|
|
|
Articles
Archive for the 'oil' category
BP’s troubles have only just begun
First published in the The Independent on Sunday, 20 June 2010
As BP reels from its toughest week yet since the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, investors warn the longer term outlook for the embattled supermajor is likely to worsen.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why America should thank BP
This article was first published in the The Independent, 1 June 2010
Hollywood loves its villains to have an English accent. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster it was inevitable American commentators would deride BP as British Petroleum and its CEO as Tony Wayward. But even as Gulf Coast residents despair and BP fumbles from one seat-of-the-pants engineering ‘solution’ to another, Americans should realise the company may have done them a huge favour.
Read the rest of this entry »
World at One interview: BP slick
To hear my interview on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme today, about the implications of the Gulf of Mexico disaster for global oil production, follow the link below.
Read the rest of this entry »
Oil production hit by BP slick
First published in the The Independent on Sunday, 9 May 2010
Even as the first oil from BP’s stricken Macondo well in the US Gulf of Mexico washed ashore this weekend, and as the clamour against the company mounts, experts claim the slick will be nothing like as catastrophic as forecast – for either the environment or the oil industry. However some analysts maintain the accident could still seriously impact the global oil supply later this decade.
Read the rest of this entry »
Peak at the polls
Peak oil has come a long way in the last few years: from bug-eyed millennial cult to mainstream consensus, embracing academia, much of the oil industry, and now the US military. There’s a growing consensus global oil production will peak this side of 2020, with many forecasts clustered around the middle the decade and some well within the next parliament. Strange then that even now the mainstream parties’ manifestos contain not a single word on the subject.
Read the rest of this entry »
Who’s afraid of the tar sands?
This article was first published in Ecologist on 8 December 2009.
Criticizing the Canadian tar sands used to be so simple. Environmentalists condemned them as a ‘climate crime’, while peak oilers argued they could never fill the gap left by conventional depletion. It turns out neither critique captures the full magnitude of the problem. In the light of the latest science, exploiting the tar sands threatens to damage not only the climate but also the long term fuel supply.
Read the rest of this entry »
Can non-conventional oil fill the gap?
A version of this article was published in New Scientist on 3 December 2009.
The oil crisis is not dead, only sleeping, according to an emerging consensus. The price may have collapsed from last year’s all-time high of $147 per barrel to around $75 today, as the recession grinds away at demand for crude, but nobody expects that to last when the economy recovers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Crawford deal signed in oil, not blood
Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s former ambassador to Washington, mused last week that Tony Blair may have reached a secret deal with George Bush to topple Saddam Hussein a full year before the invasion took place.
Read the rest of this entry »
Peak oil report exposes UK position
First published at The Ecologist, 8 October 2009.
There is a “significant risk” that conventional oil production will peak before 2020, and forecasts that delay the event beyond 2030 are based on assumptions that are “at best optimistic and at worst implausible”.
Read the rest of this entry »
BP’s ‘giant’ oil discovery would last three weeks
BP announced the discovery of a ‘giant’ oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico last week, but what does it really amount to?
Read the rest of this entry »
Peak oil around 2030 says IEA
An article in the Independent caused a stir recently by claiming that the International Energy Agency’s chief economist Fatih Birol had predicted peak oil in ‘about ten years’ – a radical departure from the IEA’s position to date.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Economist strikes again
Bill Emmott argued in the Times this week that the world’s oil supply problems are simply down to OPEC greed, dismissed peak oil as the work of “planetary gloomsters” and assured readers that the world is not running out.
Read the rest of this entry »
Iraqi oil gameshow loses the plot
A shorter version of this article was published in the The Independent on Sunday, 5 July 2009
The auction of Iraqi oil production licences last week was truly historic – not least because it was the first such exercise ever to be broadcast live on television.
Read the rest of this entry »
We’re in OPEC’s hands, but are they tied?
This article was first published in the The Independent on Sunday, 14 June 2009
BP famously ‘doesn’t do’ oil price forecasts. After 18 months in which crude has ricocheted from just under $100 per barrel to an all time high of $147, then down to less than $40, and now up to $73 again, you can see their point.
Read the rest of this entry »
Electric avenues
First published in the The Independent on Sunday, 29 March 2009
‘The future has not been cancelled,” quipped BP chief executive Tony Hayward in a bullish presentation about the company’s prospects recently.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why $40 per barrel is no cause for complacency
By David Strahan and Gary Kendall of SustainAbility
These days it is comforting to have one thing not to worry about. As the world teeters on the edge of a full-blown depression, and business is crushed between slumping sales and seized-up credit markets, at least the oil price is in retreat.
Read the rest of this entry »
Radio 4 interview: why is the oil price plunging?
