Controlling the energy lines is one critical factor in Syrian war but not the only one.

This reconfirms our earlier assessment on Gas/Energy wars in Syria. Saudi Arabia trying to offer lucrative deals to Russia to abandon its own projects in Syria, so that Western companies, Saudis, Israelis and Qataris can grab the European Gas route of pipeline through Syria.

This is the ultimate tragedy. Read this post in line with the post below to understand the larger Geo-political and Geo-economic game plan over the Middle Eastern wars. Controlling the energy lines is one critical factor but not the only one.

Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria

Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria.

OPEC raised production by 400,000 barrels per day to 29.7m Photo: AP

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

12:00PM BST 27 Aug 2013

The revelations come amid high tension in the Middle East, with US, British, and French warship poised for missile strikes in Syria. Iran has threatened to retaliate.

The strategic jitters pushed Brent crude prices to a five-month high of $112 a barrel. “We are only one incident away from a serious oil spike. The market is a lot tighter than people think,” said Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review.

Leaked transcripts of a closed-door meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan shed an extraordinary light on the hard-nosed Realpolitik of the two sides.

Prince Bandar, head of Saudi intelligence, allegedly confronted the Kremlin with a mix of inducements and threats in a bid to break the deadlock over Syria. “Let us examine how to put together a unified Russian-Saudi strategy on the subject of oil. The aim is to agree on the price of oil and production quantities that keep the price stable in global oil markets,” he said at the four-hour meeting with Mr Putin. They met at Mr Putin’s dacha outside Moscow three weeks ago.

“We understand Russia’s great interest in the oil and gas in the Mediterranean from Israel to Cyprus. And we understand the importance of the Russian gas pipeline to Europe. We are not interested in competing with that. We can cooperate in this area,” he said, purporting to speak with the full backing of the US.