Vintage Wine Turns Sour for Financiers
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Saturday, 06 February 2010
When the folks at a private equity firm gather at the holiday party refreshment table to talk about “vintage,” they aren’t commenting on the Château Pétrus.
India's Green Future
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Monday, 01 February 2010
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| India at night from outer space - already glowing with energy and light |
To ensure India will have adequate energy and water supplies in the future…
The first step is to predict where India’s population will level off. Assume India’s population is going to peak at around 1.3 billion people. This may be somewhat underestimating reality, but everything that follows can be proportionately increased based on higher population projections.
Add a commentNatural Gas: A Challenging Opportunity
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Friday, 29 January 2010
In mid-December of last year, ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) announced it would buy the largest U.S. natural gas producer, XTO Energy, in an all-stock transaction valued at $41 billion. This will be Exxon's biggest takeover since acquiring Mobil in 1999. The XTO purchase provides Exxon with reserves equivalent to 13.9 trillion cubic feet of gas, or 2.3 billion barrels of oil.
From 2005 to 2008, when most of the other Big Oil companies went on a buying spree, Exxon was selling assets and adding to its massive cash hoard. Just as easy lending led to the real estate crash, high energy prices (especially in natural gas) led oil companies to expand recklessly. They started investing in alternative-energy resources like shale, which cost more to produce.
The Other Oil Play and the Raping of Alberta
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Thursday, 28 January 2010
Once considered too expensive, as well as too damaging to the land, exploitation of Alberta’s oil sands is now a gamble worth billions.
Check out the photo gallery on this :http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/essick-photography
The "First Great Infrastructure Project of the 21st Century"
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Tuesday, 26 January 2010
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You don't have to look around too much to find the latest buzz on renewable energy sources and the companies behind them. Since oil prices began rising and the movement toward a cleaner, greener world has gathered pace, they've become all the rage.
But it's important to note that no matter how much momentum the sector builds up, the lack of one key thing could steer this "groundswell of green" into a brick wall.
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