International Oil & Gas is a category for stories relating to tar sand production or climate change but not in any of the projects already listed geographically. This includes other regions of the planet with horrible environmental and high energy costs that, like the tar sands, are only a "choice" because of high prices and the global depletion of easily recoverable oil reserves. Such issues as the threat of war on Iran, "instability" in Iraq and Venezuela or disasters like Katrina will all drive up oil prices, which in turn doubly encourages tar sand production-- by price demand and energy demand.
Stock markets and global oil interests (including war) would be included here, as would attempts to get oil out of high risk, low return areas from oil shale in Colorado, to natural gas and heavy oil in the high eastern Arctic. The tar sands are part of this trend and should be seen as such. What happens with the tar sands will have a tremendous impact on what kind of choices are made elsewhere, environmentally and socially.
Enbridge Gateway Win Shows Stopping Keystone Won’t Halt Oil (1)
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Rebecca Penty December 20, 2013
Keystone XL backers say the proliferation of alternative projects, such as one to carry oil-sands crude to a Canadian seaport that advanced yesterday, undercuts opponents who claim blocking the pipeline will keep the high-carbon fossil fuel in the ground.
October 22, 2013
Big Green, Sun Media and Elsipogtog
Fracking Indigenous Country
by MACDONALD STAINSBY
If anyone doubted that it’s a good thing that Sun News in Canada has been both going broke and also denied the ability to force their way onto Canada’s basic cable system (vastly expanding their audience and getting themselves included in most homes with television subscriptions by default), the racist rantings of Ezra Levant in response to the recent RCMP attack on the Mi’kmaq community of Elsipogtog ought to clear it up.
Jordan to Rely on Shale Oil to Meet Soaring Domestic Demand
7 August 2012—Jordan aims to extract 40,000 BOPD of oil from its shale oil reserves by 2016 to meet the country’s increasing demand, Jordan Oil Shale Energy Company (JOSECO) said.
JOSECO is a subsidiary of Estonian state-owned Eesti Energia.
Nunavut sees devolution light after long Arctic winter
Yadullah Hussain | Jul 20, 2012
Financial Post
Nunavut would like nothing more than be the master of its own destiny and has begun negotiations with the federal government to transfer land rights and royalties as it seeks to explore its fossil fuel riches, says Peter Taptuna, Nunavut’s Minister of Economic Development and Transportation. Excerpts from the interview:
Q The Arctic has become a focus area for many jurisdictions. Has Nunavut also noticed a surge in interest in its petroleum resources?
Tensions Boil as Israeli Oil Riches Grow
News From Around the World
Monday, June 25, 2012
Ed DeShields
Israel’s once hidden oil riches are now certain to be so large its treasures could make it the richest oil country in the world. And, its neighbors are not only noticing, they’re boiling mad.
It was just forty years ago when Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel once famously quipped, “Why did Moses lead us to the one place in the Middle East without oil?”
Well Prime Minister, Moses turned out to have a pretty good eye for what a promised land might look like.
Kazakhstan will squeeze oil from sand and clay
Sunday, 08.07.2012
Tengri News
Kazakhstan wants to start extracting oil from sand in 2013, deputy Director of the Scientific-Research Institute of New Chemical Technologies and Materials of Al-Farabi Kazakh State University Valentina Yemelyanova told Tengrinews.kz.
Opec’s gift to oil sands producers: high oil prices
Financial Post
Yadullah Hussain Jul 6, 2012
Canadian oil sands producers battling high development costs are getting help from an unlikely quarter: Saudi Arabia and its OPEC allies.
“OPEC’s pursuit of higher prices has underpinned the growth of non-OPEC producers,” says Julian Lee, senior energy analyst at U.K.-based Centre for Global Energy Studies. “Non-OPEC developers should be extremely grateful for OPEC for keeping the price of oil high and making all the exotic and expensive sources of oil economically viable.”
Invest in Israel's epic oil and gas boom
Mike Kapsch, Investment U
7/5/2012
When I think of Middle Eastern nations with massive oil and gas reserves, Israel isn’t a country that comes to mind… ever, really.
After all, Israel still imports 99% of its oil and 70% of its natural gas.
In fact, for the last 60 years, energy companies there have basically drilled one dry hole after the next.
But that’s all getting ready to change in the coming years thanks to new drilling capabilities.
Canada to be among top three oil producers by 2030
By Yadullah Hussain, Financial Post
June 5, 2012
Canada could emerge as the top three or four oil producer in the world by 2030 thanks to rising oil sands supply, according to an industry forecast which focuses more on the possibilities that lay before the Canadian oil industry rather than its substantial challenges.
Alternative title: "This is why we fight tar sands pipelines."
Oil producers urged to solve pipeline constraints
SHAWN McCARTHY
Ottawa — The Globe and Mail
Jun. 05 2012
Canadian oil producers are facing a pipeline crunch that could limit the industry’s vast development plans as early as 2015, but face a long and increasingly bitter battle to expand their capacity to ship crude to market.
