The Stalemate North of Hokkaido
More than 60 years ago, in the last days of World War II, the Soviet Union seized the four islands north of Hokkaido from Japan, islands that Russia had recognized as Japanese for nearly 100 years prior to their occupation in late 1945. Over the course of the past six decades, the dispute over ownership of these four islands has overshadowed relations between Moscow and Tokyo, frustrating repeated efforts to sign once and for all a peace treaty formally ending the state of war between them that began in August 1945. Japan's desire for greater energy security in recent years has held out the possibility of improved relations with Russia, the world's second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, provided that the two nations could reach some kind of modus vivendi over the territorial issue. However, the recent Putin-Koizumi summit held in Tokyo late last year offered little hope that this might occur anytime soon. Observers in both countries are now suggesting that it may take another decade, and the passing of the generation exiled from the disputed islands, before this issue can be resolved dispassionately as a nettlesome historical problem, rather than the matter of personal loss and human dislocation that it has become.
RUSSIA: GREAT POWER IMAGE VERSUS ECONOMIC REALITY
Russia’s vision of itself has largely coalesced around that of a unique regional power, with the natural resources, glorious history, and will power to be a major player in a future multipolar world. As seen by most Russians, under the guidance of President Vladimir Putin, Russia has become an economically powerful actor with an important and independent voice on the international stage, including rebuilding historic economic alliances with states described as rogues by the United States and forming a strategic partnership with China. Some have seen the challenges to the West combined with Russia’s close relationship with China as a threat to the United States; but this threat should not be overblown. As China continues to assert itself and eventually challenges Russia’s declared dominance of Central Asian resources, the two states may well clash.
Predicting the gas resource potential in reservoir C-sand interval of Lower Goru Formation, Middle Indus Basin, Pakistan
Abstract The integrated study of seismic attributes and inversion analysis can provide a better understanding for predicting the hydrocarbon-bearing zones even in extreme heterogeneous reservoirs. This study aims to delineate and characterize the gas saturated zone within the reservoir (Cretaceous C-sand) interval of Sawan gas field, Middle Indus Basin, Pakistan. The hydrocarbon bearing zone is well identified through the seismic attribute analysis along a sand channel. The sparse-spike inversion analysis has efficiently captured the variations in reservoir parameter (P-impedance) for gas prospect. Inversion results indicated that the relatively lower P-impedance values are encountered along the predicted sand channel. To further characterize the reservoir, geostatistical techniques comprising multiattribute regression and probabilistic neural network (PNN) analysis are applied to predict the effective porosity of reservoir. Comparatively, the PNN analysis predicted the targeted property more efficiently and applied its estimations on entire seismic volume. Furthermore, the geostatistical estimations of PNN analysis significantly predicted the gas-bearing zones and confirmed the sand channel as a major contributor of gas accumulation in the area. These estimates are in appropriate agreement with each other, and the workflow adopted here can be applied to various South Asian regions and in other parts of the world for improved characterization of gas reservoirs.