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Prices moved less dramatically than in the 1970s and 1980s, and timely OPEC action reduced the market impact of Middle East hostilities in 1990-91. But excessive volatility and general price weakness dominated the decade, and the South-East Asian economic downturn and mild Northern Hemisphere winter of 1998-99 saw prices back at 1986 levels.

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Infobase Learning has databases and streaming video collections for every school, college, and library.

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A Running List of How Trump Is Changing the Environment

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The Trump administration has promised vast changes to U.S. science and environmental policy-and we're tracking them here as they happen.

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Saving Iraq From Its Oil "The Resource Curse" From: Foreign Affairs Weekly (2004) ESCAPING THE RESOURCE CURSE As the United States, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Governing Council struggle to dete...

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Why Oklahoma Has More Earthquakes Than California

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April 23 -- A recent Oklahoma geological survey said the huge increase in earthquakes shaking Oklahoma are probably coming from the oil and gas boom that has swept the state. Bloomberg's Matt Philips explains what's happening under the surface in the Sooner state.

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With all of China's geopolitical posturing in the South China Sea, many are claiming that Beijing's aim to control more than 80% of the troubled waterway is purely based on national sovereignty claims.

Others claim that Beijing's land reclamation and artificial island building in the region, including its illegal seizure of Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012, is not only based on sovereignty issues but also potential oil and gas resources. Meanwhile, most believe that the majority of these hydrocarbon resources are natural gas instead of oil.

However, geologists are now taking another look at what might actually lie beneath the South China Sea and if they are even partially right, China could emerge with more than just bragging rights if it controls most of the South China Sea - they could also potentially hold hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, even more.
What lies beneath the South China Sea?
First, some figures: One older Chinese estimate places potential oil resources in the South China Sea as high as 213 billion barrels of oil, though many Western analysts have repeatedly claimed that this estimate seems extremely high. A conservative 1993/1994 US Geological Survey (USGS) report estimated the sum total of discovered reserves and undiscovered resources in the offshore basins of the South China Sea at 28 billion barrels.

It must be remembered that reserves are considered oil or gas assets remaining in place that are fairly well known, and have been discovered by exploratory drilling. Reserves must also be extractable at a net profit at market prices with current technology, optimally in a politically stable area. Resources on the other hand are deposits that do not meet one or more of the criteria for reserves. There are d ifferent classifications of reserves which are related to their degree of certainty.

According to the 1993/94 USGS estimate, natural gas is more abundant in the area than oil. The USGS estimates that about 60%-70% of the area's hydrocarbon resources are gas and has placed the sum total of discovered reserves and undiscovered resources in the offshore basins of the South China Sea at 266 trillion cubic feet.

State-owned oil major China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), responsible for most of China's offshore hydrocarbon development, estimates that the area holds around 125 billion barrels of oil and 500 trillion cubic feet of gas in undiscovered areas, although the figures have not been confirmed by independent studies.

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Why The South China Sea Has More Oil Than You Think

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Chinese sailors march in a military parade in Beijing in this stock photo. Beijing has increased land reclamation activities and artificial island building in the troubled body of water, while it is slowly bringing military assets into the area. With all of China's geopolitical posturing in the South China Sea, many [...]

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Why Oil Was a Prime Motivator For the Iraq War

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Why Oil Was a Prime Motivator For the Iraq War

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This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article.
Well before the U.S. and U.K. led the invasion of Iraq, the two countries were under suspicion about their intentions for Iraq's oil. When asked on February 6, 2003, in a BBC Newsnight program whether the war in Iraq was about oil, Tony Blair responded:

Let me just deal with the oil thing...the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyze it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It's not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons.

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But then again, the commander of the USCENTCOM during the Iraq War, General John Abizaid, came to see things rather differently: "Of course [the Iraq war] is about oil, we can't deny that."

So what part did oil really play in the Iraq War? Various members of the U.S. and U.K. administrations have provided evidence that Iraq's rich oil reserves were a major Anglo-American interest in the Middle East, and control of Iraq's reserves was always going to be a huge gain for U.S. and British oil corporations.

