From Gaza to Iran to Venezuela to the Yintah and to Laxyip, the world’s most urgent crises are intrinsically shaped by the world’s most profitable industry: oil and gas. In this month’s study in struggle, we read about the political economy of oil and gas. We explored the role of the fossil fuel industry in the global economy, in the military-industrial complex and within imperialism and extractivism. We also discussed struggles for Indigenous sovereignty on the frontlines against climate crisis.

“But if you look historically, energy transitions under capitalism have always been additive… So when we look at renewables: it’s clear that, yes, there is going to be an increase in renewable sources, particularly for electricity. There may even be a drop in the relative share of fossil fuels for things like electricity production. But I think it’s unlikely that under capitalism we will see any genuine transition from fossil fuels. In this sense, the green transition is a myth. It’s not happening—and certainly not at the pace necessary to mitigate the worst case scenarios of the climate disaster.” – Adam Hanieh

Petrochemical/plastics industry

“The second consequence of this counter-shock [the 1979 Volcker Shock] was that it really marked the breakdown of the longstanding system of administrative oil pricing. And in its place emerged a market-based system of oil pricing, in which oil futures traded on financial markets set the price of oil. This is what we have today, and it is substantially autonomous—although not separate from—the physical production and consumption of oil. The link between oil and financial markets played a big part in the emergence of what is often described as “financialization.”

“We need to break with a kind of commodity fetishism when we think about oil. What I mean by this is that we need to situate oil and oil’s meaning, if you like, in the various logics of capitalism—not as something inherent to oil itself. If we take this approach, we can see oil beyond its role as simply a liquid transport fuel, and trace how it has become so embedded throughout a huge array of our daily lives. Finance is one side to this, but the petrochemical/plastics industry is another.”

“Today, oil companies describe petrochemicals and plastics literally as the future of oil. And there is also an increasing recognition that plastics themselves are a major source of greenhouse gasses. If plastics were a country, the emissions associated with their production would rank them as the world’s fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter. So we need to think about plastics in the sense of how they have embedded the power of oil in our lives, and are thus a central question to tackling the climate crisis.”- Adam Hanieh, The Green Transition is a Myth

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, Israel, and America

“To come back to the wider geopolitics of the region, historically, the US had two major pillars of influence and power in the Middle East. One was Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, and the second was Israel, particularly after the 1967 war. And what the US has tried to do over the last couple of decades is bring these two pillars together: to normalize relationships between the Gulf and Israel under American hegemony. …. This is ultimately why the US continues to fund, support and back Israel and its war against the Palestinian people, and now across the wider region. This is an attempt to reassert American power in the face of the kinds of rivalries that we see emerging globally. The Middle East is such an important part of this global picture because of the ongoing centrality of oil to capitalism.”- Adam Hanieh, The Green Transition is a Myth

See also: The Guardian, Recognized Palestinian State Could Develop Disputed Gas Resources and Al Jazeera, What Would Blocking Straight of Hormuz Mean for Oil, LNG?

Venezuela

“Just weeks before the American military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro, the US energy giant Halliburton filed an unusual lawsuit in international court claiming the Venezuelan government owed them damages for US sanctions against the country.

A separate case against Venezuela is also being pursued by another fossil fuel giant whose board includes an oil magnate whose family has delivered large financial contributions to Republicans and conservative causes. One family member poured tens of thousands of dollars into a political committee focused on reelecting President Donald Trump in 2024.

Such companies with pending claims could now be among the first in line to receive a massive windfall from a new Trump-installed Venezuelan government that is willing to funnel the South American country’s cash to corporate plaintiffs.” – Luke Goldstein and Lucy Dean Stockton, Corporations Are Ready to Cash In on Venezuela

See also: Matt Huber, Trump’s Venezuela Actions Are About More Than Oil

Vanguard, Blackrock and ExxonMobil

“Oil is extracted in Latin America, refined by oil companies in the United States, and sold as fuels, often to the countries from which the oil was initially extracted. The system keeps countries in the region locked in, enabling extraction in Latin America to generate long-term profits for U.S.-based shareholders. Vanguard and Blackrock, the two largest firms financing fossil fuel extraction, are also the two largest shareholders in the U.S.’s largest oil company ExxonMobil, with 10.2 percent and 7.3 percent respectively. These are key players in an exploitative system that forms the foundation of U.S. imperial power in the region.

