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OIlprice.com's Energy section focuses on all energy related topics that can't be easily classified in our other categories. Topics covered are fossil fuel energy, solar energy, wind energy and many other types of energy sources.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, the architect of OPEC’s strategy to regain market share by causing the price of crude oil to plunge, says his plan is working, and data from petroleum research firms seem to back him up. Making his first public comments in two months, al-Naimi told reporters in the southwestern Saudi city of Jazan that the markets have cooled off, and cited Brent crude, the global benchmark, as an example, noting that its price has stabilized at about $60 per barrel. He also pointed to data that inexpensive oil is driving up demand, notably in China and…
Interconnectivity? Check. Lessens dependence on Russia? Check. Fosters renewables growth while addressing climate goals? Check. Norway’s upcoming NordLink accomplishes all of the above, but is it representative of a larger trend in European energy security a la the European Commission’s “energy union”? The short answer is yes, though with some sizeable reservations. On Tuesday, February 24 the European Commission (EC) leaked a 19-page draft blueprint for an “energy union” – a grab bag of policies and proposals designed to transform the 28-member European Union into a more cohesive energy market. Despite its seemingly widespread appeal, the initiative has revealed deep…
During his visit to Ankara in December 2014, Vladimir Putin announced that South Stream—a large pipeline that would have carried Europe-bound Russian gas under the Black Sea and across Southeastern Europe—had been terminated. A major reason for South Stream’s cancellation was attributed to the exit from the project of Bulgaria, one of the key countries through which this pipeline would pass. Instead, Russia and its regional partners, including Turkey, are now discussing a new pipeline project—Turkish Stream, sometimes referred to as Turk Stream. It is becoming increasingly evident that Russia and Turkey want to ensure that the Turkish Stream project…
Africa’s most populous country will head to the polls on March 28th in the closest elections in Nigeria’s short democratic history. While security has dominated the electoral debate, Nigeria’s next president is set to face other pressing challenges. Nigeria surpassed South Africa and became the continent’s largest economy in 2014. But despite the economic growth achieved in the past decade, most of the country lacks the infrastructure to ensure development in the current environment of low commodity prices. Nigeria has one of the worst electricity supplies in the world second only to India. No access to power hinders the country’s…
The conventional wisdom recently has been that North America will keep producing shale oil for some time despite the higher costs associated with hydraulic fracturing and the 50 percent drop in oil prices over the past eight months. The thing about conventional wisdom is that it tends to be challenged, sometimes successfully. And shale’s biggest producer in the United States, EOG Resources Inc., is saying the recent rapid growth in its own shale production will end this year. And this idea is supported by people with experience in oil. Certainly, though, the logic behind the theory of continued shale production…
Elon Musk and his company Tesla Motors will revolutionize the way you drive, and while they’re at it, the way electricity is priced and consumed. At least, that’s the plan. Thus far under Musk, such plans have sold quite well, even if only based on future promise. Is it all hype or can Tesla change the energy game? Musk’s latest – and perhaps greatest – venture doesn’t involve cars at all. Instead, Tesla has its eyes set on the home. The company plans to unveil a home battery in the next month or two with production beginning in around six…
Oil prices fluctuated up and down over the course of this week, with a wider gulf opening up between WTI and Brent crude. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported higher than expected inventories for the week ending on February 13, jumping by 7.7 million barrels. The figures continue to astonish – even as rigs drop at a surreal pace, down 30 percent since October, production continues at elevated levels. The disparity has opened up a bit of a debate among energy analysts about the utility of using rig counts as a metric to evaluate the status of the U.S. oil…
Many readers have asked me to explain debt. They also wonder, “Why can’t we just cancel debt and start over?” if we are reaching oil limits, and these limits threaten to destabilize the system. To answer these questions, I need to talk about the subject of promises in general, not just what we would call debt. In some sense, debt and other promises are what hold together our networked economy. Debt and other promises allow division of labor, because each person can “pay” the others in the group for their labor with a promise of some sort, rather than with…
In an internet comments section I was once berated by a reader for not following what they described as the number one rule of trading, that you should trade with conviction. It was obvious that that person had never made a living in a dealing room or on a trading floor. Anybody who has will tell you that the only conviction successful traders possess is the absolute certainty that a good percentage of trades will go wrong, and that something that looks like a great buy one day can look like a screaming sell on another. That is why, as…
Don’t look now but the anti-fossil fuel movement is quickly building momentum. Climate activists have campaigned against oil, gas, and coal for years. And while legislation in the U.S. Congress addressing climate change seems as remote as ever, outside of the beltway the anti-fossil fuel movement is building support at a breakneck pace. Consider the series of wins that environmentalists continue to rack up. The Keystone XL pipeline seemed destined for approval several years ago with an oil-friendly Secretary of State in Hillary Clinton and a largely indifferent President in the White House. That all changed when environmental groups led…
