The oil price crash of recent weeks has triggered a wave of huge exploration and production capital expenditure cuts
Lack of appetite to invest in the energy sector is leading the world into a supply crunch, says the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its recently unveiled World Energy Investment (WEI) 2020 report. The COVID-19 pandemic is having widespread and often dramatic effects on investments in the energy sector. At the start of the year,…
Will producers be tempted by a rise in crude oil prices to disregard quotas and voluntary production cuts?
Oil markets have taken some respite. But is this rally sustainable? Prices were surging until reports that Russia might back off on oil production cuts spooked the market. But even with that uncertainty, we’ve seen a complete turnaround in the markets. Just a month ago, crude oil markets faced a bloodbath. Since then, demand has…
At a time when the U.S. and Canada need it most, Keystone XL will generate more than 50,000 jobs
In the midst of the COVID-19-caused economic decline and huge job losses, it’s unfortunate that some, including Joe Biden, continue to smear Canada’s oil and gas industry. Biden, the presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, says if elected, he’ll shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project. The project is under construction, providing jobs to thousands of…
Oil and gas revenues can be used by tyrannies, autocracies and dictatorships to oppress their populations
Why would consumers treat tyranny oil differently than blood diamonds or clothing made by child labour? One of the more bizarre reactions to bare facts came recently after a colleague and I analyzed oil-and-gas-producing countries and their degree of freedom – the Tyranny Index, as we labelled it. Some argued such tracking is irrelevant because…
The need to generate cash, along with political pressure, compelled the Saudis to make some bitter decisions
Saudi Arabia has capitulated. A few moves here and there, in Washington and elsewhere, made the trick work. Saudi Arabia made a surprise announcement last week that it would cut its crude oil output by a further one million barrels per day (bpd) from planned June levels, “voluntarily.” This takes the total Saudi production cuts…
Stores will open again, cars and trucks will begin to run and planes will fly. Our lives will continue – and life takes energy
Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May recently said “oil is dead” and her “heart bleeds for people who believe the sector is going to come back.” It’s foolish to assert “oil is dead” at any time, but it’s particularly ignorant to say it in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis. Canadians are relying on…
At the heart of the COVID-19 crisis sits the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. and its low-income borrowers
The shutdowns ordered by Canadian governments to slow the spread of COVID-19 have caused unemployment to leap. And put mortgages in peril. Many of the millions of workers laid off have been low-income and lower-middle-income earners. They’re just the sort of people who qualify for home mortgages insured by the federal Canada Mortgage and Housing…
Despite claims by some that ‘oil is dead’ and that the sector is heavily subsidized, the evidence suggests otherwise
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre In the ongoing debate over whether Canada’s oil and natural gas industry will or should survive, one argument often advanced is the notion that oil and gas activity in Canada survives only due to massive subsidies from taxpayers. The debate has been fuelled recently by comments from…
With the world beginning to get back on its wheels, a ‘new normal’ is set to emerge. But what will new normal look like – particularly, will crude oil demand ever return to pre-pandemic levels? Our streets are not as empty as they were just a short while ago. Freeway traffic is rising. Prices at…
Canada’s recovery will depend on government policies that actively encourage, rather than impede, resource investment
Albertans are living a five-year nightmare that just keeps getting worse. The nightmare started in 2015 when newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Gerald Butts, head of the Canadian arm of the anti-fossil-fuel World Wildlife Fund, as his principal secretary and key adviser. A year later, Trudeau cancelled the previously approved Northern Gateway Pipeline destined…