The extent to which countries in the region are locked into this system is striking. Current data from Comtrade, the United Nations global trade data platform, shows that half of all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean for which data is available sourced more than 75 percent  of their imported petroleum fuels from the U.S. in 2024. For Paraguay and Mexico, this figure was close to 100 percent.” – NACLA, US stifles Clean Energy Independence in Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean

“The effects of this extractive system run far deeper than trade; societies and politics in the region are also deeply shaped by fossil fuel dynamics. Weakened institutions, a blending of political and economic power, emboldened autocratic political currents, disempowered citizens, and some of the world’s greatest levels of inequality are all social characteristics in part associated with state dependence on fossil extraction.

This is not to say that oil determines politics in its entirety but rather that the way in which energy is produced and distributed profoundly shapes social and political realities. For Latin America and the Caribbean, this point has empowering consequences: if fossil fuel dependencies could be broken in the region, political realities could change too. That’s not just an academic hypothetical, it’s an emerging reality.”- NACLA, US stifles Clean Energy Independence in Latin America and the Caribbean

LNG in B.C.

“B.C. is on the cusp of exponentially increasing its methane and carbon emissions as liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects get underway. The gas, commonly extracted from underground deposits through a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is then cooled to -160 C to take a denser liquid form that’s easier to transport. It is mostly composed of methane, which is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20 year period in terms of heating the planet.

At the end of the Douglas Channel, a 100-kilometre inlet on B.C.’s north coast, a massive change is taking shape. Soon, the first gas liquefaction and export facility to be built in Canada will light up the night sky as it starts operations with a dramatic flare of burning gas. LNG Canada is poised to bring its processing plant online in Kitimat, B.C., receiving gas from the province’s northeast via the Coastal GasLink pipeline and readying it for shipping across the Pacific Ocean. To the north, the proposed Ksi Lisims floating LNG plant is currently undergoing environmental assessment. The Nisg̱a’a-led project would receive gas from Prince Rupert Gas Transmission, an approved pipeline TC Energy sold to the Nisg̱a’a Nation and its Texas-based partner, Western LNG, on March 14.” – Matt Simmons, 5 Projects You Need to Know About as BC’s Oil and Gas Sector Heats Up

Oil Abolition

“So I want to argue that the struggle to abolish oil must join forces with other abolition struggles: namely, those aimed at policing and prisons. Abolishing oil requires fighting fossil capital; which in turn requires rolling back the repressive force of the state which protects fossil capital’s investments.

Some are already making these connections. The Red Deal, the Indigenous vision for a climate platform, calls for a moratorium on oil, gas, and coal extraction, but also demands divestment from police, La Migra, prison and military, drawing on “Black abolitionist traditions to call for divestment away from the caging, criminalizing, and harming of human beings and from the exploitative and extractive violence of fossil fuels.” The Black Lives Matter movement’s challenge to state repressive capacities are likewise a crucial part of the project of directing the coercive capacity of the state away from people and against fossil capital. In calling to defund the police, Black Lives Matter protesters have called instead for investment in public goods like education and housing; the Red Deal likewise calls for public investment in free housing, education, healthcare, transportation, and multispecies caretaking. In this we see glimpses of the project of abolition democracy which Martin rightly argues must be part of a Green New Deal, part of the project of building a world beyond the one that oil has made.”- Alyssa Battistoni, On the Politics of Oil Abolition

Lax’yip youth

“If the status quo continues, we foresee irreversible environmental, health and social damage that will echo for generations to come. This is not the legacy we want to leave behind.

Ethical Leadership: We demand accountability from those in positions of power. Our leaders, both Gitxsan and non-Gitxsan, must act with integrity, transparency, and a deep commitment to the land and the people. We call for an end to leadership that prioritizes profit over the well-being of our communities. The decisions made today will shape the world we inherit tomorrow. We will no longer accept the robbing of our future.

Those who continue to support projects like the PRGT pipeline are failing to prioritize the well-being of the land and future generations. They are failing us by choosing short-term economic gains over long-term environmental and cultural survival. As youth, we will inherit the consequences of their decisions, and we refuse to stand by while our future is compromised.

The Gitanyow Simgigyet and Sigidimhanaak have publicly acknowledged the message of the youth, and have burned their contracts concerning PRGT. We are calling out all Gitxsan Huwilp to stand with us, we ask that the rest of the signatories burn their agreements in solidarity with us and the Gitanyow Huwilp. Since this project was first introduced, there have been significant changes in our world and these agreements don’t reflect the needs of our People today. Don’t be afraid to change with the times” – Youth of the Gitxsan Laxyip, Opposing the PRGT Pipeline

Full List of Resources

Background Materials:

Poetry: