Oil Shockwave

The Oil Shockwave event was a policy wargaming scenario created by the joint effort of several energy policy 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. 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 country Nigeria, and coordinated terrorist attacks on ports in Saudi Arabia and Alaska. In the original simulation, 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."