Regional geopolitics

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

This is very inteesting.
Arman Boshian in russian.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Hakob my russian is very rusty. Can you sum it up for me?

This is very inteesting.
Arman Boshian in russian.

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

By Pepe Escobar
From RT

This is the way the multi-trillion dollar Global War on Terror (GWOT) ends: not with a bang, but with a bigger bang.

The GWOT, since its conceptualization 13 years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11, is the gift that keeps on giving. And no gift is bigger than a Transformer Al-Qaeda on steroids – bigger, brasher, and wealthier than anything Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had ever dreamt of; the IS (Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS) of Caliph Ibrahim, former Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

US President Barack Obama, before deploying his golf holidays in Martha’s Vineyard, casually dropped that bombing the Caliph’s goons in Iraq will take months. One may interpret it as another layer of the Obama administration’s self-avowed “Don't Do Stupid Stuff” foreign policy doctrine, not so subtly mocked by prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Shock and Awe in 2003 destroyed the whole of Baghdad’s infrastructure in only a few hours.

Obama also confirmed the US was showering Iraq again with humanitarian bombing “to protect American interests” (first and foremost) and, as an afterthought, “human rights in Iraq.”

One could not possibly expect Obama to declare the US would now bomb “our” allies the House of Saud, who have supported/financed/weaponized IS, in Syria and Iraq. The same erstwhile ISIS that thoroughly enjoyed the marvels of US military training in a secret base in Jordan.

Obama also could not possibly explain why the US always supported ISIS in Syria and now decides to bomb them in Iraq. Oh, the perils of ‘Don’t Do Stupid Stuff’.

So a quick translation applies.

Obama’s bombing of the Caliph’s goons has absolutely nothing to do with US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power’s much beloved R2P (‘responsibility to protect’) doctrine – as in the responsibility to protect up to 150,000 Yazidis, not to mention Kurds and remaining Christians, from a ‘potential’ genocide carried out by the Caliph’s goons.

The whole fighter jets + drones bombing exercise, lasting ‘months’, has to do with the Benghazi syndrome.

The Caliph’s goons were dead set on conquering Irbil - the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is led by the wily Massoud Barzani – a long-time US client/vassal.

The US maintains a consulate in Irbil. Crammed with CIA types. Or, as the New York Times so lovingly puts it, “thousands of Americans.”

Enter Benghazi. This is an electoral year. Obama is absolutely terrified of another Benghazi – which Republicans have been trying non-stop to blame on his administration’s incompetence. The last thing Obama needs is the Caliph’s goons killing ‘diplomats’ in Erbil.

That would certainly raise a tsunami of questions all over again about the shady CIA weapon-smuggling racket – as in arming Syrian ‘rebels’ with weapons from Libya - at the time Benghazi took place. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, of course, also knew about it all. But then, and especially now, no one should know that the CIA was weaponizing the bulk of the future Caliph’s forces.

Regime change or bust

Obama said this humanitarian bombing adventure could last “months,” but in fact it could last only days.

The price is cheap: regime change. As in former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blocked from having a third term.

That explains why all hell broke loose in Baghdad, as Iraqi parliamentarians clearly saw which way the wind is blowing. Haider al-Abadi was chosen by new President Fuad Masoum, a Kurd, as the new prime minister – hours after Maliki positioned Special Forces in strategic sites in and around the Green Zone and may (or may not) have tried to stage a coup. Maliki maintains that Masoum violated the Iraqi constitution by not selecting him to form a new cabinet; after all, his State of Law bloc got the most votes in last April’s parliamentary elections.

Obama, predictably, was delighted. But whatever happens next, Maliki won’t go down quietly – to say the least. Even as the predominant narrative among Sunnis, a substantial number of Kurds and even some Shiite political blocs is that Maliki antagonized Sunnis all-out; and that’s what drove them to support the Caliph en masse (although now many are having second thoughts.)

As for the KRG and Barzani, in the Obama administration scheme of things, what matters is that they should not declare independence. As long as Barzani promises to Obama that Kurdistan stays inside Iraq, the KRG will get more bombs and drones and the ‘humanitarian’ operation will speed up. US Special Forces are already deployed all over the huge area where the Caliphate borders the KRG, in so-called desert forward operating positions. And the US for all practical purposes is now the Iraqi Air Force against the Caliph.

