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Meet the man the oil industry goes to for a voice of gravitas in the US election
Steve LeVine, Quartz
Two weeks before the Nov. 6 election, industry groups backing Republican Mitt Romney distributed a new report asserting that robust oil and gas drilling will support 3 million jobs and raise $111 billion in tax revenue by the end of the decade…
Ordinarily such a report wouldn’t attract much attention given its funders–the American Petroleum Institute, the US Chamber of Commerce and chemical and natural gas associations known for their Republican leanings. Yet it commanded the top of the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 23. The Associated Press featured data from the report in a big-picture look at the oil and gas trend. And on Oct. 24, The New York Times quoted the report’s senior adviser in an examination of the boom in the context of the presidential election…
Why the unusual splash? Look no further than the writer of the Journal article and the senior adviser in the New York Times piece–Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS and probably the world’s sole celebrity oil expert…
Yergin and his spokesman did not reply to emails. But he joined IHS in 2004, when it bought a firm he founded, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, for about $31 million. One way to look at IHS is as a new strain in the tradition of research houses underpinning US political movements.
(2 November 2012)
Iran MPs draft law to cut oil exports by a third
Reuters
Iranian parliamentarians have prepared a draft law to reduce the country’s crude exports by up to a third this year in retaliation for western sanctions against Iran’s oil sector, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Wednesday.
The bill drawn up by the Iranian parliament’s Energy Commission is waiting to be put to parliament for approval, Fars said. Iran’s assembly has little say in making policy, where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the last word.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that Iranian oil exports have slumped from 2.2 million bpd at the end of 2011 to just 860,000 bpd in September 2012 – a fall of 60 percent…
(7 November 2012)
Balance of power shifts in changing world of oil
Guy Chazen, Financial Times
A bridge is being built between the Far East and the Middle East that could change the world of oil.
It links two countries that are not natural bedfellows – China and Iraq…
(4 November 2012)
Federal scientists muzzled on oilsands
Mike de Souza, Monteral Gazette
Environment Canada scientists have confirmed results published by researchers from the University of Alberta showing contaminants accumulating in the snow near oilsands operations, an internal federal document has revealed.
Testing by the Environment Canada scientists also found contaminants in precipitation in the region…
(5 November 2012)
Oil lobby and Koch-backed groups spent $270m on anti-Obama ads
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian
The oil and coal lobby and groups backed by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers spent $270m on television ads in the final weeks of the election, attacking Barack Obama and Democratic candidates for Congress.
It turns out not to have been a very good investment, according to the Centre for American Progress Action Fund, which tracked the funding…
(7 November 2012)
