One factor fueling the run has been the continued decline of the U.S. dollar. You can see from the chart that oil and the dollar historically are negatively correlated. This means that a rise in oil prices generally coincides with a decline in the dollar, and vice versa. The U.S. dollar has seen a dramatic decline since the beginning of the year as oil prices have moved some 30 percent higher. This could be due to fact that roughly two-thirds of the U.S. trade deficit is related to oil imports.

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One remarkable aspect of the shale gas revolution is that it was not the product of an energy policy edict from Washington, or the result of a bruising political battle to open up public lands and offshore waters for new exploration. Although the Halliburtons of the world are now big in the field, its pioneers were mostly smaller risk-taking entrepreneurs and technological innovators. George P. Mitchell, an independent producer based in Houston, is widely credited as being the prime mover in shale gas, pushing the idea against skeptics. The technology was mainly deployed on existing oil and gas leaseholds or on private land beyond the reach of bureaucrats (for the time being, anyway). That is why shale gas seemed to sneak up unannounced to the media and Beltway elites, even

What is happening these days in the state capital of Harrisburg may one day loom as a watershed moment of equal importance. This time, however, the subject is natural gas.

I was in Harrisburg Saturday to address the annual convention of the Pennsylvania AP Broadcasters Association, the statewide professional TV and radio organization. My topic was off-the-radar news stories about drilling in the Marcellus Shale – the unconventional shale gas basin emerging as likely to be a main new source of natural gas, especially in the energy-dependent Northeast.

The prospect of a major local source capable of fulfilling energy needs for the next couple of centuries was enthralling for the journalists in the room. But how to report on the developments as they

Today I’m going to focus on the effect that Japan’s woes have had on the oil and gas industry, and a few companies which stand to benefit.

On the oil side, crude giant Saudi Aramco has indicated that it’s prepared to help on the supply side. Aramco CEO Khalid Al-Falih promised that his company will do whatever it can to accommodate Japan’s needs: “Japan will have a priority in the months to come as it deals with this disaster and tries to recover.”

There’s no question Japan’s needs have significantly changed since the earthquake. Still, promising to deliver oil is one thing; getting it there is quite another matter…

The Oil Tanker Industry Steps Up

Japan has more than

The crisis in Libya has run on for quite a while, with oil continuously breaking resistance levels. Clearly being a supply side issue, the removal of Libya from the list of oil supplies during its revolution has a minor effect on the actual supply demand equilibrium due to the increase in production from Saudi Arabia.

The contract value is $850 million, assuming a constant dayrate throughout all five years of the contract. That works out to a dayrate of approximately $465,750. That is roughly comparable to the dayrates of SeaDrill’s already existing rigs of the same type. If the market rate is higher than this after the first two years then the dayrate will increase accordingly.

As my previous fleet analysis shows, ultra-deepwater drilling rigs

GMX has made some very good acquisitions, although the company was a little late getting into