The leaders of the five Central Asian states and Azerbaijan, meeting on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan on July 31, signaled an intent to deepen trans-Caspian connections. The meeting’s final document, known as the Cholpon-Ata Declaration, was perhaps more symbolic than substantive, reaffirming participants’ desire to expand trade and maintain regional security. The document “reflects the high level of trust among Central Asian states and the Republic of Azerbaijan, their commitment to the principles…

The emergence of bloodthirsty right-wing paramilitary death squads in Colombia is often attributed to the rise of powerful vertically integrated cocaine cartels during the early 1980s. That interpretation, however, overlooks the deeper forces behind their emergence in a country shaped by decades of conflict and the world's longest-running multi-party low-intensity asymmetric war. Colombia's right-wing death squads, responsible for the majority of the modern conflict’s victims, predate Pablo Escobar, the Medellin Cartel and the cocaine boom.…

Venezuela exported 1.16 million barrels of crude oil daily last month, a slight decline from June’s 1.2 million barrels daily, on lower withdrawals from storage, Reuters has reported, noting that exports to the United States during that month increased. July exports to Venezuela’s biggest oil destination averaged 786,000 barrels daily, which was the highest since early 2019, Reuters noted in its report. U.S. imports from Venezuela following Washington’s toppling of President Nicolas Maduro in January have been on a steady climb,…

Namibia is rapidly emerging as Africa’s next major oil producer while neighboring South Africa, which controls roughly two-thirds of the same Orange Basin petroleum province, remains years behind in developing essentially the same petroleum system. The Orange Basin, an offshore deepwater petroleum province spanning the Atlantic maritime border between the two countries, is estimated to contain more than 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Yet while Namibia has attracted a succession of world-class discoveries and moved rapidly toward commercial…

The world is running short on fuels—the warning was first issued by some analysts who were watching the physical market rather than futures charts. Now, Big Oil is joining the chorus of warnings, with Shell, Exxon and Chevron all saying that prices at the pump are set to stay higher, regardless of where crude oil prices go. “The constraint pain point in the energy system is refining," Exxon’s chief financial officer Neil Hansen told Bloomberg in an interview last week. This, according to him, is “something that perhaps the…

Continental Resources, the company founded by shale billionaire Harold Hamm, looks to expand in Vaca Muerta as international companies vie to develop Argentina’s proven prolific shale patch. Continental is set to bid in this year’s bid round for acreage in Vaca Muerta in the biggest auction in the basin in a decade, sources with knowledge of the plans have told Bloomberg. Bids will be opened on August 19. The province of Neuquén, where most of Vaca Muerta is located, has launched the biggest licensing round in the shale play…

China is winning the race for global clean energy dominance. Beijing has outspent every other country on Earth for years now, and controls critical global clean energy supply chains. Over the same time period, the United States has taken a major step back from clean energy objectives under the Trump administration, giving Beijing even more leverage. But while China’s ascension to global energy superpower status may seem like a foregone conclusion against this backdrop, the United States may have a unique opportunity to even the playing field…

Over 1,600 days into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 10-day special military operation and the situation for the Kremlin continues to deteriorate. Since Moscow ordered its troops illegally into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, more than 450,000 of them have been killed, with another 1 million wounded or missing. Ukraine’s extraordinary development of its own military -- including a stunning build-out of its drone capabilities -- now means Russian monthly casualties have reached the critical negative replacement rate -- meaning that there…

Russian crude processing fell to its lowest level in more than two decades in July after Ukraine expanded its drone campaign from refineries to tankers, pipelines and export infrastructure, according to The Moscow Times, citing Bloomberg analysis.  Russian refineries processed an estimated 3.6 million barrels per day in July, the lowest monthly level since May 2002 and roughly one-third below the seasonal average. Between 2020 and 2025, Russian refineries typically processed between 5.3 million and 5.6 million barrels per day during the same…