John M. Roberts is a nonresident senior fellow at Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. He is also a senior partner with Methinks Ltd, a consultancy specializing in the interrelationship between energy, economic development, and politics. He has particular expertise in the development of energy in the Caucasus and Central Asia and in the pipelines connecting or intended to connect the Caspian to China, Russia, India, and Europe

Roberts is one of Europe’s leading energy security specialists. He served as managing editor at Platts for twelve years and previously with Financial Times Energy, focusing on the development of energy and on the impact of energy on development. In assessing global energy security issues, he has regularly toured the Gulf and the Caspian, as well as visited the Alaskan North Slope, the Athabasca Tar Sands, China, Norway, and Venezuela. He has also testified to UK parliamentary committees on Turkish, Russian, Caspian, and Mideast energy security issues. He is currently researching shale gas development in China and hydrocarbons development in the Eastern Mediterranean and Northern Iraq.

His books include Caspian Pipelines (1996), Visions & Mirages: The Middle East in a New Era (1995), and Beyrouth: L’Été ’82 (Beirut, Summer of ’82) (1983). His latest book, Pipeline Politics: The Caspian and Global Energy Security, was published in 2014 by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the United Kingdom and by the Brookings Institution in the United States.