Russia & China in the Middle East

By the series of actions in recent months in Iraq and across the Middle East, Washington has forced a strategic shift towards China and to an extent Russia and away from the United States. If events continue on the present trajectory it can well be that a main reason that Washington backed the destabilization of Assad in Syria, to block a planned Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, will now happen, short of Washington initiating a full scorched earth politics in the region. This is what we can call unintended consequences.

If nature abhors a vacuum, so too does geopolitics. When President Trump months ago announced plans to pull US troops out of Syria and the Middle East generally, Russia and especially China began quietly to intensify contacts with key states in the region.

Chinese involvement with Iraqi oil development and other infrastructure projects, though large, was significantly disrupted by the ISIS occupation of some one third of Iraqi territory. In September, 2019 Washington demanded that Iraq pay for completion of key infrastructure projects destroyed by the ISIS war– a war where Washington as well as Ankara, Israel and Saudi Arabia played the key hidden role—by giving the US government 50% of Iraqi oil revenues, an outrageous demand to put it politely.

Iraq China Pivot

Iraq refused. Instead Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi went to Beijing as head of a 55-member delegation to discuss Chinese involvement in the rebuilding of Iraq. This visit did not go unnoticed in Washington. Even before that, Iraqi-China ties were significant. China was Iraq’s number one trading partner and Iraq was China’s third-leading source of oil after Saudi Arabia and Russia. In April 2019 in Baghdad, China’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Relations Lee Joon said China was ready to contribute to Iraq’s reconstruction.

For Abdul-Mahdi the Beijing trip was a major success; he called it a “quantum jump” in relations. The visit saw the signing of eight wide-ranging memoranda of understanding (MoUs), a framework credit agreement, and the announcement of plans for Iraq to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It included Chinese involvement in rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure as well as developing Iraqi oilfields. For both countries an apparent “win-win” as the Chinese like to say.

It was only a matter of days after the Beijing talks of Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi that nationwide protests against Iraqi government corruption and economic policies broke out, led by opposition cries that Abdul-Mahdi resign. Reuters witnessed snipers carefully fanning the violent protest firing on the protesters giving the impression of government repression much as the CIA did in Maidan in Kiev in February 2014 or in Cairo in 2011.

There is now strong evidence that the China talks and the timing of the spontaneous October 2019 protests against the Abdul-Mahdi government were connected. The Trump Administration is the link. According to a report by Federico Pieraccini, “Abdul-Medhi made a speech to Parliament speaking about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.” He then quotes sections of Abdul-Mahdi’s speech translated from Arabic: “This is why I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the construction instead. Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement. When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my premiership. Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that if I did not comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings target protesters and security personnel alike in order to pressure me. I refused again and handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us rescinding our deal with the Chinese.”

Iran – Key Link

China’s One Belt, One Bridge, sometimes referred to as her New Economic Silk Road, is a brilliant geopolitical, economic, military and cultural project. It will enable the member nations to be far more shielded from USA Naval power to interdict vital goods trade by sea from Europe or the Middle East that must pass through the US-patrolled Strait of Malacca.

What has emerged since the crisis created for Russia with the USA February 2014 Ukraine coup d’etat, is a strategic cooperation between the three major powers–Iran, China and Russia, what Zbigniew Brzezinski described in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, as the largest geopolitical challenge facing continued Sole Superpower supremacy of the United States following Washington’s destruction of the Soviet Union in 1989-91.  In brief, we have a deepening of military defense links between the three points of the emerging Eurasian Triangle. This will have huge consequences, not merely for stabilization of Syria and Iraq in the Middle East. It will also give a major boost to the emerging economic links between the three great powers of the Eurasian Heartland.

Brzezinski declared then, accurately, “…how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

For the Eurasian cohesion under the China OBOR infrastructure developments, Iran is strategic. Not only is China a major buyer of Iranian oil, Iran’s largest export customer. But Iran is also vital to China’s vision to create entirely new manufacturing and logistics centers or hubs in Central Asia and Europe. And, as Indian strategic consultant, Debalina Ghoshal points out, China, “has a keen interest in Iran’s geostrategic location, bordering both the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The location enables China to carry out the One Belt One Road agenda.”

