Iran and Gazprom
February 29th, 2008
From Al Alam, news that Iran and Gazprom have agreed upon the terms on developing “two or three” blocks of the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf, a deal that further highlights Moscow’s deepening trade and commercial ties with Tehran. In fact, as noted in the article, there may be more oil sector cooperation […]
Read more »A Scramble to Exploit Africa’s Significant Gas Reserves
January 28th, 2008
As reported in a recent Financial Times article, with Europe concerned over Russia’s political motives in exploiting its energy wealth and big international companies shut out or deterred from investing in the Middle East, many eyes have turned to Africa in the hope of securing future supplies of gas. However, as companies scramble to gain […]
Read more »Scramble for Africa…The “Final Frontier” of Conventional Sources of Oil
January 25th, 2008
As reported by Reuters, high oil prices and the onslaught of resource nationalism from Russia to South America have sent Western majors delving ever deeper into the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, triggering a new scramble for Africa. As the article notes: “…Unlike more established oil-producing regions, the Gulf of Guinea offers easy access […]
Read more »The European Pipeline War: Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia, and the World
January 24th, 2008
As noted by Steve LeVine at his Oil & Glory blog, Vladimir Putin recently racked up another in a string of unbroken victories in the European Pipeline War as Gazprom purchased a majority stake in the state oil company, NIS, and joined Russia’s South Stream Pipeline consortium. Last week, Bulgaria signed onto South Stream as […]
Read more »Dinosaurs at the Tar Pit (4) / Needed: A Refined Approach to Refining
January 24th, 2008
Another day and more articles on the demise of Big Oil and the rise of The Seven Sisters. As Rig Zone points out: “…Three years ago, the top six names on the PFC Energy 50 ranking of the world’s largest oil & gas industry companies were ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Chevron and Eni. […]
Read more »Dinosaurs at the Tar Pit (3): Energy’s Center of Power & Resource Nationalism Is On The Move
January 23rd, 2008
As noted in today’s Financial Times, the story of energy in the 21st century has been the relative decline of the developed world as both a producer and a consumer. We have been following this trend for some time now, keeping a close eye on The New Seven Sisters in particular. As the article reports: […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.