Watch ‘the Hillarator’

This Obama administration warped R2P – protection for Americans first, refugees second – will accomplish nothing for a key reason; no bombing – ‘humanitarian’ or otherwise - exterminates a political/religious movement, even one as demented as IS. The Caliphate prospers, somewhat, and expands, because unlike that pathetic Free Syrian Army (FSA) it’s winning territory, desert and urban, in both Syria and Iraq; an area bigger than Great Britain already, holding at least 6 million people.

As for the much-peddled Washington myth of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jihadists, the Caliphate also exploded it. Virtually every jihadi Washington - and Riyadh – weaponized and trained in Jordan and in the Turkey-Syria border is now among the Caliph’s goons, wallowing in cash raised from oil smuggling, hardcore blackmail and ‘donations’, and weaponized to their teeth after looting four Iraqi divisions and a Syrian brigade.

As for the GWOT gift, it will keep on giving in a bigger and bigger bang because of the dream narrative now displayed for every aspiring multinational jihadi; we are now defending our Caliphate from the mighty Crusader Air Force, no less.

The US lost the war in Iraq, miserably, only nine days after the fall of Baghdad, in April 2003. No ‘humanitarian’ bombing will turn it into a victory. And no ‘humanitarian’ bombing will finish the Caliphate off.

As for prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, she’s taking no prisoners. She insists the US should have bombed Syria in the first place; then there would be no Caliphate. But now she worries the Caliph will attack Europe and even the US (“I’m thinking a lot about containment, deterrence and defeat”).

Predictably positioning herself, Clinton could not but totally dismiss Obama’s foreign policy doctrine, a.k.a. ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’: “‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.” So the world will have to wait until 2017, when she’s finally able to implement her own doctrine/organizing principle: “We came, we saw, he died.”


Source: Panorama.am

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

By Pepe Escobar
From RT

This is the way the multi-trillion dollar Global War on Terror (GWOT) ends: not with a bang, but with a bigger bang.

The GWOT, since its conceptualization 13 years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11, is the gift that keeps on giving. And no gift is bigger than a Transformer Al-Qaeda on steroids – bigger, brasher, and wealthier than anything Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had ever dreamt of; the IS (Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS) of Caliph Ibrahim, former Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

US President Barack Obama, before deploying his golf holidays in Martha’s Vineyard, casually dropped that bombing the Caliph’s goons in Iraq will take months. One may interpret it as another layer of the Obama administration’s self-avowed “Don't Do Stupid Stuff” foreign policy doctrine, not so subtly mocked by prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Shock and Awe in 2003 destroyed the whole of Baghdad’s infrastructure in only a few hours.

Obama also confirmed the US was showering Iraq again with humanitarian bombing “to protect American interests” (first and foremost) and, as an afterthought, “human rights in Iraq.”

One could not possibly expect Obama to declare the US would now bomb “our” allies the House of Saud, who have supported/financed/weaponized IS, in Syria and Iraq. The same erstwhile ISIS that thoroughly enjoyed the marvels of US military training in a secret base in Jordan.

Obama also could not possibly explain why the US always supported ISIS in Syria and now decides to bomb them in Iraq. Oh, the perils of ‘Don’t Do Stupid Stuff’.

So a quick translation applies.

Obama’s bombing of the Caliph’s goons has absolutely nothing to do with US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power’s much beloved R2P (‘responsibility to protect’) doctrine – as in the responsibility to protect up to 150,000 Yazidis, not to mention Kurds and remaining Christians, from a ‘potential’ genocide carried out by the Caliph’s goons.

The whole fighter jets + drones bombing exercise, lasting ‘months’, has to do with the Benghazi syndrome.

The Caliph’s goons were dead set on conquering Irbil - the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is led by the wily Massoud Barzani – a long-time US client/vassal.

The US maintains a consulate in Irbil. Crammed with CIA types. Or, as the New York Times so lovingly puts it, “thousands of Americans.”

