Tag Archives: oil

My DW, VoA & Newsweek interviews: “Ukrainian drones cripple Russian refineries.” Thoughts on strategy, impacts and history

Interview 1/3: Kate Lycock of DW Radio’s Inside Europe interviewed me yesterday, on the historical role of fuel-denial in war, and the impacts of Ukraine’s drone strategy on Russia (first story, on 21 March)

Aside from some WW2 history, I identified two separate impacts we can see in the present Ukrainian campaign: a) The impact on Russian fuel deliveries to the war zones themselves and to the domestic Russian war economy, and b) their possible impact as a “force multiplier” for the oil-price cap sanctions on Russian oil exports, designed to deny Moscow its all-important oil revenues that are financing its aggression. I also speculated a bit as to how these strikes, together with Black Sea sea-drone operations, might be shaping coming Ukrainian offensive(s). (This show is also syndicated in the USA as I recall.)

2/3: on 20 March, I was also interviewed on the drone strikes by Voice of America’s Harry Ridgwell, while I was at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, held at the German Federal Foreign Office. (See Video in LHS column.)

3/3: Lastly, I was quoted a couple times by Brendan Cole of the USA national magazine, Newsweek, on 18 March:

Read more: My DW, VoA & Newsweek interviews: “Ukrainian drones cripple Russian refineries.” Thoughts on strategy, impacts and history

Russia Faces ‘Serious’ Threat as Ukraine Attacks Refineries

Mar 18, 2024. By Brendan Cole, Senior News Reporter. You can read it HERE.

Note, there are new developments since yesterday, including Russia’s revenge strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure (reports are that 1 million Ukrainians have no electricity today) and on its Special Operations Headquarters. However, of the 30 Russian drones that swarmed to target this Kyiv building, every one was shot down.

Also, there are reports (Financial Times) that the USA is warning Ukraine that the strikes will draw retaliation and raise the price of oil.

Who cares! This has gone on for simply too long. There are vastly sufficient oil reserves in the world that can be tapped to fully replace Russian oil even if it were totally taken offline. After over two years of war, Washington and the EU Members should have by now begun a concerted effort to get sufficient new oil on line to enable blocking a high percentage of Russian exports from being exported to the world market

I talk about one possible approach to this in my DW interview, involving Denmark and Sweden inspecting and banning passage of sketchy Russian tankers through their economic zones in the Baltic Sea.

After two-plus years of war, there is no excuse to still be playing around with the oil price cap without either significantly lowing it — say, to $30/barrel as the Ukrainians suggest, in any case begin stepwise lowering it below the present $60, which would be a signal to producers to start developing new fields — and/or finding ways to block shipments more directly.

This is not to diminish the clever and difficult work people at especially OFAC and the USA Justice Department in Washington and their colleagues in London and Brussels have carried out to tighten and make more effective the oil price cap. However, as it stands, the cap is too high and a weak instrument.

The entire political preoccupation with keeping Russian oil on the market is fundamentally flawed, Signals must be given to the market that it will be step-wise taken off the market, which will instill/stimulate IOCs, NOCs and smaller firms to rapidly bring undeveloped oil reserves online to permanently replace Russian exports.

LAST: Here are some references for further reading that I found useful in my research.

My Kyiv Post Interview: “Russia Lost 12% of Its Oil Refinery Capacity in a Day: What’s the Impact?”

According to energy and geopolitics expert Tom O’Donnell, Ukrainian allies’ oil price cap, in conjunction with Ukrainian drones’ physical damage could be a significant hit to Russian revenues.

by Jason Jay Smart | March 15, 2024, 2:16 pm | Please read at Kyiv Post if possible

Tom O’Donnell, PhD, an expert on energy and geopolitics, sat down with Kyiv Post to explain what Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s energy sector will mean for the larger Russian energy sector.

It sounds like a huge number. But how much do you think losing 12 percent of production, in a day, will affect Russia?

