Tag: natural resources

Rubio Threatens Venezuela With War Over Essequibo Region

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed Thursday that the United States will respond forcefully if Venezuela attacks Guyana, amid an ongoing territorial dispute that includes massive oil and gas reserves. Rubio said it would be a “very bad day” for Venezuela should that happen, reported AP.

During a visit to Guyana, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Venezuela against aggression over the Essequibo region, hinting at possible U.S. military response.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro fired back, calling Rubio an “imbecile” and declaring Venezuela would not be threatened.

The century-old Essequibo dispute reignited after ExxonMobil’s 2015 oil discovery. The U.S. has since boosted military and intelligence ties with Guyana.

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Burgum Orders Nearly 20 Million Acres In Alaska Opened For Oil, Gas Development

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has directed the Bureau of Land Management to “pursue steps to expand opportunities for exploration and development” of oil, gas, and mineral resources across nearly 20 million previously off-limits acres within Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPR) and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The move was not unexpected after President Donald Trump issued a Jan. 20 ‘Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential’ executive actions package mandating federal agencies “expedite permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects,” prioritize “development of Alaska’s liquified natural gas (LNG) potential,” and expand fossil fuel development in the 23-million-acre NPR and 19.6-million acre ANWR.

Burgum followed through with a Feb. 3 order requiring the Bureau of Land Management to “exercise all lawful authority” in developing a plan to implement the president’s policy.

“It’s time for the U.S. to embrace Alaska’s abundant and largely untapped resources as a pathway to prosperity for the nation, including Alaskans,” Burgum said in a March 20 press release announcing the directive.

The sweeping actions by Trump and Burgum, who also chairs the National Energy Dominance Council, rescind “all regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions … promulgated, issued, or adopted between Jan. 20, 2021, and Jan. 20, 2025,” essentially erasing dozens of actions related to Alaska by President Joe Biden and his administration.

During Trump’s first term, Congress directed the Department of Interior (DOI) to open a 1.56-million acre coastal plain area within ANWR’s Section 1002 to oil and gas drilling for the first time when it adopted the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the area could hold up to 11.8 billion barrels of oil.

However, the Biden administration auctioned only 400,000 acres in January 2025, drawing no bidders because “new severe restrictions” imposed in November 2024 made “any development economically and practically impossible,” Alaska argued in a Jan. 5 lawsuit that alleged DOI and the Bureau of Land Management were in violation of the TCJA.

Under the executive actions and Burgum’s directive, the bureau must now make the entire 1.56-million-acre ANWR coastal plain and 82 percent of NPR available for oil and gas leasing. More than 13 million of NPR’s 23 million acres had been off-limits to development for decades since at least 1980.

“For far too long, the federal government has created too many barriers to capitalizing on the state’s energy potential,” Burgum said.

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DR Congo Offers Trump Minerals in Exchange for Help with Rebels

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi wrote a letter to President Donald Trump in which he offered extensive mineral rights to the U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund in exchange for military assistance against the Rwanda-backed insurgent group M23.

The February 8 letter, which has not officially been disclosed to the public, was allegedly reviewed by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Wednesday.

“Your election has ushered in the golden age for America,” Tshisekedi told Trump. “Our partnership would provide the U.S. with a strategic advantage by securing critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, copper and tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Tshisekedi asked Trump for unspecified military assistance and a “formal security pact” to push back M23, which has been advancing from the eastern reaches of the DRC to capture key cities and threaten the capital of Kinshasa.

A spokeswoman for Tshisekedi’s office confirmed the authenticity of the letter and said negotiations with U.S. officials over the DRC’s natural resources are already underway. A source told the WSJ that the White House National Security Council (NSC) requested a briefing on Tshisekedi’s proposal.

“The DRC is interested in partnering with the Trump administration to end the conflict and stop the flow of blood minerals via Rwanda,” Tshisekedi’s spokeswoman said.

The White House, on the other hand, refused to comment on the letter, which it described as “private correspondence to the president.”

