ISIS-linked militants are threatening huge natural gas reserves the world needs badly right now – while Iran insists it is just trying to sell its oil and exports crude oil to buyers in Europe. According to experts, the Islamic State is already in Libya. Now it is planning to take over the global gas market.
One of the biggest risks in the world for the past few months are the threats from extremists who are now taking their fight to the Middle East – to Iran, ISIS and even Russia, which is being accused of supplying them with arms and ammunition. According to a new report from the Atlantic Council, ISIS-linked militants are threatening huge natural gas reserves the world needs badly right now – while Iran insists it is just trying to sell its oil and exports crude oil to buyers in Europe. Instead of providing their own gas, experts say they are using Libya as a cash cow:
“A vast and lucrative natural gas find off Libya could be a major prize for militants threatening to topple the governments of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates as well as the Syrian government on the other side of the Iraq-Syria border,” argues the Atlantic Council in a report released Monday. “The Islamic State is using the oil and gas reserves that lie beneath Libya’s fractured southern flank to fund its operations through smuggling. If successful, this could become the ISIS’s first regional energy hub.”
Iran is currently producing 659 million cubic meters of gas a year and has a global gas trade worth $300 billion, the report said:
“It is well worth noting that Iran now accounts for 20 percent of the global production of natural gas and imports over 90 percent of its demand. That is equivalent to roughly one-third of the total world gas trade, a share that would rise to 30 percent if the United States were to stop buying Iranian natural gas. “
According to EnergyWire, the United States is about to become the largest foreign natural gas buyer after Russia, when it stops supplying fuel to its allies. Russia is now only purchasing 2.55 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, or 1.5 percent of its consumption a year – and it has already started to cut its exports to the European Union.
Iran does not agree anymore with the west, the United States and the European Union, and is trying to sell its oil to Europe even if it is very unpopular politically with the regime in Tehran – because of the sanctions the US and the EU impose.
In the meantime, Russia is increasingly trying to dominate the global