Read "Crude World" by Peter Maass

News about the oil business, campaigns against it's foul play, news about pollution incidents, academic studies dealing with the many implications of the importance of oil and similar reports are not infrequent. Quite a few entries at this present blog deals with oil. But how about a first hand account of visits to the oil business hotspots of the world? From an acknowledged journalist with a critical approach and an open mind. About 220 pages telling the stories of the people living from or in the shadow of oil extraction... that's Crude World.


Chances are you'll gobble it up like a SUV does gasoline but there's plenty in its ten creatively titled chapters to digest more thoroughly. Scarcity, introducing with the stories of a poster-boy whistleblower from inside the number one consuming nation, USA; Plunder, about the disturbingly overlooked textbook case of Equatorial Guinea; Rot, taking us down the polluted rivers of the Niger Delta; Contamination, continues with stories from the misery of the Ecuadorean jungle; Fear, dives into the psychology of the oil business and the ignorance and innocence of its workers; Greed, is composed of a handful of stories about the callousness of the oil business even when operating inside the West; Desire, is a bit of the impossible to ignore story of the Gulf Wars; Alienation, has the perhaps most scary story of the ghost country called Saudi Arabia; Empire, is a peek below the surface of the apparently feel-good story of Russia; and Mirage ends off the book with a similarly critical look at the naive story of the Boliviarians in Venezuela.

Around the world indeed. Plenty of facts but served in dishes of true stories. Warmly recommended.

Can't help quoting a few good quotes about the US relation to the Middle East:

“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.”
- US President Jimmy Carter, 1980

“Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to US national security. The United States remains committed to defending its vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force, against any power with interests inimical to our own.”
- US President George Bush in “National Security Directive 54”

“Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”
- Dick Cheney, August 2002

Democracy Now! interviewed Peter Maass during the BP oil "spill" in the Mexican Gulf:


Also, he's talking for hours on YouTube! About the book in general...



...about Russia...



...about Nigeria...



...about Iraq...



...and about related subjects in many more recordings.

Regarding the Iraq War... was it about oil then? To Maass it turns out it's not whether the war was about oil - it's how it was about oil.

A Crude Awakening (four years late)

Predating the first post at this present blog by about 13 months in 2006 the documentary A Crude Awakening warned of the implications of oil soon running out.

From Wikipedia's section "Findings", my emphasis:

overall conclusions were that a global peak was imminent (if not already occurring), more wars would be fought to control access to oil resources, and economies most dependent on oil (or relying on trade with oil-dependent nations) would suffer dire consequences

At IMDb the user cross-45 rates it 10/10 and from his review:

This film puts into perspective and also gives me many answers for the bloodshed carried out in many of the wars of the last century, and continuing into this century

Already in the trailer, a woman says:

Oil is a magnet for war. Oil starts wars. 

Welcome to my Ecowar Movies list (and my 'Must See' list), A Crude Awakening.

See IMDb, the Wikipedia entry and the official site. (Thanks to Lara Smallman for alerting me about this one.)

Fresh Peak Oil warnings from German military and British government agency

Spiegel Online / 'Peak Oil' and the German Government - Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis:

A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The internal draft document -- leaked on the Internet -- shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis.

[...]

The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military. The team of authors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Will, uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.

Uofficial translation of actual report: Consumer Energy Report: Leaked Study on Peak Oil Warns of Severe Global Energy Crisis:

1. Introduction
In the past, resources have always triggered conflicts, mostly of regional nature. For the future, the authors expect this to become a global problem, as scarcity (mainly of crude oil) will affect everybody.

2. The Importance of Oil
regional conflicts can always at least partially be attributed to resources, such as in the Caucasus region, the Middle East or in Nigeria, or they fuel conflicts due to the wealth they create (such as in Africa).

The report sees – within a timeframe until the year 2040 – a changed international security layout based on new risks (including transport risks for fuels) and new roles of actors in a possible conflict around the distribution of increasingly scarce resources.

[...]

focusing on the key suppliers of oil: Russia, Norway and the U.K. It is noted that both European partners are already past their peak and that Germany is increasingly dependent on Russia, which currently is reliable but not necessarily so in the long term.

3. Possible Scenarios After Global Peak Oil
The Middle East is identified as a very dangerous region with high external involvement from many players and thus a very unstable overall situation.