First off, although these refineries hit by Ukrainian drones yesterday represent about 12 percent of Russian production, experience shows that they might not each be totally impaired from production. Nevertheless, there are two particularly significant implications for Russia.

First, whatever percentage of Russian refined oil products this impairs, the damage will both deprive the war economy of needed export revenues and/or of much-needed fuels to keep the domestic war economy running.

Already, Russia had announced it will ban the export of gasoline from March 1 in order to tame prices for consumers in the runup to the presidential elections mid-month. In 2023 about 17 percent of Russian gasoline was exported.

What is the origin of the current price pressure?

The present price pressure is both a result of the demands of the war economy as well as previously successful Ukrainian hits on other refineries that began in January.

Read more: My Kyiv Post Interview: “Russia Lost 12% of Its Oil Refinery Capacity in a Day: What’s the Impact?”

This gets to my second point – the successful refinery strikes of yesterday, involving a reported launch of 58 drones, as well as recent hits on a Russian domestic gas transmission pipeline, all demonstrate that the January successes were not one-off special operations, but rather the beginning of what will be a sustained Ukraine armed forces campaign capable of, over time, significantly disrupting Russia’s all-important oil and gas import revenues and internal refined-product supplies.

Kyiv has launched some of its largest air attacks on Russia this week ahead of the vote, which is set to hand President Vladimir Putin another six-year term in the Kremlin.

If Russia continues to lose refineries, which appears likely, what new complications will it create for Russia?

First, from a strategic point of view, it is important to see these physical strikes against Russian oil and gas infrastructure in conjunction with the sanctions efforts of the USA, EU and other allies aimed at reducing Russian oil profits. These drone strikes should be seen as a “force multiplier” to allied oil sanctions.

How so?

Consider that, with Russia no longer having the Druzba oil pipeline flowing into Central Europe due to EU sanctions, this has forced it to shift its Urals-region oil exports to seaports on the Baltic coast of Russia and to a new western-Arctic port.  Hence, hitting any refining or export facilities inside Russia along this general Urals-oil export corridor has a significant effect on Russia sustaining export revenues. This oil mainly flows to Turkey, India and China, with Russian oil tankers representing the main users of the Suez and then the Red Sea.  Due to sanctions, most of these ships are now either directly or indirectly Russian-controlled, to avoid the sanctions oil-price cap.

There has been a discussion in US-EU security-and-sanctions circles that these ships could be stopped for inspection by Sweden and/or Denmark in the Baltic, in the straights between their countries, and many might be refused passage due to having sketchy insurance and/or being unsafe, old vessels. 

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What do you think of the oil price cap? Is it a good idea?

From the point of view of strategic impact, the allies’ choice of an oil-price cap has been, in my view, a weak and overly complex-to-enforce instrument.  However, in conjunction with Ukrainian drones’ physical damage, the overall hit to Russian revenues might become significant.

Secondly, Ukraine has also hit refineries in Russia just east of its own territory, which will mainly undermine the region’s war economy and complicate supplying the massive demand from Russia’s invasion forces.  This region already has chronic fuel-supply problems, with farmers last year protesting against a lack of diesel for harvests, causing Russia to ban diesel exports during that season.

Dr. Tom O’Donnell is Berlin-based and is a Global Fellow of the Wilson Center.

Jason Jay Smart

Jason Jay Smart

Jason Jay Smart, Ph.D., is a political adviser who has lived and worked in Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Latin America. Due to his work with the democratic opposition to Pres. Vladimir Putin, Smart was persona non grata, for life, by Russia in 2010. His websites can be found at http://www.JasonJaySmart.com / http://www.AmericanPoliticalServices.com / fb.com/jasonjaysmart / Twitter: @OfficeJJSmart

Related references for assertions I made in my interview – Tom O’D.

My Polish press interview: “Europe can replace Russian oil & gas by 2027” but “in war there are casualties” (Pl. & Eng.)

