Free Republic

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan signed a $2 billion deal Thursday to bring natural gas from Central to South Asia. Starting from the Daulatabad gas field in Turkmenistan, the nearly 1,000-mile pipeline is to pass through Afghanistan before entering Pakistan. The $2 billion project will bring Central Asian natural gas to a Pakistani port for export. The Pakistani towns of Gwadar and Karachi are the nearest warm water ports for Central Asia's vast energy resources. Major oil companies have shown interest in bringing Central Asian gas and oil to the Pakistani ports ever since the collapse of the...

WASHINGTON – Despite opposition from environmentalists and Imperial County officials, federal regulators yesterday reaffirmed their approval of a natural gas pipeline to fuel new power plants in Mexicali. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said "no basis" exists for doing more environmental analysis of the Mexican plants. Opponents of the plants and the Environmental Protection Agency said FERC's initial analysis was flawed. The commission also stood by its original conclusion that the pipeline will contribute to a reduction in air pollution in the Mexicali area by providing a source of clean-burning natural gas for residents and industries. "The Commission has...

ANKARA, Turkey -- A sponsor group led by BP has agreed on a plan to finance a pipeline project to carry 1 million barrels per day of Caspian crude oil to Turkey's southern coast, a Turkish energy ministry official said Tuesday. The pipeline will stretch 1,730 kilometers from the Azeri capital Baku to the Mediterranean Turkish port of Ceyhan through Georgia's capital Tbilisi and has a price tag of about $2.9 billion. "Between 20 percent and 30 percent of the cost will be financed by the sponsor group companies in cash," said a senior energy ministry official, who declined to...

<p>Nearly three months after Enron went bankrupt, President Bush has responded with a call for greater corporate accountability.</p> <p>"A good business always respects the boundaries of right and wrong," he said last week.</p> <p>That would be "good," I suppose, compared with "evil" businesses that trespass willy-nilly upon ethical boundaries.</p>