Okay, so the title of this post is tongue-in-cheek: the U.S. president has far less power to influence gasoline prices than campaign-season banter would lead you to believe. But I figure if a sitting president can take the blame for high and volatile oil prices, maybe the White House should take a little pride in the fact that, by some measures, oil prices reflect the lowest volatility in years. (There’s a bit more to the story, though.) Read more »

A piece in Slate by Ray Pierrehumbert arguing that tight oil abundance is a myth is making the rounds. The essay makes some fair warnings against irrational exuberance when it comes to hundred year supplies, claims of endless energy independence, and complacency on climate change as a result of abundant natural gas. But the piece does at least as much to confuse as illuminate. Fortunately, that provides a good opportunity to look at a few important misunderstandings that frequently arise in discussions about U.S. oil. Read more »

In my last post I discussed how trading volumes show a migration into ICE Brent from NYMEX West Texas Intermediate (WTI), two of the world’s most watched crude oil benchmarks. The trend is part of Brent’s broader rise as the preeminent world price of oil. Here I’d like to show graphically part of the reason why some financial market participants are opting to trade the North Sea crude instead of its American cousin. It has to do with recent trends in the futures prices for both crudes. Read more »

The failure of ailing Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to return from Cuba, where he is recovering from another round of surgery, to Caracas for his inauguration underscores the uncertainty of the South American country’s future as a critical oil supplier. Chavez, first elected in 1998 and inaugurated in 1999, rode ultra-low oil prices to power, promising a tougher stance against the majors and a more hawkish voice within OPEC. So how’s the country’s oil industry faring today versus when he entered office? Read more »

Constant chatter about an impending oil release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was a prominent feature of the oil market last year. Much of the speculation was driven by the ongoing loss of crude from Iran, due to sanctions, and the possibility of a confrontation with Tehran over its nuclear program, which could have cut off traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz. Read more »

There’s a lot of buzz today about new projections for U.S. oil imports showing that imports are poised to continue diving. The Financial Times captures the essence well with the headline “U.S. oil imports to fall to 25-year low”, referring to projections through 2014. I’ve written before about the risks of focusing on imports rather than consumption. If you want to focus on imports, though, the number to drill down on isn’t the volume of imports – it’s spending on imports as a fraction of GDP. Alas, by that measure, despite a positive trend and strong improvements over the last decade, the United States will remain in worse shape next year than in any year between 1983 and 2003. Read more »

One interesting feature of the U.S. hydrocarbon boom is the widening gap between the industry’s interest in drilling for oil and other liquids versus dry natural gas. It’s all about economics: the disparity in prevailing market prices and outlook between these commodities is dictating companies’ willingness to sink money into, and bear the risk of, trying to produce them. Read more »

People looking for a way that natural gas could break oil’s stranglehold on the U.S. transport system typically run into forbidding limits. Gas could be used to run power plants that would charge electric cars, but those cars are currently too expensive for most drivers. Gas could be compressed and used directly in automobiles, but limited range and fueling infrastructure are big barriers. Natural gas could also be converted into gasoline or diesel, but the costs and risks of building plants can scare investors. Read more »

Policymakers, analysts, and pundits regularly argue over whether countries should care about who they buy their oil from. Economist usually insist that, because markets are flexible, the precise patterns of oil trade don’t matter. Security strategists often insist that they must. Read more »

A story on NPR yesterday morning, “The Downsides of Living in an Oil Boomtown,” had an interesting portrait of the economic effects of high oil prices and booming oil production on Williston, North Dakota. The frenzied pace of job creation has led to high wages but also high turnover. A leap in demand for local goods like housing has caused massive inflation in housing prices and day care services. A similar story could be told of many other rural communities in states like Pennsylvania and Texas where the ramp up in oil and gas drilling activity has been a sudden shock on an otherwise rather static business scene. Read more »