The WSJ noted that the DRC has been separately attempting to work out a deal for securing its mining operations with former Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince. Blackwater is long gone, having been sold off in 2010, but Prince is involved with other private security operations and he is an outspoken supporter of President Trump.

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Is Greenpeace Finished? Jury Orders Far Left Group to Pay $660 Million in Damages for Protest Against Dakota Access Pipeline

A few years ago, Greenpeace and other far left activists protested the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, causing all kinds of damage to construction equipment in the process.

Now a jury in North Dakota has ordered them to pay more than $600 million in damages over the protests.

Some people are suggesting the court’s decision could bankrupt the group.

CBS News reports:

Greenpeace ordered to pay more than $660 million to fossil fuel company over pipeline protests

In a win for the oil and gas pipeline company Energy Transfer, a nine-person North Dakota jury found the environmental group Greenpeace liable for more than $660 million in damages and defamation for the 2016 to 2017 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In their lawsuit, Dallas-based Energy Transfer claimed Greenpeace was responsible for defamation, disruption and property damage for the protests that captured national attention in 2016. Greenpeace claimed the lawsuit threatened its freedom of speech.

In a statement, Energy Transfer said, “This win is really for the people of Mandan and throughout North Dakota who had to live through the daily harassment and disruptions caused by the protesters who were funded and trained by Greenpeace. It is also a win for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.”

Greenpeace plans to appeal the verdict. “This is the end of a chapter, but not the end of our fight. Energy Transfer knows we don’t have $660 million. They want our silence, not our money.” Sushma Raman, interim executive director of Greenpeace Inc., told CBS News.

So they’re planning to appeal? What if the appeal fails?

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Key Coca-Cola & Pepsi Ingredient ‘Controlled By RSF Paramilitary In Sudan’

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is currently controlling access to a vital ingredient used in Coca-Cola and Pepsi across vast swathes of the country, according to a new report.

Gum arabic, an organic emulsifier derived from the sap of the acacia trees, is a major ingredient in a range of products, including the gigantic soft drink brands as well as soap, medicine, sweets and cosmetics. Around 70 percent of the world’s supply comes from Sudan, where the trees grow in a 200,000 square mile belt across the south of the country that is largely controlled by the RSF, according to Bloomberg.

Hisham Salih Yagoub, whose company Afritec is one of Sudan’s biggest international suppliers, told the news outlet that he regularly pays the RSF $2,500 per truck to allow transport of the product to the country’s ports.

“They stop the trucks and you have to pay for the trucks to move,” he said. “They either steal some of it or they make you pay.”

Since April 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a brutal civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The country has fallen into a humanitarian crisis, with 12.5 million Sudanese displaced from their homes, according to UNHCR. Thousands are estimated to have been killed.

The RSF has been accused of widespread sexual assault, looting, torture and the summary execution of civilians, while the SAF has also been censured for indiscriminate bombing campaigns.

According to documents acquired by Bloomberg, the SAF has also introduced a range of fees that amount to roughly $155 per 100kg of gum arabic being sent out of Port Sudan, meaning any transportation of gum arabic out of the country likely involves payment to groups accused of war crimes.

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EU Retaliates to Trump Steel & Aluminum Tariff by Imposing 50% Tariff on U.S. Spirits

A friend in the spirits business just sent me the following statement:

Distilled Spirits Council President and CEO Chris Swonger Statement in Response to the EU’s Announcement to Reimpose Tariffs on American Whiskey

It seems to me that EU leaders are being weenies once again. Trump imposed tariffs on the importation of EU steel and aluminum into the US because he wants to protect the U.S. steel and aluminum industries. Note that the EU has long maintained 20% VAT and other import duties on American steel and aluminum products, as well as all other US products imported into the EU.

Instead of negotiating about steel and aluminum—which most serious people regard as strategic industries that are critical for maintaining national security—the inveterate weenies at the EU decided to punish the American spirits industry by announcing a 50% import duty.

