Crude and Product Price Rally Overdone? The seasonally unusual spikes in crude and gasoline accompanied more bullish views of global economic fundamentals, despite shorter term year-end and other inventory effects (some of which have reversed in January). As well, along with gold, energy prices probably participated in the ongoing ‘QE2’ trade. However, January data …
Coincident with the near-formal demise of Carbon Legislation as one of many ‘intended consequences’ from the US mid term elections, a number of carbon-related topics seem to present themselves this month. Fossil Fuels and Carbon – New perspective on an ongoing issue How should Countries of the World allocate the responsibility for cutting carbon emissions …
Global Natural Gas – Interesting Trends have investment implications A by-product of very weak US natural gas prices, cheap chemical feedstocks, is taking hold as the US is probably the second lowest cost producer of commodity chemicals in the world, next to the Middle East. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s decade long quest for natural gas …
OPEC – “What, We Worry???” Iraq has plans to produce up to 12 million b/d by 2020. Outsiders, including former head of Saudi Aramco, think they’ll be lucky to get to 4.3 by 2015. This is BELOW a skeptical consensus, and also BELOW Iran’s likely output (4 mm b/d today and marginally higher – at …
Going Nu-cular i attended a Uranium Conference in Toronto last week. Key takeaways for this source of low carbon baseload electric power: a) Most estimates of Chinese nuclear expansion plans are understated, even by the Chinese, who have doubled their 2020 plan, to 75 plants, since 2005. b) China’s ramp to 2020 will requires about …
OPEC at 50 In September, OPEC celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding meeting, in Baghdad, in 1960. That was a different world: Much of OPEC volume was at the order of international partners (Exxon, etc) in key resources in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, etc, who also set a ‘posting price,’ for the product. A …
Oil Markets The effect of economic prospects has generally replaced the US dollar as the leading correlation with oil prices in recent months, as inventories continue to rise in all markets. Easy comps have driven strong YoY consumption rates in Germany, while tougher comps (extra storage plus stimulus) have hindered similar period comparisons in China. …
It’s hard to focus on the fundamental energy environment, whether conventional or renewable, without continued consideration of the Macondo explosion and massive oil spill. I’m going to try, since so much else is ongoing, but, first…. Macondo Comment du Jour Just as noted in the last Issue, the estimated flow rate from the wellbore continues …
Spain – Backing away from a Subsidy Program Run Amock Some renewables projects have become ensnared in the Post Macondo regulatory environment. NRG Energy says that its offshore wind power project (Delaware) could take 3x longer than expected to receive approval, after the spill drove a reorganization of (all) federal offshore regulation. Spain takes another …
Geopolitics Comes to the US Gulf of Mexico If oil geopolitics are defined as the regional effects of politics on global oil/energy fundamentals (or security), perhaps the most important geopolitical events of the past six months have not been in the Middle East, or Korea, but the US Gulf of Mexico, where the most energy …