Hmmm...that's not what the consumer says...

They're not a big deal to us as a whole though, which is why it took us forever to deal with the former Yugoslavia...they had nothing we could really use/take.

We like that black gold.

Well, Angola has a lot of natural gas under all the diamonds and other gems on the surface. I'm sure once the black gold runs out, there'll be a push to go grab all the natural gas. It's good as fuel too.

I have a list of things for us all to "get over".
If you don't like the list...well......

:)

I return to find a thread without any cohesive points? Where is there something logical or factual to reply to? If ever the expression "on topic" had no meaning ...

Natural gas is too bulky and hard to ship.

Obviously that is not the topic. Apparently the real topic of that post is found in its replies and discussed at length. Anything I might add has already been posted.

So Bruce, what you're saying is that in your view, it really has nothing to do with liberating anyone and everything to do with getting their oil, and if they don't have oil, the US and associates don't care?

[Zoidberg]
[/Zoidberg]

Australia exports natural gas to China by ship. Huge compressed-gas tankers full of it.
It's shippable.

It's shippable, anything is shippable.
A LNG tanker exploding in the port of Newark, NJ, would kill an estimated 8 million people. Oil is relatively safe.

LNG is routinely shipping into Boston. It is that dangerous which is why Boston does a security shutdown with each LNG ship.

NJ desperately wants to build an LNG terminal in Delaware Bay (south Jersey) to meet demands. Obviously LNG in Newark makes less sense. America, one of the world's largest producers of natural gas, must import so much LNG within the next decade as to be 5% of America's supply. America requires twice as much energy to do the same work compared to any other nation. NJ has so many more McMansions to heat and so many electric power plants dependent on natural gas.

That NJ LNG port is being killed by Delaware. Strangely Delaware owns the entire Delaware Bay up to sand on Jersey's beach. In a last ditch effort to build an LNG port in a mostly rural area, NJ has filed suit in the US Supreme Court. Will the court decide based upon what is necessary or simply enforce the law? Delaware is more concerned with the safety of Clayton DE than with natural gas supplies needed by NJ and the rest of NE United States.

The energy appetite is causing the tradeoff of risk. If there were cheap oil available, they wouldn't do that.

Yes, cheap oil is one possible solution. I hope there are others because "cheap oil" is rapidly approaching a status somewhere between "hen's teeth" and "rocking-horse shit".
And I love it when a thread drifts back. So, with the Kurdish region being one of Iraq's most productive oil regions, and that oil being mostly sent through a pipeline through Turkey ... cheap oil? GOOD LUCK!

IMHO ... Kurdistan is a natural nation, a geographically continuous area filled (mostly) with one group of people unified by language, culture and religion, who believe themselves to be such a group. But it has been carved up amongst Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Tensions will continue to simmer here until these four nations cede their claims to the territory and stop keeping the Kurds when the Kurds don't want to be kept.
Ah, but what would that do to Iraq? Yeah, problem...