Robert Rapier

Latest articles from Robert

• The Tricky Question About Nuclear Even Experts Can’t Answer

  Published 26 May 2019 | viewed 16,026 times

  My wife and I have been watching the new HBO miniseries on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. During the second episode, she asked me the…

• Debunking The Oil Industry Cash Flow Myth

  Published 11 May 2019 | viewed 32,153 times

  One of the refrains I often hear about the oil industry — particularly on those focused-on shale and tight oil — is that it collectively doesn’t make…

• Should Chevron Walk Away From The Anadarko Deal?

  Published 08 May 2019 | viewed 36,677 times

  Chevron is arguably the best of the integrated super-major oil companies. For the past 20 years, Chevron has delivered superior returns to shareholders, outperforming the…

• Why Your Gasoline Won’t Take You As Far As it Used To

  Published 04 May 2019 | viewed 92,164 times

  Over the weekend, I saw a passing reference on Twitter to the declining energy content of gasoline. Intuitively I know this to be correct for reasons…

• What’s Behind The Gasoline Price Spike?

  Published 27 April 2019 | viewed 34,776 times

  According to data from the Energy Information Administration, during the first week of January this year the average retail price of gasoline was $2.24/gal. By…

• Oil Majors Eye New Acquisition Targets In The Permian

  Published 25 April 2019 | viewed 22,725 times

  Following the news that Chevron had agreed to pay a nearly 40 percent premium to acquire Anadarko Petroleum, investors quickly bid up the shares of…

• Permian Takes The Crown As World’s Top Oil Field

  Published 13 April 2019 | viewed 43,452 times

  Last week Saudi Aramco — the national oil company of Saudi Arabia and the world’s largest oil company — lifted a veil of secrecy around…

• Aramco’s True Breakeven Price

  Published 06 April 2019 | viewed 51,228 times

  Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, is by far the largest oil company in the world. The company produces around 13 percent…

• Midstream Outperforms In First Quarter

  Published 06 April 2019 | viewed 8,184 times

  The first quarter of the year is in the books. Following a steep sell-off in December, the S&P 500 returned 13.1 percent for the quarter,…

• Good News And Bad News For The Ethanol Industry

  Published 25 March 2019 | viewed 13,121 times

  Last week the ethanol industry cheered when the EPA proposed a rule that would allow 15% ethanol blends to be sold year-round. But by the…

• How The Californian Oil Boom Died

  Published 14 March 2019 | viewed 22,806 times

  This week I am creating slides for a presentation I am giving in California later this month. While researching the material, I took a closer look at…

• Onboard Hydrogen: Is This The Future Of Zero Emission Vehicles?

  Published 09 March 2019 | viewed 17,906 times

  Last week I wrote an article — Water Is Not A Fuel — discussing a press release I had received from Australian-Israeli startup Electriq~Global. As I noted in that article,…

• The Myth Of Water As A Fuel

  Published 05 March 2019 | viewed 10,816 times

  Each week I receive press releases about “game-changing technologies” in the energy space. The number of these technologies that ultimately end up as game-changers is…

• Could This NASA Innovation Save The EV Industry?

  Published 04 March 2019 | viewed 14,548 times

  I don’t really drive enough to make an electric vehicle (EV) a compelling value proposition, but if my commute was a bit longer it is…

• Saudi Oil Production Lags Behind Peers In The Mid-East

  Published 25 February 2019 | viewed 9,800 times

  In this final installment of a series (See also Article 1 and Article 2) examining Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves, I want to examine several metrics to see how…

• Does Saudi Arabia Really Have As Much Oil As Analysts Think?

  Published 18 February 2019 | viewed 26,513 times

  Officially, Venezuela has the world’s largest crude oil reserves with 303 billion barrels of proved reserves. But, a lot of this oil is extra-heavy crude…

• Can U.S. Gas Production Keep Up With Demand?

  Published 14 February 2019 | viewed 20,333 times

  In the previous article, I discussed the global nature of the oil markets. But the shale oil boom in the U.S. temporarily increased the localized impact on the West…

• Why WTI Is A Global Oil Market Benchmark

  Published 09 February 2019 | viewed 17,305 times

  Oil markets are global, and therefore oil prices around the world generally move in tandem. There are differences in oil prices based on quality and…

• U.S. Energy Exports To See Significant Increase

  Published 03 February 2019 | viewed 9,788 times

  The Energy Information Administration has released its Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2019 with projections to 2050.  The purpose of the AEO is to provide long-range energy projections for…

• There’s No Slowing U.S. Natural Gas Production

  Published 26 January 2019 | viewed 26,997 times

  Last August I warned that a Natural Gas Price Spike May Be Looming. The reason for the warning was that natural gas in storage – which…