Energy Archive

In mid-January, Georgian musicians played a concert in front of hundreds of people in downtown Tbilisi to protest the government’s ongoing negotiations with Russian state energy giant Gazprom to increase imports of natural gas. The protests were only the latest in a string of demonstrations going back to last fall, when news of government talks with Gazprom first came to light. According to the Georgian Energy Ministry, its talks with Russia are part of efforts to boost energy supplies amid growing domestic consumption. The Georgian government’s decision to try and buy more Russian gas has emerged as a full-blown controversy […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. In a recent interview with The Economist, Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, talked about the kingdom’s plans to roll out avalue-added tax, as well as the possibility of privatizing Aramco, the state oil company, as ways to increase non-oil revenues in the face of the drop in global energy prices. In an email interview, Robert Looney, distinguished professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, discusses the economic and […]

Earlier this month, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released its first-ever Arab Policy Paper, which coincided with President Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran last week. Xi’s trip was the first visit to the region by a Chinese head of state since former President Hu Jintao went to Saudi Arabia in 2009. Five years before that visit, Hu established the China-Arab Cooperation Forum (CACF), a multilateral platform to institutionalize the relationship between Beijing and the 22 members of the Arab League. Since its formation, the CACF has largely fulfilled its mission, with the forum meeting 12 times […]

During Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Qatar in early December, Ankara and Doha signed a memorandum of understanding for the long-term trade of liquefied natural gas. While a final agreement has yet to be completed, it was still a significant step for gas-dependent Turkey, which is trying to diversify its sources of imported natural gas and reduce its reliance on Russia, which accounted for 57 percent of Turkey’s gas imports in 2013. With ties fraying between Ankara and Moscow after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet along the Turkish-Syrian border in November, raising the possibility of Russia […]