Free Republic

Gizmodo reported on the leaks. A hostile offshoot of the defunct neo-Nazi group Vanguard America, Patriot Front formed in late August 2017 less than three weeks after the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (James Alex Fields Jr., who was convicted in December 2018 of killing 32-year-old anti-racist protester Heather Heyer at the rally, was seen there holding a shield emblazoned with the VA logo. VA later denied he was a member.) The split from VA followed months of infighting between Thomas Rousseau, the Front’s founder, and VA leader Dillon Irizarry, who was seen accusing Rousseau in...

In a move that illustrates new levels of boldness, Russian fighters have seized one of the largest oil fields in Libya. The Es Sider oil field was one of the main economic pipelines for the Government of National Accord. Over the last seven months, the Libyan National Army (LNA) has held a stranglehold on oil exports. The LNA, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, has struggled militarily as of late, suffering defeat after defeat since June. Now the LNA is looking to negotiate using the oil fields for leverage, effectively keeping the economy hostage. Libyan oil exports have been reduced...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. shale producers, refiners and pipeline companies are scrambling for cash and face likely restructuring as they struggle under heavy debt loads while engulfed in the worst crisis the oil industry has faced. SNIP About half of the top 60 independent U.S. oil producers are in danger of restructuring and will need to find ways to boost their cash pile, according to energy lawyers at Haynes and Boone. SNIP Demand, however, is down by roughly 25% in the United States, and oversupply is expected to linger for months. An April survey of energy producers by the...

Failed political consultant Liz Mair is crowd funding a political attack on billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump and she’s getting noticed. But Mair’s past work as a paid shill of a Muslim dictatorship that jails journalists and activists should make us wonder about her motives, especially as the Middle East once more descends into chaos. Mair was paid $15,000 a month by Ilham Aliyev, the dictator of Azerbaijan, according to documents filed in accordance with the Foreign Registration Act (FARA).

While most of the attention on Hillary Clinton's emails dealt with a document that included instructions from Clinton to tamper with the headings of a possibly classified subject, another, even more explosive email is big news in Sudan and could potentially lead to criminal charges. The email in question is from Sid Blumenthal, close Clinton friend and ally, who was in Libya trying to drum up business with the Libyan government for some business associates. To ingratiate himself with Secretary Clinton and get the State Department to intercede with the Libyan government on his behalf, he sent her "intelligence" briefs...

TEHRAN - Iran has left the development of two oilfields to the energy giant British Petroleum (BP), an informed source told the Tasnim News Agency on the condition of anonymity. The announcement is a follow-up to the September meeting between Iranian Oil Ministry officials and BP top managers, where the Iranian side headed by Amir Hossein Zamani Nia, the deputy oil minister for international affairs and trade, agreed to transfer the development of two oilfields to BP based on the new model of Iranian oil contracts, known as Integrated Petroleum Contract (IPC), which is due to be unveiled soon. ---snip---...

Islamic State militants have set fire to oil wells in the Ajil field east of the city of Tikrit to try to hinder aerial attacks aimed at driving them from the oilfield, a witness and military source said. Black smoke could be seen rising from oil field since Wednesday afternoon, said the witness, who accompanied Iraqi militia and soldiers as they advanced on Tikrit from the east. Before the Islamic State took over the field in June it produced 25,000 barrels per day of crude that were shipped to the Kirkuk refinery, as well as 150 million cubic feet of...

Militants from the Islamic State Organisation have in the past two weeks executed 700 members of a tribe in eastern Syria, the majority of them civilians, a human rights monitoring group said on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has tracked violence on all sides of the three-year-old conflict, said that reliable sources reported beheadings were used to execute many of the al-Sheitaat tribe, which is from Deir al-Zor province. The conflict between the group of fighters calling itself Islamic State (formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS) and the al-Sheitaat tribe, who...

Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan relations, which experienced a significant thaw since the death of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenbashi), deteriorated again last week (June 19). The most recent conflict began when Turkmenistan started undertaking seismic work on a disputed oilfield in the Caspian Sea. The oilfield, discovered by Azerbaijani geologists, is called Kapyaz in Azeri and Serdar in Turkmen. Reserves in the oilfield total around 150 million barrels of oil. In response, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry summoned Turkmenistan’s ambassador in Baku, Toyly Komekov, where Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov expressed Azerbaijan`s strong protest over the violation of the agreement. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry...

East Africa is emerging as the next oil boom following a big strike in Uganda's Lake Albert Basin. Other oil and natural gas reserves have been found in Tanzania and Mozambique and exploration is under way in Ethiopia and even war-torn Somalia. The region, until recently largely ignored by the energy industry, is "the last real high-potential area in the world that hasn't been fully explored," says Richard Schmitt, chief executive officer of Dubai's Black Marlin Energy, which is prospecting in East Africa. The discovery at Lake Albert, in the center of Africa between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of...

