Category Energy
Oil prices in currencies other than the USD revisited
Time up update my irregular series of graphs of oil price movements in currencies other than the USD: The story of the first couple of months is pretty straightforward: oil prices fell in January and came back up in February, and there wasn’t much in the way of significant exchange rate movements. By the end […]
Recent oil price movements in currencies other than the USD, updated
Oil prices are now approaching USD100. Maybe it’s time to revisit the graph of oil prices in other currencies: In the last four weeks, the CAD has depreciated against the USD, and the yen has appreciated; the net result is that the CAD-yen exchange rate is pretty much where it was on Labour Day. If […]
Recent oil price movements in currencies other than the USD
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen (among other things) A rise in the USD price of oil, and A fall in the value of the USD compared to other currencies To what extent do these two phenomena cancel out? Here’s a graph of oil prices in terms of the USD, the yen, the euro […]
Extracting rents from the oil sands
The Alberta Royalty Review panel has just released its final report (105-page pdf). It echoes sentiments I voiced earlier, and advocates increasing a 20% increase in royalties: Oil sands royalties were set at a time when the very few participants in a fledgling industry were struggling. The royalty and tax regime for oil sands no […]
From Ghawar to Athabaska
Jim Hamilton points us to Stuart Staniford’s analysis of the decline in oil production in Saudi Arabia’s most important oil field: After Stuart’s monumental research, I really think the burden of proof is on those who claim that Saudi Arabian production can continue to increase. At this point, we need not the conclusions of experts […]
Electric boondoggle du jour
Last month, the government of Quebec and Alcan cobbled together a deal in which Alcan agreed to invest $2b in order to build a new aluminum smelter in the Saquenay-Lac St Jean region; the selling point was the creation of 740 jobs. The Quebec government’s contribution: A $400m interest-free loan over 30 years. $112m in […]
Oil sands graph of the day
Courtesy of the Oil Drum: Between now and 2020, production from the oil sands is likely to increase by about 2 million barrels per day – almost the equivalent of the arrival of another Venezuela on the world market. I’ve been trying to get a handle on the effects that the development of the tar […]
Oil prices and the Canadian dollar: A mystery solved
In an earlier post, I noted that the relationship between the CAD-USD exchange rate and oil prices hasn’t always strong as it has apparently been over the past few years. Since I hadn’t been able to sort this problem out on my own, I went into last weekend’s session on this topic organised by the […]
Should Canada be restricting oil exports?
Canada is now the largest foreign supplier of oil to the US, to the tune of some two million barrels of oil a day. Should we be? Shouldn’t the Canadian government be trying to keep that oil here in order to satisfy our own energy needs? A non-economist might be inclined to respond in the […]
Alberta’s oil sands
Jim Hamilton at Econbrowser talks about Alberta’s oil sands: One of the reasons for interest in oil sands is the potential magnitudes involved. The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimates the ultimate volume of Canadian bitumen in-place at 2.5 trillion barrels, which if it could somehow all be extracted would be enough to satisfy by […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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