BP: out of the frying pan
This article was published in EurOil, 19 June 2012.
You could be forgiven for thinking BP’s luck had finally turned on 1st June 2012. (more…)...
Golden rule of gas: don’t believe the hype
This article was published in Unconventional Oil & Gas Monitor, 4 June 2012.
Like it or not, the unconventional gas industry has a lousy reputation. It is widely blamed for water contamination, earthquakes and fugitive emissions of methane that by some estimates make its climate impact worse than coal. (more…)...
Peakonomics: kiss your boarding pass goodbye
This article was first published in Unconventional Oil & Gas Monitor, 4 June 2012.
Peak oil used to be a debate in which geologists and economists threw bricks at each other but seldom talked. (more…)...
Riddle of the Saudi sands
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?
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
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
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…)...