Oil Shockwave
Encyclopedia
The Oil Shockwave event was a policy wargaming
Wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...

 scenario created by the joint effort of several energy policy
Energy policy
Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity has decided to address issues of energy development including energy production, distribution and consumption...

 think tanks, the National Commission on Energy Policy and Securing America's Future Energy. It outlined a series of hypothetical international events taking place in December 2005, all related to world supply and demand of petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...

. Participants in the scenario role-played Presidential Cabinet officials, who were asked to discuss and respond to the events. The hypothetical events included civil unrest in OPEC
OPEC
OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...

 country Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, and coordinated terrorist attacks on ports in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

 and Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

. In the original simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....

, the participants had all previously held jobs closely related to their roles in the exercise.

Jason Grumet, from the National Commission on Energy Policy, said that the message of the simulation was that, "very modest disruptions in oil supply, whether they're here at home or abroad can have truly devastating impacts on our nations economy and our overall security."

Details of the scenario

The original event was performed June 23, 2005, and was a simulation of December 2005, six months in the future. The first scenario involved civil unrest in Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, resulting in oil companies and the US government evacuating their personnel from the country. In the simulation, this led to decrease in oil supply and the price spikes causing a variety of negative effects on the United States economy.

More events followed as the scenario progressed, including a very cold winter in the Northern hemisphere, terrorist attacks on Saudi Arabian and Alaskan oil ports, and Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

 cells hijacking oil tankers and crashing them into the docking facilities at the ports (which might effectively shut down such port for weeks, if not months).

The scenarios were set up with pre-produced scripted news clips. Participants were also given briefing memos with background information related to their specific cabinet positions. The participants discussed and prepared policy recommendations for an unseen Chief Executive after each part of the scenario.

Original participants

The original event was a one-time exercise and used participants that held positions that were identical or closely related to their positions in the simulation. Participants included former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...

 Carol Browner, former Director of Central Intelligence
Director of Central Intelligence
The Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...

 Robert Gates, former Marine Corps Commendant and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...

General P.X. Kelley USMC (Ret.), and former National Economic Advisor to the President, Gene Sperling.

External links

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