Articles – Page 4 – write first draft

Riddle of the Saudi sands

May 24, 2012March 19, 2018 By David Strahan Comment Closed

This article was published in Middle East Oil & Gas Monitor, 15 May 2012. The Saudi oil minister must be feeling pleased with himself. At the end of March, with Brent crude trading at around $125 per barrel, Ali al Naimi wrote a sharply worded column in the Financial Times claiming there was “no rational reason” for such high and economically damaging oil prices. Since then, Brent has slumped to around $112. Giving the market a stern talking-to apparently did the trick. (more…)...

Dump the pump: could peak oil be voluntary?

May 17, 2012March 19, 2018 By David Strahan Comment Closed

First published at New Scientist, 17 May 2012. People have fretted about when the world’s oil will start to run out ever since M. King Hubbert came up with the idea of “peak oil” back in the 1950s. (more…)...

Wishing it don’t make it so

May 2, 2012March 16, 2018 By David Strahan Comment Closed

This article was published in EurOil, 1 May 2012. April is the cruelest month, a poet once wrote, and so it seems in the political economy of oil. (more…)...

Climate cost of Total’s North Sea leak

March 30, 2012 By David Strahan2 Comments

First published at New Scientist, 30 March 2012. Coverage of the gas leak at Total's Elgin platform in the North Sea, off the UK coast, has so far focused on the potential for an explosion, and damage to sea life from hydrogen sulphide contamination - the latter now discounted. But methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, so what about the global warming impact? Here's what emerged from the back of my envelope. (more…)...

Tories play fast and loose with fuel supply

March 30, 2012 By David StrahanNo Comments

First published in the ODAC Newsletter 30 March 2012. While awareness of peak oil has advanced light years since the petrol protests of 2000, on the evidence of this week the same cannot be said for the conduct of British energy policy. (more…)...

Obama-Cameron dogging explained

March 16, 2012March 19, 2018 By David StrahanNo Comments

First published in the ODAC Newsletter 16 March 2012. Finally, a plausible explanation for the Obama-Cameron political orgy – ‘love-in’ doesn’t quite do it – in Washington this week. (more…)...

Gas: climate panacea or industry propaganda?

February 23, 2012March 19, 2018 By David Strahan2 Comments

First published in the New Scientist 25 February 2012. I once hitched a lift from New York to London in the private jet of an American gas billionaire. (more…)...