International Energy Agency

In October, rebel forces presumably said to hell with it and figured they'd save everyone a lot of time by killing Gadhafi themselves. The ICC didn't seem to mind much and a now-fractured interim government did little to worry the Italian government enough to decide during the weekend that business was booming in post-Gadhafi Libya.  Before the conflict began, a group of Democratic lawmakers in Washington issued a 123-page report claiming the 2009 decision to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was tied to commercial oil interests with Tripoli.  A British inquiry into the case found BP was involved to some extent in the 2009 decision because, according to New York's Sen. Chuck Schumer, London wanted an oil deal to go through with the Gadhafi government.   So where were these same senators when it was announced in November that Abdulrahman Ben Yezza was appointed as the new Libyan oil minister? He's the former chairman of Eni Oil Co., a joint venture between the Italian energy company and Libya's National Oil Corp. Why no furor when Eni Chief Executive Officer Paulo Scaroni became the first executive from an oil major to visit when he went to Tripoli in September? For that matter, where are the Democrats in the United States? It seems rather duplicitous to on one hand sit and debate censuring Syria at the Security Council for 10 months while it took, what, a few weeks to get one through on Libya? Was Gadhafi's Libya somehow ripe for the picking? Was the Libyan resolution simply too crafty for those pesky Russians?  Italy and Libya during the weekend signed a letter that spells out bilateral coordination for the protection of its borders and oil installations. Makes you wonder who is drawing up what at which European energy company as U.S. battle carriers head to the western Iranian coast.

Quick, what country is the economic engine that will power world growth? If you answered "China," you're far from alone. But there's another country that deserves as much attention and better yet, is much friendlier to investment: India, home to 1.2 billion people. To electrify all those houses, power the industries that keep all those people employed, and fuel the vehicles that more and more Indians own, India's energy needs are shooting skyward. First question to consider: what kind of energy does India need? Just about every kind, really. India encompasses significant reserves of coal, oil, and gas, but each year it has to import more and more to meet its rapidly rising demand. Domestic production increases have been hampered by land disputes, interminably slow permitting, and government-regulated pricing mechanisms that discourage development. That's got to change if India wants to keep up, and its government knows it. Domestic supplies always come with better reliability, better prices, and other benefits that we can shorten into two words: energy security. So India is reaching out to foreign oil majors, quietly setting up deals to exchange stakes in giant, underexplored oil and gas fields for the technical expertise it needs to best develop these resources. These partnerships are working into place slowly. However, they show Delhi is serious about the welcome mat it rolled out in 2000, when it passed a policy that allows foreign companies to own 100% of any oil and gas assets they may want to acquire for exploration and development. And what we really like is that explorers are welcome in a democratic and reasonably friendly country that harbors none of the risk of asset nationalization that clings to other underexplored locales, like Venezuela.