USA shale gas bubble is set to burst?

USA shale gas revolution set to fade?

War in Syria in 2012 (analysis in russian)

War in Syria: 2012

Russia once again top oil producer in 2012

Recently, it was released latest data that showed that as for the end of 2012, Russia kept its number one position as worldwide oil producer ahead of Saudi Arabia, with a 10.2 barrels per day production mostly on a monthly basis, which reaffirms its relevant roe in the world energy scenario still, despite many negatve opinions about its presumably decaying amount of oil reserves (est. 70 billions of barrels more or less). Aside from this fact, the main question is if Russia would keep using this as a political and geopolitical tool to influence Europe? What about of the OPEC counterbalance to russian weight in world oil and gas? Will there be enough oil and gas for Russia to keep its say in the global power play arena? Because one thing is certain: energy is the main tool that is reinforcing russian power around the globe, and its internal economy. And from my point of view, an interesting clash will come in the foreseeable future: the one between Russia and Saudi Arabia, if the russians dont comply to the OPEC and saudis dictates when the markets require, given the saudis spare capacity (aroound 2 MMBPD), and another geopolitical factor that the House Al Saud could activate if it keeps feeing threatened b Russia: the islamic wahabism in Chechnya and Daguetan, with the support of saudis.

So these are the implications for Russia maintaining the world top position as oil producer.

Inversion petrolera multimilonaria de Rusia en Venezuela

Inversion multimillonaria petrolera de Rusia en Venezuela (6to Poder)

Russia the big winner in Eurasia

It seems that after all the grandiose strategy designed by the behind the curtains strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski of the Obama administration to take over Eurasia and all its natural resorces, none of this has worked since the United States is entangled between all the fiasco that has been first of all the Af-Pak strategy, and then all the situation that is shaking the Middle East, focusing on Syria and Iran specifically, with no positive results at all. Meanwhile Russia is taking all the wins from this disastrous strategy, leveraging on its seemingly never ending gas and oil resources, despite many pessimistic forecasts by so called experts on russian oil reserves on the fact that in few years the main big fields of Russia (Samotlor aand Vankor for example) could be reaching their peaks, a thing that we are far away to prove for now. Russia is repositioning itself on the whole eurasian scenario, offering gas to all the central asian former soviet republics, which after flirting with Washington, they are realizing that they cant live without russian assistance and help (military, economics, etc), alongside the fact that together with te central asian republics, the baltics one and the caspian ones too, whether they accept it r not, they remain at the helm and the mercy of the Kremlin, GAZPROM, ROSNEFT, and the silovikys lead by Mr Putin. Not even the so called color revolutions worked in Ukraine, Georgia, Kirguiztan to change the prorussian direction those republics were taking designed by Washington. And as the corolary for this argument there is the Eurasian Union, proposed last year by Mr Putin, as a customs agreement to involve all these countries in the russian sphere of influence starting first as a customs bloc and then in the long term that could become an important geopolitical bloc alongside institutions like the Shanghai Organization, lead too by Russia. So my argument is that Russia so far is the big winner in the struggle to conquer and control Eurasia (meaning eurasian geopolitical space all that encompasses Central Asia, the Caspian, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, the Middle East), mainly by its still standing huge energy resources.

Russia interests in Greece and Cyprus

Lebanon is poised to become the next new El Dorado for the natural gas business, as the whole world specialized media on energy issues are widely celebrating first allegedly huge gas fields discoveries that might rival those found either in Israel or in Cyprus, which needless to say, have almost vanished from world media after first gas off shore fields were discovered hardly two years ago or maybe less, projecting the Mediterranean basin as a new Caspian that could balance and give power to a reshuffling of the world energy geopolitics, so far too centered on conflictive zones such as the Persian Guf, the Arabian Peninsula, and so on. But one question comes to mind when Lebanon adds up to all these new mediterranean gas fields discoveries that have been so fanfared by world media, and is the fact that if the Mediterranean basin could be an alternative to the mighty monopoly sustained by countries such as Russia, Iran, Qatar, and the rest of the natgas world heavyweights, counting for sure with all the political support from Washington and the gas and oil lobby, as well as from Western Europe, desiring once and for all to unchain itself from Moscow almost never ending gas dependence, and which place Lebanon could play in the energy power politics within the whole Middle East region, once again becoming a pivotal state with Washington support absolutely, even if the USA now could say that is becoming one of the worlds main natural gas producer ahead or Russia. Once again Lebanon will play a buffer zone role in Middle East powerplays, but this time, with a more explosive leverage tool, that is, energy.