Research Library

This paper lays out one potential step-by-step path toward decarbonizing Saudi Arabia, imagining a sweeping restructuring of a fossil fuel-driven society and economy.

With conflict on two fronts, and natural gas squarely in the crosshairs, the U.S. LNG industry will be needed to maintain commitments and support allies and trading partners in both Europe and Asia this winter.

Proactive U.S. efforts to enhance Europe’s gas security and blunt Russia’s ability to use gas for hybrid warfare would directly support its ability to sustain and upgrade its combat credibility in East and Southeast Asia. By incentivizing upstream gas investments globally through the demand call associated with a broader European move to replace Russian gas with LNG, gas geoeconomics would over the medium term also help increase global LNG supply to the ultimate benefit of U.S. allies in Asia, foremost among them Japan and South Korea.

The author highlights the historical evolution, outcomes and implications of some of Japan’s most important investments in the energy sectors of resource-rich countries in the Middle East. This working paper is part of a series titled “The Role of Foreign Direct Investment in Resource-Rich Regions.”

This working paper analyzes the roots of Iran’s “dissonant” political system and revolutionary ideology, the fractious contest over defining and applying this ideology, and the implications of these struggles for Iranian foreign and security policy.

This working paper analyzes the prospects of Iran changing its domestic and foreign policy behavior over the longer term, and outlines what the United States and others can do to promote such changes.

In this paper, author Peter Hartley examines the recent evolution of markets for LNG, focusing especially on the increasing amount of LNG being traded spot or under short-term contracts of less than four-years duration. Hartley argues that explanations for this increase, and other recent changes in LNG trading, imply that the proportion of LNG being traded under long-term contracts is likely to continue to decline and that the flexibility of long-term contracts for trading LNG is likely to continue to increase.

While much has been made in recent years about the increasing liquidity and size of a spot market for liquefied natural gas, most LNG is still sold under confidential, long-term contracts. In fact, in 2013, according to data from the International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers, 73 percent of all LNG trades took place under long-term contracts, which are especially prevalent in Asian markets. Despite the fact that this constitutes an enormous trade, there is very little transparency about how prices are specified, what actual transaction prices are or when pricing terms change. Using publicly available customs data on 16 different trade routes of the largest importers of LNG, graduate fellow Mark Agerton applies econometric techniques to estimate and characterize the empirical relationship between LNG import prices and crude oil prices.