The explosions and fire that completely destroyed the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha and cost 167 workers their lives remains the world’s worst offshore oil disaster. Saturday, July 6, marks 25 years since…
When most of us think of cartels, we think of Colombian drug gangs rather than multi-national businesses. But not any more; if European regulators are to be believed, a cartel has been operating much closer…
Earlier this week, Linc Energy released two reports estimating the amount of oil in the Arckaringa Basin near Coober Pedy in South Australia. Independent reports from Gustavson Associates and DeGolyer…
Much of the recent debate over Australia’s new Energy White Paper deals with climate change, the planned growth of Australia’s coal and gas exports, and the future of electricity sector. And although when…
The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer by about 2017 and will become a net oil exporter by 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) [recently predicted](http://iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.pdf](http://iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.pdf…
Over the next 50 years the world will increasingly confront a dilemma. On the one hand, the global economy and local lifestyles depend on the mobility of people and goods. On the other, that mobility depends…
In his acceptance speech of November 6, Barack Obama at long last reaffirmed the need to address global warming. But unfortunately he also reaffirmed the spurious goal of US oil independence, which can…
Energy policy featured only briefly in the first debate between President Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney. As became evident in the second debate, Romney’s case for restoring strong economic growth…
That Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is locked into such an unalloyed pro-oil stance is not so surprising, given the alignment of the core Republican states with oil producers’ interests. However…
When I arrived in South Sudan in November 2005, the scars of war were everywhere. Intermittent power came from generators, there was no clean drinking water, schools were little more than benches under…
Since the middle of the last decade, well before the worldwide run-up in fuel prices during 2008, it has been widely believed that we are entering a new era of scarcity in carbon-based fuels such as oil…
Khartoum has resumed its bombardment of South Sudan despite the passing of a UN Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire. With military action escalating over the past few days, the two nations…
In mid-April, in the largest nationalisation since Russia’s acquisition of Yukos in 2003, Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, seized a majority stake in the oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos…
The looming closure of three Australian refineries will affect the security of liquid fuel supplies in Australia. This is particularly so if the government and the oil industry do not devise a joint strategy…
Few countries have been left unscathed by the global financial crisis and it seems that they are all situated in the southern hemisphere. Brazil and Australia are some of them. Recently, their economies…
When you’re complaining about the price at the bowser next time, consider this. Australia’s oil imports amount to a little over 1% of GDP. In Fiji, the oil import bill was around 14% in 2010. It’s probably…
In his recent Quarterly Essay, Man-made world: choosing between progress and planet, economist Andrew Charlton presents technological innovation as the solution to climate change and the route to unbounded…