April 2015

Is Tesla Changing The Dynamics Of Global Energy?

Tesla’s announcement last week about creating a new line of batteries for use by businesses, consumers, and the electrical grid at large is a game-changer for the industry. Currently, when individuals or companies need back-up power, they usually rely on generators. Effective battery storage for large amounts of energy would be a game changer in that it would enable a separation of generation and use of energy produced through clean fuels like solar and wind power.

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Governments Around the World Outlawing Cash

Recently, France decided to crack down on those people who make cash payments and withdrawals and who hold small bank accounts. In 2011 Italy began working to end the right of landlords, tradesmen, and small businesses to perform large transactions in cash. Spain has outlawed cash transactions over €2,500. In Sweden, the use of cash is being steadily eliminated. Denmark’s central bank, Nationalbanken, has another justification for ending its use of banknotes—producing paper money and coinage is not cost effective. Israel also seeks to end the use of cash. A 2012 law in Mexico bans large cash transactions, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison. In 2014, Uruguay passed the Financial Inclusion Law, which limits cash transactions to US$5,000. And In the US, federal law requires banks to file a “suspicious activity report” (SAR) on their customers whenever a customer requests a suspicious transaction. (In 2013, 1.6 million SAR’s were submitted.) As to what may be deemed “suspicious,” it may be any transaction of $5,000 or more, but it may also mean a series of transactions that, together, exceed $5,000.

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Top 12 Media Myths On Oil Prices

The upstream oil and gas industry is not a black hole. There’s no mystery wrapped in an enigma here.

There are a lot of meetings with engineers, chemists and geologists. There’s a constantly evolving learning curve. And then there’s all the regulations and compliance. But all-in-all it’s pretty straight forward, that is, until the media gets a hold of it. That’s when it becomes complicated. It’s as though we are getting reports from the mysteries of the deep ocean or life in the great galaxies beyond. There is so much hyperbole and unsupported guesswork that investors don’t have a chance. So, in a small effort to set the record straight, let’s see if we can’t dispel some of the misinformation.

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Windfall Profits

Should Airlines Be Stopped From Making Windfall Profits?

There’s this crazy talk about how airlines are some kind of public utility that should only be allowed an “acceptable” profit margin so you and I can continue to fly coast-to-coast for $300 round trip… This is the sort of thinking that gets us in trouble, though. This is what gets entire industries nationalized, which is what happens when some congressman has his flight canceled and starts talking about how the airline industry is in the “national interest.”

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Argentina-oil

Can Argentina Capitalize On Its Vast Shale Reserves?

Argentina, once a regional energy leader, is now better known for financial busts and bombastic politicians than hydrocarbons prospects. Still, with a resource potential both vast and untapped, the nation has never been far from energy investors’ minds. The question today is just how much Argentina is willing to change and how this plays into a low oil price environment that is already negatively impacting investment elsewhere.

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