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is capture-pap-poland-energy-war-25nov22.jpg

This interview with Artur Ciechanowich (Polish Associated Press-PAP, Brussels) appeared on Sunday, 25 November 2022 in several Polish press, TV and radio outlets (links below this post). Polish & English (via Google Translate) versions follow:

ENGLISH – via Google Translate

Europe without gas and oil from Russia? An expert gives a possible date

If the European Union does not bow to the Russian energy attack, it may completely replace gas and oil imports from this country with raw materials from other sources within four to six years, said Thomas O’Donnell, an energy market analyst and lecturer at a university in Berlin …..

  • Russia is waging an energy war against Europe, which is part of a larger war between Russia and Ukraine. We see that the war on the battlefield is not going Russia’s way, so the Kremlin is counting on its energy policy to cause enough economic problems for Europeans to divide the EU and withdraw from solidarity with Ukraine, says O’Donnell.

The question of replacing gas and oil imports from Russia

  • Vladimir Putin has a much greater influence on Europe through the supply of gas than oil. This is because gas is mainly supplied by pipelines. Around 2027, Europe, the United States, Qatar and others will increase the export capacity of liquefied natural gas enough to replace the EU’s dependence on Russian gas and allow gas prices in the EU to fall to levels close to the low prices in the US, the analyst predicts.

However, he does not hide that before this happens, citizens of EU countries will have to go through a more difficult period. “This is an energy war, and in a war both sides suffer – consumers and businesses in the EU will suffer. It will take at least four years to implement huge new LNG export projects from the US and Qatar, he cautions, adding that the EU will also need to receive as much gas as possible from Algeria, Egypt and Norway.

  • This year Europe filled up its gas storages. It will be harder next year. It should be understood that the storage facilities – under normal conditions – have never been used to provide normal gas supplies to consumers. They’re just too small for that. They were created with the idea of ​​storing the raw material saved in the summer and using it in the winter, when the Russian and Norwegian pipelines could not keep up with the demand, explains Thomas O’Donnell.

He points out that, therefore, Germany has repealed the regulations requiring the maintenance of a minimum temperature in homes, and in some EU countries there are debates about power cuts for citizens. – Europe has become dependent not only on Russian gas, but also on completely unpredictable wind energy. If the wind is weak – as in the 2020-21 season – combined with the lack of appropriate transmission networks and the lack of technical capacity to store electricity on a large scale, it can mean a disaster. These are the facts. In times of war, citizens must know the whole truth, the expert argues.

PAP
He emphasizes that Russia is waging an energy war against Europe in order to break its solidarity towards Ukraine. – In the US and Qatar, but also in Norway, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Israel, Egypt and so on, there are plenty of new gas reserves, financing opportunities, technologies and functioning markets. In four to six years, Europe’s dependence on Russia will be completely replaced by imports from other directions. This also applies to crude oil. Russia, meanwhile, will be reduced from an energy superpower to an OPEC second or third tier country, concludes O’Donnell.

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Author:kris/ToL

Source: PAP

Main photo source: Marcin Bielecki/PAP

POLISH – as from PAP

Europa bez gazu i ropy z Rosji? Ekspert podaje możliwy termin

Jeżeli Unia Europejska nie ugnie się przed rosyjskim atakiem energetycznym, to w czasie od 4 do 6 lat może całkowicie zastąpić import gazu i ropy naftowej z tego kraju surowcami z innych kierunków – stwierdził Thomas O’Donnell, analityk rynku energetycznego i wykładowca na prywatnej berlińskiej uczelni ….

  • Rosja prowadzi przeciwko Europie wojnę energetyczną, która jest częścią większej wojny Rosji z Ukrainą. Widzimy, że wojna na polu bitwy nie idzie po myśli Rosji, więc Kreml liczy na to, że jej polityka energetyczna wywoła u Europejczyków wystarczające problemy ekonomiczne, by podzielić UE i odstąpić od solidarności z Ukrainą – mówi O’Donnell.

