Energy: The Weapon of Mass Coercion Pt. I
In late 2011, American company Noble Energy Inc. reported that up to 8 trillion cubic feet of gas deposits had been discovered off the coast of Cyprus, which is more fuel than the island could use in over a century and is, of course, extremely valuable.
4th April 2013 | Peter Rolton: Chairman, Rolton Group
With its discovery, the country’s hopes rose at the possibility of becoming a key European player in the energy game and reversing their monetary troubles by exporting this fuel before 2020. However, such processes take time, something Cyprus publicly ran out of in March of this year.
Amongst the ensuing fiscal wreckage, rumours abounded about backroom negotiations between Cyprus and Russia; the two countries had enjoyed a symbiotic commercial relationship for decades prior to the final meltdown and accusations flew that Russian energy company, Gazprom, had offered to bail the island out in exchange for access to their natural gas reserves.
Taking a step back, the weight of such a scenario is significant; we depart from the realm of the ordinary and touch down instead in the pages of a 1950s sci-fi novel in which corporations have so outstripped state power that they are in a position to control not just businesses but entire countries. Even the dastardly villains brought to life by Ian Fleming’s pen contented themselves with a small atoll, a plastic volcano, and a tank full of something with more teeth than strictly necessary in case the strong arm squad came door knocking to get them to change energy supplier.
Of course, representatives from either side quickly dismissed these claims, but one has to ask: how long now before such implausible plotlines start to infiltrate reality? The tug-of-war between corporations and state rages on, and the cards are beginning to stack markedly in the favour of whoever controls the energy supply. With vested interests falling over one another to take top priority, governments and energy companies across the globe are fighting it out to gain the upper hand; interestingly, when the €10billion Cypriot bailout was eventually agreed upon, little mention was made of the as-yet unproven offshore fuel supply. Of course, the associated costs of drilling and further exploration are high, and staking any amount of money on such intangible ground appears to have been a risk no-one was willing to take, but is it not possible that the powers that be hope to downplay its role and secure their power (figuratively and literally) for the future? Is energy becoming more important than state, or does control of energy equal state?
To be continued…
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