Everywhere we go today across Eurasia, from the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea to Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and on to China, there is a process underway for the first time since the original Silk Road era of more than two thousand years ago, of building up an entire new economic space, the Eurasian Heartland. Were the Turkish government to join the OBOR project wholeheartedly, the potentials for a Eurasian transformation would become enormous. It remains to be seen what the  US will do  to try to destroy this Eurasian  build up. China in the Middle East

One thing is clear. Beijing is looking at its prospects, along with Russia to replace the domination of Iraqi politics that Washington has held since its 2003 war of occupation. Beginning October just after Abdul-Mahdi’s successful Beijing talks, Iraq started exporting 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to China as part of the 20-year oil-for-infrastructure deal agreed between the two countries. According to Iraqi oil ministry sources, China will build its influence in Iraq by beginning with oil and gas investments and from there building infrastructure including factories and railways using Chinese companies and personnel along with Iraqi labor. The Chinese-built factories will use the same assembly lines and structure to be integrated with similar factories in China.

Additionally, according to Iraq’s Electricity Minister Louay al-Khateeb, “China is our primary option as a strategic partner in the long run…We started with a US$10 billion financial framework for a limited quantity of oil to finance some infrastructure projects…[but] Chinese funding tends to increase with the growing Iraqi oil production.” That is, the more Iraqi oil China extracts the more Iraqi projects it can finance. Today Iraq is dependent on Iran for gas to serve its electric generators owing to lack of gas infrastructure. China says it will change that “.

Further the oil industry source states that Russia and China are quietly preparing the ground to relaunch the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline from Iran’s huge Persian Gulf South Pars gas field it shares with Qatar. A US-backed proxy war began against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in 2011 just after he signed a deal with Iran and Iraq to build the pipeline, rejecting an earlier Qatar proposal for an alternative route. Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Qatar poured billions of covert funds to finance terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and later ISIS in a vain effort to topple Assad.

China is not alone in its efforts in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, as erratic and unpredictable US foreign policy drives former US allies away. Russia, which just brokered a ceasefire in Libya along with Turkey’s Erdogan, just offered to sell its advanced S-400 Triumf air defense system to Iraq, an offer that would have been unthinkable even weeks ago. With Iraqi parliamentarians voting to demand all foreign troops, including US and Iranian, leave Iraq in the wake of the brazen US assassination of Soleimani in Baghdad, it is conceivable Baghdad would accept the offer at this point, despite protest from Washington. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt, have all be in discussions with Russia in recent months to buy the Russian defense system, said to be the world’s most effective. Turkey has already purchased it.

One of the secret elements of the deal signed last year is that China will invest US$280 billion in developing Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemicals sectors. There will be another US$120 billion of investment, for upgrading Iran’s transport and manufacturing infrastructure – a mind-blowing $400 billion investment into Iran. In exchange for this, to begin with, Chinese companies will be given the first option to bid on any new – or stalled or uncompleted – oil, gas, and petrochemicals projects in Iran. China will also be able to buy any and all oil, gas, and petchems products at a minimum guaranteed discount of around 32 per cent for China on all oil gas, and petchems purchases. Another key part of the secret element to the 25-year deal is that China will be integrally involved in the build-out of Iran’s core infrastructure, which will be in absolute alignment with China’s key geopolitical multi-generational project, ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR). See map below.

Russia’s Strategic Interest in the Region

Syria is crucial to Russia for three key reasons. First, it is currently the principal Western point of the Shia crescent of power that stretches from Syria and Lebanon through Iraq and Iran and then south into Yemen that Moscow has been cultivating for years as a counterpoint to the U.S.’s own sphere of influence centered on Saudi Arabia. Second, it offers a long Mediterranean coastline from which it can send oil and gas products (its own or those of its allies, notably Iran) for export either into major oil and gas hubs in Greece and Italy or into northern, western and eastern Africa. Third, it is a vital military hub, with one major naval port (Tartus), one major air force base (Latakia) and one major listening station (just outside Latakia). Syria also has significant oil and gas resources that can be used by the Kremlin to offset part of the costs it has incurred as part of its geopolitical manoeuvring.

Russia’s intervention in 2015 secured the highly populated coastal regions, finally bringing an end to the jihadist occupation of Aleppo and removing ISIS from the country’s center. The coastal cities were hardened with the creation of permanent Russian bases in Khmeimim and Tartus, and Bashar al-Assad’s secular government was kept in power. The strategically significant northeast however, was lost.