The oil price has fallen by 25% in a week, to around $40 per barrel, more than $100 lower than its all time peak in July. To hear my interview on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme this morning about the reasons for the collapse, and the likely outlook, follow the links below.
Read the rest of this entry »
Pipe dreams
First published in the Guardian, 3 December 2008.
An old friend was once memorably described as a sixties liberal with Catholic guilt – you can just imagine the internal contortions. I got the same impression of grinding gears while reading the International Energy Agency’s latest long term forecast, the World Energy Outlook 2008, published last month.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why the oil price slump is bad news
First published in The Independent on Sunday, 26 October 2008
Once again Gordon Brown has energy policy all wrong. Even before OPEC announced an output cut of 1.5 million barrels per day, the prime minister had denounced the move as “absolutely scandalous”, fearing it would force the oil price higher just as the world slides into recession.
Read the rest of this entry »
Oil price respite will be brief or unpleasant
First published in the Telegraph, 9 August 2008
With the oil price apparently in full retreat, it is tempting to breathe a sigh of relief.
Read the rest of this entry »
BP’s Russian roulette belies stance on peak oil
First published in the Independent on Sunday, 22 June 2008
It must be increasingly lonely being Tony Hayward. As the oil price continues to soar there is a gathering consensus that global oil production is nearing some fundamental geological limits, yet BP’s chief executive continues to argue valiantly that the causes of the current oil shock are “not so much below ground as above it, and not geological but political”
Newsnight interview
My interview on Newsnight on 30 May can now be viewed on You Tube, or below in this post – just click on ‘read more’.
Read the rest of this entry »
Oil: why Gordon doesn’t get it
First published in the Telegraph, 29 May 2008.
Even by the low standards if his government, Gordon Brown’s recent pronouncements on oil have been shockingly ignorant.
Read the rest of this entry »
What happens next?
First published in the Independent on Sunday, 25 May 2008
Never mind speculation, forget the weak dollar. To understand the soaring oil price you need only glance at figures from the US government which show that global oil production has been essentially stagnant – at just under 86 million barrels per day – since early 2005.
Read the rest of this entry »
Greenland oil estimates over-reported
Letter to the Times
Sir, the Times incorrectly reported that Greenland has 47 billion barrels of ‘estimated oil reserves’ (‘Global warming could help Greenland to independence’, print edition, 7 May), which is wrong on two counts.
Read the rest of this entry »
How do you solve a problem like jet fuel?
First published in Petroleum Review, May 2006.
Say what you like about Sir Richard Branson, but you cannot fault his willingness to suffer in the cause of a photo-opportunity.
Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t panic, it’s only the oil supply
First published in the Telegraph , 3 May 2008
Polishing the portholes on the Titanic hardly does it justice. This week saw ministers giving an uncanny impersonation of Corporal Jones urging calm over the Grangemouth refinery strike; lorry drivers protesting in Park Lane over a two pence rise in fuel duty; and much righteous indignation over the level of profits reported by Shell and BP. All of which entirely misses the point.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Last Oil Shock is now available in paperback
Doh! I felt such a fool. While checking the manuscript of The Last Oil Shock for the new mass market paperback edition, available from 17 April, I noticed a real howler.
Read the rest of this entry »
Branson: nuts to peak oil
Sir Richard Branson today claimed aviation could be made “truly sustainable” at the launch of test flight fuelled in part by coconut oil. But the Virgin boss conceded that meaningful supplies of alternative fuel might not be available before the advent of peak oil, which he said could happen within six years.
Read the rest of this entry »
Biofuel without tears, but how much?
(Podcast) Biofuel can be produced without clearing rainforest, raising CO2 emissions or displacing food production, according to the chief executive of D1 Oils, the British company pioneering oil from jatropha curcas in the developing world. And according to Elliott Mannis, the fuel could even work out cheaper than damaging first generation biofuels.
Read the rest of this entry »
Oil constraints to cause “huge recession”
(Podcast) The world will have to suffer a deep economic downturn before serious attempts are made to kick the oil habit, according to the chairman of PFC Energy, the Washington based oil consultancy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Peak oil and the seismic silver lining
First published in International Hydrographic & Seismic Search Magazine, February 2008
The launch of International Hydrographic & Seismic Search Magazine raises an interesting question: have the publishers taken leave of their senses?
Read the rest of this entry »
BP to “put lights out” on North Sea
BP chief executive Tony Hayward stressed the company’s commitment to the North Sea during its results press conference yesterday, saying it would continue to produce there “until we put the lights out”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Triple digit oil price regardless of peak
(Podcast) The real value of oil is “way, way, way above $80” according to a leading analyst.
Read the rest of this entry »
|
|
Search
Categories
Blogroll
|
