Nevada, Utah, and Venezuela: A tale of two oil and gas policy moves

Possibly, if these events hadn’t all been concurrent, I mightn’t have noticed either tale, or the events it encompassed.

But they did all unfold at the same time.  And they struck me quite forcibly.

One struck me in particular, for reasons I suspect will be obvious.  So I’ll just mention that one at the outset, to get things started.

In October 2022, a batch of Venezuelan bonds bought by Goldman Saches back in May 2017 reached their final maturity date.  The bonds were against the Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).  They were nominally worth $2.8 billion when purchased for some $865 million in 2017.  Many business and political commentators thought it was a bad buy at the time: a use of investors’ money that was neither sound from a business standpoint nor impressive from a moral one.

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Danger closer: A game change that needs to reset U.S. national defense alertment

Probably the strangest consequence from two recent North Korean missile tests, on 5 and 11 January 2022, was a pair of reported U.S. events that appear to have been in reaction to them.

One U.S. event got much more coverage than the other.  It was on the afternoon of 10 January on the U.S. West coast, minutes after the missile launch from North Korea at 7:27 AM in the Korean time zone on 11 January. 

At “around 2:30 PM PST” on 10 January, the FAA issued a ground stop for air traffic throughout sectors on the West coast.  The North Korean missile launch occurred three minutes before the ground stop order, whose reality and authenticity The Drive’s “War Zone” blog has since verified through contact with persons involved at the receiving end of the order.  Sources confirmed they believed the stop order to be related to national security.

Bad, or worse? Depends on what the meaning of ‘S-300’ is

S-300PMU-2 strikes a professional pose. (Image: TV Zvezda via YouTube)

New post up at Liberty Unyielding.  Enjoy!

Russian naval bases for world peace

 

The face of Old World incursion into the Americas, 1860s-style. Emperor Napoleon III of France and Empress Eugenie. Painted by Jean-Leon Gerome.

The times, they are a-changin’.  Five years ago this month, at the very dawn of the Obama Epoch, there was a flutter in the dovecote where the armchair military analysts hang out.  A rumor circulated that Russia planned to secure the use of the Yemeni island of Socotra, in the Indian Ocean, as a naval base.  The old Soviet navy had used Socotra

Russian intel ship in Cuba – and Venezuela

 

Russian intel ship pops up in Havana. (Image credit AFP)

Just like old times, it seems.  Well, there were no visits to Venezuela during the Cold War.  But the visits to Cuba happened early and often.

Now one of the old players herself is back.  Vishnya AGI Viktor Leonov, SSV-175 (in Cyrillic, CCB-175), reportedly docked in Havana on Wednesday 26 February.