Note: I want to state up front that this was a challenging analysis. There’s not a lot of data for many pieces of this analysis, and many assumptions must made. I was explicit in stating […]
Oil Prices Could Fall Much Further As Russia Refuses Additional Production Cuts
As 2019 came to a close, oil prices were under pressure from the continued surge of U.S. shale oil. Although OPEC and its partners had already cut production by more than 1 million barrels per […]
Coronavirus Has OPEC In A Panic
The book “The Black Swan” was written by former Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe rare, outlier events that can’t be predicted beforehand, but that have potentially huge consequences. The phrase “black swan” […]
No, The Oceans Are Not Acidic
Last week a widely-circulated CNN story declared: The Pacific Ocean is so acidic that it’s dissolving Dungeness crabs’ shells While the story describes an actual issue of concern (more on that below), the headline helps […]
Reinstating The Crude Export Ban Would Be A Gift To OPEC and Russia
In December 2015, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016. A provision of this bill repealed a crude oil export ban that the U.S. had in place since 1975. This repeal was […]
Oil Bankruptcies Are Piling Up
Law firm Haynes and Boone recently released its updated Energy Bankruptcy Reports. These reports cover North American oil and gas producers, oilfield services and midstream bankruptcies from the beginning of 2015 through 2019. Over the entire five-year period, […]
Oil Prices Are Getting Slammed By Coronavirus
One of my energy sector predictions for this year was that oil prices would not drop below $50 a barrel. This may turn out to be the fastest falsified prediction I have ever made. Since […]
Environmental Implications Of Lead-Acid And Lithium-Ion Batteries
Following recent articles I wrote on both lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries, I received significant correspondence about the environmental pros and cons of both types of battery. In this article I will use some of the […]
Energy Sector Predictions For 2020
We begin 2020 with the stock market again testing record highs. We just finished a year in which oil prices rose by more than 30%. However, natural gas prices closed the year nearly 40% lower, […]
How Much Oil Do We Import From The Middle East?
With tensions in the Middle East high, I have fielded a number of queries on how this might impact the world’s oil markets. Today I want to explore that issue. The Middle East presently produces […]