Kwestia zastąpienia importu gazu i ropy z Rosji

  • Władimir Putin ma znacznie większy wpływ na Europę poprzez dostawy gazu niż ropy naftowej. Dzieje się tak, ponieważ gaz dostarczany jest głównie rurociągami. Około 2027 roku Europa, Stany Zjednoczone, Katar i inne kraje zwiększą możliwości eksportowe skroplonego gazu ziemnego na tyle, aby zastąpić zależność UE od rosyjskiego gazu i pozwolić na obniżenie cen gazu w UE do poziomu zbliżonego do niskich cen w USA – przewiduje analityk.

Nie ukrywa jednak, że zanim to się stanie, to obywatele państw Unii będą musieli przejść przez trudniejszy okres. – To wojna energetyczna, a na wojnie obie strony ponoszą ofiary – ucierpią konsumenci i firmy w UE. Co najmniej cztery lata zajmie wdrożenie ogromnych nowych projektów eksportu LNG z USA i Kataru – zastrzega, dodając, że UE będzie musiała otrzymywać jak najwięcej gazu także z Algierii, Egiptu i Norwegii.

  • W tym roku Europa napełniła swoje magazyny gazu. W przyszłym roku będzie trudniej. Należy rozumieć, że magazyny – w normalnych warunkach – nigdy nie służyły do zapewniania normalnych dostaw gazu konsumentom. Są na to po prostu za małe. Powstawały z myślą przechowania surowca zaoszczędzonego latem i wykorzystania go zimą, kiedy rosyjskie i norweskie rurociągi nie nadążały z zaspokojeniem popytu – tłumaczy Thomas O’Donnell.

Zwraca uwagę, że w związku z tym, Niemcy uchylili przepisy nakazujące utrzymywanie w domach minimalnej temperatury, a w niektórych krajach Unii toczą się debaty na temat przerw w dostawach prądu dla obywateli. – Europa uzależniła się nie tylko od rosyjskiego gazu, ale postawiła też na całkowicie nieprzewidywalną energię wiatrową. Jeśli wiatr będzie słaby – jak w sezonie 2020-21 – to w połączeniu z brakiem odpowiednich sieci przesyłowych i brakiem technicznych możliwości magazynowania prądu na wielką skalę, może to oznaczać katastrofę. Takie są fakty. W czasie wojny obywatele muszą znać całą prawdę – przekonuje ekspert.

PAP
Podkreśla, że Rosja prowadzi wojnę energetyczną przeciwko Europie, aby rozbić jej solidarność wobec Ukrainy. – W USA i Katarze, ale też w Norwegii, Algierii, Azerbejdżanie, Izraelu, Egipcie i tak dalej, istnieje mnóstwo nowych rezerw gazu, możliwości finansowania, technologii i funkcjonujących rynków. Za cztery do sześciu zależność Europy od Rosji zostanie całkowicie zastąpiona importem z innych kierunków. Dotyczy to również ropy naftowej. Rosja tymczasem zostanie zredukowana z supermocarstwa energetycznego do drugoligowego lub trzecioligowego kraju OPEC – konkluduje O’Donnell.

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Autor:kris/ToL

Źródło: PAP

Źródło zdjęcia głównego: Marcin Bielecki/PAP

Here are links to some of the Polish media where the PAP interview was published:

* Europa bez gazu i ropy z Rosji? Ekspert podaje możliwy termin

https://tvn24.pl › biznes › ze-swiata

1 day ago — … 4 do 6 lat może całkowicie zastąpić import gazu i ropy naftowej z tego kraju surowcami z innych kierunków – stwierdził Thomas O’Donnell, …

* Ekspert: Europa może poradzić sobie bez gazu i ropy z Rosji …

https://www.pap.pl › aktualnosci › ne…

·Translate this page

21 hours ago — Rosja tymczasem zostanie zredukowana z supermocarstwa energetycznego do drugoligowego lub trzecioligowego kraju OPEC” – konkluduje O’DonnellZ …

