Northern China is facing an energy crisis this winter due to shortfalls in heating gas. Since mid-December, reports from Hebei, the province that surrounds Beijing and Tianjin, indicate that schools and residential areas are going without natural gas for heating. In Quyang county (曲阳县), southwest... MORE

Despite being the second-largest oil producer and exporter in the former Soviet Union, only behind Russia, Kazakhstan has been historically plagued by chronic deficits of fuel for domestic consumption. National energy security is at the top of the country’s priority list, yet little progress has... MORE

Turkey’s interest in nuclear energy dates back to the 1960s, when the government first conducted a feasibility study to build a 300–400 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plant (NPP) (Iaea.org, accessed November 10). And in recent years, actual progress on Turkey’s nuclear energy program has finally... MORE

In October the Chinese Communist Party enshrined Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road Initiative” (OBOR) in its constitution. The move again demonstrates how the sweeping plan linking China and Europe via land and sea routes now is at the heart of China’s foreign policy and... MORE

Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft continues to think big and strike major deals on the global stage. It recently announced a program to sell bonds worth 1.3 trillion rubles ($22.53 billion) (Vedomosti, October 26). This gargantuan bond sale will not be used merely for domestic... MORE

Ukraine has entered a new heating season with almost 17 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas stored in its underground reservoirs, according to Ukrtransgaz, the gas transportation and storage subsidiary of the state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy (Utg.ua, accessed October 30). This... MORE

Transboundary water sharing is one of the most contentious issues dividing Central Asian countries. And as Uzbekistan continues to actively pursue better relations with its neighbors (see EDM, May 24, June 27, September 12, 18), discussions over water usage are moving to the top of... MORE

Foreign investments in renewable energy projects benefit Ukraine in the shift to clean energy, but they also are have wider geo-economic and national security importance for this struggling European democracy. Ukraine is currently pursuing a number of renewable energy ventures funded by foreign investments. The... MORE

While Ukraine’s power plants are short of fuel, coal from the unrecognized Luhansk “people’s republic,” located in the Moscow-proxy-controlled eastern part of Donbas, has been smuggled to Poland, journalists from the Polish newspaper Dziennik have found. Doncoaltrade, a firm linked to Oleksandr Melnychuk, a former... MORE

The “historic” trip of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud to Moscow, last week (October 4–7) was an affair long on ceremony, featuring a massive delegation, but rather uncertain regarding the real results. The first ever royal visit (which had been rescheduled several times) was... MORE