Chief Scientist & Professor of Exploration Geoscience, Heriot-Watt University
Assistant Professor, Durham University
Chair of Urban & Regional Planning and Director of Canberra Urban & Regional Futures, University of Canberra, Visiting Professor, University of Warwick
Associate Professor in Biophysics, University of Pretoria
Production
Gas exports unstoppable: Gazprom
Construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has been completed for 58.7 per cent of its total length, according to the consortium behind the divisive project. “Construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline continues. 1,441km of the gas pipeline were laid on the bottom of the Baltic Sea by now: 58.7 per cent […]
Transmission
Trump rages against Russian power grid claims
The US is allegedly trying to install malware in the Russian power grid as the bilateral cyber war intensifies. The New York Times reported that the United States was stepping up its digital attacks on the electric grid in case a conflict breaks out. The action is intended partly as a warning but also to […]
Storage
European manufacturers clamour for Swedish batteries
Swedish battery manufacturing startup Northvolt has announced growing interest from Volkswagen, BMW, Scania, ABB, Siemens, Vattenfall, Vestas and other European firms. VW agreed to a new €900-million joint venture with Northvolt this week in return for a 20-per-cent stake in Northvolt and a representative on the board of directors. Founded in 2016, the Swedish company […]
Consumption
Russia set to reveal cost of oil pipeline blunder
A joint commission of Russian and Belarusian representatives will start to reveal the losses from the contaminated Druzhba oil pipeline tomorrow (Monday), Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak told the state media. The working group examining the issue included representatives of Belarusian oil and chemical firm Belneftekhim and Russia’s Ministry of Energy, Kozak said, according […]
Policy
Opec and Russia fail to set meeting to discuss output cut
Russia and Opec’s production cuts are due to expire this month with a 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) production cut widely expected but the cartel and its allies have not agreed a date to meet. Iran, which was refusing to agree to a date, has this week proposed July 10-12. Iran’s oil minister, Bijan […]
Environment
Shell boss calls for environmental awareness
The boss of one of the world’s biggest polluters has urged consumers to eat more seasonal food and work harder on their recycling. Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, said consumer choices were key to global energy demand and called for the public to “address consumption patterns” to cut greenhouse emissions. Shell, Europe’s […]
Industry
Extreme weather boosting energy use: BP
Global carbon emissions jumped the most in seven years during 2018 as energy demand increased, according to BP’s annual world energy study. The closely watched survey by the energy giant found that primary demand rose at the fastest pace this decade in 2018, despite slowing economic growth. Carbon emissions climbed by 2 per cent last […]
Opinion
Dancing with the Devil: Rosneft and the Future of Iraqi Kurdistan Gas
Over the past year, the gas-exporting ambitions of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) appeared, finally, to brighten. Last May, Rosneft and local authorities signed a business development agreement to forge “an integral plan to progress the gas business” in the semi-autonomous region. A critical component came even earlier, in September 2017, in the form […]
Book Review: America’s Christianity-and-Crude Cocktail Explained in ‘Anointed with Oil’
“In his keynote address [to the American Petroleum Institute in 1941], [Henry Luce, founder of Life Magazine and the term the “American Century”] heralded oilmen as the vanguards of pure American values, praising their ‘dynamic spirit of freedom and enterprise’ and ‘sense of illimitable roundness of the world’. When harnessed by God-fearing patriots, he intimated, […]