#Gas

President Obama’s trip to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania was touted as a commitment to begin a new partnership with the rising continent. Home to 6 of the 10 fasted growing economies, Africa has made great strides – the International Monetary Fund predicts growth of 5.4 percent this year and 5.7 percent next year, but […]

Just last year, protestors in Nunavut spoke out against the high cost of milk and other basic foodstuffs. But few international media outlets paid attention to these protests, even though they touched upon an issue just as central to the Arctic as the environment: human development and well-being. In comparison, the scaling of The Shard, […]

On the heels of the opening of the Arctic Council’s Permanent Secretariat in Tromsø, Norway, two new Arctic research centers in China and Russia have been announced while one in Canada has made progress towards becoming reality. China-Nordic Arctic Research Institute First, Chinese and Nordic representatives announced plans to establish the China-Nordic Arctic Research Institute. University […]

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Oslo this week to meet with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg to discuss the euro crisis and energy issues, including cooperation in the Arctic. This was the pair’s fifth meeting in nine months. Stoltenberg stressed the importance of German and European companies in assisting with the development of the Arctic […]

Australia and the Arctic aren’t often mentioned in the same sentence. One tends to hear more about Australia and Antarctica, since the country has an Antarctic Division and carries out scientific research at the icy continent not so far away from Tasmania. But I think that a comparison of Australia and the Arctic, particularly the […]

Greenpeace Canada has obtained a draft of the Arctic Council’s Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution that officials have claimed is genuine. In a press release on Greenpeace’s website, Christy Ferguson, Arctic project leader for Greenpeace Canada, called the 21-page agreement “effectively useless.” She stated, “Despite promises that this would be the first legally-binding agreement of its […]

The U.S. Department of the Interior recently announced that the Bureau of Land Management will issue leases for 4.5 million acres of land in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska for oil and gas development. The November 7 lease sale will add to the 3 million acres offered up in the same area last December. […]

According to data from the Joint Organization Data Initiative, Saudi Arabia has surpassed Russia as the world’s largest oil producer, a position which the latter country held for six years. The Middle Eastern kingdom’s oil production rose to a 31-year high last year, while Russia’s dropped. As Matthew Hulbert writes in his analysis for Forbes, […]

Lloyd’s of London, the British insurance company, and Chatham House, a London-based think tank, have released a report together entitled, “Arctic Opening: Opportunity and Risk in the High North.” The report states that four key industries will be the “biggest drivers and beneficiaries of Arctic economic development.” They are: mineral resources (oil, gas, and mining), […]

In my family, there is the story of how, when one of my aunts sold her house, her sisters, helping her empty the place, found 27 boxes of Fab detergent squirreled away in the kitchen cupboard. In case she should ever run out, and besides it was on sale, you see. Something like this may […]

The European Union plans to announce today that it sees possible disruptions for its gas supplies from Russia via Ukraine, a liklihood we identified earlier this year. What’s worse, Gazprom is now demanding $230 in debt payments from Belarus, another key gas transit route to western Europe. The payments from Belarus may stem from a […]

Today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted for an amendment, as part of a comprehensive energy bill, which would give the Secretary of the Interior Department flexibility in suspending mandatory royalty payments to companies for the production of oil and gas. The incentives, originally part of the 2005 Energy Bill, allow oil companies […]