But reducing the war in Iraq to this motive alone would be too simplistic, and as the Chilcot Report makes plain, the explanations for the war are highly complex. Still, some factors are more significant than others.

Oil does appear to be one of the central ones, if not in the way that most observers suggest-that is, to guarantee an open flow of Iraqi oil to the U.S. and British economies. Instead, we should think of the oil imperative as part of a much more complex system of factors that drove the 2003 invasion.

Balance of power

The U.S.'s global hegemony-its capacity as a great power to get other states to support its geopolitical and economic goals-depends on a highly contingent and transitory set of circumstances. Since the late 1940s, Middle Eastern oil has only become more vital for maintaining the U.S.'s global supremacy, and in a more complex way than just a simple grab of oil reserves.

Above all, oil is part of a general strategy to maintain and exercise global power, and it's a central part of the U.S.-centered global system. Middle Eastern oil has played a central role in the rise and continuation of the supremacy of the U.S. and its close allies, arguably the central geopolitical story of our times.

If a hegemonic power wants to impose its political and economic authority over a region, it doesn't do it by mere fiat, but by serving and balancing the interests of its allies and clients. The economies of various U.S. allies, among them Japan and the countries of Western Europe, are to various extents dependent on oil imports; the U.S.'s Middle East clients, the oil monarchies, require American protection and support.

The U.S. has accordingly consolidated its strategically dominant position in the Middle East by effectively controlling the " global oil spigot." This is also an effective way to ward off any competition for the top position in this inter-state hierarchy, as all the U.S.'s competitors are heavily dependent on Middle East oil-in particular China.

The question of U.S. influence over oil-rich countries in the Middle East has become increasingly important after World War II. The so-called Carter Doctrine sums up this development perfectly:

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

Three and a half decades on, the Middle East's oil remains one of the central pillars of world politics, to ensure, with the use of violence if necessary, that Middle Eastern oil remains accessible, free-flowing, cheap, and firmly under U.S. control.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has waged several ground and air wars in the region-two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and one in Libya-and is currently threatening more. Each conflict has of course its own specific objectives, but there is a common denominator: the need to keep the oil of the region free-flowing, inexpensive, and under the firm control of the U.S. and its friends.

American strategists don't simply want to obtain oil. If you have money, that's easy. They also want to eliminate all potential competitors, safeguarding the region politically and militarily so that the flow of oil from the Middle East to world markets remains under their direct control.

Business as usual

As for Britain, which enthusiastically supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq in sharp contrast to most of the U.S.'s European allies, the partnership with the U.S. wasn't simply a maneuver for influence on the global stage, and nor was it the fruit of imperial delusion. Britain also had a clear material interest in being awarded a share of the spoils in the form of trade, contracts, and access to markets and natural resources.

This is not a matter of supposition or conjecture. In October 2002, five months before the invasion of Iraq, the then-trade minister, Baroness Symons, told BP executives that the British government was working to secure a good share of Iraq's oil and gas reserves for British energy corporations as a reward for Blair's strong military commitment to U.S. operations for regime change in Iraq.

Confidential minutes released as a result of Freedom of Information request by Greg Muttitt, (co-director of the campaign group Platform), reveal that in several meetings with BP and Shell executives detailed plans were drafted by British government to exploit oil opportunities in post-Saddam Iraq.

Many view all this as evidence of a conspiracy, but that is reductive. These events are part of a larger balance of global economic and political mechanisms-a tangle of political and economic interests coverging under the rubric of "regime change".
Bulent Gökay is professor of international relations at Keele University.
Vested interests representing energy, weapons and influential segments of the media and communications industries are entrenched in key sectors of Western governments. These interests are concerned with maintaining their privileged position, and key elements of the U.S. and British elite respond directly.

This was not a conspiracy; it was simply business as usual.

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In Opinion: Despite Tony Blair claiming otherwise, oil was a motivator for the Iraq War

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This article was originally published in The Conversation . Read the original article. Well before the U.S. and U.K. led the invasion of Iraq, the two countries were under suspicion about their intentions for Iraq's oil.

