Last month the Obama administration eased financial and investment sanctions on Myanmar, praising it’s government for freeing hundreds of political prisoners and finally allowing the political opposition to take part in elections. While the easing of sanctions demonstrates valuable support for further political reforms in Myanmar, the US investment policy does not effectively address the [...]

While shale could help Poland lessen dependence on Russian supplies and cut its gas bill, a government proposal for a levy on production threatens to curtail investment. Europe’s best hope for a shale-gas boom is indeed fading as explorers in Poland confront rising taxes, political concerns focused on environmental degradation, a lack of rigs and rocks [...]

Oil and Gas Eurasia has recently published significant findings from the Polish Geological Institute that could very well shake up the geopolitical debate on shale energy and environmental degradation. According to the report, shale gas mining will not damage the water supply or increase carbon emissions. The Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily added that it has [...]

To describe the recent discovery of natural gas deposits off the Southern coast of Mozambique as “transformational” might be an understatement.  Until recently, this East African country of about 23 million people had a paltry annual GDP per capita of $1,000 with 70% of the population living below the poverty line.  Now, with the announcement [...]

North American natural gas producers are facing tougher scrutiny and regulation from government, with the U.S. industry warning that new rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could dampen the shale gas boom.

Polish rural communities largely depend on low-cost but dirty coal for their heating, but under pressure from Brussels to provide cleaner energy, Warsaw is proposing controversial shale gas wells as an alternative. “In small villages, each house has its own individual heating system – mostly based on coal – because access to other [heating sources] [...]

Many question the legitimacy of German trepidation regarding the building of an energy terminal in northwest Poland as further proof positive of heavy Russian influence in both Berlin and throughout the European Union. Although at face value, Germany’s concerns centre on the environmental impact, CEC Government Relations Founder Marek Matraszek believes, (as excerpted from Business New [...]

It’s a familiar story, and I won’t be the first one to tell you. As documented widely, the rapid industrial rise of the BRIC economies has created an unexpected demand crush on natural resource commodities, generating all sorts of anomalies for foreign investors in extractive industries. We have seen resource nationalism issues pop up in [...]

The year 1995 was very tragic for Nigeria: after years of starvation and exploitation, the ethnic minority in Ogoniland, an area rich in oil and gas, began mounting a peaceful civil society movement to demand a greater share of the oil wealth to fund infrastructure in their impoverished communities. Led by the political activist Ken [...]

Robert Amsterdam was profiled in the new issue of Upstream magazine, an energy trade magazine, on how international energy companies can and should defend their rights in resource nationalist market conditions. Download the full PDF of the article here.