The governorate of Deir Ezzor in northeastern Syria splits evenly across the Euphrates River, and is the site of an emerging fault line between the Rockefeller Empire and Resistance Axis. On the West bank of the Euphrates, Bashar al-Assad’s government rules, while the East is occupied by Kurdish and American forces. Unable to achieve complete regime change, the Empire has shifted gears and now is waging a war primarily based on starvation. Limiting the flow of food and energy in the country may not even succeed in directly impeding military operations, but it can effectively turn Syria into a third world country by grinding civilian life to a halt and starving the population.

Syria’s occupied northeast produces 60% of the country’s wheat and 95% of the country’s oil: 400,000 barrels per day of oil production has been lost due to the Kurdish invasion. The formerly oil-rich nation now pumps a mere 20,000 bpd and relies on Iranian tankers to import energy. These tankers are increasingly intercepted by Western powers as part of this war of starvation. Additionally, in the last two years five separate sanctions bills have been passed in Washington, targeting the country’s oil and grain trade. Energy is not just needed for the tanks and planes of Assad’s military; it is required to power the factories, agricultural operations, businesses, and homes of the Syrian people. Strangling the flow of energy and food into Syria has created spillover effects that have crippled the nation’s economy. With no power for tractors to cultivate wheat or trucks to ship food, the remaining agricultural resources have become severely underutilized and the nation is at risk of famine.

 Iraq, Syria, and Iran have been targeted for destruction for decades, part of the Empire’s longstanding plan to conquer all of Central Asia In addition to the territorial agenda, control of the planet’s oil resources upholds the phenomenon of petrodollar recycling, defending the dollar’s status as world reserve currency. Accordingly, the Empire has no plans to leave northeast Syria.

 Russia intends Syria to act as a natural conduit for oil and gas shipments into Europe once the conflict has been subdued further. In the post-conflict planning by the U.S., Europe, and Russia, there were three options for Syria on the table. The U.S.-led option involved moving gas from Qatar through Saudi Arabia and Jordan, then through Syria whereupon it would flow into Turkey and onwards to the rest of Europe, thereby reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian gas supplies. The European-favored option involved UN peace-keeping monitors on the ground in Syria, bringing in hydrocarbons industry experts from the UN Security Council member states, and letting both pipelines (Qatar-Syria-Turkey, and Iran-Iraq-Syria- Turkey) develop organically over time. This would allow the European Union to re-calibrate its energy sources gradually, in line with its strategy of reducing its dependence on Russia directly. 

The Russian option – the only one left on the table – involves fully resuscitating the notion of the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, moving Iranian, and later Iraqi, gas from South Pars to Syria and then into Europe. Such an option would also likely encourage closer co-operation in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum [GECF] but this option is opposed by the U.S./Saudi bloc and Europe, as the GECF comprises 11 of the world’s leading natural gas producers [Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad & Tobago, and Venezuela]. Aside from the fact that the core members of the organization are Russia, Iran, and Qatar, and that it also has some of the U.S.’s other rogue states on the list – notably Libya and Venezuela – GECF members together control over 70 per cent of the world’s natural gas reserves, 38 per cent of the pipeline trade, and 85 per cent of the LNG [liquefied natural gas] production., which truly makes a Gas OPEC +, which would pose a real threat to the U.S. and to Europe. 

Historically, Russia goes to great lengths to hide or disguise its strategic intentions but it clearly feels empowered enough in the Middle East to very obviously stake its claim in the region – excluding, for the time being only, Saudi Arabia – by stating that a slew of Russian companies are to spend up to US$20 billion on oil projects in Iraq in the near term. Since [U.S. President Donald] Trump outlined the new U.S. foreign policy of not engaging in conflicts abroad unless they were directly aligned with U.S. interests [October 2019], and then effectively withdrawing from Syria and from supporting the Kurds, Russia and China have felt that they can bring forward their plans to bring Iraq within their geopolitical arc of influence.  They know that provided that they do not impinge on Saudi Arabia and, at a pinch the UAE and Kuwait, or launch attacks against U.S. personnel, then they can basically do whatever they want anywhere else, hence this announcement from Russia last week. Before this announcement – Russia had adopted its usual stealth approach to building up its presence in Iraq. It is incremental colonialism, beginning one day with one relatively small contract being taken up by some Russian company nobody has heard of, then more Russian companies turn up in the same place under ‘contractor’ terms having been engaged by the company you gave the original contact to, then security companies turn up to guard all of the personnel, and suddenly you have a major Russian occupation of part of your key oil and gas infrastructure.

