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New German-language peak oil-aware newsletter now online
Dr. Steffen Bukold, EnergyComment
New and free professional newsletter on oil markets and oil politics

Hamburg-based EnergyComment announces its new professional and free newsletter "Global Oil Briefing" covering peakoil-related items, recent developments in oil markets and oil politics. It is published every twice a month and can be downloaded from the website www.energycomment.de. You may also choose to be notified of new editions by email. In its current edition it covers inter alia the crisis of the Canadian oilsands industry and the trends in oil demand. It is currently available in German only, but an English version is to follow soon.
(11 February 2009)
The 23-page German-language newsletter is online at http://www.energycomment.de/download/files/Global_Oil_Briefing_1.pdf .
More material is available on the Energy Comment site.

UPDATE (Feb 18)
The English translation of the newsletter is now available on the website.



U. S. refinery delays may spur supply crunch
Rebekah Kebede, Reuters via Calgary Herald
The stage is being set for a fuel supply crunch in the United States once the economy rebounds now that refiners have pushed back more than $10 billion worth of upgrades they had on the drawing board.

Pressured by the oil price collapse and the economic malaise, companies have also either slowed or scrapped expansions which could threaten 340,000 barrels per day of new capacity, spelling a return to lagging processing capability that helped push pump prices higher until last year.
(13 February 2009)



Mechanics of Future Oil Price Volatility (A Flubber Cobweb)
Jeff Vail, The Oil Drum
I previously examined the interface between peaking oil supplies and oil price volatility as a predator-prey system. With the rapid drop in oil prices, it’s time to add another wrinkle to that story: widespread acceptance (psychosis?) about the stability of high oil prices acted as a damper on oil price volatility. Now that a collapse in oil prices is more than a mere theory, oil markets are poised for a long-term increase in price volatility.

The fundamental problem facing oil markets at present it this: while present supplies are sufficient to meet present weak demand, these sources of production face rapid decline. The current low oil prices are not sufficient to support the long term investment in future supplies, conservation, and consumption efficiency that will be necessary to mitigate the impact of this decline. Because of the time-lag between a sufficient price signal and oil reaching the market (or demand being reduced), and because of the impact of the recent price collapse on producer psychology, volatility will rapidly incrase as the market's price signal must make increasingly exaggerated moves to bring supply and demand into equillibrium.
(5 February 2009)