Overall, the report expects a reduction of the importance of “Western values” related to democracy, and human rights in the context of politically motivated alliances, which increasingly are driven by emerging economies such as China – likely leading to double standards. Emerging economies are equally expected to receive higher recognition in international organizations, particularly those with strength in resources (such as Russia).

[...]

New conflicts are potentially arising from oil exploration in international or disputed ocean waters, where multiple issues arise, particularly around the arctic circle, with further geopolitical risks for conflict.

Also, the shift to natural gas is reviewed as an extension of the “oil age”, because it might be able to replace crude oil as a bridging source until new solutions are found. The risks for problems from transporting gas (pipelines) and the related issues (as seen between Russia and its neighbors during the past years) are highlighted.

Equally, nuclear power as a potential source is highlighted – emphasizing the risk for safety and the proliferation of nuclear technology. This would also require an increasing shift towards electricity.

[...]

Damaging infrastructure through hostile acts (sabotage, war) might become an attractive target for groups or countries with a tendency to use violence. The same is expected for electricity and natural gas-related infrastructure – they all might require higher protection.

Generally, the focus of risks is expected in the region which the authors consider the “strategic ellipse” (a term used for the region East of Europe reaching from Saudi Arabia in the South to Russia and former Soviet Union countries in the North), because a majority of oil reserves are located in this area.

[...]

High oil prices would further affect almost all aspects of society, as it will also influence the cost of chemicals and all products derived from them, which might substantially alter the nature of value chains and make certain things uneconomical – ultimately leading to higher unemployment during a transformational phase away from an oil based economy.

[...]

the changes and likely reduction in standard of living might render societies less stable and make them more attracted to extremist political positions and even trigger changes in government systems, as trust into key actors in politics will diminish. This might be a particular risk for the relatively young democratic countries in Eastern Europe.

[...]

more expensive transportation and increasing problems “at home” might reduce the ability of larger countries to intervene internationally (politically and/or with military action), and also lower the readiness to provide help to poorer countries. The focus will be more on a country’s egotistic (energy) interest and not so much on an ideal of transferring Western values. The gap will likely not be filled by NGOs, as they will be affected by similar limits.

Overall, international institutions will be weakened, as they will have less resources to provide help and support, and it becomes equally possible that help will be attached to direct (energy) needs of the donors.

4. Challenges for Germany
Armed forces would also be significantly affected by fossil fuel limits, as they are very dependent on oil products. Significant investments in alternative energy procurement technologies (biofuels, coal-to-liquids – Fischer-Tropsch) and applications (electric and hybrid vehicles) would be required, with long transition times. Further, local energy-independence of stationary troop infrastructure (like military bases) using more renewable sources would be beneficial. Long term objective would be to fully convert Germany’s armed forces to only use renewable energy sources by 2100.

[Bold added by me.]

British politicians are considering similar warnings according to The Guardian / Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks:

"[Government] public lines on peak oil are 'not quite right'. They need to take account of climate change and put more emphasis on reducing demand and also the fact that peak oil may increase volatility in the market."

[...]

Last year the Guardian revealed that the IEA [International Energy Agency] was also riven with dissent over the issue with senior staff members privately telling newspaper they thought the official numbers on future global oil supply were over-optimistic.

[...]

an internal IEA source said: "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible, but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources."

[...]

Kjell Aleklett, a professor of physics at Uppsala University in Sweden and author of a report The Peak of the Oil Age, claims crude production is more likely to be 75m barrels a day by 2030 than the "unrealistic" 105m projected by the IEA.

Also discussed at New York Times Environment Blog / German Military Braces for Scarcity After ‘Peak Oil’, Peak Oil and the Bundeswehr, Energy Matters / Peak Oil In 2010 - Leaked German Military Think Tank Report, Digital Journal / Secret German analysis warns of peak oil and coming energy crisis, PhysOrg.com / Are some governments taking 'peak oil' seriously?.

The Last Oil Shock

The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man  by David Strahan had been on my wishlist at Amazon for about two years when I found it at a library sale for 2 euros.

It has an official website, as well as a two minutes video trailer:

Rather than a review, below is a selection of quotes from its extensive sources.

