"It's only gas," said the geologists. And wow, were they ever frustrated… The year was 1959. The geologists were in the Netherlands, near a small town named Groningen, at the southern edge of the North Sea. They worked for Shell and Esso (now Exxon Mobil) and were drilling a well. Instead ...read more

Brazil is making a national commitment to develop energy resources located far offshore in the South Atlantic. Indeed, no nation has ever advanced such an ambitious plan for long-term comprehensive offshore development. And it's being bankrolled by China. Much of Brazil's South Atlantic development will require drilling wells in waters up ...read more

When most people think of oil, they think of light, sweet crude that comes up out of little holes in the ground. You describe oil by its API gravity. For example, oil like Brent crude or West Texas Intermediate has an API gravity of 38-40. The oil that Col. Drake ...read more

Something like a week remains before General Motors is reduced to lunchmeat on industrial-capital's All-You-Can-Eat buffet spread. The wish is that its deconstructed pieces will re-organize into a "lean, mean machine" for producing "cars that Americans want to buy," and that, by extension, the American Dream of a Happy Motoring ...read more

I was in Houston this month, attending the Offshore Technology Conference. I have to confess that I’m humbled. Really, for as much as I think I know about the energy biz after a mere 30-plus years… a walk (a LONG walk, to be sure) around the packed floor of the ...read more

Euphoria managed to out-run swine flu last week as the epidemic-du-jour, with "consumer" confidence jumping and the big bank stocks nudging up. The H1N1 virus fizzled for now, at least in terms of kill ratio, though we're warned it might boomerang in the fall with a vengeance. No one was ...read more

For many years, we in the West have worried about Iran closing the Straits of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic.  An abrupt closure would instantly spike oil prices well into three-digits, and immediately change the energy equation of the world.  Indeed, many geostrategic scholars believe that closing the Straits of ...read more

Mr. Obama heads to Europe now where official hostility is rising against the Anglo-American method of pounding monetary sand down the rat-holes of “non-performing” debt, bankrupt enterprise, and bubble-levitated bonds. Our poised and charming Prez may escape personal obloquy from the quaint old-world street folk, but most of the other ...read more

The arguments made against the proposed “net-positive” gas tax deserve a response, because they dismiss the tax’s raison d'être and they suffer from flawed reasoning.  Here is my response: The chief criticism is that the government should not be entrusted with any additional power to tax, for all the usual reasons.  ...read more

I think Dr. George Doddington was eloquent, sincere, and convincing in his March 23rd piece "A Net-Positive Gas Tax" where he supported the immediate implementation of Charles Krauthammer’s "net-zero" gasoline tax.  I also think he was wrong. Let’s suppose for a moment that a charismatic Democratic President of socialist bent and ...read more