The oil and gas prize for the Russians in Iraq is, of course, huge, but many in the industry do not realise that it is still underestimated. The official figures for oil are that Iraq has around 149 billion barrels of reserves (18 per cent of the Middle East total and 9 per cent of the global total) and is currently the second-largest oil supplier in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia. All of this oil coming at a mean average ‘lifting cost’ per barrel in Iraq of US$2 to US$3 per barrel, according to the IEA, at least as competitive as Saudi Arabia. For gas, the official figures are slightly less impressive, but they are likely even more underestimated than the oil figures, with Iraq having about 4 trillion cubic meters of reserves (the 12^th largest in the world), mostly associated at the moment with oil fields in the supergiant fields in the south of the country. However, despite the occasional increase in reserves estimates over the past few years – extremely modest by the standards of its neighbors, incidentally – much of Iraq still remains unexplored or under-explored compared with other major oil-producing countries.

According to the Paris-based Rothschild entity- the International Energy Agency (IEA), a 2000 assessment and subsequent updates, the level of ultimately recoverable resources at that time was around 232 billion barrels of crude and natural gas liquids. Even this, though, might prove on the low side, added the IEA, as a detailed study by Petrolog around that time reached a similar figure but did not include the parts of northern Iraq in the KRG area or examination of the geological anomalies prevalent in the central and western regions of the country. Even using the much more conservative USGS number, Iraq had just a decade ago only produced around 15 per cent of its ultimately recoverable resources, compared with 23 per cent for the Middle East as a whole at that time. At that point, of the 530 potential hydrocarbon-bearing geological prospects identified by – only – geophysical means in Iraq only 113 had been drilled, with oil being found in 73 of them, a success rate of 65 per cent. Although more of these geophysically-identified sites have now been drilled many more new ones have arisen due to identification by more sophisticated analysis of seismic and historical data.

The Russians have done their own testing of potential oil and gas reserves over the years and they think it is about double the current official estimates on both of those [oil and gas]. This is one of two key reasons why Russia has exploited every opportunity to expand its footprint in the north and south of Iraq. In the north it has been extremely successful so far in using its corporate proxy, Rosneft, to gain control over key elements of the region’s oil and gas infrastructure while in the south it had been forced by the U.S.’s own former ambitions to tread more stealthily. Although it has always been able to rely on being able to use Iran’s political and military over Iraq for its own purposes, these had to be sidelined for a while, at least whilst the real power in Iraq – Moqtada al-Sadr – was getting settled in to his power-broking role. As this was initially founded on the ultra-nationalist message (‘Iraq for the Iraqis, with no undue foreign influence’, in essence) of his election-winning ‘Sairoon’ power bloc, Moscow was able to tinker only the edges.

 In such strategies, though, Russia is a master, and the influence it can ultimately wield starting from such a tiny access point is absolutely extraordinary. The most recent example of this – and a template for such strategies for any aspiring superpower, frankly – was the ‘awarding’ of a hitherto unknown development block in the middle of a wasteland by a hitherto unknown Russian company at a time when no one else was aware that anything was due to be awarded.  Russia’s Stroytransgaz (an almost unknown Russian oil and gas company – except by the U.S. whose Office of Foreign Assets Control extensively sanctioned it in 2014) signed a preliminary contract with the oil ministry in Baghdad for oil and gas exploration in Anbar province (a wasteland as far as Iraq’s oil and gas sector development goes). On the face of it, there was – and is – no real prospect of any substantial amounts of oil or gas being recovered from its Block 17 and additionally stationing any normal oil and gas workers there would be perilous to say the least, as it is an area torn by warring tribal communities, which even Islamic State avoided where possible.

