With new oil discoveries failing to keep pace with consumption, and the cost of recovering the oil that remains increasing dramatically, the big oil companies have turned away from their traditional role of fuelling the global economy.  Instead, they have turned to petrochemicals – especially plastics – as the best …

The centre of balance in the global economy has shifted east.  While the USA (for the time being) consumes the most oil, China has emerged as the biggest importer.  It is also the world’s largest coal and renewable electricity consumer.  The reason, in short, is that since the 1980s, western …

Economists attempt to explain away the failure of their forecasts with the metaphor of the black swan – something so rare and unexpected that nobody can be held responsible for failing to notice it.  The Great Financial Accident of 2008, the DotCom bubble and the stock market crash of 1987, …

Supposedly hydrocarbon-rich Norway is not about to run out of oil and gas; far from it.  And that is a major headache for UK energy policymakers, because most of Norway’s remaining oil and gas is in small pockets beneath difficult geology and in inhospitable locations (where much of it is …

Let’s talk about “the politician’s fallacy.”  This is a line of thinking that assumes that the more you know about something, the easier it will be to do something about it.  For politicians, it works like this: the state is (among other things) a giant data gathering apparatus.  In addition …

In the final months of the Second World War, Winston Churchill’s desire to launch dangerous military adventures in the far-flung reaches of the Empire caused the head of the Military, Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke to remark that “before you plant your right foot somewhere you ought first to know …

It was supposed to be the competition of the year.  Who was going to get to oversee the issue of shares in Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco? Early in the year, all eyes were on the City of London, with its centuries of experience.  Next, concerns about Brexit led …

One reason for why so many people still do not believe climate change is real is that people who identify as “greens” behave as if they are also in denial. This manifests in two ways.  First, there is so-called “Al Gore syndrome” – the practice of flying around the world …

UK oil and gas prices spiked yesterday following the closure of the Forties Pipeline System, which delivers 40 percent of North Sea oil and gas to the mainland.  To add insult to injury, an explosion at a gas facility in Baumgarten an der March, east of Vienna has disrupted a …

The amount of electricity we will be able to generate from wind power is going to be a lot less than we bargained for; and ironically, climate change is to blame.  That’s the conclusion of new research published in Nature Geoscience. Wind strength in the northern hemisphere depends upon the …