He joined the Middle East Economic Digest in 1980 and was MEED's U.S. Editor from 1984 to 1988 and then Washington Bureau Chief for Al Hayat Newspaper from 1988 to 1989.
[2] In 1990, he broke the news that Saddam Hussein was determined to re-open Iraq's boundary dispute with Kuwait, the issue that led to the Gulf Crisis and War of 1990–1991.
As editor of Middle East Monitor in the 1990s, he reported on the emergence of Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq, the changing fortunes of the Arab World, Iran in an era characterised by international sanctions, and the slow recovery of trust between OPEC producer states and industrialised consuming nations.
[3] Currently, Roberts writes and lectures on energy security and environmental issues, including producer-consumer relations, water management in Central Asia, Turkey and the Middle East,[4] and the interlinked relationships between the European Union and its oil and gas suppliers in Russia, the Caspian and the Middle East.
[5] In assessing global energy security issues, he has regularly toured the Gulf and the Caspian, as well as visiting the Alaskan North Slope Pipeline, the Athabasca Tar Sands, Norway, and Venezuela.