How COVID-19 might delay energy transition?
Energy transition has recently become a very popular topic, and everyone sees the soon end of hydrocarbon economy, including the crude oil.
However, the current pandemic is likely to have a delaying impact on introduction of greener technologies and postpone reaching plateau demand for conventional energy for several years.
The key driver for introduction of any technology is its cost, which is the price its customer must pay. Green technologies do bring more advantages to the society, but their introduction will require customers pay a premium over conventional, more dirty technologies.
There is matrix…
Crude oil markets: reality vs. expectations
Back in April, when the world was immersing into the first lockdown due to overwhelming spread of COVID-19, we developed three scenarios of how the oil industry might develop in the future, given wide range of potential developments.
It is now interesting to see how the reality would play against the scenarios. You can see the overview of the scenarios on Picture 1. Basically, key differentiators are the factors most effecting performance of the industry in monetary and physical terms — crude price and crude demand in from of refining volumes.
Pic 1. Overview…
Nord Stream-2: who will finally win, Russia or Europe? A view on the project’s strategic implications.
Few weeks ago, a new round of fight against construction of Nord-Stream 2 pipeline intensified, as the US State Department announced potential sanctions for the European supporters and participants of the project. Even operators of a small German port of Murkan, where some supplies for the project had been stored, was threated to be economically destroyed.
There have been many attempts to stop this project, which will double direct gas transportation capacity from Russia to Germany, given its high political and economic importance for…