Enter Benghazi. This is an electoral year. Obama is absolutely terrified of another Benghazi – which Republicans have been trying non-stop to blame on his administration’s incompetence. The last thing Obama needs is the Caliph’s goons killing ‘diplomats’ in Erbil.

That would certainly raise a tsunami of questions all over again about the shady CIA weapon-smuggling racket – as in arming Syrian ‘rebels’ with weapons from Libya - at the time Benghazi took place. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, of course, also knew about it all. But then, and especially now, no one should know that the CIA was weaponizing the bulk of the future Caliph’s forces.

Regime change or bust

Obama said this humanitarian bombing adventure could last “months,” but in fact it could last only days.

The price is cheap: regime change. As in former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blocked from having a third term.

That explains why all hell broke loose in Baghdad, as Iraqi parliamentarians clearly saw which way the wind is blowing. Haider al-Abadi was chosen by new President Fuad Masoum, a Kurd, as the new prime minister – hours after Maliki positioned Special Forces in strategic sites in and around the Green Zone and may (or may not) have tried to stage a coup. Maliki maintains that Masoum violated the Iraqi constitution by not selecting him to form a new cabinet; after all, his State of Law bloc got the most votes in last April’s parliamentary elections.

Obama, predictably, was delighted. But whatever happens next, Maliki won’t go down quietly – to say the least. Even as the predominant narrative among Sunnis, a substantial number of Kurds and even some Shiite political blocs is that Maliki antagonized Sunnis all-out; and that’s what drove them to support the Caliph en masse (although now many are having second thoughts.)

As for the KRG and Barzani, in the Obama administration scheme of things, what matters is that they should not declare independence. As long as Barzani promises to Obama that Kurdistan stays inside Iraq, the KRG will get more bombs and drones and the ‘humanitarian’ operation will speed up. US Special Forces are already deployed all over the huge area where the Caliphate borders the KRG, in so-called desert forward operating positions. And the US for all practical purposes is now the Iraqi Air Force against the Caliph.

Watch ‘the Hillarator’

This Obama administration warped R2P – protection for Americans first, refugees second – will accomplish nothing for a key reason; no bombing – ‘humanitarian’ or otherwise - exterminates a political/religious movement, even one as demented as IS. The Caliphate prospers, somewhat, and expands, because unlike that pathetic Free Syrian Army (FSA) it’s winning territory, desert and urban, in both Syria and Iraq; an area bigger than Great Britain already, holding at least 6 million people.

As for the much-peddled Washington myth of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jihadists, the Caliphate also exploded it. Virtually every jihadi Washington - and Riyadh – weaponized and trained in Jordan and in the Turkey-Syria border is now among the Caliph’s goons, wallowing in cash raised from oil smuggling, hardcore blackmail and ‘donations’, and weaponized to their teeth after looting four Iraqi divisions and a Syrian brigade.

As for the GWOT gift, it will keep on giving in a bigger and bigger bang because of the dream narrative now displayed for every aspiring multinational jihadi; we are now defending our Caliphate from the mighty Crusader Air Force, no less.

The US lost the war in Iraq, miserably, only nine days after the fall of Baghdad, in April 2003. No ‘humanitarian’ bombing will turn it into a victory. And no ‘humanitarian’ bombing will finish the Caliphate off.

As for prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, she’s taking no prisoners. She insists the US should have bombed Syria in the first place; then there would be no Caliphate. But now she worries the Caliph will attack Europe and even the US (“I’m thinking a lot about containment, deterrence and defeat”).

Predictably positioning herself, Clinton could not but totally dismiss Obama’s foreign policy doctrine, a.k.a. ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’: “‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.” So the world will have to wait until 2017, when she’s finally able to implement her own doctrine/organizing principle: “We came, we saw, he died.”


Source: Panorama.am

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

BBC News
EUROPE
14 August 2014


Ukraine crisis: Impasse over Russian aid convoy

A controversial Russian convoy remains parked near Ukraine's border, still awaiting permission for the aid it is carrying to be taken to violence-racked rebel-held cities in Ukraine's east.

Red Cross officials are in Kiev trying to negotiate its passage.

Ukraine, which fears the convoy may carry military supplies for the rebels, insists it be independently checked.

There was heavy shelling in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk on Thursday as the rebels suffered setbacks.

They announced that their military leader in Donetsk, Igor Girkin - known as Strelkov - had resigned. No reason was given.


'Strictly humanitarian'

The convoy, of at least 260 lorries, drove for nine hours on Thursday before parking in a field near the border.
Russia dismissed as absurd claims that its convoy was a pretext to send military supplies to the rebels.
But Ukraine insisted on an inspection by international monitors.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said that if this did not happen, "movement of the convoy will be blocked with all the forces available".

Red Cross official Laurent Corbaz, in Kiev to discuss the convoy, said the Red Cross had a "strictly humanitarian role" and that "the delivery of aid should not be politicised".

Red Cross spokeswoman Anastasia Isyuk said the convoy was "south of the city of Kamensk-Shakhtinski" and that the Red Cross had been in contact with the Russian representatives.

She said there was still no agreement on the issues of border crossing procedures and customs clearance.

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg, who has been following the convoy, says the key question now is what Russia will do next - if it takes the convoy across the border, it will be seen by the Ukrainian authorities as a major provocation.

Ukraine is sending its own 75-lorry aid convoy to the east and Mr Corbaz said that too was being discussed in Kiev.
The US has issued another warning to Russia.

State department spokeswoman Marie Harf said: "We've made that very clear to the Russians that they should not move these trucks in, without taking all of the steps the Ukrainian government has outlined."

Ceasefire call

Heavy fighting continued on Thursday, with intense artillery shelling in both Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukrainian authorities said they had cut off Luhansk from other rebel-held areas after capturing the town of Novosvitlivka.
Ms Harf said the US had "stressed the importance of showing restraint to minimise casualties among the civilian population".
The Russian foreign ministry on Thursday called for an "urgent" ceasefire.

The loss of Strelkov, meanwhile, represents the third high-profile resignation of rebel leaders in the past week.
In Donetsk, the rebels' political leader Alexander Borodai handed over to Alexander Zakharchenko.

And Valery Bolotov, rebel commander in Luhansk, said he was temporarily handing over to Igor Plotnitskiy.
Mr Borodai said reports that Strelkov, a Russian citizen, had been injured were "total rubbish".

Some 2,086 people have been killed since the conflict in the east began in mid-April, more than half of them in the past two weeks, the UN says.

The violence began when pro-Russian rebels seized government buildings and tried to declare independence.
The military launched an operation to retake the east, and stepped up its activities in June.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March in a move that drew international condemnation.

Mr Putin said Russia's goal was "to stop bloodshed in Ukraine as soon as possible".
He said Russia should not "fence itself off from the outside world" although he said Russia would "not allow anyone to treat us with arrogance".

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

PS: The word `Double Standards` seems totally outdated, if ever it had meaning.
There are so many standards, that the real word must be:
There are NO STANDARDS.

For instance, and just some examples:
For the US:
- Russian military shipments are outlawed, when it comes to russian separationists in Eastern Ukraina.
- But OFFICIAL US shipments to Iraki Kurds, or Syrian Islamists, is all but moral.
- The US officially has training centers in northern Jordan where they recruit, train and arm syrian rebels.......

For Russia:
Ukrainian military crackdown on russian separationists is barbarian.... yet all in all, that barbarian operation killed less than 2000 russian civilians in more than 2 months period.
Yet the same russians behaved much worse, when they did attack our villanges in NKR, during Koltzo, or on 13 June 1992....
Of course, no mention of how they did cruch the chechens in Grozny......

........

------------------------------------
BBC News
EUROPE
15 August 2014

Ukraine crisis: Russia assures US on aid convoy

Russia's defence secretary has assured his US counterpart that there are no military personnel in its controversial aid convoy for Ukraine, the US says.
It said Sergey Shoygu told Chuck Hagel the convoy was not being used as a pretext to intervene further .
The convoy, which aims to aid eastern Ukrainian cities held by pro-Russian rebels, is still stalled at the border.
Earlier Russia denied Ukraine's claims that a column of Russian armoured vehicles had crossed the border.