The key to this, though – and vital in understanding the purpose behind the announcement of a doubling (possibly tripling) of Russian overt investment into Iraq – is that the area is critical in Russia fortifying its presence in the central Middle East and being able to secure a warm water multi-layered military presence in the Mediterranean. Russia risked full-on military confrontation with the U.S. to get a full-scale Black Sea port [Sevastopol] with access into the Mediterranean when it annexed Crimea in 2014, so there’s nothing it won’t do to build out its foothold in Syria and in the transit and supply route to Syria, which includes Iraq. In this context, then, Block 17 in Anbar – and the US$20 billion investment announced in mid-2020– makes perfect sense for the Russians, as it intends to secure what the U.S. military used to call ‘the spine’ of Islamic State where the Euphrates flows westwards into Syria and eastwards into the Persian Gulf. Along the spine running from east to west are the historical ultra-nationalist and ultra-anti-West cities of Falluja, Ramadi, Hit and Haditha, and then there is Syria, with its key strategic ports of Banias and Tartus. By happy ‘coincidence’ both Banias and Tartus are also extremely close to the massive Russian Khmeimim Air Base and the S-400 Triumf missile system. Although the base only came in to operation in 2015 supposedly to help in the fight against Islamic State, Russia appears to have changed its tactical plans for it, having also signed a 49 year lease on it, with the option for another 25 year extension. A short flight away is Russia’s Latakia intelligence-gathering listening station.

Washington’s Response

The new Biden Administration has from day one made it clear it will adopt a hostile and aggressive policy against the Russian Federation of Vladimir Putin. The policy behind this stance has nothing to do with any foul deeds Putin’s Russia may or may not have committed against the West. It has nothing to do with absurd allegations that Putin had pro-US dissident Alexei Navalny poisoned with the ultra-deadly Novichok nerve agent. In has to do with a far deeper agenda of the globalist Powers That Be. That agenda is what is being advanced now.

The Cabinet choices of Joe Biden reveal much. His key foreign policy picks–Tony Blinken as Secretary of State and Victoria Nuland as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; Bill Burns as CIA head; Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor ; Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence—all are from the Obama-Biden Administration and all have worked closely together. As well, all see Russia, not China, as the prime security threat to the United States’ global hegemony. Rather it is the very existence of Russia under Putin as an independent sovereign nation that tries to defend that national identity, whether in military defense or in defense of a traditionally conservative Russian culture. Ever since the US-backed NED destabilization of the Soviet Union in 1990 during the Bush Administration, it has been NATO policy and that of the Rockefeller family behind NATO to break Russia into many parts, dismantle the state and loot what is left of its huge raw materials resources. The globalist Great Reset has no room for independent nation states like Russia is the message that the new Biden team will clearly convey now.

Circumventing the Hormuz Chokepoint

Iran has been planning since at least 2012 to set up the terminal on the Gulf of Oman, just outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran has threatened to block the vital Gulf oil shipping route during its standoff with the United States, after Washington withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed sanctions, including on Tehran’s vital oil exports.

The Iranians threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the waivers are suspended and the Americans use force to block Iranian oil shipments; which would mean the blocking of oil shipments from the Arabian peninsular, thereby threatening oil supplies to many nations in the world that depend on those supplies, including Europe and Asia. An attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz would result in the Americans trying to eliminate the Iranian naval vessels closing the passage, major naval engagements and outright war. It may be that the US is hoping to provoke such a clash to give it the pretext for war against Iran. Everything points to that conclusion.

Iran continues to sell its oil and so armed action to block Iranian exports of oil is the logical step the US will have to take if the illegal “sanctions” are ignored and the US maintains its threat to bring Iranian oil exports to zero. Any such action would not only be aggression against Iran, it would also be an act of aggression against China and the other nations relying on that oil. But armed conflict and the risk of a major war is a risk the US seems willing to take. Whether they are reckless or that is the American objective is difficult to say but if it comes to that it won’t much matter for the consequences will be terrible and worldwide. But, looking at US actions, real war, not just economic, appears to be their objective.

The Goureh-Jask route will bring 1 million b/d of oil from the southern Bushehr province to the Iranian coast on the Sea of Oman for exports. The project, envisages storage capacity of 10 million barrels of crude.

“This is a strategic project in terms of security, economy and energy customers who buy oil from us want to be confident that they can take our oil under any conditions. Today is a very important day in our country’s energy history,” President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised video conference to launch construction officially. Rouhani added that Iran would be the only country whose oil exports would be completely cut if the Strait of Hormuz were to be closed. “…on a rainy day, it would be us who would be in trouble. We have got past this problem,” he said. The water channel is the key chokepoint for oil and gas ships traversing the Persian Gulf and has been scene to military tensions between the US and Iran as well as attacks on tankers.