Quotes from the Preface

"I don't like the thought that oil production will peak and decline any more than I like the thought that I am going to die. But both are facts."
- Jean Laherrere, former oil explorer for Total

"[We face a] major historical discontinuity, by which I mean civilization itself is under threat."
- Colin Campbell, formerly working with BP, Texaco and others

Quotes from chapter 1: Sources in Washington

This is the chapter you must desperately avoid reading if you cling onto one of the usual excuses for attacking Saddam's Iraq. Full of interesting details, below is just a few choice quotes in chronological order:
January 26, 1998 PNAC sends a letter to President Bill Clinton:

[...] if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.

Signed by, among others, Donald Rumsfeld.

Louis Christian, an independent oil repository cartographer, was hired to chart Iraq in year 1998. Via the US Geological Survey but for who and what exactly?

"It seems to me the most likely suspect would be somebody high up in the administration that had a virtually unlimited budget that they don't have to itemize. Most likely the CIA or Pentagon."

November 1999 Dick Cheney gave a speech at Institute of Petroleum:

"[Demand is growing but production is declining so] where is the oil going to come from? [...] the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow [because of] US-imposed economic sanctions."

When George W. Bush took office with Cheney, Rumsfeld and other neo-cons Louis Christian's map was discussed at one of the very first meetings held. The Cheney Energy Task Force "melded" or "conflated" the "capture of new and existing oil and gas fields" with "policies towards rogue states" - which was revealed by Judicial Watch.

"We were acutely conscious of the fact that Saddam had carved up all the oil exploration deals and contracts with big non-US and non-UK multinationals."
- Carne Ross, former British in UN

That is the deals that would settle if sanctions were lifted and the run-down Iraqi oil sector hadn't damaged its oil fields before that.

The Iraq war happened. Colonel Gaddafi of Libya got the message, publicly 'renounced' weapons of mass destructions and took the unique step of offering 15 contracts for oil exploration to foreign companies, 11 of which were given to US firms.

Chapters 2 and 3 deals with peak oil itself. But mostly just experts admitting it's on its way. David Strahan isn't just one rogue journalist with a crazy idea; the other day - by coincidence - I saw this short video about peak oil:

Quotes from chapter 4: Long fuse, short fuse

Chapter four discusses which of the two oil issues - climate change and peak oil - is the biggest. It begins with an interesting anecdote: 16th of February 2005 Greenpeace decided to celebrate the Kyoto Treaty by setting off rape alarms attached to helium balloons inside the International Petroleum Exchange in London and raising a banner saying "Climate Change Kills. Stop Pushing Oil" outside. However, the traders reacted with fierce violence:

"They just went wild. They were trying so hard to hit us they fell over one another. "
- Greenpeace activist

"[Having a metal bookcase pulled down my head] wasn't great but it made a kind of barrier between us and them."
- Greenpeace director, Stephen Tindal

Stock exchange traders reacting to environmentalists with violence - just like fishermen, miners and lumberjacks.

The chapter ends with a former Greenpeace chief scientist's agreement with one of the postulates of the book - that the last oil shock will be a crisis every bit as profound as climate change:

"They're both problems that threaten the future as we know it, so I wouldn't like to draw a distinction. They certainly have different length fuses, but they're both large weapons of mass destruction. [...] Yes, of course, absolutely [peak oil has the shortest fuse]. If we were sensible, logical, joined-up thinkers, which we're not [we'd concentrate on peak oil]."
 - Jeremy Legget, geologist, author and more

The finer details

David Strahan then spends about 130 pages chronicling the many curious influences oil has on world society, the many small signs the oil hegemony is cracking up and the futility of attempts to do something about it.

Chapter 5, page 115 the US unemployment rate is linked to (correlated, explained) the oil price. And just consider what other things unemployment is linked to.

"There are good reasons why oil shocks hurt. When the oil sheikhs gets more of the world's money, someone has to end up with less. Profits drop, firms begin to go out of business, people lose their jobs."
 - Professor Andrew Oswald, Warwick University

Chapter 7, which is about OPEC and how it is lying about the volume of its resources, page 170 and onwards the fragile position of the Saudi Arabian monarchy is discussed (emphasis in bold added by me):

It's not hard to see why Saudi Arabia might want to exaggerate the scale of its oil resources; the position of its royal family demands it. For decades the fundamental contradiction of Saudi Arabian society has been that a population that largely adheres to Wahabism, the most puritanical, fundamentalist and xenophobic sect of Islam, is ruled by a royal family that is venal, bloated and Westward-leaning. The absolute monarchy has only managed to survive because its control of the oil has allowed it to buy American protection, and to bribe its own people. [...] Saudi Arabia's revenue from oil exports, which account for three-quarters of its income, collapsed [by 80% from 1980 to 2004...] half the population is under twenty-one, and the unemployment is thought to be as high as 25 per cent. There are frequent acts of terrorism and attacks on the security forces [...] The house of Saud has every reason to be terrified that it will soon go the way of the Shah of Iran. In these circumstances the royal family needs American protection more than ever before. 

