Oil prices are usually influenced by a number of factors. But are there times when OPEC spare capacity has been the most important factor for driving oil prices? This article will argue the answer is yes, and we will discuss the circumstances when this has been the case in the past

China is a rising global power with a growing role and impact on the world's energy markets as well as on the Earth's climate system. China pursues its development in an essentially non-confrontational manner, a vision encapsulated by the notion of peaceful rise which is viewed positively in the...

We analyze the relationships within the liquid fuels system and its associated supply chain using innovative network filtering methods, namely the Minimum Spanning Tree and Triangulated Maximally Filtered Graph. Our findings reveal that biofuels form robust connections with their feedstocks that...

This paper is the first to assess operational and probabilistic externalities of oil extraction and transportation to Europe on the basis of a comprehensive evaluation of realistic future oil demand-supply scenarios, of the relative relevance of import routes, of the local specificities in terms...

Over the past 10 years, financial firms have increased the size of their positions in the oil futures market. At the same time, oil prices have increased dramatically. The conjunction of these developments has led some observers to argue that financial speculation caused the run-up in oil...

China is a rising global power with a growing role and impact on the world's energy markets as well as on the Earth's climate system. China pursues its development in an essentially non-confrontational manner, a vision encapsulated by the notion of peaceful rise which is viewed positively in the...

Following a sharp drop amidst the global economic crisis and a subsequent recovery, the spot price of crude oil has been broadly stable for the past couple of years. This paper discusses the factors that drive oil demand and supply and, hence, the price of the resource. A set of oil demand...

Using recent advances in panel data estimation techniques, we find that an appreciation of the US dollar exchange rate leads to a significant decline in oil demand for a sample of 65 oil-importing countries. The estimated effect turns out to be much larger than the impact of a shift in the...

This paper analyzes the response of international oil producers to demand-induced changes in the real price of oil during 1975-2011. The goal is to disentangle fluctuations in OPEC and non-OPEC production and to derive consistent estimates of the short-run price elasticity of crude oil supply at...

The upheaval in global crude oil markets and the boom in oil production from shale plays in North America have brought scrutiny on the export ban for crude oil in the United States. This paper examines the global flows and strategic refinery adjustments in a spatial, game-theoretic...