'Will take some time'

The Pentagon said Mr Hagel had sought clarification on the convoy.
It said: "Minister Shoygu 'guaranteed' that there were no Russian military personnel involved in the humanitarian convoy, nor was the convoy to be used as a pretext to further intervene in Ukraine."

It said: "Minister Shoygu assured Secretary Hagel that Russia was meeting Ukraine's conditions."

Ukraine insists on a full inspection. Its border guards have arrived at the convoy but have not yet cleared it to pass.
The BBC's Steve Rosenberg, who has been following the convoy, says some of the lorries were opened up for the media on Friday, and the main thing that struck him was how empty many of the vehicles were.

The ICRC's Head of Operations for Europe and Central Asia, Laurent Corbaz, said: "The agreement... foresees that the trucks will be checked by the customs officers of Ukraine on Russian territory and then be allowed inside Ukraine with ICRC people accompanying the convoy and then unload somewhere in Luhansk and go back to Russia, empty."

He said that given the size of the cargo and the security constraints, "implementation is likely to take some time", not in one week and possibly "much longer".
Russia complained on Friday about Ukrainian operations in the area.

The Russian foreign ministry said: "We draw attention to the sharp intensification of military action by Ukrainian forces with the apparent aim to stop the path, agreed on with Kiev, of a humanitarian convoy across the Russia-Ukraine border."

'Fantasy'

Ukraine in turn said it had partially destroyed an armoured column that had crossed from Russia overnight on Thursday.
The alleged incursion was witnessed by two UK newspaper reporters.
Russia's defence ministry said the incursion reports were "some kind of fantasy".

It said: "There was no Russian military column that crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border either at night or during the day."
The incident prompted sharp words from Nato and the UK.

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: "We see a continuous flow of weapons and fighters from Russia into eastern Ukraine, and it is a clear demonstration of continued Russian involvement in [its] destabilisation."
The UK Foreign Office summoned Russian Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko to explain.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels issued a statement saying: "Any unilateral military actions on the part of the Russian Federation in Ukraine under any pretext, including humanitarian, will be considered by the European Union as a blatant violation of international law."
Russia's government has consistently denied directly arming or training the rebels.

However German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Friday to "put an end to the flow of military goods, military advisers and armed personnel over the border".

The conflict in Ukraine's east, which has claimed more than 2,000 lives, has intensified in recent weeks.
The violence began in April when pro-Russian rebels seized government buildings and tried to declare independence.
The Ukrainian military launched an operation to retake the region and stepped up its activities in June.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Islamist fundamentalists gain tactical advantage over the US and Israel in Gaza and Irbil, 1,372 km apart
DEBKAfile
August 9, 2014,




While different in many ways, the two most active Middle East conflicts, waged by the US in northern Iraq against the Islamic State, and by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, have strong common features:

1. Both stood idly by for years as Islamist fundamentalists, Al Qaeda’s IS in Iraq, and the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, systematically built up military force for bringing forward their aggressive designs.
The Obama administration shrugged when al Qaeda started forging ahead, first in Syria and then in Iraq.
But for occasional air strikes against “empty sands” in Gaza, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government neglected to step in when Hamas built up a vast stockpile of rockets and an underground terror empire, as former AMAN director Amos Yadlin admitted publicly last week.

When, in mid-2013, IS commander Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi executed a major tactical move by relocating his entire force from Syria to Iraq, Washington was unmoved - even when in Jan. 2014, the Islamists took over the unresisting western Iraqi province of Anbar and a row of important towns, including Falluja and Tikrit.

The Iraqi army’s armored divisions, rather than resist the ruthless Islamists sweeping across the county, turned tail, bequeathing the conquering force the rich spoils of heavy, up-to-date American weaponry in mountainous quantities.

And still President Barack Obama saw no pressing cause to step in - even though, by then, it was obvious that this booty was destined not only for subjugating Baghdad, but being injected into the Syrian war and the IS arsenal in preparation for leaping on its next prey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and at some point, Israel too.
The US president was finally jerked out of his unconcern when the soldiers of Allah started marching toward the gates of Irbil, capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish Republic of Iraq (KRG).

