oil

Iran – what happens if oil sanctions fail ?

April 11, 2013 3:14 pm by Nick Butler



The sanctions imposed on Iran are not working. The Iranian economy is in a mess with shortages and inflation. But, as a very interesting paper just published by Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute shows, it is not collapsing. Non-essential imports have been cut back and a range of exports – including minerals, cement and agricultural products – are actually growing. Iran’s main trading partners are Iraq, China, the UAE and India. Unemployment is high and no one believes the official figures, but it is probably lower than that of Spain. And, most seriously, oil sanctions are breaking down.

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Posted in Nuclear, Oil |

The emergence of the Russian Rockefeller

March 25, 2013 1:21 pm by Nick Butler

Vladmir Putin (left) and Igor Sechin (right)“We are about to see a new wave of consolidation in the world’s oil and gas business.” The words are not mine – they were spoken earlier this month by the President of what is now the world’s largest energy business. Igor Sechin is the President of Rosneft, the Russian company which with the completion of the takeover of TNK now produces over 4 million barrels of oil per day – more even than Exxon.

Rosneft is 70 per cent owned by the Russian state. Mr Sechin, who is famous for a spell in Soviet intelligence, is one of the most powerful men in Russia. John D. Rockefeller used every device possible to limit competition as he built Standard Oil and was eventually defeated by a cultural and legal resistance to monopoly. Mr Sechin has no such problems. The consolidation of Russia’s oil assets over the last decade has had the full support of the Kremlin. Read more

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Posted in Oil |

Take the 2013 energy quiz…

December 28, 2012 8:00 am by Nick Butler

For some years I used to bet on the end year oil price with Ed Crooks. He usually won.

I thought for 2013 a wider challenge would be a better test for FT readers.

So here are six questions: Read more

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Posted in Uncategorized |

Shell’s risky play in the Arctic

September 19, 2012 2:26 pm by Nick Butler

The abandonment by Shell of this years drilling plans in the Arctic is hardly a surprise. The project is complex and has run into one technical problem after another. Shell is rightly prudent when it comes to the risks involved in an area which is both environmentally sensitive and under the intense scrutiny of the world’s media not to mention a set of lobby groups energised by the prospect of taking on one of the world biggest companies.

There will now be another delay adding to the five years and several billions of dollars the company has already devoted to the project.

Shell has decided to take on the environmental lobby and to prove that the Arctic can be drilled and developed safely. That is a big bold move in itself, but the real problem for the Shell board and it’s shareholders – which include most pension funds in the UK and the US – is that the economics of development make sense only if one assumes ever higher oil prices.

Shell has never published a detailed analysis of the economics of Arctic development. The commonly quoted numbers for the resources which could be found – 26bn barrels of oil and 130tn cubic feet of gas – suggest a big prize. But what is the cost of development? And what oil or gas price in the US or the world market is necessary to make the project profitmaking?

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Posted in Exploration, Oil, Policy |