Punishing Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey distillers strikes me as grossly political, given that these spirits—which are very popular in Europe—are distilled in states that strongly supported Trump in the recent election.

In response to this announcement, Trump threatened to 200% tariff on all alcoholic beverages produced in the EU. I suspect that such a tariff would be absolutely devastating for the German beer industry, the French wine, champagne, and cognac industries, and for the Italian wine industry.

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President Trump’s Tariffs: A New Golden Age For American Aluminum Workers

President Donald Trump specialized in shattering conventional wisdom and challenging the status quo on his road to the White House in 2016. To this day, our president believes Americans are getting ripped off by unfair trade practices where country after country has gotten comfortable taking advantage of the United States due to our unparalleled generosity and wealth. So, he’s focused like a laser beam on fair trade and leveling the playing field so our manufacturing workers can compete with foreign competitors and prosper. President Trump has declared that by implementing targeted tariffs on foreign countries that hurt American workers, “our country will be extremely liquid and rich again.”

Having served as President Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016 and as an advisor to his campaigns in 2020 and 2024, I was delighted to see him reelected in 2024 with a huge mandate to fight for our manufacturing sector and usher in a “Golden Age” in America. Make no mistake, our 45th and 47th president is determined to finish the revolution on American trade policy that he began by fixing the mistakes of the Biden-Harris years and strengthening Section 232 tariffs on aluminum and steel. 

As part of the shock-and-awe action of his first one hundred days in office, President Trump signed new proclamations to bolster the fair-trade policy introduced during his historic first term in office. By elevating tariffs to 25% on aluminum and restoring the 25% levy on steel, the Trump administration is making clear that they have the backs of thousands of American aluminum and steel workers and are resolute in their mission to create a multitude of new manufacturing jobs. 

While the globalists in the economic establishment and mainstream media react to targeted tariffs with their customary Trump-deranged hysteria, American manufacturers reacted with both joy and relief because President Trump is making good on another campaign promise. It must be repeated again and again – because the fake news media refuses to tell the truth – that this president supports robust trade, but it must be trade that is fair and reciprocal. This is the linchpin of the policy.

Under the “America Last” mindset of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, foreign countries were free to exploit loopholes in Section 232 to flood the domestic aluminum and steel industry with cheap products. Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Argentina locked arms with D.C. swamp creatures to secure exclusions and exemptions, to the detriment of American workers. Australia’s aluminum exports into the U.S. have increased sharply and at the same time China and Russia have used loopholes to move aluminum through Mexico and Canada to flood our market. As a result of foreign countries cheating, Alcoa announced the permanent closing of its smelter in Washington State. Other closures have included a Century Aluminum plant in Kentucky, which idled production in 2022, and Magnitude 7 Metals in Missouri, which was forced to close in 2024. 

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Canadian man sentenced to 25 years for attack on Keystone XL Pipeline, US energy infrastructure

A Canadian man has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for attacking energy infrastructure in the United States, causing $1.7 million in damages. A judge ruled that his crimes met the legal definition of terrorism.

Cameron Smith, 50, originally from the Toronto area but living in Astoria, Oregon, was sentenced on Monday. In addition to prison time, he was ordered to pay over $2.1 million in restitution and $250,000 in fines. Smith also faces deportation upon his release.

Smith pleaded guilty in September to charges of destroying energy facilities. The attacks occurred in 2022 near Carpenter, South Dakota, and in 2023 near Ray, North Dakota. US District Judge Daniel Traynor handed down two consecutive 12-year-and-6-month sentences—far exceeding the federal guideline range of 3.5 to 4.25 years per count.

“Smith also admitted to damaging a transformer and pumpstation of the Keystone Pipeline located near Carpenter, South Dakota, in an amount exceeding $100,000, in July 2022. Smith damaged the Wheelock substation and the Keystone Pipeline equipment by firing multiple rounds from a high-power rifle into the equipment resulting in disruption of electric services to the North Dakota customers and resulting in disruption of the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota,” the Justice Department says.

