Higher oil prices slowed the economy in the first half of this year. But I don’t expect things to get a whole lot worse.
Category Archives: energy
Links for 2011-06-29
Some quick links to recent analyses of health care costs, oil price shocks, and forecasting commodity prices.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve drawdown
The International Energy Agency announced on Thursday that its 28 member countries had agreed to release 60 million barrels from their combined strategic stockpiles. The U.S. plans to contribute half of this total, all in the form of sweet crude. Thirty million barrels represents about 10% of the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve of 293 million barrels of sweet crude oil, and about 4% of the entire 727 million barrels stockpiled in the U.S. SPR.
Making jobs priority one
It is looking unlikely that there will be more stimulus from either fiscal policy or monetary policy. Former President Bill Clinton has called for suggestions for other policy options that might be helpful. Here are a few ideas along those lines.
Chinese oil demand
Stuart Staniford notes that the number of trucks and passenger vehicles in China has been growing at about 23% each year.
The significance of OPEC announcements
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) today announced that its members could not reach an agreement to change OPEC’s production quotas. How significant is that announcement? In my opinion, not very.
A weakening economy
Incoming data over the last two weeks paint a consistent picture that the U.S. economy, which had been growing at a disappointingly slow rate, has weakened further.
Oil price manipulation
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday filed a civil enforcement action alleging that Nicholas Wildgoose and James Dyer, who worked as traders for Arcadia Petroleum Ltd. and its affiliates, profited by manipulating the price of oil and oil futures in early 2008. I was interested to take a look at the details of the CFTC allegations.
F for Fail
The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Republican analysis of the impact of monetary policy on gasoline prices
I’ve been grading papers for the past half week, so when this popped into my mailbox yesterday morning, I was in a “grading” mood. And when I finished reading it, I determined I would give it an F. From “The Price of Oil and the Value of the Dollar: Declining Value of the U.S. Dollar Adds to the Price of Oil and Gasoline,” Republican Staff Commentary (May 16, 2011):
Shale gas environmental concerns
Technological breakthroughs in methods for drilling for natural gas have opened up the possibility of vast new supplies. However, environmental concerns may turn out to be significant.