‘The People of Aberdeen, in Scotland, are dancing in the streets because the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has stated that he will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil!’ So rambled Donald Trump on Truth Social following BBC reports that new drilling at Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea would be permitted by the incoming administration. As these were existing projects introduced by Sunak and paused by Starmer, to allow drilling a

History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The Falkland Islands are on the verge of becoming a geopolitical flashpoint once again, echoing the tensions of the early 1980s. The catalyst this time is not an invading army but oil. Following the discovery of the Sea Lion offshore oil field in 2010 and the long-awaited Final Investment Decision at the end of 2025, the project is set to become the largest offshore oil development in the South Atlantic outside Brazil. For

It seems an energy crisis is once again being manufactured, not only by war but by deliberate policy. The Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for a fifth of the world’s traded oil, is shut once again. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level since 1983. Russia, the world’s second-largest diesel exporter, has banned all diesel exports. And Europe heads into the winter with the lowest gas reserves in 15 years, while paradoxically purchasing record volumes of gas f

May 28 marked the passing of the Iran war from its third into its fourth, and possibly final, month. From early April to June a fragile ceasefire had remained, somewhat improbably, intact, before a flurry of missiles exchanged between Israel and Iran, Tehran’s downing of a US Apache helicopter, and a swift series of US retaliatory strikes against Iran marked an end to this period of relative quiet. Yet days later, on June 14, US President Trump announced that Washington and T

A few weeks before Christmas, I quietly wrote a piece for a student publication exploring Trump’s continuation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine through his rampant interventions in America’s so-called backyard. In light of recent kidnappings , I suppose I should have bought a lottery ticket too. Trump had been pushing the limits in Venezuela for a while. On December 10 th , the US seized a crude oil tanker , which Trump claimed was being used to transport oil between Iran and V

The persistence of the West’s continuing gluttony for Russian hydrocarbons doesn’t just counteract our aid but is utterly shameful. Why...

Illustration by Will Allen A peculiar delusion stalks European policy circles: that Russian energy might once again prove Europe's...