May 2018

The EDF are crowdfunding the launch of a satellite to monitor methane emissions by oil companies; which makes a bit more sense when you realise that “EDF” in this case is the Environmental Defence Fund, not the French electricity company.

Yet another part of the slightly illogical crusade against oil producers which is very much in vogue? The current focus on producers is a bit like Narcos focusing on Pablo Escobar and ignoring all the dealers and users….(which is of course roughly what happened!). An approach that does nothing to address retail-distribution or demand. Not that I should equate Big Oil to Colombian drug lords in anything other than a tongue-in-cheek analogy, in case someone takes me seriously.

A quick question: what was the global oil demand in 2012?

An interesting article tries to dispel the idea that the Oil Price Spike in 1973 was not a direct reaction to US foreign policy (support for Israel in the 6-days and Yom Kippur wars) but a direct result of US domestic policy, specifically the decoupling from the gold standard. The argument is that the OPEC nations saw their revenues in “real” terms dropping due to the devaluation of the dollar with the gold-standard exit. To recover their losses, OPEC cut back production and raised prices – if this is so it was a bit of a blunt instrument as it clearly overshot. The argument continues that this was not the cause of stagflation as these petro-dollars were recycled back into the economies of the west. The price-manipulation angle is backed by reports of a significant paper trail from OPEC in the years preceding 1973, stating that OPEC would act to recover their position

“member states would automatically adjust crude oil posted prices calculated in dollars if a change in dollar parity emerged from the present monetary crisis.” OPEC Aug ’71

I don’t have any opinion on the merit of this article. However, the idea that OPEC is this huge force in world oil has been a mainstay of media opinion for decades. There have been various chapters in the story; focus on market share, internecine strife between members, focus on price, war on shale, worry about renewables and obsolescence etc.

Month: May 2018

Do environmentalists dream of electric cows?

The end of OPEC ? – and its not Trump, shale, or Tesla