Gas is arguably more vulnerable than oil to unforeseen supply interruptions.

And, in many places, oil supplies are declining as old oil fields are depleted.

Remaining oil supplies will be concentrated in the volatile Middle East.

But gas is expensive to transport, for it depends on costly pipelines or gas liquefaction facilities that cannot be replaced quickly when flows are interrupted.

Russian energy managers count on the region s oil and gas supplies to supplement stagnating domestic production.

The 1979 1981 oil crisis is said to reflect the cutoff in oil due to the Iranian Revolution and the Iran Iraq war.

The BTC is designed to transport up to 50 million tons of crude oil annually and carries oil from the Caspian Sea oilfields to global markets.

It is here that China is currently investing billions of dollars in mega projects like expressways, tunnels, and oil and gas pipelines.

The Bahrain National Gas Company operates a gas liquefaction plant that utilizes gas piped directly from Bahrain's oilfields.

China has managed to secure new hydrocarbon supplies through pipelines from Kazakhstan and Russia.

Azerbaijan also promotes global energy security through development of the Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku Tbilisi Erzurum gas pipeline, as well as through the Baku Tbilisi Akhalkalaki Kars railroad project.

Instability in the Middle East will continue to limit oil supplies, discouraging the expansion of production.

The country imports most energy supplies, especially oil and natural gas and to a large extent depends on Russia as its energy supplier.

Moreover, 4,000 Chinese People Liberation Army troops are deployed in southern Sudan guarding an oil pipeline.

It takes a threat to oil supplies to get world leaders to pay attention to Africa.

Oil supply is likely to be vulnerable to political disruptions long before issues arise from overall scarcity of supply.

The Energy Charter Treaty has failed to bring Russia into a rule based framework for international transit via oil and gas pipelines.

The intensifying competition over natural resources among Asian countries is shaping resource geopolitics, including the construction of oil and gas pipelines.

The pipeline brought oil from the east side of the Andes to the coast, making Ecuador South America's second largest oil exporter.

Haifa was the country's largest deep water port, The head of the spur line to the Hejaz railway, was the oil terminal for the Mosul Haifa pipe line (which the Iraqi Government had closed in April) and home to the Consolidated Refineries oil refinery.

The collateral damaged produced by attacks against oil pipeline infrastructure by rebel guerrillas in the Colombian armed conflict has produced long term damage to the environment.

Few countries are as dependent on the Persian Gulf region s hydrocarbons as is India, which imports almost 80 of its consumption.

Russia s natural gas supplies to Europe play a vital role in this regard, because here, unlike in the case of oil, Russia s bargaining position is very strong.

Efficiencies in energy use are possible, but they cannot solve either the problem of long run oil supplies or climate change.

Thus, the energy of tomorrow could well reinforce the world s democracies and weaken its most repressive regimes, where most oil is to be found nowadays.

And our military get quite unhappy with having to stand guard on pipelines in Far off istan when what they actually signed up for was to protect American citizens.

This is true both for the public infrastructure (drains, depressions where water accumulates during the rainy season, broken drinking water supply pipes) and in the private homes (roof top, drinking water tanks, and water collections inside and around the house).

Our water pipes burst.

Water Supply

Last year s experience with interrupted gas supplies did have one benefit new life was blown into plans for alternative routes, like the Nabucco pipeline that is to bring Azeri gas to Europe through Turkey.

Much attention is being focused on the terms of the so called host government agreements concluded by the ExxonMobil led financing consortium and the governments of Chad and Cameroon to govern the construction and operation of the Doba oil fields and the pipeline.

An interactive map showing Iraq's oil infrastructure, including the locations of oil pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals, gas and oil fields as well as oil wells, is available for the public for the first time ever.

The killing so angered Shabwani's tribesmen that in the subsequent weeks, they fought heavily with government security forces, attacking a major oil pipeline in Maarib twice.

Electricity and water supply

But the lesson of 1973 is that a disruption of Gulf oil supplies would raise prices and damage both rich and poor economies, regardless of how secure their own sources of supply might be.

Water is heavier than oil, making it very expensive to ship or transport across long distances even by pipeline (which would require large, energy intensive pumps).

In Peru, a pipeline with leaks.

Consider the hyperbolic debate over the Keystone XL pipeline, which would funnel oil from Canada s Athabasca tar sands in northeastern Alberta to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Total energy consumed at all power plants for the generation of electricity was 4,398,768 ktoe (kilo ton of oil equivalent) which was 36 of the total for primary energy sources (TPES) of 2008.

That means building new gas pipelines such as the Nabucco, Trans Saharan and White Stream projects that bypass Russia, and perhaps making their completion a condition for any new Russian pipelines, particularly the controversial trans Baltic Nordstream pipeline and the South Stream pipeline to the Balkans and Italy.

(5) West African gas pipeline project

But perhaps what countries really fear is not so much high prices but a total market breakdown and descent into an autarkic Mad Max world in which oil is scarce, no country is willing to allow trade in the oil it produces, and there is no world market clearing price.

There is presently no central electricity or piped water supply anywhere in Liberia.

It should consider linking the opening of the Nord Stream pipeline, which would allow Russia to cut off gas to Poland and Ukraine while maintaining deliveries to Germany, to the opening of the proposed White Stream pipeline to bring gas from Azerbaijan directly to Ukraine via Georgia, bypassing Russia.

Even if it were closer to the top, overthrowing Saddam Hussein to ensure oil supplies in 50 years ranks as the least plausible of strategies.