According to the US Energy Information Administration, 35 percent of gross US oil imports in 2014 came from OPEC countries. OPEC's role in supplying US oil consumption, as well as the organization's history of taking collective action to manipulate the price and supply of oil, make it a prime subject for study. Given OPEC's relevance to US energy security, how can we begin to predict how OPEC may interact with the oil markets of the future, as well as respond to shifting production and consumption trends within those markets? This article studies past OPEC production strategies, synthesizes a theory of OPEC production tendencies from past market interactions, and then applies these derived principles of OPEC production strategies to the contemporary global market.

International attention has been focused on the military confrontation in Syria and Iraq, where a Western-Arab coalition and the Russian led Syria-Iran coalition are cutting down the infrastructure of ISIS. The Russian military operation is strengthening Assad’s overall position while bringing rebel forces and ISIS to the point of defeat.  Meanwhile, a new Islamist extremist front has emerged; North Africa is on the brink of disaster. While the West and Russia have focused on Syria after initial military successes in Iraq, it looks as if the world has forgotten to pay attention to the ongoing military build-up of extremist forces in Libya.

Japan fell into the following trilemma after the Fukushima Accident: first, without restarting nuclear reactors, reprocessing lacks enough justification; second, without having the reprocessing plant in operation, restarting nuclear reactors will only produce more spent fuel that does not have a final destination; and third, without having the MOX fuel plant and reactors using MOX fuel in operation, reprocessing alone will add more plutonium to the existing stockpile that is already overwhelming. Technical difficulties that relate to every pillar of the trinity in the Japanese national project bogs the central government down to a stalemate. Eunjung Lim analyzes, explains the backstory, and charts a possible path forward.

The explosion of diplomatic warfare between Saudi Arabia and Iran, caused by the execution of 47 prisoners by Riyadh, has come for some as a surprise, but the writing has been on the wall for some years.  The current diplomatic row, fueled by Riyadh’s decision to execute Saudi Shi’ite Sheikh Nimr al Nimr, together with 46 others, and the ransacking by Iranian protesters of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, is just a sign of the internal and external conflicts in both countries.  Since the execution of the Shi’ite sheikh, tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran has reached the boiling point. Cyril Widdershoven discusses.

At the crossroads of the east-west and north-south transportation corridors, Baku has succeeded in becoming the Eurasian Mecca for energy traders. Nowadays, Azerbaijan is the sole country in the region that extracts, refines, transports and negotiates its resources to the European market. In this sense, national resources have guaranteed not only economic growth and self-sufficiency, but also political independence. How will the Iran’s deal affect Azerbaijan and its oil and gas policy? Read on.

Recent years have witnessed a grave deterioration in energy relations between Russia and the European Union (EU). The gas issue is an important one tied up in Russia’s ongoing attempts at recalibrating Eurasian pipeline strategy and EU’s own endeavors to open up new supply routes. The Caspian Sea region has hence become the focal point of heated discussions in the face of heavy energy disagreements between Russia and the EU. While Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are considered potentially vital partners for European energy consumers, Russia engages in greater assertive policies protecting its national interest in the region. The continuing EU-Russian rivalry over alternative gas supply projects not only widens the gap between Brussels and Moscow but also affects energy strategies of the Caspian countries trying to avoid becoming a battle ground between the two key actors. Elkhan Nuriyev assesses risks, challenges and prospects.

This week's meeting of Asia-Pacific energy ministers in Beijing is a good opportunity for countries on both sides of the Pacific to address perhaps the most unifying challenge in Asia: energy insecurity. For all their differences and historical grievances, Asian countries share the need to strengthen energy security while addressing the environmental challenges that come from fast-growing consumption. Asia's energy landscape today is a cluster of segregated markets. A change may be in order. Gal Luft elaborates.

The U.S. Department of Defense has deployed 1.6 megawatt of solid oxide fuel cells to power NSA facilities at Fort Meade, Maryland.  The amount of power generation capacity is equivalent to powering 1,200 homes.  The fuel cells system, manufactured by Bloom Energy and installed by ARGO Systems, eliminate the need for electrical transmission from the grid and costly backup infrastructure as they generate power on-site. Read more here. The U.S. DoD has also partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy in this area. Under the 2010 Memorandum of Understanding, the two departments agreed to install 18 fuel cell backup power systems at eight military installations across the U.S.