* UE może obejść się bez gazu i ropy z Rosji. „Jeśli pozostanie …

https://www.tvp.info › ue-moze-obej…

1 day ago — Jeśli Unia Europejska nie ugnie się przed atakiem energetycznym ze strony Rosji, to w ciągu 4-6 lat zastąpi całkowicie import gazu i ropy …

* Ekspert: UE może w ciągu 4-6 lat całkowicie zastąpić import …

https://www.bankier.pl › wiadomosc

·Translate this page

1 day ago — Jeśli Unia Europejska nie ugnie się przed atakiem energetycznym ze strony Rosji, to w ciągu 4-6 lat zastąpi całkowicie import gazu i ropy …

* Ile lat potrzeba UE aby uniezależnić się od importu ropy i gazu …

https://polskieradio24.pl › artykul

1 day ago — Jeśli Unia Europejska nie ugnie się przed atakiem energetycznym ze strony Rosji, to w ciągu 4-6 lat zastąpi całkowicie import gazu i ropy …

Czy Europa jest wystarczająco silna, aby poradzić sobie bez …

https://mycompanypolska.pl › artykul

27 Sept 2022 — Czy Europa jest wystarczająco silna, aby poradzić sobie bez ropy i gazu z Rosji? … Polska, podobnie jak pozostałe państwa Unii Europejskiej, …

gaz w PolskieRadio.pl

https://www.polskieradio.pl › gaz › T…

Ile lat potrzeba UE aby uniezależnić się od importu ropy i gazu z RosjiEkspert wyjaśnia. Jeśli Unia Europejska nie ugnie się przed atakiem energetycznym …

* Ekspert: Polska jest dobrze przygotowana na odcięcie dostaw gazu …

https://www.gospodarkamorska.pl › …

Ekspert: Polska jest dobrze przygotowana na odcięcie dostaw gazu z Rosji, … sprawę z takiego niebezpieczeństwa – mówi w rozmowie z PAP Thomas O’Donnell, …Open document settingsOpen publish panel

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My Al Jazeera: Defaulting, Putin becomes “Hugo Chavez with nukes.” EU sanctions on Russian oil would force discounted sales “out the back door” to China et al … killing the initial global price spike [English audio. Arabic video]

Above: English Audio – translator asking question (low) and my (louder) answers.
Al Jazeera interview, Doha [Arabic] on the ramifications of the Russian Central Bank default due to USA sanctions. (13 Mar 2022, 22:40, from Berlin).

Note: It is indeed possible for the EU – including Germany too – to immediately cut Russian oil imports to zero and not suffer prolonged high oil prices. How? I will explain in a coming post. This is a topic I have been working on intensively the past couple weeks.

I mention some of my (and others’) rationale for saying this in my answer to the second question from Al Jazeera. NOTE: A very good reference on this is: Christof Rühl speaking last week to bne inelligence. I strongly concur with him. (this note added 15 Mar.)

Continue reading

Oil Price War 3: My AlJazeera spot on negative price, Putin’s rout, shale, and Trump’s dilemma: independents v big oil

The 24.04 video: Aljazeera asked me about negative prices and we got into storage, Putin’s huge blunder in launching the price war, the fate of US shale, and the dilemma faced by Trump and the Texas Railway Commission on cutting US production: there’s no way to please both the independent US producers and the big US international oil companies.  One or the other is going will be very upset. (Note: English audio record replaces original Arabic here. Thanks to AlJazeera for the clip.)

Facing urgent oil-cut decision, Trump & Texas Railway Commission dither

Let me expand a bit on this point I made at the end of the interview: Trump is dithering as the day of reckoning approaches – the day when US oil’s physical storage is full.  Then it won’t be just the WTI Nymex futures price going negative overnight, the physical, spot market would go negative and freeze up.

