Energy

One of the more mendacious claims put out by the Vote Leave campaign in the run up to the Referendum on 23 June was that Britain’s energy bills would come down.  This was always a flaky claim given that the world is still heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, and that the cost of extracting …

While the heads of Western governments and financial organisations were firefighting the unexpected result of Britain’s Brexit referendum last weekend, a much greater threat to Western economies was occurring on the other side of the planet. According to Denis Dyomkin at Reuters: “Russia and China sealed a raft of energy …

Chris Faulkner, the controversial CEO of US fracking company Breitling Energy Corp has been charged with defrauding investors out of more than $80millon to fund a lifestyle of decadence and debauchery. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the self-styled “Frack Master” and several other senior Breitling managers with …

In a step forward for environmental groups, the German government has followed France, Scotland and Wales in banning fracking “indefinitely”.  However, as in wales and Scotland, campaigners argue that the ban does not go far enough. As Holger Hansen and Andrea Shalal at Reuters note: “German industry is keen to …

The North Sea oil and gas industry is a mere shadow of its former self.  Once the cash cow for successive UK governments, the industry is now a basket case that requires government grants and tax breaks just to keep it operating.  Even with these props, the industry predicts a …

Peabody Energy – once the world’s largest coal company – funded at least 24 campaign groups and several scientists who denied the existence of climate change.  The “astroturfing” (where artificial grass roots movements are created) activities came to light when the company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. According to …

Energy regulator Ofgem has floated plans to make bill-payers pick up some of the costs of failing energy suppliers. According to Emily Gosden at the Telegraph, the regulator is seeking a means of protecting customers in credit with energy companies in the event of their running into financial difficulties: “The …

NC WARN, a US environmental campaign group has lodged federal allegations of scientific fraud against a Texas engineering professor who led key studies into methane leakage at shale gas drilling sites around the USA. The tests were used by the Environmental Protection Agency to give fracking the green light.  But …

Cut through all of the political and economic nonsense that passes for theory, and you find that the history of the UK economy over the last 40 years boils down to just two little words – oil and gas.  The so-called Thatcher Revolution and the consolidation under Blair and Brown was …

The growing “shareholder revolt” against Big Oil’s failure to deal with the likely result of the Paris Climate Agreement has been met by derision from oil company CEOs according to Jillian Ambrose at the Telegraph: “The words of Exxon’s Mr [Rex] Tillerson may have seemed strident in the face of …