To the Railroad Commission of Texas: Re: Motion for Commission Called Hearing on the Verified Complaint of Pioneer Natural Resources U.S.A. Inc. and Parsley Energy Inc. to Determine Reasonable Market…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 6, 2020
Hard times indeed are hard, and that adjective is wholly inadequate to describe the double whammy now afflicting U.S. crude-oil producers: declining demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 30, 2020
President Donald Trump announced a few days ago that the US Department of Energy (DoE) will purchase “large quantities of crude oil” to be stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), created under authority…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 23, 2020
In the Beltway, no inefficient policy deed goes unrewarded. That is an eternal truth illustrated well by the expansion of federal powers—at the expense of state and local authority—attendant upon…
By Benjamin Zycher | February 19, 2020
The New York Supreme Court announced its landmark decision earlier this month in the first climate change-related securities lawsuit—“People of the State of New York v. Exxon Mobil Corporation”—to be…
By Benjamin Zycher | December 20, 2019
Christmas is upon us, and the elves are busy in the North Pole suburb of Capitol Hill. The House has produced a draft piece of “green energy” legislation that would…
By Benjamin Zycher | December 3, 2019
The initial public offering (IPO) for up to 5 percent of the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Aramco) has been delayed several times recently, ostensibly due to a seeming difference of…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 13, 2019
Attorneys General are supposed to enforce the rule of law. They are not supposed to use lawsuits to achieve policy outcomes not enacted by the legislature. They are not supposed…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 11, 2019
“Renewable” electricity — predominantly wind and solar power — is all the rage, described by numerous commentators, politicians, pundits, journalists, and other such “experts” as cost-competitive, clean, and a major…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 12, 2019
When last we visited the topic of Nigerian energy markets and happenings, the reason that Nigeria simultaneously is energy-rich and energy-poor was illustrated by the ongoing tug of war between the Nigerian…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 30, 2019
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to meddle in energy markets. The latest tangle began when the federal government and a large number of state…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 25, 2019
Natural resources are an important component of national wealth, and the efficient allocation and use of those resources is an economic process yielding enormous benefits for ordinary people. Also axiomatic…
By Benjamin Zycher | February 28, 2019
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade promises to continue the large economic benefits of the earlier North American Free Trade Agreement, but one threat to those benefits has emerged in the…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 23, 2019
Hope springs eternal, a human inclination affecting romance, dieting, new year’s resolutions, and a good deal more. International investing is prominent among the activities often influenced by a hope that…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 2, 2018
In an effort to deal with the market and non-market forces inflicting economic losses on coal- and nuclear-power plants, the Trump administration is seeking through regulation to force state and regional grid…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 15, 2018