So, either Trump has to invoke national security and use federal powers to order proportional, across-the-board cuts nationally, or the Texas Railway Commission and its Continue reading

Decoding the Oil Price War 2: My Wikistrat webinar “Oil Price War & COVID Crisis” transcript

covid-oil_war_2bd-cropped-graphic_wikistrat_12apr20_captureMy Wikistrat webinar transcript “Oil Price War & COVID” from a couple weeks ago is now available on their website as a PDF.  Issues discussed include:

  • Why did Moscow declare the “war”? [Note: Putin & Sechin’s initial boasts Russia would hold out for “years”, kill shale & end sanctions all stopped in only a couple days!]
  • The Saudi response was sharply focused against Russian oil-pipeline markets in W Europe (Druzhba) & Asia.  [I believe this focused Mr. Putin’s attention on economic realities as opposed to Mr. Sechin’s anger-driven desire for revenge against US sanctions that had inflated his (self-)image of Rosneft and Russian oil-market prowess when up against a concerted Saudi counter-war, and the prospects of various US responses.  Reports are that Putin spend three days on the phone to undo this fiasco and, in the end, had to accept significant cuts to Russian output.  See my GlobalBarrel.com post of last week explaining the initial, flawed Russian strategy.]
  • The options Trump had to choose from undermine his long antipathy to OPEC. (Did he secretly offer Putin any Nord Stream 2, Ukraine or Venezuela sanctions relief? If so, Congress won’t approve.) Also: Big Oil (American Petroleum Institute) and W. Texas/other independent producers are pulling at Trump in two very different policy directions re. OPEC, tariffs, production controls, etc
  • And more (esp. in the Q&A): probable impact on carbon mitigation policies, the China market for LNG, US shale’s financial and production future, etc.

Continue reading

Decoding the Oil Price War 1: Moscow seized COVID crisis to hit US shale, force sanctions relief

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The “Oil Price War of 2020” was launched at the worst possible time.  The COVID-19 pandemic was spreading to the world beyond China, promising to kill tens-of-thousands, and bring a global economic collapse.

However, this war was not preordained. Things could have gone otherwise from the start.  It was a decision, a sort of Pearl-Harbor-esque surprise attack, announced by Russian minister of energy, Alexander Novak, upon his arriving late to the OPEC-plus summit hall in Vienna on March 6.

If Moscow now abandons its all-out war on US shale, it will be because Putin has miscalculated.  He was willing to increase the pain for everyone else by exploiting the COVID-19 energy crisis in a half-baked attempt to get out from under the US sanctions.  However, the unanticipated repercussions might get too hot for Moscow.

The facts about why Putin decided to launch this oil price war are important to decode.  A key aspect to understand is that Moscow’s game plan was to blame the Saudis; and it soon began a disinformation campaign saying the Saudis launched the war.

We shall see, below and in future posts, how this blame-shifting is a stratagem designed to manipulate a section of US politicians and especially independent US oil producers, who traditionally hold strong, anti-Saudi sentiments (to be clear: they have good reasons to hold these anti-Saudi views), to preferentially sympathize with Russia against the Saudis and to lobby Trump and Congress to give Moscow relief from US sanctions.

Whether this Oil War strategy of Moscow can, at least in part, succeed in freeing Russia from US sanctions is not clear.  But, Moscow’s is highly motivated to succeed due to the significant constraints these sanctions are imposing on Russia.  They include sanctions in retaliation for its war against Ukraine, since 2014, which have undermined expansion of Russia’s domestic oil and gas sector; sanctions which have stalled Russian-German plans to finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; and sanctions on Rosneft’s efforts to sustain the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela.

Today, as explained below, I would say the odds are against Moscow’s success, with the plan bordering on adventurism.  The Saudi’s initial response, in so far as it specifically targets Russia’s oil business, is rational; however, by de facto joining the Russian oil price war on US shale,  the Saudis will also provoke a backlash from powerful US oil-business and political interests, which is likely precisely what Putin and Igor Sechin hoped to bait the Saudis’ Prince MbS into doing.

