Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict
- The United States has granted Iraq another four-month exemption from its sanctions that will allow the country to continue to import Iranian electricity and natural gas. This is the fifth waiver Washington has granted Iraq since it re-imposed the second batch of sanctions on Iran last November. Gas imports from Iran generate as much as 45 percent of Iraq's 14,000 megawatts of electricity consumed daily. Iran transmits another 1,000 megawatts directly. Based on the official data, last year Iran exported to Iraq nearly 4.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas and five terawatts of electricity.
- Rosneft has temporarily suspended work at one block in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan due to security concerns because of the blocks’ proximity to the Syrian border. Production plans for block 11 remain unchanged, while proximity to the Syrian border and the safety concerns are the only deterrents to Rosneft’s plans for block 8.
- Russian media reported that Venezuela might hand over full control of its state oil company PDVSA to Rosneft in return for debt relief. As of August, PDVSA had lowered its outstanding debt to Rosneft to $1.1 billion by the end of the second quarter, from $1.8 billion from the previous quarter. Since 2006, Russian loans to Venezuela have reached more than $17 billion in total. In the meantime, Rosneft has become the main trader of Venezuelan crude, shipping oil to buyers in…
