The Euro Caspian Mega Pipeline is a massive infrastructure system designed to suck gas out of the Caspian into Western Europe. Construction of the pipeline involves politics and finance as much as it does concrete building materials, and the conference I’m about to go to is one in a series of events attempting to make…
This an Italian translation of a Platform blog. Many thanks to Maria Stefanizzi for her translation and to Comitato No Tap where the Italian version was originally posted. Alessandro Mancini mentre parla sbatte la mano su di un tavolo quadrato in legno. Sono seduta in una calda cucina a parlare di gasdotti con Alessandro e…
This blog is also available in Italian. The future is alternative, sustainable sources of energy. We don’t want the oil companies! This can be an independent state, a Puglia free from the oil companies Alessandro Mancini slaps the wooden table square with his palm as he talks. I am sat in a warm kitchen discussing…
On Tuesday Foreign Secretary William Hague will be one of the first European politicians to visit Azerbaijan after Ilham Aliyev’s internationally condemned re-election as President. Hague will be there to attend the ceremony for the signing of a pipeline agreement that will see two trillion cubic meters of gas pumped from Azerbaijan to Europe. Hague…
Behind the closed doors of company boardrooms and government offices a mega-pipeline is being planned and promoted. This huge piece of infrastructure would carry gas over 4,000 kilometres from the Caspian Sea to central Europe, and in the process would lock Europe into gas dependency for at least the next 35 years. Such a project…
BP pushed for major subsidies at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) AGM in Istanbul last weekend, while hyping the grand scale of its Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline plans. Between speeches by Prime Ministers and sessions on “Supporting Growth Amidst Austerity”, oil companies revealed their intentions to spend $40 billion expanding Europe’s gas grid…
James Marriott talks about Platform’s new book The Oil Road in advance of the Transition Network Conference taking place at Battersea Arts Centre. James will be inspiring people with stories of his travels from the oil fields of the Caspian to the refineries and financial centres of Northern Europe. He will also consider how we…
Platform and the Guardian Data Blog have mapped Shell’s global security spending for 2008. The graphic is based on leaked internal financial data. You can find Platform’s full briefing on this issue here.
A Guest Blog by John de Falbe of Sandoe’s Books. I just received an early copy of “The Oil Road: A Journey from the Caspian Sea to the City of London” by Platform’s James Marriott and Mika Minio-Paluello, published by Verso, due out in mid-September. I read it in manuscript: it’s a brilliant analysis of…
The new Paperback edition has a brand new Afterword… “★★★★★…The Oil Road opens the lid on the often-shady energy economy, weaving absorbing travel reportage into powerful investigative journalism…. If you want to know why oil matters, read this book.” – Time Out (book of the week) “An elegantly written travel book…will make you think the next…