Considering the pain the world is already suffering, Putin and Sechin’s callous game to exploit the COVID-19 oil-market crisis must be seen for what it is.  Most especially, one should not acquiesce to Moscow’s disinformation campaign to shift the blame elsewhere.

In Vienna: Who started the price war?

For weeks, Riyadh had aggressively lobbied the 10 OPEC and 11 non-OPEC members of the OPEC-plus alliance to agree to a major production cut.  This alliance had been born in 2016, of a newfound, market-dictated, yet grudging, Russian-Saudi mutual recognition of the reality that only such a large-scale collective effort could begin to get control of a market in long-term oversupply.  By December 2019, their OPEC-plus group had Continue reading

Putin’s OPEC tactics: Iran sanctions and the Saudis [IBD cites me]

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June 2018 OPEC meeting’s key players (AP)

Last week, Gillian Rich at Investor’s Business Daily (Washington), asked me (Berlin) and others about the OPEC’s 20-21 June meeting. Below here, I give my views in more detail, including the tie-in to the Trump project to isolate Iran and my comment about Putin likely betraying the Iranians again.  The IBD piece is here: Trump Could Make OPEC’s Next Meeting As Dysfunctional As G-7 Summit. 15 June ’18.

We spoke about market and geopolitical aspects. On the latter, I emphasized both the Trump Administration’s evolving plan to sanction and isolate Iran, and Russia’s new role as a central player with OPEC ever since the 2016 joint Russian-OPEC decision to raise production.

That’s when Putin played a new role for any Russian leader. Not only did he coordinate Russian oil policy with OPEC’s, he got personally involved in heated discussions, getting on the phone late in the last night with Iranian and Saudi leaders to get the deal sealed. Continue reading

Trump’s promise to “stay totally independent” of OPEC is populist hype [My IBD interview]

eia_apr15_us_oil_prod-importsContrary to his campaign hype (see article below), Trump-as-president will not do anything to interfere with the free flow of oil or gas to or from the USA.  As I pointed out in the Investors Business Daily interview (Gillian Rich’s story is below), people central to Trump’s administration – such as Rex Tillerson, his designated secretary of state and former CEO of Exxon, and Harold Hamm, Trump’s fracking billionaire friend he wanted for secretary of energy – are global-market-oriented businessmen who would never agree to disconnect the USA from global energy markets.

The free flow of petroleum through the unified global market traded in US dollars – what I call the “Global Barrel” – is central to the business model of every private as well as every national oil company.  Today there is essentially one, global oil price. If you break up the global market by limiting imports or exports, you get national markets with national prices.  Then what?

If the US price went higher than the global price due to keeping out cheap foreign oil, Trump’s popular approval would dive. And, if the U.S. price went lower due to a domestic production glut of fracked oil, then his support among business would tank.

Moreover, the unified global market serves as the key element in the world’s collective energy-security system by guaranteeing equal access and prices to all suppliers and consumers.   Continue reading

Bolivarian Venezuela in crisis: An oil-rich nation collapses? Berlin, 10 October

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Bolivarian Venezuela in crisis: An oil-rich nation collapses? – Panel Discussion (bios follow):

  • Ms. Rita Bitar Deeb  PhD student in Political Science at the Otto-Suhr-Institut of Freie Universität Berlin
  • Dr. Ivo Hernandez  Lecturer in International Relations at the Political Science Institute of Universität Münster
  • Dr. Manuel Silva-Ferrer  John Boulton Foundation Fellow and Lecturer at the Latin-American Institute of Freie Universität Berlin
  • Dr. Thomas W. O’Donnell -Moderator  Guest Lecturer at Hertie School of Governance and the European Studies Program, FU/BEST at Freie Universität Berlin

WHEN: 10 October, 6-7:30 pm. LOCATION:  Hertie School of Governance,  Friedrichstrasse 180 – 10117 Berlin, Germany.  [To attend, please register online.] – Venezuela is currently unable to adequately feed its people, or to provide basic services such as medical care, education, and electricity. Polls indicate about 90% of the population would vote to remove its Chavista president, Nicolas Maduro, if his government allowed a recall referenda to take place this year, which is widely demanded. What will happen in Venezuela: Collapse? Chaos? Democratic renewal?  And, moreover, why is this occurring now?