The geopolitically game-changing Goreh-Jask pipeline project saw a major advance last week with the commencement of offshore pipe-laying operations. Overall, the early-production phase of the Jask Oil Terminal Development Project is 70 per cent complete, allowing the project to come online by late March.

The key point is that the pipeline will allow Iran another method by which it can export huge amounts of oil without being prey to U.S. sanctions and it will also allow Iran to do this whilst at the same time causing chaos for a third of the rest of the world’s oil shipments through blockading the Strait of Hormuz, should it wish to do so again. The logistical model Iran has at present is not sustainable in the current circumstances, with around 90 per cent of all of its oil for export currently loaded at Kharg Island – making it an obvious and easy target for the U.S. and its proxies to cripple Iran’s oil sector and therefore its economy. The extreme narrowness of the Strait of Hormuz means that they have to travel very slowly through it, so pushing up the transit costs, delaying revenue streams, and making easy targets for even simple attacks.

 Conversely, Iran wants to be able to use the threat – or reality – of closing the Strait of Hormuz for political reasons without also completing destroying its own oil exports revenue stream.

In broader terms, the Goreh-Jask pipeline will allow Iran to freely ship at least 1 million bpd of its own crude oil anywhere in the world (most notably, China, in the short-term) whilst at the same time allowing it to disrupt all other oil supplies that transit through the Strait of Hormuz (around  35 per cent of the world’s total. 

 Additionally positive for Iran is that having a huge oil storage capacity available just a short direct sea journey away from Pakistan and then on into China is likely to result in the final go-ahead for the construction of the Iran-Pakistan oil and gas pipeline, and then put further pressure on the developing India-UAE-U.S. relationship . It also means that Iran can send oil supplies – and anything else it wants in the tankers – to the Houthi faction in Yemen to keep a constant threat to the Saudi southern flank and also to militia groupings in Somalia and Kenya.

The new deal between Iran and China has resulted in increased supplies of oil to China, an additional 100-200,000 barrels a day. Much of this extra oil will be pumped into the Myanmar-China pipeline. Bearing this in mind, we can expect the US to put pressure on its proxy in Myanmar, Aung Sang Sui Kyi to create problems for China in this respect. Keep this in mind going forward.

 There are more than 65,000 oil and gas fields of all sizes in the world. However, 94% of known oil is concentrated in fewer than 1500 giant and major fields. Most of the world’s largest oilfields are located in the Middle East, but there are also supergiant (>10 billion bbls) oilfields in Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, and Russia.

Here, we will list four countries and some of their largest oil fields, and its reserves: Do note that this is not a complete list, and the information is at least 10 years old. Also, many fields have been discovered over the past decades, but no extraction of oil has taken place there. For example, Saudi Arabia has some 26 major oil fields. Of these, only 7 are producing, and the balances are capped. Likewise in Iraq; there are some 19 major fields. Most are capped and only are a handful are being worked. Many new discoveries have been made since, in the last decade.

A look at the Largest Oil Fields in the Region

FIELD	RESERVES (in billions)
Saudi Arabia (270 billion barrels in reserve)
Ghawar	100
Safaniya	30
Shaybaan	15
Abqaiq	12
Berri	12
Manifa	11
Abu Safah	6
TOTAL	186
Iran (180 billion barrels in reserve)
Gach Saran	66
Agha Jan	3
Esfandiar	30
Agha Jari	9
Azedagan	10
Marun	16
Az Zubayr	6
Nahr Umr	6
Ahwaaz	25
TOTAL	175
Iraq (160 billion barrels in reserve)
Majnoon	20
Rumaila	17
Kirkuk	9
Hafaya	4
West Qurna	20
East Baghdad	11
TOTAL	71
Kuwait (120 billion barrels in reserves)
Burghan	70
Mesopotian Fordeep	70
Raudhatain	11
Sabriya	8
TOTAL	159
Abu Dhabi (35 billion barrels in reserves)
Upper Zakum	20
TOTAL	20

This makes a total of roughly 630 billion barrels of oil from just these few fields. There are many more fields that we have not listed for these countries. And many of these fields are not producing, even though the infrastructure is in place to do. They are capped. And, much more is being discovered every year.

