Analytics // World market

An exclusive conversation with Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer on the toll of war with Iran -- and why China and Russia just don't care anymore what the United States thinks of them.

With instability in the Middle East driving oil prices higher PCI offers six informed perspectives on what to expect in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Platts Poll: Energy Community Expresses Confidence That Stimulus Package Will Drive Energy Investment Respondents Also Expect Greater Energy Regulation President Obama’s economic stimulus package, passed by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, will likely result in substantial improvements in US energy infrastructure, according to most of the 340 respondents to a poll of Platts webinar participants representing the energy industry, government, and energy-focused consulting, law firms and media.

The power system of South America has been recently being in the limelight. The events of the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 indicate that Brazil can join the global biggest oil exporters in the near future. Brazil can become the oil supplier for the USA, reducing the dependence of the latter from Venezuela, the experts say.

Final Communique of participants of the Second Joint Seminar, organized by
the Secretariat of the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries and
the International Institute of Energy Policy and Diplomacy of MGIMO
University of the MFA of Russia
?Short and long-term perspectives of world oil market developments?
Moscow October, 29th 2004

With Russia now exporting more oil than Saudi Arabia, the scene is set for a cold war between Moscow and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), industry experts say. The Russians are refusing to go along with OPEC demands for a concerted drop in production, posing looming problems for the cartel as OPEC oil ministers prepare to meet here on Thursday.

Lately, the Russian financial market attracts attention of not only its players but also state authorities. The government dedicated a special meeting to discussion of its fate and at the conference in London Bloomberg presented analysis of condition of the Russian market done by Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries took a surprising decision to cut its oil output on September, 24. The decision was a surprise to most analysts and oil producers

The Saudi Arabian crown prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz arrived in Moscow on Monday for a three day visit, in order to promote a closer cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia. The two countries are the two biggest oil exporters worldwide.

The US is currently trying to repair und upgrade Iraqi oil facilities in order to bring more crude to Western markets. After Saudi Arabia, Iraq has the second biggest oil reserves worldwide. However, it was recently suggested that the world largest oil reserves might not lie in the Middle East but in the province of Alberta in Canada.

During the visit to Moscow the Minister of petroleum and energy of Norway, Einar Steensnes, the questions connected to energy policy, development of petroleum and gas markets of the countries were discussed.

February 12 Russia and Poland have signed the contract within the framework of additional report to the Russian - Polish contract from 1993 about transit of Russian gas through the Polish territory and delivery of gas to Poland for the period of 25 years.

For the French petroleum company TotalFinaElf Iran is a source of big interest. In the Assalouyeh area, in the south of Iran, the company has started extraction of gas from one of the biggest gas deposits in the open sea South Pars.

Japan is going to buy up to 1 million barrels a day of Russian petroleum. Questions on deliveries to Japan of the Russian petroleum in volume, almost two hundred times exceeding the present, will be discussed within the framework of the visit to Moscow of the Prime Minister of Japan Dzunitiro Koidzumi.

With the approach of the new year Iran prepares to warn the foreign partners about reduction of export deliveries of crude petroleum. Iranian Minister of petroleum, Bidzhan Namdar Zangene, has informed about it.

Military and political crisis in the Near East worsen the situation on the world petroleum market: delivery of petroleum to the international market is reduced, and the prices for it increase. However the prices for shares of the energy companies and the companies of the military industry with the beginning of military actions tend to decrease, as short-term military actions do not provide the bases to expect big income.

Experts at the United Nations have prepared the new report regarding the "World Economy in 2002", in which they have declared there to be a spasmodic rising trend with decelerated economic growth rates, the report states that the present slow down was not fast and simultaneous, such as the last one.

Six months ago, the prospects for freer global trade seemed a lone bright spot in a dark world. Two months after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 142 countries agreed to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations at Doha, in Qatar.

Was it a polite gesture or a slap in the face? Impassioned pleas for restraint from Saudi Arabia?s Oil Minister failed to move the men in the Kremlin. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov?s response to Ali al-Naimi?s suggestion that Russia should join a global oil production cut was the offer of a 30,000 barrel per day reduction, a mere 1 per cent of Russia?s daily exports.

The Opec oil cartel said on Thursday it was still aiming for a price of about $25 a barrel for its oil, but its inaction betrayed the fact that, in the current political and market turmoil, it has few means to achieve that price.