Crisis on the China Rim: An Economic, Crude Oil, and Military Analysis

"There is a crisis rising on the China Rim, a crisis made of economic imbalances, energy insecurities, ancient hatreds, and unsettled scores. The catalyst for this crisis is success itself, the success of the People’s Republic of China in its de facto rejection of a failed experiment in communism and its rapid transformation into a thriving market economy. The inseparable companion of this success, though, is an insatiable hunger and thirst for precious resources... most important among these, crude oil."

2005.04.14 | 85 pages | download

Agonist.org has today published the final installment of a three-part interview with Matthew R. Simmons, author of the recently released Twilight in the Desert and founder of Simmons & Company International, an independent investment bank specializing in the energy industry.

The following is an excerpt from the inside front flap of Simmons' Twilight in the Dessert:

"Saudi Arabia is the most important oil producing nation in history.  The secretive Saudi government repeatedly assures the world that its oil fields are healthy beyond reproach, and that they can maintain and even increase output at will to meet skyrocketing global demand.

"But what if they can't?

"Twilight in the Desert looks behind the curtain to reveal a Saudi oil and production industry that could soon approach a serious, irreversible decline.  In this exhaustively researched book, veteran oil industry analyst Matthew Simmons draws on his own three-plus decades of insider experience and more than 200 independently produced reports about Saudi petroleum resources and production operations."

Simmons' approach to evaluating the current status of and outlook for world energy markets is identical to that of Laguna Research Partners: purely analytical and non-ideological.  And while Simmons' analytical starting point is the oilfields of Saudi Arabia and LRP's analytical starting point is the rapidly emerging Chinese economy, we both reach the same conclusion... the world is entering an intense international competition for energy security.

In our view, this new interview with Simmons is essential reading for those of our research users who are interested in gaining a new and thoroughly-documented perspective on the world's emerging energy security challenge.

Agonist.org interview with Matthew R. Simmons: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Posted by:
Kevin B. Skislock
Partner and CEO
Laguna Research Partners
[bio] [disclaimer]

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