Prosecutor David Hagler defended the stiff sentence, arguing that Smith’s actions fit the definition of terrorism by “attempting to intimidate or coerce a civilian population.”

Smith’s defense attorney, Douglas Passon, pushed back, describing his client as a “hyper-aware individual wanting to create awareness about climate change” who intentionally chose remote locations to prevent harm to people.

In the South Dakota case, Smith’s attack led to the shutdown of a Keystone XL Pipeline pump station, causing a leak that damaged surrounding land. In North Dakota, he damaged transformers and infrastructure at an electrical substation, leading to power outages for 243 customers.

During sentencing, Smith told the court he had resorted to direct action out of frustration after years of attempting to raise awareness about climate change through legal channels. He pleaded for a lesser sentence, citing his autism and Crohn’s disease, said the Justice Department in a release.

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800 billion euros of delusional promises

Von der Leyen has accustomed us to her grandstanding nihilism and disconnection from reality. Listening to her, one might sometimes get the impression that she sees herself as a kind of a god of creation, capable of transforming everything into matter with the mere power of her words. But of course, this is not true! The Russian economy has not collapsed in “tatters”; in fact, it has shown remarkable resilience, with wages growing at their highest rate in 16 years (a 21.6% increase compared to March of last year, and an 11.3% real growth after inflation—a dream for any Portuguese citizen), with the average wage expected to reach $1,113 by 2025, while everything remains cheaper than in any EU country.

It is also not true that the Russians have been stripping semiconductors from washing machines, nor is it true that the G7 has blocked Russian oil exports with their oil caps. In fact, Russia has never exported as much oil as it does today. The broker Ursula von der Leyen was also wrong when she claimed that the U.S. had the cheapest LNG—why would Trump want to lower prices now?—urging European countries to buy more shale gas, in violation of the European corporate sustainability directive, which requires suppliers to comply with environmental sustainability rules. As is well known, shale gas is extracted through fracking, a method highly damaging to the environment and banned in the EU. It seems that for the unelected president of the European Commission, directives are applied according to her whims.

But the latest delusion from the European Commission president is the announcement of a “massive boost”—as she loves these Americanized propaganda slogans with supposed creative power—to European military spending, which has already been increasing over time, but now she proposes to raise it by an additional 840 billion euros. It’s worth noting that she was Germany’s Defense Minister, during the scandal involving the sale of Trident submarines to Portugal, a deal that led to the imprisonment of several intermediaries. During that time too, von der Leyen, when investigated about several businesses, said that she lost the cellphone which helped her avoid jail. Similarly, during her time at the European Commission, she was involved in the vaccine procurement scandal. Certain character traits never disappear, and it’s a pity that these are the traits that determine who gets chosen for such positions. To our detriment.

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Trump seeks minerals refining on Pentagon bases to boost US output, sources say

U.S. President Donald Trump aims to build metals refining facilities on Pentagon military bases as part of his plan to boost domestic production of critical minerals and offset China’s control of the sector, two senior administration officials told Reuters.

The move is one of several planned for an executive order Trump could sign as soon as Wednesday after he told the U.S. Congress last week he would “take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the USA.”

As part of the order, the Pentagon would work with other federal agencies to install processing facilities on its bases, according to the sources, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the administration’s deliberations.

Using military bases for processing would underscore the importance Trump is placing on critical minerals for national security. Fighter jets, submarines, bullets and other weaponry used by the U.S. military are built with minerals processed by Beijing.

Trump also plans to name a critical minerals czar, similar to steps previous presidents have taken to coordinate Washington’s focus on other areas, according to one of the sources. The plans are under discussion and could change before Trump signs the order, the sources added.

Some Trump administration officials were spooked by initial signs that China might restrict critical minerals exports as part of its retaliation for Trump’s tariffs or for other reasons, according to a person familiar with their thinking.

The U.S. National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.

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