Archives for Guest Blogs
UN climate talks fail to agree on carbon market rules
Two weeks of negotiations in Madrid last December were not enough to reach an agreement on how the world should cooperate on cutting emissions. Representatives of more than 190 countries…
Vehicles to be the major … vehicles for CO2 reduction
Oil refiners may soon find themselves the target of an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the northeast US using a cap-and-trade program. A number of northeast US states…
Eureka! California strikes gold with carbon market
The landmark cap-and-trade program has helped put the Golden State on track to meet its near-term greenhouse gas emissions goal – without wrecking the economy. Will others follow? California and…
The Oil Big Five: The Second Half Begins
The beginning of July is the beginning of the second half of the year, and just over the weekend I was looking at a calendar and marveling that we’d arrived…
Quantifying Crude in Russia Proves Complicated: At the Wellhead
As global oil markets remain heavily oversupplied, Russia’s crude production has shown surprisingly strong growth from the start of 2015. This has sparked concerns its extra barrels could put additional…
US Oil Exports Seen as Key to Security: Regulation and Environment
There’s an economic argument to be made for lifting US crude oil export restrictions, and then there’s the argument that American oil could go a long way toward providing security…
If Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Try Not Growing Oil
Someone had to do it, and it might as well have been one of the biggest names in US shale. Having whittled its 2015 capital budget down to $5 billion,…
Vitol’s CEO Sees Up-and-Down Oil Prices, but it Isn’t an Opportunity
The kind of crazy up-and-down movements of the oil markets in recent weeks and months is not a ripe opportunity for a major trading company like Vitol. In fact, its…
IEA Predicts ‘New Chapter’ for Oil Markets, Sees Price Declines into 2015 as Likely
The 30% fall in oil prices since mid-June continues to dominate the oil market headlines, and anyone hoping for a swift recovery in prices could well be disappointed — especially…
LPG Demonstrates Modernity Comes from Consumption
The oil industry has often heard itself being criticized from within for not being bolder in sending a broadly positive message about what it does. Hydrocarbons make modern life possible;…