opec

OPEC reaction?

Signs are emerging that key Persian Gulf members of OPEC are adjusting their strategies to cope with the growing threat that North American shale oil is making to their long-term dominance in global energy markets.[read more]

With the President of the United States currently playing the role of pessimist-in-chief with regard to US energy independence, it's refreshing to see that goal raised as a serious possibility by someone whose experience and position give him deeper insights on the subject. A few years ago Ed Morse was running the oil trading operation...[read more]

Oddly enough, I found myself nodding vigorously while listening to George Will yesterday on This Week. He derided politicians who claim to be able to move globally determined oil prices enough to influence gas prices dramatically, saying they might as well promise we can grow lobsters on trees. He rightly called it “economic nonsense.”...[read more]

In an interview with Austrian newspaper Kurier at the end of the month, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem al-Badri went so far as to declare that “$100 a barrel doesn’t hurt the world economy at all.” As oil consuming nations struggle to climb out of global recession, does $100 per barrel constitute a reasonable price? Not likely.[read more]

A pair of items in today's Financial Times could signal a longer run of high oil prices, even if Europe were to slip into recession and economic growth elsewhere slow. Geoffrey Styles explains how the combination of Saudi Arabia's increase of its target oil price and Venezuela's volatile leader will affect long run oil prices.[read more]

Without much fanfare, the Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy released a report on 2011 energy commodity prices yesterday. It confirmed that crude oil and key petroleum products set annually averaged price records last year. This largely snuck up on us, because it occurred without the kind of dramatic price spike we experienced in 2008 or in the oil crises of the 1970s. Prices rose early in the year, during the Libyan revolution, and they didn't fall much, subsequently.[read more]

The oil price has rarely fallen below $100 a barrel since the Arab Spring threatened supplies at the start of 2011. Libya is now nearly back at full-scale production post-war, which some suggest could increase global supply and theoretically lead to price falls. But other analysts believe other Opec powers such as Saudi ...[read more]

Curbing domestic oil use is a key driver Turki al_faisal, Saudia Arabia's point man on nuclear energy. Photo: Saudia Arabia Embassy, Washington, DC The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) plans to build 16 nuclear reactors over the next 20 years spending an estimated $7 billion on each plant. The $112 billion investment, which includes...[read more]

Does Iraq have what it takes to shake up the global energy market? Oil production capacity growth in Iraq and Saudi Arabia hold the key to future oil market stability, but the outlook for gains in the near to intermediate term looks cloudy, according to a new study by the Baker Institute. Political instability in a number of oil-...[read more]

Over time, it is increasingly getting obvious that Saudi Arabia is going through the process of peak oil production and eventual decline. And as peak oil author Matt Simmons had said, "as Saudia Arabia goes, so goes the world". The first alarm bells started ringing as early as 2005 when it was first discovered that apparently the Saudi's could be having problems keeping up production of light sweet crude oil which is the more desired grade of oil.[read more]

How should we understand the cost of a gallon of gasoline? This is a very serious question with a myriad of layers and implications. The price of gasoline, at the pump, is the most prominent indicator of energy costs for a very large share of humanity. Whether driving a car or taking a bus or even walking on a street, the ‘arm and a...[read more]

While Robert continues his trip to Europe and across the Continental U.S., a significant piece of news has been dominating the headlines. Although we’ve been closely monitoring the release of 60 million barrels of crude on our Energy Ticker page, we also wanted to generate some discussion on the topic, here, on the R-Squared Energy Blog...[read more]

I see that the administration has decided to release 30 million barrels of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, in coordination with a matched release from the strategic stocks of other OECD member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA.) The release will be spaced over the next month, though it's not clear how soon it...[read more]

As you've probably read or heard by now, the President and his staff have arranged through the International Energy Agency to release 60 million barrels of oil supply into the marketplace over the next month. While that sounds like a lot of oil -- and it is -- it's useful to keep in mind that the world consumes that much in...[read more]

A poll reported in this morning's Wall St. Journal (subscription) indicated that more Americans are significantly affected by high gas prices than by rising food prices, falling home values, unemployment or foreclosures. That's a surprising result, considering that transportation fuel only accounts for about 5% of average household...[read more]