Consumption & Demand

Cheap oil: a poisoned gift

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Oil price in July 2008 reached a staggering $147 a barrel, having doubled in price over the previous 12 months. Who would have thought, that within half a year, a dramatic oil-price freefall would bring oil to a 5-year low of $35 a barrel – a price drop of 76%.

However, even though many have sighed in relief, experts are heralding new dramatic spikes in oil prices.

Peak for Pemex could help push Mexico to ruin

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Wednesday, Pemex is expected to release historic reduced output numbers. With everything going wrong with Mexico internally, what can the government do about losing revenue from its largest cash cow? Will Mexico continue to be a steady U.S. supplier? By the time it’s all over U.S. troops may be securing what’s left of Mexico’s oil fields.

Hope and fear

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Mr. Obama’s first task taking stage in the lonely Oval Office should be to get right with his own credo of “change,” meaning he’ll have to persuade the broad American public that the “change” required to salvage this society runs much deeper, colder, and thicker than they’d imagine in their initial transports over hallelujah-Bush-is-Gone. Many of the familiar touchstones of the recent American experience have got to go.

Fuel Emergency Part 1

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Preparing for a liquid fuels emergency does not appear to be on the radar screens of most government officials and emergency planners. This is a very worrying situation in light of emerging energy supply realities (accelerating oil-field depletion rates, plummeting exploration and development, rusting infrastructure, and greying workforce). All of these factors put together mean there is an increasing potential for fuel supply emergencies in the years ahead.

Largely about access

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Abstract: It is sometimes held that U.S. motivations in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, while indeed “largely about oil” (in the well-publicized words of Alan Greenspan), are not (or at least not much) “about access” to the region’s oil per se. This essay critically examines that claim, arguing that the current U.S. resort to force cannot really be understood without regard to the current precariousness of U.S. energy supplies.