"If you
would understand world geopolitics today, follow the
oil."
-- Deep Stoat
Shimmy the Geek here, with an analysis of the world's oil
deposits, where they are, and where our various "Playahs"
are located. I got all curious about this when the
news informed us of our Administration's sudden interest in
Liberia.
Liberia?!?
Anyway, here goes. It turns out to be
quite interesting.
I scanned out portions of a map of the world into
~.jpgs. Then I hit the Web and marked on these maps
where the world's oil deposits are located. Nothing I found on the Web shows
maps themselves-- it seems to be all written descriptions
out there. Various oil industry sites and so forth. So
consider my maps to be approximate and probably incomplete-- but
there's enough there to really shed a light on
things.
Since the maps are large, I didn't want to hassle you with big
huge images stuck in your email inbox-- so I had a friend of
mine post them on the Web and I link to them here.
Don't ask me to explain the retarded directory name. You can
click on the links in this email, which brings the maps up in
your browser, and follow along side by side.
First, the Americas
. Not a hellava lot of surprises here.
There are the
nearly-legendary Texas/Oklahoma oil deposits, from whose bounty all our oil tycoons got their start. Also visible
are the Louisiana offshore fields, and the
ones off the California coast. Oh, not shown, there
are also some oil deposits in southern California, north of LA (and
some even in the LA basin.) Thus, the La
Brea Tar Pits, and a number of oil-pump farms
in the southern Central Valley. (didn't know about those, didja?). Also explains the infamous Santa Barbara oil spill
of some decades back, and why California
offshore oil drilling is currently prohibited. ("But-- but-- all that lovely oil!!" sez Joe Tycoon longingly)
Also
shown is a large producing area in south-central Canada-- but this is as much (or more so) natural gas as oil, according
to my Web sources. Not shown off to the
North-Left are the famously fought-over oilfields of
Alaska, including the ANWR.
Moving south, we look at Mexico and
Guatemala. Turns out most of Mexico's
oil bounty, and they have
got a lot of it, is located in and offshore of the Yucatan Peninsula. There are deposits in Guatemala too (the
little green country) so look for more action
regarding Guatemala in the future. Marked
in green near here are the major avenues by which ships bearing oil
might travel to and from the United
States. Corpus Christi Texas, as well as New
Orleans, Louisiana are major on/off ports. And, of course,
the Panama Canal is a biggy-- everyone wants
to go through there, rather than try to sail a
big ship around the southern tip of South America, which takes a lot longer and the weather is sucky for boats down
there as well. (Really windy and stormy and
stuff). This must be why our government tries to assure that Panama is Our Good Pal... no matter
what.
But notice the interesting layout in the north end of South
America. Venezuela has its famous, large oil deposits, and look! right next
door to it is Columbia, with some deposits of
its own! And all this time we thought
all our government's interest in Columbia had to do with drugs, as
they've been telling us. Is it a
coincidence that Columbia's oil deposits seem to
be located in the same areas where the rebels hang out? Ecuador
has some
oil too, so look for them to stay in the news at least
occasionally.
Moving down south, we see that Argentina, of all places,
has oil too. I don't remember the
numbers-- may be their production is not as great as
Venez & co. They're kind of far down there out of the way
too.
As you saw in the Americas, oil deposits
are indicated by hazy red area. Major travel avenues are noted by green
lines, and here, the zone of influence of
Islam is indicated by a hazy yellow outline. The "pegs" on the outline point inward, that is, *towards* the
muslims. We'll just kind of work our way
down this map from North to South.
Interestingly enough, the Balkans
(former Yugoslavia) have some oil. Don't
take the intensity of the red as an indicator of the richness of the deposits, that's my heavy trigger finger on the
Paint Shop Pro spray can. I don't
think the Balkans produce as much oil as, say, Saudi
Arabia.
Russia (big lavender region) has some big deposits in the West
Siberian Plain. Russia is actually a
major world oil producer. They get a little
hitch put in their git-up-and-go by the fact that it is, after all, landlocked way the hell back in Siberia. So
the Russians are always looking to build new
pipelines and such to get their oil out to ports, Europe, and such. The Bosporus (look down and to the left of the
Russian oilfields) by Turkey is highly
important to them for this, and has been highly important to the Russians for centuries in fact. It's about the only
warm-water avenue where they can ship goods in
and out to the rest of the world.
Just to the right (east) of the
Bosporus is the Caspian Sea and its huge oil
fields. Right on the shore of the Caspian Sea is-- look!
Chechnya. All the bloodshed in that
country is now explained. Russia's other Caspian possessions, Azerbaijan Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, all
became independent. Chechnya is Russia's
last foothold on that Caspian Sea oil action--
and bedamned if they're gonna give that up, Muslim insurgents or no Muslim insurgents. Also watch for Russia to
try to keep some heavy influence going on
Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan.
Turkey as mentioned earlier
controls the Bosporus straits, an important,
major trade access route. Though with no oil of its own, watch for
others, especially Russia *and* its rivals, to
continue to whisper (or shout) in Turkey's
ear.
More access routes are visible through the Mediterranean Sea and out
the Straits of Gibraltar, between Spain and
Morocco. For this reason, Spain has long
sought to control or at least influence Morocco and will continue to do so. Algeria and Libya have some oil deposits
along the southern shore, there. Perhaps
the fact that Khaddafi of Libya won't let western oil
companies get a piece of that oil action might explain why he's so
roundly reviled in the
American press. Interestingly enough, he is also Libya's foremost feminist, too (National Geographic,
November 2000). Hmmm.
Moving east, we see that
Egypt has both the Suez Canal and some oil deposits
near it. The Suez Canal serves much the same function as the Panama
Canal in the Americas-- it provides a
shortened, warm-water route for shipping to
bypass the stormy cape at the southern tip of Africa, when moving
between Europe/Northern Africa/Russia, and
Asia. As such, it's hugely important to
trade-- more so than Egypt's oil, and everyone takes great effort to
ensure that Egypt is Their Pal. Egypt
shut down the Canal for several years in the
'70's after Israel took over the Sinai peninsula (the little yellow triangular bit) in the 1967 War. This was
quite traumatic to all the
businessmen.
Now notice the layout of things just east (right) of
Egypt. This is where all the interesting
stuff is happening.
On the east end of the Mediterranean is Israel, with
its warm-water ports and strong
military. Next we have Syria (yellow) and Jordan (orange). Then comes Iraq, with oil fields in its northern end,
and also in its southern end, by Kuwait.
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia share a large oil producing region (Kuwait is in fact located under the big red oil area
there). South of Saudi Arabia is Yemen,
with oil of its own. Then, east of Iraq, is
mountainous Iran with not only oil deposits of its own, but-- bonus! south-shore access to those big Caspian Sea
deposits we noticed earlier! Then east of Iran
is Afghanistan, with no oil of its own, and then Pakistan.
Notice the
interesting triple-bracket our Administration has set up in the region. Israel has always been our
ally. Then we took over Afghanistan. Now
we've taken Iraq. With these three pressure points, most of the oil-producing Arab region is now bracketed in a
double-pincer of American forces. Choice
Iran is bracketed in a pincer of its own, as are unruly Syria and Jordan. Saudi Arabia/Kuwait are accessible by air
and by sea from forces based in Israel, Iraq,
*and* Afghanistan. Thus it is in their best
interests to stay America's Good Buddies for as long as possible.
The current American administration is also
interested in cooperative regimes in the
region, which could explain why the fact that 12 of the 9-11 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia has conveniently slipped
down out of the mainstream media radar.
There are, however, weaknesses
in this strategic setup, at least from the
American administration's viewpoint. 1) Iran has mountains. This
would make it a bugger to conquer, and
especially hold, outright. Our military already has a couple big
handfuls hanging onto Afghanistan and Iraq
(which happens to be much flatter). 2) The major ocean routes for
transporting the oil out, have constrictions--
potentially unfriendly constrictions. The Persian Gulf (water area
between Iran and Saudi Arabia) narrows to a
point where, at the protruding pointy bit, it
is only 15 or 20 miles across. This puts vessels in the water within easy attack range from the Iranian shore,
should they choose to do so. In fact,
there have been a number of attacks on American vessels in this area in years past. Likewise, the Red Sea (between
Saudi Arabia and Africa) also becomes narrow
right around Yemen. Somalia (yellow point on
the right side of Africa), of "Black Hawk Down" fame, is unfriendly
but lawless. Terrorists could base
attacks on Western shipping out of
here fairly easily, but it would be
disorganized action.
Eritrea and Ethiopia (next to Somalia alongside the Red Sea) don't make a lot of noise
about standing up against America. It's easy
to see that the prime next targets in this area, from the American Administration's standpoint, are Iran and Somalia in
that order. Iran, however, could be the straw
that breaks the American camel's back-- at
least if it is attacked before Iraq is under control. So look for Iran to try
to keep Iraq uncontrollable, clandestinely and
otherwise, for as long as it can.
Now we move South-Left from the
Arabian peninsula into Africa. Oh look!
there's a big deposit of oil in southern Sudan. Naturally this is
also the region that the northern-Sudan-based
fundamentalist Islamic government is trying to
"pacify", by massacreing, enslaving, and raping the inhabitants. As noted on one of my oil websites, the GOS
(Government of Sudan) is building an oil
pipeline from these southern fields (to the resistance of the locals) up to its port on the Red Sea. The author of a
National Geographic article on Sudan (February
2003) sounded suspiciously like Rodney King
("can't we all get along??") as he wistfully speculated that maybe the money from this oil pipeline would "help to unite
the North and South and bring peace to the
region." Fat chance, Pollyanna, that oil money will simply enable the GOS to buy the more modern munitions with which
they can finish pulverizing the
southerners. The fact that the southerners are *not* Muslims (note that the Islam border passes right through Sudan),
is only icing on the GOS's propaganda
cake.
Finally, we move to the western coast of Africa, in the "crook",
and start to get an idea why Liberia is
important. Right in the crook of Africa is
Nigeria, with its large oil reserves. Its neighbors to the
south, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Angola,
also enjoy some offshore and shoreline oil
resources. And there's Liberia, on the bottom corner of the western lobe of Africa (in blue) interestingly enough right
on the sailing route between the crook of
Africa and the Americas. Isn't that interesting
indeed? And one wonders if perhaps some oil deposits just got
discovered there, that haven't made it onto
the Web yet.
Looking at the EMEA map, one thing becomes clear-- oil is
the curse of the Muslim world. Without
oil, they could have continued on in their sleepy
provincial traditional ways up until this day. (Except, probably, Israel
and the Eastern Med would still probably be a
sore point. Israel was planted there for
Biblical prophetical, not oleaginous, reasons. See "A
Peace To End All Peace" by David Fromkin for details.)
Finally I am
finished with EMEA, and we move on to Asia.
In the
north, we see that Russia has big oil fields in eastern Siberia and off Sakhalin. Although the weather in these
places is not so great, it still gives them
something of an alternative way to trade oil out to other countries. This also has to make Japan pretty happy, as
they have to import all of their oil.
Now if they and Russia can just settle their longstanding quarrel over those 4 little islands to the north of Hokkaido,
they will be best buddies. Japan can
sell/teach high technology to Russia, and Russia
can sell them oil in return. If Russia beefs up their military
power on that end of the country, look for
exactly that to happen. A few more
American soldiers raping schoolgirls in Okinawa could then tip Japan over to
allying with the Russians. This is a
scenario that undoubtedly
keeps American administration wonks up
late at night-- but it probably wouldn't develop in
less than several years.
Moving south we spot the big oil fields
of Malaysia (blue) and Indonesia (green), as
well as some off the coast of VietNam. Also clearly visible are the travel routes in, out, and through the region,
as well as the Philippines' strategic location
next to one of those routes (right on the
opposite side of it from Taiwan!) Notice also the extension of the
Islamic sphere in this region (yellow hazy
outline). You can see that the
Philippines' Muslim insurgency in the south gives the American administration an oh-so-convenient excuse to come
in and "help" the Philippine President with
her rebel problem-- and establish a presence and
influence to boot. They were no doubt especially motivated to do
this because the American Navy was kicked out
of its Philippines Subic Bay base some years
ago, for gross corruptive influences such as rampant
prostitution.
If the Viet Nam oil fields pan out to be big, look
for the American government to suddenly,
magically declare that "all is forgiven" and lift
sanctions-- if only the VN government will let the American oil
companies "help" them develop them. This
development might not happen for a couple of
years.
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