Kenneth Medlock, senior director at the Center for Energy Studies, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Small Business on June 17. Medlock testified for the committee’s hearing, “Crude Intentions: The Untold Story of the Ban, the Oil Industry and America’s Small Businesses.” He discussed the latest CES study, “To Lift or Not to Lift? The U.S. Crude Oil Export Ban: Implications for Price and Energy Security,” which analyzes the economic and energy security impacts of the 40-year-old ban on oil exports.
Texas loses between five to six million acre-feet of water per year to evaporation from surface water supply reservoirs. Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR), whereby water supplies are stored underground, may provide a useful strategy for managing and protecting water supplies.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is starting her second term in office facing economic and political problems that feed into each other. These problems can be attributed to a large extent to mistakes her administration made during her first term. Rousseff’s macroeconomic policy proved to be inconsistent, and the choices she made in some key economic sectors, especially energy, were demonstrably disastrous. Rousseff now faces
the enormous challenge of reconciling the leftwing populism that led her to victory with the inescapable need
to regain the trust of the most dynamic sectors of Brazilian society, including the private sector.
This study examines the effects of lifting the 40-year-old U.S. crude export ban on crude pricing, energy security and energy sector investment. It includes a statistical analysis that explains what the relationship would be between the prices of crudes of different qualities in an unconstrained setting, which, according to author Ken Medlock, is important to providing a more accurate assessment of the impact of current U.S. policy.
South America is likely facing a "second wave" of Chinese investment. How will China's rise to global economic power — and its transition to a new economic growth model — impact South America?
A growing number of Brazilian companies are expanding internationally. These companies are part of the transformation reshaping the global investment environment. They have shifted their international strategy from being based exclusively on exports to becoming foreign investors in countries such as Peru, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
Although there are enormous potential benefits for Mexico's energy sector in the future, there are also important challenges the country must overcome to fully realize its energy potential. One of them has to do with the land ownership and land use regime in Mexico. As the legislative debate on the new Ley de Petróleos and the Ley de la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (Petroleum Act and Federal Electric Utility Act) proceeded in the summer of 2014, the Mexican Congress anticipated potential land-related conflicts associated with exploration and production activities related to hydrocarbons and new energy-related infrastructure projects. These potential conflicts stem from the fact that all of these projects will necessarily require the right of way to access and work on the resources in the subsoil of privately owned as well as on so-called “socially owned” lands in regions targeted for energy development. Thus, the Mexican Congress sought to avoid land-related conflicts by including language related to land ownership and use in the new energy legislation. The legislation, however, may not be able to prevent such conflicts.
Tony Payan, Guadalupe Correa-CabreraOctober 29, 2014
As the United States once again ramps up involvement in Iraq, it makes sense to examine U.S. interests and strategy while considering what might constitute realistic parameters for participation and outcome.
In this issue brief, energy fellow Jim Krane explores answers to the question "What are U.S. interests in Iraq and how are they best pursued?"
The changing regional geopolitics of the Middle East have created new opportunities for the Gulf states to engage in Arab-Israeli conflict resolution after the Arab Spring. This policy report examines the potential role that the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — might play in Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. It presents policy recommendations on how the Gulf states can engage with regional and international partners and build upon the greater space for action as the shifting parameters of Middle East politics create new regional pathways for action and cooperation.
