In some coastal regions of the United States, such as western Louisiana, offshore oil development has long been welcomed. In others, such as northern California, it has been vehemently opposed. This book explores the reasons behind this paradox, looking at the people, the regions, and the issues in sociological and historical contexts. What has been in very short supply on this issue, as in a growing number of other cases of technological gridlock, is balanced analysis. That is what this book provides. The authors' case studies, derived from interviews with Louisiana and California residents and from environmental impact statements, demonstrate that easy answers are not the most valid ones. The region that should be considered unusual, they find, is coastal Louisiana, where historical, social, and environmental factors combine to favor the offshore oil industry. But this combination of factors, they argue, is unlikely to be found in other coastal regions of the U.S. in the near future.

In May 2018 Bernard Collaery, a former Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory and long-term legal counsel to the government of East Timor, was charged by the Australian Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions with conspiracy to breach the Intelligence Services Act 2001. He was forbidden from talking about the charges against him, but under parliamentary privilege independent MP Andrew Wilkie revealed what has since been described as ‘Australian politics’ biggest scandal’. Five years earlier, after ASIO officers raided Collaery’s home and office, Collaery told journalists that ASIS had been bugging the East Timorese government during negotiations over Timor Sea oil. He was about to represent East Timor; as well as calling the evidence of a former senior ASIS agent known publicly only as Witness K, at The Hague in a case against the Australian government. Oil Under Troubled Water relates the sordid history of Australian government dealings with East Timor, and how the actions of both major political parties have enriched Australia and its corporate allies at the expense of its tiny neighbour and wartime ally, one of the poorest nations in the world.

Discusses how oil seeps into the world's waters, the methods used to clean up such spills, and possible ways to prevent spills of varying size.

“The new generation of twenty-first-century African writers have now come of age. Without a doubt Habila is one of the best.”—Emmanuel Dongala In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, the wife of a British oil executive has been kidnapped. Two journalists—a young upstart, Rufus, and a once-great, now disillusioned veteran, Zaq—are sent to find her. In a story rich with atmosphere and taut with suspense, Oil on Water explores the conflict between idealism and cynical disillusionment in a journey full of danger and unintended consequences. As Rufus and Zaq navigate polluted rivers flanked by exploded and dormant oil wells, in search of “the white woman,” they must contend with the brutality of both government soldiers and militants. Assailed by irresolvable versions of the “truth” about the woman’s disappearance, dependent on the kindness of strangers of unknowable loyalties, their journalistic objectivity will prove unsustainable, but other values might yet salvage their human dignity.

Protecting the most valuable asset worth billions! My diary while living on and protecting Iraq's Oil Platform in the Persian Gulf, by Terrence R. Winston, a US Navy Veteran.

Newsbreaking and controversial -- an award-winning investigative journalist uncovers the thirty-year relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud and explains its impact on American foreign policy, business, and national security. House of Bush, House of Saud begins with a politically explosive question: How is it that two days after 9/11, when U.S. air traffic was tightly restricted, 140 Saudis, many immediate kin to Osama Bin Laden, were permitted to leave the country without being questioned by U.S. intelligence? The answer lies in a hidden relationship that began in the 1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud began courting American politicians in a bid for military protection, influence, and investment opportunity. With the Bush family, the Saudis hit a gusher -- direct access to presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. To trace the amazing weave of Saud- Bush connections, Unger interviewed three former directors of the CIA, top Saudi and Israeli intelligence officials, and more than one hundred other sources. His access to major players is unparalleled and often exclusive -- including executives at the Carlyle Group, the giant investment firm where the House of Bush and the House of Saud each has a major stake. Like Bob Woodward's The Veil, Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud features unprecedented reportage; like Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? Unger's book offers a political counter-narrative to official explanations; this deeply sourced account has already been cited by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, and sets 9/11, the two Gulf Wars, and the ongoing Middle East crisis in a new context: What really happened when America's most powerful political family became seduced by its Saudi counterparts?