Since the mid-20th Century, fueled by oil riches, Venezuela has veered from being the leading example of ‘democratic development’ within a continent rife with right-wing dictatorships, to a nation mired in its own economic and political crises. A ‘neo-liberal shock’ in the late-1980’s failed and was roundly rejected by citizens. At the end of the 1990‘s, Hugo Chavez broadly excited the hopes for development of not only Venezuelans but elicited significant sympathy worldwide with Chavismo’s ‘new resource nationalism’ and ’21st Century Bolivarian Socialism’. However, this leftward turn is also demonstrably failing, with the nation again on the brink of disaster. What comes next? Our panel of Venezuelan experts weighs in and will address attendees’ questions.


Rita Bitar Deeb is a PhD student in Political Science at the Otto-Suhr-Institut of the Freie Universität Berlin. She received her Master in Public Policy and Management from the University of Pittsburgh and Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies. Her research interests are democratization process, social development and gender policy. She has worked for the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and several local NGOs as project coordinator in Venezuela (Atenea, Súmate, Red de Apoyo-HHRR). Bitar has taught at the University of Kassel in Germany, and at the Catholic University in Caracas.


Ivo Hernandez is lecturer in International Relations at the Political Science Institute of Universität Münster.  He studied at Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas, the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Heidelberg and University of Tübingen in Germany and The National Defense University in Washington D.C. His research interests include oil politics, national oil companies, the logics of terrorism, and Latin American politics and political economy.


Manuel Silva-Ferrer is John Boulton Foundation Fellow – exploring oil, society and culture in 20th-Century Latin America – as well as Lecturer at the Latin-American Institute of Freie Universität Berlin.  Born in Caracas, he is a graduate of the Institute of Communication Studies at Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) and earned his PhD from Freie Universität Berlin.  He was Director of the state film foundation Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela and Head of Cinema and Media at the Ministry of Culture where his work included developing the National Academy of Film and Audiovisual.  Silva-Ferrer led ExtraCámara, a magazine for Latin-American photography, and was co-responsible for the creation of the Centro Nacional de la Fotografía, a public foundation for the promotion of photographic art. During his studies, Silva-Ferrer was Fellow of the Fundación Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho, and awarded a PhD full scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).


Moderation & comments:

Thomas W. O’Donnell is Guest Lecturer at Hertie School of Governance and the European Studies Program (FU/BEST) at Freie Universität Berlin.  An academic, analyst and consultant in the global energy system and international relations, his work has encompassed especially the role of oil and gas in the EU, Russia, Latin America, Middle East, China and the USA.  His PhD is from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in experimental nuclear physics, and he previously studied Political Science and China Studies at the State University of New York and Canisius College.  In 2008-09, he was US Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at the Center for the Study of Development (CENDES) at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and in 2015 AICGS (American Institute of Contemporary German Studies) & DAAD Fellow in Washington D.C. O’Donnell has taught post-graduate seminars on energy in international relations and development at The University of Michigan, The Ohio State University, The New School University’s JJ Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs (NYC),and Freie Universität, JFK Institute (Berlin). He is Senior Analyst at Wikistrat and consults with other geopolitical and business-intelligence firms. Before his PhD, O’Donnell gained broad tech experience in U.S. automobile-manufacturing, railway-operations and power-generation industries.  He is author of some 40 peer-reviewed scientific physics papers.


If you wish to attend, please register online.