Friday, on Aug.8, a couple of US warplanes and drones went into belated action to curb their advance. According to the Pentagon statement, two FA-18 jets, launched from the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier in the Gulf, dropped 500lb laser-guided bombs on a “mobile artillery piece” that was shelling Kurdish forces defending Irbil, “where US forces are based.”

A little more than one hour later, four F/A-18 aircraft hit a stationary convoy of seven vehicles and a mortar position near Irbil, wiping them out with eight bombs.

Gallons of water and tons of packaged meals were also air-dropped for the hundreds of refugees who had fled towns in northern Iraq that were mowed down by the Islamists, with nothing but the clothes they stood up in.

2. The US appears to be falling into the same error of judgment made by Israel’s war planners in the month-long Operation Defense Edge, i.e., that air strikes are capable of wiping out an Islamist terrorist peril. That lesson was there for Washington to learn in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and latterly Gaza.

3. President Obama refuses to put American boots back in Iraq, specifically, special operations forces, because this would reverse what he considers his crowning foreign achievement, the withdrawal of the US army from Iraq.

For very different reasons, Israeli leaders abstained from sending special forces deep inside the Gaza Strip to eliminate the Hamas high command and main rocket stocks.

Because of these common factors, the two campaigns are destined to share a common outcome: IS will forge ahead in Iraq, and Hamas will continue firing rockets at the Israeli population, to force Jerusalem into submission. Neither conflict looks like ending any time soon.

4. Another less obvious common thread is to be found in Irbil. Two powerful patrons, the US and Israel, were responsible for shaping, training and funding the Peshmerga as the national army of the semiautonomous Kurdish Republic.
Both maintain military and intelligence missions in the KRG capital and may be presumed to be advising Kurdish generals on strategy for rebuffing the advancing Islamists.

Yet this menacing advance continues relentlessly, and the Kurdish army is showing the first signs of fallilng apart in the same way as the Iraqi divisions in earlier rounds of the IS onslaught. The sense of doom in Irbil is such that the US and Israel are preparing to evacuate their personnel.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that US warplanes and drones are the wrong weapons for stopping Al Qaeda’s jihadis, just as Israeli air strikes were never much good against Hamas, and will not stop the war of attrition the Palestinian fundamentalists launched Friday, Aug. 8.

5. Islamist fundamentalists, fighting on separate battlefields 1,327 km apart, have gained the tactical advantage in both over the US and Israeli armies. President Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had better take a hard look at their tactics before it is too late.

--------
NB: Interestingly , no one mentions Turkey's role in the IS operations. Basically, this player is playing the turkish game, of destroying the Kurdish entity....
Even if they do have financial patrons in Qatar or Ryad, their main logistic base was and still is Turkish territory....

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

ԲՅՈՒՐԱՎՈՐ ՈՒ ԱՆՇԻՐԻՄ ՆԱՀԱՏԱԿԱՑ ՀԻՇԱՏԱԿԻՆ

ՌՈՒԲԵՆ ՍԵՎԱԿ

Եվրոպան`
այդ դիվանագետ պոռնիկը,
ոսկի կցանե,
որպեսզի բոզություն հնձնե…

[londontsi]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Can oil sands survive sub $100 crude prices?

http://www.futuresmag.com/2014/08/15/can-oil-sands-survive-sub-100-crude-prices?t=commodities

ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are among global oil companies needing crude prices as high as $150 a barrel to turn a profit from Canada’s oil sands, the costliest petroleum projects in the world, according to a study.

The next most-expensive crude projects are in the deep waters off the coasts of Africa and Brazil, with each venture needing prices between $115 and $127 a barrel, said Carbon Tracker Initiative, a London-based think tank and environmental advocacy group, in a report today.

As the U.S. shale drilling boom floods the world’s biggest crude market with supply, explorers are at greater risk of a price collapse that would turn some investments into money losers. Energy explorers are willing to invest in high-cost oil- sands developments because once they are up and running, they produce crude for decades longer than other ventures such as deepwater wells, said David McColl, an analyst at Morningstar Investment Services in Chicago.......

.