PID News

With news of Russian overflights buzzing our navy, this is an important area to keep an eye on. It’s a battle royal to become undisputed ‘king of the uttermost north’. — PID

(BBC NEWS) — Could the Arctic become a battleground over control of large reserves of oil and gas thought to lie under the Arctic Sea, or will there be co-operation in the polar region? This will be a question for politicians and experts from around the world as they meet in Moscow.

via BBC News – Nuclear power at heart of Russia’s Arctic ambition.

(AMERICAN THINKER) — /snip/ Last summer, it looked like the Obama administration had scored a significant victory in Kyrgyzstan. The Putin regime in Moscow dropped a $2-billion bundle of cash on the tiny country as a bribe to induce it to refuse to renew the U.S. government lease on a military base at the Manas airport outside the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. Manas is a key staging area for the battle in Afghanistan.

But Moscow was soon sputtering and fuming as U.S. counter-bribing successfully induced the Kyrgyz government to pocket the Russian cash and allow the U.S. to keep using the base.

Fast-forward to last Wednesday, when the streets of Bishkek exploded in bloody violence (caution, link contains graphic photos of the carnage) and the pro-U.S. regime was ousted.

via American Thinker: Obama’s Kyrgyzstan Disaster.

PID COMMENT: Putin is pulling the strings, and Obama dances. In the aftermath of the horrific ‘accident’ in Russia, will Poland’s Prime Minister and incoming President turn their faces toward Russia as well?  Most likely, yes. With Gazprom set to control the ‘warmth’ of Eastern and Western Europe through Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines, the US might find itself out in the cold.

(THE EXPRESS) — Shivering Britain faces the prospect of gas supply shortages as the worst cold spell in 30 years keeps a stranglehold on the country.

The National Grid yesterday issued only its second-ever warning that demand for energy is threatening to outstrip available supplies unless industry quickly slashes its consumption and more gas is rushed in from abroad.

via Express.co.uk – Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: Gas supplies running out as Britain shivers.

PID COMMENT: This news should make Putin, the would-be ‘Gas King’, very, very happy.

(IsraelNN.com) — An everlasting hope of finding significant amounts of oil in Israel may have been realized with the announcement Thursday that ”significant quantities” of oil were found in a well in the area of Rosh HaAyin, a city located east of Tel Aviv on the western edge of Samaria.

via Significant Quantities of Oil Discovered in Center of Israel – Good News – Israel News – Israel National News.

NASIRIYAH, Iraq AFP – Iranian forces took control of a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed section of the border on Friday, US and Iraqi officials told AFP.

“There has been no violence related to this incident and we trust this will be resolved through peaceful diplomacy between the governments of Iraq and Iran,” a US military spokesman told AFP at Contingency Operating Base Adder, just outside the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

via Iranian forces take over Iraq oil well – Yahoo! News.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq could challenge Russia’s number two spot among world oil producers after auctioning two prized oilfields on Friday, although it failed to attract companies to bid for deals in its most dangerous areas.

Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Malaysia’s Petronas [PETR.UL] won the deal for Majnoon, one of the world’s largest untapped oilfields, on the first day of Iraq’s second oil contract auction since the 2003 U.S. invasion, a heavily protected event.

via UPDATE 3-Iraq auctions fields to move up oil’s big league | Reuters.

(TEHRAN TIMES) — The Iranian Oil Bourse was inaugurated on Monday in the Persian Gulf island of Kish as a venue to export oil and petrochemical products.

National Petrochemical Company’s Managing Director Adel Nejad-Salim said in the opening ceremony that all petrochemical products will be gradually offered on the market, IRNA news agency reported.

via tehran times : Oil bourse inaugurated.