) is already leading to a fall in exports.

One of the drivers for this increase in domestic consumption is that the price of gasoline in Venezuela is $0.04 per gallon (four cents). In contrast, in Saudi Arabia it is around $0.61. The low price of gas means that there has been a significant increase in demand, exceeding that domestically available. As a result the country has been importing gas at up to $100 a barrel to sell it for $5 – you can’t balance those books by increasing the volume of sales!!

Yet cutting back on domestic consumption or increasing prices could prove difficult for the incoming President. So maybe it would be a good idea to invest in the Keystone pipeline as a simple precaution??

China may soon become the only nation with the hardware to take down high geo-stationary orbiting satellite systems such as GPS.  The U.S. is warning that China is preparing for a third anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon test.There is now speculation th…

China may soon become the only nation with the hardware to take down high geo-stationary orbiting satellite systems such as GPS.  The U.S. is warning that China is preparing for a third anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon test.

There is now speculation that orbiting debris from a 2007 Chinese ASAT test may have struck and disabled a Russian satellite.   The concern is that space garbage may strike and cause other satellites to explode adding enormous amounts of space garbage to threaten other satellites creating a “cascade” that quickly renders space unusable.

China has responded to the U.. complaints by saying no matter what it does the U.S. has already militarized space and America has only itself to blame for refusing Chinese overtures to join China and Russia in a space treaty.  

an editorial in China’s state-run Global Times said concerns being expressed about the program were overblown. The editorial in the . . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: Arms Race Update – China’s Anti-Satellite Weapons Tests to Continue