Most of the companies listed above, excluding Aramco, are private companies. They have posted a book of reserves of oil ranging from 1-4 billion barrels, per company.  That is from the oil fields they own, in partnership or fully.

Of world proven oil reserves of 1,148 billion barrels, approximately 77% of these resources are under the control of national oil companies (NOCs) with no equity participation by foreign, international oil companies (IOCs). The Western IOCs now control less than 10% of the world’s oil and gas resource base. In terms of current world oil production, NOCs also dominate. Of the top 20 oil producing companies in the world, 14 are NOCs or newly privatized NOCs. However, many of the Western major oil companies continue to achieve a dramatically higher return on capital than NOCs of similar size and operations.

The disadvantaged position of the majors relative to the NOCs in terms of reserve holdings has led to speculation about their future. The IOCs’ futures—and the rationale for their mergers with each other—depend on their ability to develop giant oil and gas fields around the world. In recent years, leaders from major oil producing countries, such as Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia, have been disinclined to share their oil and gas exploration and development business with the majors, who have seen their access to existing prolific reserves greatly restricted. In some cases, notably in Venezuela and Russia, the majors are suffering from renationalizations reminiscent of the 1970s. At the same time, NOCs appear to be on the rise, not only grabbing back control and rents for their in-country resources but also collaborating and exploring in foreign oil plays, in some cases beating out the majors to these resources and in others, taking over in places where the majors are banned from exploring by international sanctions levied by the United States or the United Nations.

The point of all this research is that the 2 families are extremely greedy when it comes to owning and controlling all the oil – everywhere.  As Kissinger once said, “Control the oil, and you control the destinies of nations”. And we find this so true, time and again. Exxon, in conjunction with a few other oil majors have discovered oil offshore Suriname and Guyana, in Latin America. To date, the total discoveries made amount to some 10 billion barrels, with another 8 – 10 billion more in its surrounding waters. The financial media keep on reminding us about how fantastic this this, especially when one looks at the reserves on Exxon’s book – about 4 billion barrels. Now, compare this to the fields in the Middle East. Oil is, undoubtedly, the world’s most strategic commodity. As oxygen is to a human body, so is oil to a modern economy.

The Rockefeller family motto is “COMPETITION IS A SIN’. In the wars to come in the Middle East, we will see that control of the oil in the region is of the utmost priority for the family. Not only as a means of getting more wealthier and powerful, but it also will be in a position to deny the oil and gas  to its competitors and rivals.

Furthermore, as per the Rockefeller’s Fortress America game-plan, the idea and aim is to blow up the Middle East. At the same time, in order to encourage this, US forces are slowly, but surely, reducing their military footprint in the region. This is the bait. And nations are taking advantage of this, and are rushing in to the region – especially in Iraq and Iran. These nations are investing billions, and expect a return on this. The trap will be sprung sooner, rather than later. Let us see how 2021 unfolds- and with all of the above information at your disposal, it will be interesting. As needed, more articles will be posted in the future on this subject.

To summarize: The pandemic was deliberate, and so are all its follow-on steps, such as a lockdown, masks, vaccinations, etc. This will lead to covid passports, digital currency, etc., and it will all lead to the ICE NINE scenario. What is the ultimate aim here? Simple, it is to hold onto being the globes dominant power. And the best way to achieve that is what we have explained to you -the background, and where it’s leading to. Cripple the industrial production capacity of the West. Dumb down the population. Increase the role and power of the banks and international finance. Reduce the quality of food. Herd the frightened masses to where you want them- using the propagation of FEAR, with a HOPE of some benefits.

This was a title that could not be done in one part. My apologies for that, but this is a site where we do not post articles that are the “breaking news” of the moment. Rather, it is a site that will explain the current issues in a way that removes doubt, provides clarity, and the knowledge is timeless, even after many years. Many ask me about any current issue. I reply that the answer is long. Its best described this way. 95% of the story lies in the body, while 5% of the story is the head. One cannot explain the head without explaining the body. In this way, all doubt is removed, and one can then explain this to others , who will appreciate this knowledge- which the mainstream media has no intention of telling you. Stay DUMB, and DON’T BECOME SMART.

Hopefully, the information will empower us with the true state of affairs in the world, today. Keep on reading. Enjoy. And pass onto others.