Friday, March 7, 2014
by Barney Jopson*
Booming US oil and gas production has been portrayed as a bounty that will boost America’s energy independence, but the crisis in Ukraine has cast it in a different light: as a strategic weapon to help allies overseas
Friday, February 28, 2014
by Zbigniew Brzezinski*
As chaos explodes in Ukraine and the threat of Russian intervention persists, the responsibility of the west to help attain a constructive outcome becomes more self-evident. Viktor Yanukovich has shown himself to be a mendacious schemer, a coward and a thief.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
by Costis Stambolis*
As global attention is turned to USA´s phenomenal oil and gas boom where production has peaked beyond all predictions giving rise to expectations for sizeable gas exports in few years,European policy makers are grappling to figure out an effective policy to secure long term energy supplies for the EU.
Monday, February 17, 2014
by Nick Butler*
On Wednesday the cabinets of the France and Germany will hold a joint meeting in Paris. The occasion is highly symbolic – both in the way in which normal state-to-state relationships have replaced war in Europe, and in the continued commitment of the neighbours to maintain their alliance whatever their short-term political and personal differences. But the discussion this week could also produce substantive results
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
*by Terry Smith
Unless you have been in hibernation for the past few years you will have heard that there is a shale hydrocarbon "revolution” or "miracle” under way. Barack Obama, the US president, pledged support for shale gas development in his 2012 State of the Union speech. David Cameron has urged opponents of fracking to "get on board”
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
*By Norman Lamont
When Hassan Rouhani took office in August, film-maker Hossein Dehbashi made a political video setting the Iranian president’s eloquent inauguration speech to music. The speech emphasised tolerance, compassion and the need to remove "bitterness from our hearts”
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
By Mark C. Lewis*
Oil market commentators increasingly dismiss the very idea of supply-side constraints on the oil market, pointing to the recent surge in light-tight oil production from US shale deposits and the existence of vast shale formations elsewhere in the world
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
by Pilita Clark in London and Christian Oliver in Brussels*
The gap in energy costs between Europe and its leading trading partners is widening, according to an official paper to be released by Brussels that shows industrial electricity prices in the region are more than double those in the US and 20 per cent higher than China’s. Industrial gas prices are three to four times higher in the EU than comparable US and Russian prices, and 12 per cent higher than in China, says the European Commission paper, based on the most comprehensive official analysis of EU energy prices and costs to date
Friday, January 17, 2014
by Nick Butler*
Is energy policy made in Brussels ? The obvious answer would be no. The EU may have an energy commissioner but he has little real authority. Energy policy is still under the control of individual national governments and as a result there are 28 very different approaches and outcomes. France is supplied by nuclear power. Germany by contrast is phasing out nuclear in favour of renewables. Much of Eastern Europe still depends on coal. There is cross border trade, of course, but most countries have their own distinct energy market
Friday, January 17, 2014
by Kostis Geropoulos*
The rapprochement between Moscow and Kiev, following a deal to provide Ukraine with a $15 billion loan and a gas price reduction from about $400 per 1,000 cubic metres to $268.50, raises questions over the faith of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom’s South Stream natural gas pipeline, bypassing Ukraine
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
by Christof Ruehl*
The history of energy in the 20th century was mainly about oil; the struggle to find oil, to secure its supply and bring it to market. So important has been oil and its many by-products in fuelling, lubricating and transforming economies and societies over the past 100 years that many have failed to notice trends that are already changing the shape of energy demand in the 21st century
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Ankara is trying to figure out whether an eventual U.S. entry into the global liquefied natural gas export market and natural gas production in North Africa will make it worthwhile for Turkey to expand its liquefied natural gas import capacity. Turkey currently has two liquefied natural gas import terminals -- one at Marmara Ereglisi that has an annual capacity of 8.2 billion cubic meters and a maximum send-out capacity of 22 million cubic meters, and another in the town of Aliaga on the Aegean coast with an annual capacity of 6 billion cubic meters and maximum send-out capacity of 16 million cubic meters
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
by Dr. Valery Nemov*
The European gas market has gone through a substantial transformation. For several decades, this market was dominated by long-term contracts, derived from formula-based pricing. Market transformations resulted in the expansion of trading hubs and hub related pricing. The conventional wisdom is that gas hubs accurately reflect the balance of supply and demand in the whole European market, and the linkage between oil-indexed and hub prices has lost its rationale and does not reflect market fundamentals
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
by Kostis Geropoulos*
Russia is determined to move ahead with the Gazprom-led South Stream natural gas pipeline, bypassing Ukraine, and recent moves by EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger suggest that the European Commission may be ready for a compromise
Monday, December 16, 2013
by Kostis Geropoulos*
As the Lufthansa airplane made its final approachto land ona runway at Berlin’s Tegel airport, wind turbines appeared scattered across the landscape. Germany has been at the forefront of renewable energy which has gained impetus, especially after Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to speed up the shuttering of the nine remaining reactors by about a decade, to 2022
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
by Gerard Wynn*
European solar power capacity has already reached some 80 per cent of national projections for the end of the decade, underlining how growth has caught policymakers unawares. That over-achievement is adding impetus to national plans to scale back renewable energy subsidies, making the future solar outlook in Europe unsure
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
In what appeared to be a rather desperate move lawmakers in Brussels went ahead last Tuesday (19/2) with action to shore up the sagging market for carbon emissions permits, a key component of the European Union efforts to curb the effects of Climate Change.
The EU carbon market, known as the emissions trading system (ETS), is the world’s largest and the cornerstone of the bloc’s climate policy. It seeks to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming by requiring companies to pay for their pollution
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
There was another very good lesson in Europe on how to lose investors and alienate developers of renewable energy projects. It goes something like this: follow months of uncertainty about the future of your support scheme with retroactive changes that impact the revenues of existing projects. Wash it down with further plans to cut the support available for future projects. And then watch investors flee
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
For roughly its first two decades of existence, Standard Oil wasn't really an oil company—at least, not in the way most people think today.
Until the late 1880s, John D. Rockefeller's behemoth didn't bother owning oil fields. Standard was all about refining and distribution, the keys to building the markets that would ultimately take the oil
Monday, November 18, 2013
Two years ago the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant explosion, brought memories of the 1986 calamitous Chernobyl disaster. It prompted Germany to commit to a complete phase out of nuclear power by 2022. But at the same time, other countries are consistently investing in the construction of new reactors as they are trying to secure large scale electricity generation for future needs
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