the new petro power paradigm - Diplomat Magazine

ENERGY|Di spatches
formal independence. Yet this condition
has done nothing to reverse the rising
status of Angola as one of the leading
exporters of oil.
A member of OPEC since 2006, Angola
has rivaled and occasionally surpassed
Nigeria as the top petroleum producer
from Africa, with much of it going to
China, which has long identified sub-
Saharan Africa as an important supply
region. The benefits for both parties appear
obvious. China diversifies its energy
sources while developing countries such
as Angola receive much needed cash
without having to answer questions from
western donors about political corruption
and human rights concerns.
Western governments have also begun
to beg for the attention of Angola, as well
as other oil-rich nations along the western
African shoreline. Angola recently
received a controversial offer from Germany
to supply a fleet of patrol boats.
The vessels would not only be capable of
patrolling the country’s large coastline,
but also of protecting its offshore oil platforms.
8. The United States
Shale oil, sedimentary rock containing
material that can be transformed into
crude oil, continues to generate serious
interest among policy-makers and investors.
Nowhere might this interest be more
intense and understandable than in the
United States, which possesses the largest
supplies in the world.
Consider the numbers. Using a middle-of-the-road
figure, the Rand Corporation
estimated in 2005 that 800 billion
barrels of recoverable shale oil from the
Green River Reservoir in the western
United States could meet 25 percent of
American energy demands for 400 years.
The Bakken Field, stretching across
the American and the Canadian Prairie
(Saskatchewan and Manitoba), has also
drawn attention from energy investors,
who have not been shy in framing their
potentially profitable ambitions as a public,
even patriotic, service.
In fact, though, the four largest shale
oil zones in the world all fall within the
continental United States — and the
collective recoverable reserves of these
deposits have been estimated at 3.3 trillion
barrels. Counting even half as much,
these oil reserves, by themselves, would
exceed Saudi Arabian reserves by a factor
of five.
Industry salesmanship might be crude,
but effective. Freed from the tyrannical —
not to mention costly — grip of oil from
the Middle East, the United States could
count on a plentiful, cheap and easily accessible
source of energy for its economy
and military as Washington focuses on
domestic priorities such as rebuilding the
country’s crumbling infrastructure, subpar
education system and manufacturing
sector — if the political elites choose to
do so. Whether they will remains another
question. As the protracted fight over the
raising of the debt ceiling revealed, political
will and functionality might be the
most precious commodities in the United
States these days and for some time to
come.
9. Israel
Jewish comedians have often asked how
Moses managed to lead his people to the
one place in the Middle East that lacked
oil. Well, they might have to re-write
that joke. According to figures reported
in The London Times in March 2011, Israel
is sitting on shale oil reserves that could
contain 250 billion barrels of oil, a figure
that would nearly equal proven Saudi
reserves of 260 billion barrels.
Israel’s shale oil is land-based, not far
from Jerusalem, in what is known as the
Shfela Basin. Its gas deposits, on the other
hand, are conventional and off-shore. The
Tamar deposit, the world’s biggest conventional
gas discovery in 2009, is transformative
by itself; the Leviathan deposit,
discovered last year, was the world’s
largest deepwater natural gas discovery
in the last decade. Tamar gas is expected
to hit the market in 2012.
Figures of this sort could significantly
change the geo-political calculus of the
region. Israel, which for obvious security
reasons buys the bulk of its energy from
sources outside the Arab Middle East,
would likely see its regional strength rise.
Israel’s economy — already superior to
those of its oil-rich but politically backward
Arab neighbours — would achieve
a far greater measure of independence.
But this scenario — if it unfolds — could
be quite costly to the environment. As
Canadians familiar with the oilsands can
confirm, the extraction of unconventional
oil sources requires an immense amount
of energy and water, an increasingly precious
commodity, especially in the desert.
The Israelis are reportedly working with
a unique technology that eliminates as
much as half the emissions produced by
conventional drilling — and all of the water.
Moses would applaud.
10. Greenland (Denmark)
Local reactions to the 2010 claim by Scottish
oil giant Cairn Energy that it had
discovered gases that might indicate oil
off the coast of Greenland could not have
been more different. Ordinary residents
living near the offshore drilling site in
Baffin Bay experienced what The Guardian
described as “euphoria” in anticipation of
future jobs and prosperity, whereas their
politicians intensified their chatter about
genuine independence from Denmark.
Greenland has received many symbols
of sovereignty since 1945, but remains a
formal part of the Scandinavian country.
Environmentalists, meanwhile,
sounded depressed in describing wouldbe
scenarios of environmental destruction
and devastation. Whether any of these
visions will unfold remains an open question.
While the Arctic might well contain
up to 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered,
recoverable hydrocarbons, as a 2008
report by the United States Geological
Survey claims, its geography and geology
will likely pose a formidable challenge
with current extraction technologies, even
as climate change continues to “free” said
resources from their icy prison. The region
around Greenland may also become a
growing source of geo-political conflict between
other interested and far more powerful
parties, namely the United States,
Russia and China. Experts who suggest
that oil explorations off Greenland could
be as lucrative as in Iraq, but without
the instability, have a point. Like a quiet
neighbour, Greenland is unlikely to generate
attention. But its neighbours might.
Wolfgang Depner is a Ph.D. candidate in
interdisciplinary studies at the University
of British Columbia-Okanagan, in
Kelowna, B.C.
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