Iraq and Iran will begin talks next week to mark their borders, both countries said on Thursday, weeks after Tehran took over a disputed oil well in a move Iraq's prime minister called "unjustified." Nuri al-Maliki's criticism of the Iranian move came during talks between him and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, during the latter's one-day visit to Baghdad. "There will be a meeting within a week between the two countries about the borders," Mottaki said at a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari at the foreign ministry in central Baghdad. He added that in the following...

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country suffered after invasions during World War II and he will "stand to the end" to get full compensation, the Jerusalem Post reported. Ahmadinejad said he'd write to U.N. secretary General Ban Ki-moon to ask for compensation for damages caused to Iran during the war, and for use of its territory and resources by allied powers, the Post reported. "You inflicted lots of damages to the Iranian nation, put your weight on the shoulders [of the Iranian people] and became victors in World War II. You didn't even share the war profits with Iran,"...

Iraqi and Iranian officials will meet next week to try to solve their border issues, including the dispute over a southern Iraqi oil well which Iranian forces occupied last month, foreign ministers of the two neighboring countries said Thursday. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made the announcement after meeting his Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar Zebari, in Baghdad. "Everything will be solved," Mottaki told a joint news conference. "Joint technical committees will start meetings in a week from now, and the borders between the two brotherly countries will be marked," he added. "We have agreed to normalize the situation on the two...

The preliminary deals signed by Angola's state oil company, Sonangol, Wednesday to develop two small fields in the most dangerous part of Iraq constituted a major breakthrough for Baghdad's high-risk drive to attract international oil companies to help it restore its flagging fortunes and transform the global energy market. Over the next 20 years Sonangol will develop the Qayara and Najmah fields, which between them contain an estimated 1.66 billion barrels of oil, in Nineveh province, where al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents operate. But the Oil Ministry will pay the company $5-$6 for every barrel its produces. That's three times...

A consortium led by China's top oil producer initialled a deal with Iraq on Tuesday to develop the southern Halfaya oil field, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told AFP. "Yes, they signed the contract today," he said of the group made up of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) and which also includes France's Total and Malaysia's Petronas. The three companies are aiming to increase production at Halfaya, which has proven reserves of 4.098 billion barrels of oil, to 535,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks. Their study is scheduled for Nov./Dec. issue of ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly publication. Anurag Sharma and colleagues note that the traditional process involves biology: Prehistoric plants died and changed into oil and gas while sandwiched between layers of rock in the hot, high-pressure environment deep below Earth's surface. Some scientists, however, believe that oil and gas originated in other ways, including chemical reactions between carbon...

Tehran denies Iraqi claim to borderline oil field, says troops are 'on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders'. Iran confirmed Saturday that its forces had taken over East Maysan oil field, located on the Iran-Iraq border. The move caused a 2.4% spike in oil prices. "The Iranian forces are on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders. This oil field is Iran's" said an Iranian armed forces statement quoted by the Islamic Republic Arab-language television station, al-Alam.

Iran confirmed Saturday that its forces had taken over East Maysan oil field, located on the Iran-Iraq border. The move caused a 2.4% spike in oil prices. "The Iranian forces are on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders. This oil field is Iran's" said an Iranian armed forces statement quoted by the Islamic Republic Arab-language television station, al-Alam. Proprietary of the East Maysan oil field had been the center of a dispute between Tehran and Bagdad for a lengthy period of time. Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji said the move was the latest in a series...

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:05:09 GMT American forces have attempted to take over an Iranian oil field near the country's western border with Iraq, a security official says. “US forces backed by tanks entered the Mousian area of the Dehloran County, laying around 100 meters of pipeline in Iranian territory," the source, talking on condition of anonymity, said Monday. The source added that the pipes, marked with Iraqi flags, were blocked after Iranian forces pushed the “intruders” back across the border. Iraqi officials have been notified of Iran's objection to American movements along the common border, according to the source.

In a world running low on oil, several countries are still sitting on massive supplies. If only they could get to them. The Ferdows, Mound, and Zageh Fields Location: The Persian Gulf, off the coast of southern Iran Estimated Reserves: 38 billion barrels Details: Discovered in 2003, these three interconnected fields are among the largest oil deposits ever found. Ferdows is the largest, with 30.6 billion barrels. This figure may seem astounding, but it’s usually not possible to extract all the oil from a field due to technological and financial constraints. Plus, assessing how much oil these deposits can actually...