Category Archives: Energy

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, March 16, 2020: 

Most commentators reviewing and summarizing the president’s message delivered from the Rose Garden at the White House on Friday focused on his declaration of a national emergency and his response to it with the help of private industry leaders. Even his detractors could find little to criticize.

Missing from much of that conversation, however, was just what the president accomplished when he announced that he had instructed his Energy Department head to replenish the SPR, or the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He promised to “fill it right up to the top, saving the American taxpayer billions and billions of dollars, helping our oil industry [and furthering] that wonderful goal – which we’ve achieved, which nobody thought was possible – of energy independence.”

The SPR is the world’s largest reserve of crude oil, with a capacity of more than 700 million barrels stored in salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. It was created back when the U.S. was vulnerable to foreign interference, which vulnerability was exposed during the 1973-1974 oil embargo.

It currently holds about 635 million barrels, and the president’s order to “top it off” will

This article appeared online at TheNewAmeican.com on Sunday, November 17, 2019:  

Saudi Arabia’s “crown jewel” — Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company — announced on Sunday that it is only offering 1.5 percent of itself for sale in December, at a price far less than Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had hoped for. And if things don’t meet even those minimum now greatly reduced expectations, the company could pull the offering before it goes public in December.

When first floated in 2016, MBS suggested he could sell five percent of the state-owned and controlled oil company and receive $100 billion to jump start his Vision 2030. He assumed that his “jewel” is worth $2 trillion.

Analysts looking through the 600-page prospectus that was released last week on the deal aren’t impressed, with many suggesting a much lower valuation, perhaps as low as just $1 trillion. That could turn MBS’s dream into a nightmare. If the offering goes well, he might receive $25 billion. If it doesn’t go well

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, November 4, 2019:  

When Saudi Arabia’s crown jewel, oil producer Aramco (officially called the Saudi Arabian Oil Company), announced on Sunday its “intention to float” some shares in the long-awaited initial offering of shares of the state-owned oil company to the investing public (an IPO, or Initial Public Offering), it triggered two events: a “road show” or “book building” tour by the company to generate enthusiasm among mostly institutional investors for the upcoming offering of shares in December; and the issuing of a “prospectus” outlining the risks entailed by that offering. The prospectus is due out next week.

Investors would do well to read that prospectus very carefully before investing. Though it might not include every risk a new investor would be taking in buying shares when they come to market in December, those risks that will be exposed should provide plenty of reasons to exercise caution before investing.

At the press conference heralding the plan, Aramco Chairman Yasir el-Rumayyan declared:

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, September 4, 2019: 

There’s just no other way to say it: the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, or MBS, is a thug. Upon taking control of the country in 2017, he spent the next two years consolidating his power. Human rights groups have complained loudly about the detentions he ordered and the tortures of dissidents he mandated, about the murders he orchestrated, his bombings of Yemen causing the starvation of millions, the arrest of members of the royal family (confiscating their wealth in exchange for their lives), and, last but not least, his ordering the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October.

But he has big plans. He wants to turn his country into an international showplace, an uber-tourist attraction, a manufacturing mecca, and the economic centerpiece of the Middle East.

It’s going to take billions of dollars and he knows just where to get the money:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, June 20, 2019:

One of Donald Trump’s key promises while running for president was that, if elected, he would end President Obama’s “war on coal.” On Wednesday the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did just that. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler finalized his agency’s plans to replace Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” with Trump’s “Affordable Clean Energy” plan.

Wheeler referred obliquely to Obama’s “war on coal” by likening it to the Green New Deal: “The contrast between our approach and the Green New Deal, or plans like it [i.e., Obama’s “Clean Power Plan”], couldn’t be clearer. Rather than Washington telling Americans what type of energy they can use, or how they can travel, or even what they eat, we are working cooperatively with the states to prove affordable, dependable, and diverse supplies of energy that continues to get cleaner and more efficient.”

President Trump added: