A giant mechanical digger gouges out a chunk of topsoil, grass and
tree stumps, extending a neat furrow that stretches into the distance.
Dozens of similar furrows run parallel with the regularity of a
ploughed field.
Yet no crop could grow in the pitch-black surface exposed by the
machine working 1,000ft below our helicopter. This is the edge of a
fast-expanding open-cast mine in the Canadian tar sands, one of the
world's most polluting sources of oil.
No one was injured in the blaze and all non-essential staff have been airlifted from the West Atlas rig, operators PTTEP said.
The fire, which started during an attempt to plug the leak, comes as environmental campaigners criticised PTTEP and the Australian government over their handling of the crisis.
An estimated 400 barrels of oil a day have escaped from the rig since Aug. 21.
Officials now plan to pour mud into the leak hoping to remove the source of fuel from the fire, which was sending huge plumes of smoke into the sky.
WASHINGTON - Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens
told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are
"entitled" to some of Iraq's crude because of the large number
of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the
country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.
Boone, speaking to the newly formed Congressional Natural
Gas Caucus, complained that the Iraqi government has awarded
contracts to foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms, to
develop Iraq's vast reserves while American companies have
mostly been shut out.
The British
oil trader Trafigura has offered to pay out in a historic damages claim from 31,000 Africans injured by the dumping of toxic waste in one of the worst
pollution disasters in recent history, the Guardian can reveal.
The compensation deal for the victims of toxic oil waste dumping in west Africa – likely to be confirmed imminently – means the full extent of attempts to cover up what really happened can be detailed for the first time.
America's convoluted, Alice-in-Wonderland interpretation of this summer's top political show - the "free expression of the people" in the Afghanistan election - reads like an opium dream. In fact, it is actually a pipe dream - as in Pipelineistan. With the added twist that no one's saying a word about the pipe that's delivering the opium dream.
Why is Afghanistan so important?
A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.
Afghanistan is adjacent to Middle Eastern countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. And though Afghanistan may have little petroleum itself, it borders both Iran and Turkmenistan, countries with the second and third largest natural gas reserves in the world. (Russia is first.)
A long-term decline in the demand for oil
could undermine the huge investments in Canadian tar sands, which have
been heavily opposed by environmentalists, according to a report
published today.
The report, by Greenpeace,
will make uncomfortable reading for the companies that are investing
tens of billions of pounds to exploit the hard-to-extract oil in the
belief that demand and the price would climb inexorably as countries
such as China and India industrialise.
In the
past month, two seemingly unrelated events have turned Central Asia
into a potential flashpoint: an aggressively expanding North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nascent strategic alliance between
Russia and China.
At stake is nothing less than who holds the future high ground in the competition for the world's energy resources.
Has it all come to this? The wars and invasions, the death and destruction, the exile and torture, the resistance and collapse? In a world of shrinking energy reserves, is Iraq finally fated to become what it was going to be anyway, even before the chaos and catastrophe set in: a giant gas pump for an energy-starved planet? Will it all end not with a bang, but with a gusher? The latest oil news out of that country offers at least a hint of Iraq's fate.
For modern Iraq, oil has always been at the heart of everything.
Behind
fighter-planes and gunboats, Nigerian forces launched a full-scale
offensive in the Niger Delta on May 13, displacing 30,000 people and
sparking a humanitarian crisis. Thousands of civilians fleeing
destroyed villages are now trapped between armed resistance groups and
the Nigerian military. These civilians are hiding in the bush without
food, water, or medical supplies, let alone Internet access to alert
the world of their plight, as Iranians are doing via Twitter.