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During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military and to gain leverage in the post-war peace negotiations. Arab OPEC members also extended the embargo to other countries that supported Israel including the Netherlands, Portugal, and South Africa. The embargo both banned petroleum exports to the targeted nations and introduced cuts in oil production. Several years of negotiations between oil-producing nations and oil companies had already destabilized a decades-old pricing system, which exacerbated the embargo's effects.

The 1973 Oil Embargo acutely strained a U.S. economy that had grown increasingly dependent on foreign oil. The efforts of President Richard M. Nixon's administration to end the embargo signaled a complex shift in the global financial balance of power to oil-producing states and triggered a slew of U.S. attempts to address the foreign policy challenges emanating from long-term dependence on foreign oil.

By 1973, OPEC had demanded that foreign oil corporations increase prices and cede greater shares of revenue to their local subsidiaries. In April, the Nixon administration announced a new energy strategy to boost domestic production to reduce U.S. vulnerability to oil imports and ease the strain of nationwide fuel shortages. That vulnerability would become overtly clear in the fall of that year.

The onset of the embargo contributed to an upward spiral in oil prices with global implications. The price of oil per barrel first doubled, then quadrupled, imposing skyrocketing costs on consumers and structural challenges to the stability of whole national economies. Since the embargo coincided with a devaluation of the dollar, a global recession seemed imminent. U.S. allies in Europe and Japan had stockpiled oil supplies, and thereby secured for themselves a short-term cushion, but the long-term possibility of high oil prices and recession precipitated a rift within the Atlantic Alliance. European nations and Japan found themselves in the uncomfortable position of needing U.S. assistance to secure energy sources, even as they sought to disassociate themselves from U.S. Middle East policy. The United States, which faced a growing dependence on oil consumption and dwindling domestic reserves, found itself more reliant on imported oil than ever before, having to negotiate an end to the embargo under harsh domestic economic circumstances that served to diminish its international leverage. To complicate matters, the embargo's organizers linked its end to successful U.S. efforts to bring about peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Partly in response to these developments, on November 7 the Nixon administration announced Project Independence to promote domestic energy independence. It also engaged in intensive diplomatic efforts among its allies, promoting a consumers' union that would provide strategic depth and a consumers' cartel to control oil pricing. Both of these efforts were only partially successful.

President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recognized the constraints inherent in peace talks to end the war that were coupled with negotiations with Arab OPEC members to end the embargo and increase production. But they also recognized the linkage between the issues in the minds of Arab leaders. The Nixon administration began parallel negotiations with key oil producers to end the embargo, and with Egypt, Syria, and Israel to arrange an Israeli pullout from the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Initial discussions between Kissinger and Arab leaders began in November 1973 and culminated with the First Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Agreement on January 18, 1974. Though a finalized peace deal failed to materialize, the prospect of a negotiated end to hostilities between Israel and Syria proved sufficient to convince the relevant parties to lift the embargo in March 1974.

The embargo laid bare one of the foremost challenges confronting U.S. policy in the Middle East, that of balancing the contradictory demands of unflinching support for Israel and the preservation of close ties to the Arab oil-producing monarchies. The strains on U.S. bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia revealed the difficulty of reconciling those demands. The U.S. response to the events of 1973-1974 also clarified the need to reconcile U.S. support for Israel to counterbalance Soviet influence in the Arab world with both foreign and domestic economic policies.

The full impact of the embargo, including high inflation and stagnation in oil importers, resulted from a complex set of factors beyond the proximate actions taken by the Arab members of OPEC. The declining leverage of the U.S. and European oil corporations (the "Seven Sisters") that had hitherto stabilized the global oil market, the erosion of excess capacity of East Texas oil fields, and the recent decision to allow the U.S. dollar to float freely in the international exchange all played a role in exacerbating the crisis. Once the broader impact of these factors set in throughout the United States, it triggered new measures beyond the April and November 1973 efforts that focused on energy conservation and development of domestic energy sources. These measures included the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a national 55-mile-per-hour speed limit on U.S. highways, and later, President Gerald R. Ford's administration's imposition of fuel economy standards. It also prompted the creation of the International Energy Agency proposed by Kissinger.

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Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian