Beyond the horizon

So, Hurricane Gustav wasn’t as bad as feared, and oil is down to $105 this morning. And there’s no geopolitical tension on the horizon to shake things up. Of course, beyond the horizon is a rather different matter.

Seeing as Russia has already checkmated one of Washington’s grand schemes for transporting energy from Central Asia — demonstrating Moscow can move on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Georgia anytime it wishes — it is now undermining another of Washington’s grand schemes, the planned pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

The Times of London reports Russia is sending a small contingent of security forces to train its…

Keeping a pulse on $200 oil

As much as the Freddie and Fannie bailout might occupy our attention today, we can’t overlook the story that could easily bring about $200 oil.

Over the weekend, the Times of London had a breathless piece about how Team Bush has given Israel the “amber light” for an attack on Iran, attributing this to a proverbial “senior Pentagon official” who said, “Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready.”

“It’s really all down to the Israelis,” the Pentagon official added. “This administration will not attack Iran. This has already been decided. But…

Saudi Arabia’s power struggle

America is not alone when it comes to Peak Oil versus cornucopians. Saudi Arabia has its own factions, each led by former executives at Saudi Aramco.

Today’s edition of Mr. Murdoch’s new rag spins a pretty good yarn of Sadad al-Husseini, who’s convinced Saudi Arabia’s salad days are behind it, and his one-time protege Nansen Saleri, who thinks the best is yet to come.

Most illuminating is how Saudi Arabia’s senior leadership is ping-ponging back and forth between the two outlooks as oil sits at record-high prices.

In recent months, Saudi leaders appeared to have adopted Mr. Husseini’s view. Local reports quoted King Abdullah saying…

The Intellectually Barren Offshore Drilling Debate

At least one of Matt Simmons’s forecasts is not yet bearing fruit — his 2006 prediction that Peak Oil would come to dominate the 2008 campaign. For the debate over offshore drilling that’s erupted this week has shed absolutely no light on the real issues.

For starters, there’s a highly disingenuous calculus behind the flip-flops of John McCain and Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who now favor offshore drilling: They’re sending a message, implicit but unmistakable, that allowing more offshore drilling will somehow put a voter’s Labor Day getaway this year, heretofore unaffordable, within reach. It will, of course, do no such thing.

That does…

The ugly Americans

In the mad rush to blame speculators for high oil prices, our solons in Washington have inadvertently revealed a U.S.-centric, 20th century mindset.

I’m sure Sens. Carl Levin and Dianne Feinstein think they’re enlightened types, far beyond any sort of “ugly American” mentality. But that’s exactly what they betray with their notion of closing the “London loophole.”

Says Levin, “The [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] didn’t have good information about who was trading how much US oil when, and whether traders subject to US speculation limits were circumventing them by trading in London. That’s why I and my colleagues have repeatedly introduced legislation…