Chen and Hsu have published a recent study about oil price volatility and its impact on global trade. A large annual panel data set covering 84 countries has been examined and the evidence shows that trade will be lower when oil prices fluctuate significantly. This supports the ideas presented earlier by Rubin in the book "Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization" that peak oil may in fact reverse globalization.

Abstract:
This paper examines whether higher oil price volatility causes a reversal in globalization. Using a large annual panel data set covering 84 countries all over the world from 1984 to 2008, we investigate the impacts of oil price fluctuations on international trade, namely exports and imports. We present strong and robust evidence that international trade flows will be lower when oil prices fluctuate significantly. We therefore conclude that oil price volatility hurts globalization.

Available from: ScienceDirect

A recent publication in Energy Economics by Douglas Reynolds and Jungho Baek has analyzed the use of Hotelling and Hubbert theories as determinants for oil price. Their conclusing is that scarcity rent has little importance, while the Hubbert curve is a major determinant for oil prices.

Abstract:
Much economic literature analyzes the Hotelling principal. Little economic literature analyzes the Hubbert curve although much controversy surrounds it. This difference in emphasis by economists needs to be reconsidered critically, and towards that end, we attempt to look at both concepts simultaneously. We test whether a simple Hubbert curve model is a significant determinant of world oil price changes and whether one of the main determinants of the Hotelling principle—the discount rate—also affects world oil prices. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach is used to examine the effects of a Hubbert index variable and a Hotelling discount rate variable on the world wide price of oil.

The head of Norway’s oil agency has sounded the alarm over high drilling costs on the country’s continental shelf that are putting a serious restraint on its ability to tap new reserves to reverse a production decline.

At the same time, offshore operators are delaying drilling due to factors such as a lack of rig capacity and stalling on investments in technology to boost recovery, putting a further brake on reserves expansion, Bente Nyland, director of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), warned on Wednesday.

Read more: Upstream Online

The September issue of the American Journal of Public Health is now available online featuring 8 studies and articles by an interdisciplinary set of experts, each examining the health risks posed by peak petroleum and what can be done to mitigate and protect against the onset of a major spike in energy prices.

The studies are entitled:

• Public Health and Medicine in an Age of Energy Scarcity: The Case of Petroleum
• Petroleum and Health Care: Evaluating and Managing Health Care's Vulnerability to Petroleum Supply Shifts
• Petroleum Scarcity and Public Health: Considerations for Local Health Departments
• Peak Oil, Food Systems, and Public Health
• Peak Oil, Urban Form, and Public Health: Exploring the Connections
• [http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/9/1607 Peak Oil and Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Impacts and P

PetroChina, the Chinese oil and gas giant, saw soaring costs devour much higher revenues in the first half to post a similar profit to a year ago. PetroChina said it piled on revenues in the six months to the end of June despite “a complex macro-economic environment” which saw volatility in oil prices and poor demand for petrochemical products.

The second half could prove even more challenging with the company warning: “The uncertainty and instability of the global economic recovery may become more severe, while the global financial markets and crude prices may see greater fluctuations.”

Read more: Upstream Online

Bulent Gokay, a professor of international relations in Kelee University, has written a piece entitled "Past peak oil - life after cheap fossil fuels" where he concluded that "the only rational response to the impending end of the cheap oil age is to redesign all aspects of our lives."

Read it all here: Public Service Europe

A new piece about peak oil, entitled "Peak oil - are we sleepwalking into disaster?" has been written by Dean Carroll. Below follows a short teaser and a link to the entire article.

Governments and oil companies have been silent over the ramifications of fossil fuel depletion, but we have now reached the moment for urgent debate on a future without cheap oil. Like climate change, peak oil is often perceived by the more pessimistic analysts as one of those apocalyptic conundrums where we are already past the tipping point – meaning that any solutions human ingenuity can deliver will simply mitigate the worst-case scenario. Certainly, oil-field discoveries have been in sharp decline since the 1970s. And there is a consensus that peak oil has already been reached, at some point between 2004 and 2008. This does not bode well at a time when huge emerging nations like China and India are experiencing energy-hungry industrial revolutions. China's economic growth was 11 per cent last year and in India, it reached 9 per cent.

The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that curbing rising fossil fuel prices will require significant investments and further development and deployment of renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency, and advanced vehicles. Nobuo Tanaka noted that the renewed debate on nuclear energy could have an impact, not only on climate change but also energy security.

“The age of cheap energy is over,” Mr Tanaka said, speaking at the Bridge Forum Dialogue in Luxembourg on 13 April 2011. “The only question now is, will the extra rent from dearer energy go to an ever smaller circle of producers, or will it be directed back into the domestic economies of the consumers, with the added benefits of increased environmental sustainability?”

Read more: International Energy Agency

The 9th International Peakoil & Gas Conference will take place during 27-29 April 2011 in Brussels, Belgium. In connection, special events in the Walloon parliament (26 April) and European Parliament (03 May) will also be arranged.

Additional information and links can be found in the attached document.

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