Editorial Dept

Latest articles from Editorial

• Push-Back from Investors Improves Libra Prospects

  Published 18 October 2013 | viewed 10,475 times

  Bottom line: In its final rules for the Libra auction scheduled for 21 October, the government of Brazil loosened the mandate to permit the winning…

• Markets Uncertain as Egypt Violence Waxes and Wanes

  Published 18 October 2013 | viewed 4,951 times

  Bottom Line: Investors are pulling out but the Egypt stock exchange is at its highest since the ouster of Mubarak in 2011, as protests and…

• Mali Peace over Before It Begins

  Published 18 October 2013 | viewed 5,331 times

  Bottom Line: Oil exploration deals signed by interim and the new government of Mali for operations in the restive north won’t make it far with…

• French Areva in (More) Trouble in Niger

  Published 18 October 2013 | viewed 6,390 times

  Bottom Line: Following on the recent announcement by the authorities in Niger that Areva will have to undergo a state audit, thousands of local residents…

• A Billion-Ton Coal Miner You’ve Never Heard Of

  Published 11 October 2013 | viewed 6,346 times

  One thing I’ve noticed in the resource business: big never goes out of style.If there’s a large in-ground resource, someone will always be eying a…

• A Private Commodity Trader that Should be a Long-Term Core Holding

  Published 11 October 2013 | viewed 3,722 times

  JP Morgan circulated offering documents yesterday to try and sell their physical commodity operations in copper, oil and natural gas.  Why are they leaving, who's…

• Kashagan: A Giant in the (Painfully Slow) Making

  Published 11 October 2013 | viewed 4,063 times

  Thirteen years in the making and $50 billion later, the supergiant Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan is finally online after many delays, but its short-term…

• Venezuela’s PDVSA Drowns in Transport Costs

  Published 11 October 2013 | viewed 4,830 times

  Bottom line: Transport costs are a sieve winnowing away Pdvsa’s profits and a recent investigation appears to show that at least three ships commissioned and…

• China to Stake Claim off Brazil’s Coast

  Published 11 October 2013 | viewed 9,564 times

  Bottom line: China likely to stake a claim off Brazil’s coast through Libra pre-salt auction, but at a potentially high environmental cost for Brazil.Analysis: Given…

• What Russia’s Arctic Attack on Greenpeace is Really About

  Published 11 October 2013 | viewed 5,504 times

  Bottom Line: The recent detention of Greenpeace activists in the Arctic display Russian fears of losing absolute control over Arctic waters and specifically over the…

• Syria, the Next Phase

  Published 11 October 2013 | viewed 6,136 times

  Bottom Line: Watch now as the original Syrian rebels float back to Assad, who becomes the “savior” of Syria and the only force capable of…

• The One Number Every Oil and Gas Investor Needs

  Published 04 October 2013 | viewed 4,405 times

  I talked a little last week about the “recycle ratio”. This is a tool every oil and gas investor needs to understand. Without exaggeration, if…

• Kurdistan: Raising the Oil & Gas Stakes

  Published 04 October 2013 | viewed 3,935 times

  Until Sunday, 29 September, Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) has not seen an attack of the kind that plagues the rest of Iraq on a daily basis…

• Niger’s Hedges Bets on French Uranium Assets

  Published 04 October 2013 | viewed 5,033 times

  Bottom Line: Under constant threat of terrorist attacks in the security nightmare of Niger, French nuclear group Areva will now face an audit of its…

• Iran’s Economic Liberalization Hangs on a Looming Internal Confrontation

  Published 04 October 2013 | viewed 4,894 times

  Bottom Line: As we have mentioned previously, the 14 June election in Iran has markedly changed the political landscape and increased the chances for economic…

• Tunisia’s Islamist to Step Down as Crisis Narrowly Averted

  Published 04 October 2013 | viewed 4,772 times

  Bottom Line: Tunisia’s ruling Ennahda party has agreed to hand over power to an independent transitional technocratic leadership after three weeks of talks with the…

• Another Discovery for Financially Moribund Petrobras

  Published 04 October 2013 | viewed 3,919 times

  Bottom Line: A new discovery for Petrobras offshore in the northeast of Brazil is good news in theory, but bad news in terms of investment…

• The Best Way to Beat Today’s High Costs in Oil and Gas

  Published 27 September 2013 | viewed 5,012 times

  I’m a big fan of royalty companies. And I want to tell you about a new firm I’ve found, that’s using this time-tested model for…

• A Great Opportunity in the Oil Services Sector

  Published 27 September 2013 | viewed 3,610 times

  I've recently found very little to like in the oil services sector, but a move this week has me looking very seriously at starting a…

• Massive Investor Risk in Turkey as Erdogan Takes on Koc

  Published 27 September 2013 | viewed 6,365 times

  Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has decided to take on the biggest family in the country in the form of Koc Holding. The markets don’t…