Saudi Arabia's security pact with America was famously sealed when Roosevelt met Ibn Saud on his way back from the Yalta conference in 1945. Saudi oil production was negligible at the time, but US officials had already concluded that Saudi reserves constituted 'a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in human history'. Although the meeting on board a US warship in the Suez Canal went unminuted, it is widely thought the two reached an understanding that has apparently survived to this day: America would guarantee the security of Saudi Arabia - and in effect the house of Saud - and in return the Saudis would guarantee US access to their vast reserves. In any event, successive US presidents have behaved as if that was the arrangement, providing the Saudis with billions of dollars in arms for both national defense and internal security. And Bush the Elder took America into the first Gulf War explicitly on that basis, declaring 'the sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States'.

There is no meaningful way to do an 'Ecowar excerpt' of chapter 8, Interesting Times, because it's relevant in its entirety. Continuing where chapter 7 left off it begins with the story of a half-botched and mis-reported Al-Qaeda attack on a Saudi oil field then detailing the complex geopolitics surrounding Mid East oil, Chinese influence especially. However, here is one of the more disturbing quotes, one that reminds us why it's a good thing Obama is in the White House:

"From the Bush administration's point of view, there is only one obvious and immediate way to alter this unappetizing landscape [ie of Iran-China deals] - by inducing 'regime change' in Iran and replacing the existing leadership with one far friendlier to US strategic interests."
- Professor and author Michael Klare

Or how about this one, page 182:

The world has never seen a problem like [peak oil]. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal, coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.

OK, what internet crackpot said that? The US Department of Energy did in its Peaking of World Oil Production report. The chapter continues with many details of the economic battle already having raged for years. At times it's a bit eerie as some of its year 2006 predictions resemble what we are beginning to see in 2010, ie in the house prizing bubble that isn't exactly re-inflating.

Like the rest of the book chapter 9, Memo to Mr Wicks, is themed around one of the major dichotomies, conflicts or scandals in the subject. In this case the discrepancy between some of the ridicule the author received while researching the book and some of the most grave expert warnings. Like the one from the US Army Corps of Engineers:

Oil production is approaching its peak; low growth in availability can be expected for the next 5 to 10 years. As worldwide petroleum production peaks, geopolitics and market economics will cause even more significant price increases and security risks.

Finally the two last chapters are comprised of recommendations for politicians and people respectively. I'll leave those with a recommendation of the book - but no, one of his recommendations isn't "suicide by oil".

Update on the Iraqi oil law - and "alien scientists"

Since my choice of quotes focussed on the Iraq "liberation" it's only fair to finish with a video clip about the Iraqi oil law.

I also came across this next one more typical of the "YouTube underground":

Those Who Control Oil and Water Will Control the World

The scramble for energy is shaping many of the conflicts we can expect in the present century. The danger is not just another oil shock that impacts on industrial production, but a threat of famine. Without a drip feed of petroleum to highly mechanised farms, many of the food shelves in the supermarkets would be empty. Far from the world weaning itself off oil, it is more addicted to the stuff than ever. It is hardly surprising that powerful states are gearing up to seize their share. [...] energy shortage and global warming are reinforcing each another. The result can only be a growing risk of conflict.

One John Gray gives a short, sharp overview of the "ecowar" aka The Great Game as of right now and how it rhymes with our past.

Report: Peak Oil And The Australian Army

This paper discusses the impact of the peaking and then decline in world oil production — commonly known as Peak Oil — on the Australian Army from a Raise, Train and Sustain perspective. Peak Oil is described as the implications of Peak Oil at a global and national level. The likely impacts of Peak Oil on the Australian Army are then analysed against four of the inputs to military capability, being personnel, equipment, training and doctrine. The paper suggests a number of actions that can be taken to reduce the impact of Peak Oil on the Australian Army.

Read 37 page PDF-format report by Major Cameron Leckie.