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il and gas have not only fueled economies but created rivalries, territorial disputes and wars.

In the last one hundred years or so, since petro- leum resources have been commercially extract-

O ed it is central to numerous armed conficts.

Some notable examples, are seen in Europe, Middle East,

Africa and now extending into the Southern Caribbean: 1. World War II (1939-1945) - German Expansion: One of Hitler’s strategic goals was to access oil in the Caucasus (Baku, Gronzny and Mailok areas). The 1942 Battle of Stalingrad was directly tied to Ger- many’s push toward the enormous Soviet oil felds.

2. Middle East Conficts - Iran (1953 Coup): The nationalization of the

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now bP) by Prime Minister

Mossadegh led to a United States-United Kingdom backed coup, reinstating the Shah. While not a direct war, it set the stage for decades of instability.

- Gulf War (1990-1991): Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was triggered by Kuwaiti overproduction which had the di- rect effect of keeping oil prices low and alleged directional drilling into Iraqi oil felds. The U.S.-led coalition intervened to secure Gulf oil supplies, whereby major U.S. Oil and Gas corporations such KBR (NYSE: KBR) was heavily involved in providing wide ranging post-war engineering, maintenance and construction services to Iraq’s oil and gas sector, leading the development of the Majnoon Oil Field and Front-End

Engineering Design (FEED) for a fertilizer plant.

3. Africa - Niger Delta Region (Nigeria): Since the 1990’s, conficts between the government, multinational oil com- panies, like Shell Nigeria, and militant groups such as the

Movement of the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP)

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF: have resulted in pipeline sabotage, kidnapping and armed conficts over wealth distribution.

- Sudan (1980-2000s): Oil discovered in southern

Sudan intensifed civil wars, where control of oil felds

ENERGY, BORDERS AND THE WAR became a major driver of confict, eventually resulting in

South Sudan declaring independence in 2011.

4. Russia-Ukraine War (2022 – present):

NARRATIVE IN THE AMERICAS - While more about geopolitics and security, and con- trol over natural gas transit routes to Europe factored into tensions. By 2020, Ukraine transited more natural gas than

By Wilfred de Gannes any other country in the world as it remained the main route for Russian natural gas sold to Europe, earning Ukraine about

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2025 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 35