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Oil found in shifting sands of geopolitics
By Yacine Le Forestier
AFP
PARIS
Petroleumworld.com 04 24 06The nuclear standoff with Iran, ties between India and China, tension between Venezuela and the United States: the spectacular rise in oil prices over the last three years has reverberated throughout the world of international diplomacy.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, addressing the Senate committee on foreign relations at the beginning of the month, commented on how the politics of energy had "warped" diplomacy around the world.
Directing the remark at China and India in particular, she said the global scramble for energy resources had led to rising competition between the US and other countries in new areas of the world.
The conflict surrounding the nuclear ambitions of Iran has provided the latest example of the increasing overlap between the oil market and the murky world of geopolitics.
In the opinion of a number of experts, the surge in the price of crude oil, which has tripled since 2002, has clearly served the interests of the Iranian regime.
The Iranians, aware of the impact of high oil prices on the world economy, not to mention the benefits of higher oil revenues for their treasury, have used their oil exports as a bargaining chip in the dispute.
"It's clear that the Iranians benefit from the rise in the price of oil because it puts pressure on consuming countries," said Pierre Terzian, director of the France-based specialist oil magazine Petrostrategies.
Senior members of the Iranian regime have ruled out unsheathing their oil weapon as part of the dispute over their nuclear programme, but others have suggested that Iran, the fourth-biggest producer of oil in the world, could stop its exports or even disrupt shipping off its shores.
"The Iranians are completely aware of the impact of their declarations on the price of oil," as well as the replies from the US, added Terzian.
Western powers also suspect that Chinese diplomacy with regard to Iran and Sudan is being formed, or "warped" in the words of Condoleezza Rice, by considerations about energy.
Beijing, which holds a seat on the UN Security Council, has opposed imposing economic sanctions on Iran and Sudan from where it imports 11 percent and 5.2 percent of its oil respectively.
"The Chinese are saying to themselves that if there is an interruption or a fall in oil supply it will make energy prices rise which could weigh on their economic growth," said Robert Mabro of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
The growing need for energy in Asia to fuel surging economic expansion has led to competition between the two economic powerhouses of the region, India and China, for sources of supply.
Leaders from both countries, which have the two biggest populations in the world, signed an agreement at the beginning of the year to cooperate on energy supply matters, but observers say the accord has changed little on the ground.
Competition between Indian and Chinese energy companies remains fierce in central Asia, the Middle East and also in Africa, where Chinese President Hu Jintao is to visit soon.
"For India and China, it's a question of life of death. Without energy, there is no growth. It is because of this that governments are so desperate in their search for black gold," said Terzain.
On another emerging continent, South America, the rise in the price of oil and gas has convinced some governments to tighten their control over, even nationalise in some cases, their national energy companies at the expense of foreign companies.
This trend has been observed in Bolivia, Ecuador and above all in Venezuela where President Hugo Chavez has been strengthened by the rise in prices.
Venezuela is the fifth-biggest exporter of oil in the world and has the biggest reserves of gas in South America.
AFP 04 24 06 2353 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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