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…)...

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…)...

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…)...

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…)...