• “The Low Carbon Energy Transition” by Ivan Sandrea and Lucian Pugliaresi

    EPRINC Trustee, OIES Research Associate, CEBRI International Board Member Ivan R. Sandrea Silva and EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi have authored a paper entitled “The Low Carbon Energy Transition: A window of opportunity for a new phase of economic development in Africa and Latin America?” This paper is directly related to a presentation given by Ivan at the CEBRI  online conference called “Sustainability and the New Energy Economy in a Multipolar World.” A pull quote from the paper is below:

    “In the African and Latin American regions, climate change concerns and the energy transition have received a lot of negative and positive attention and is building significant support especially among the growing youth. But the energy transition is also causing recurring dislocations for both global and regional leaders, the industry, investors, and policymakers. The environment itself is also being affected, and ironically, the level of confidence for the net zero path is dropping as rising energy prices hit the region’s economies. This is because the energy transition “movement’ in the Western world is occurring in a very disorganized and uncoordinated manner, and that is where we see both a major problem unfolding and an opportunity for the leading economies and leaders.”

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  • “Fueling the Dragon: Understanding China’s Natural Gas and LNG Demand” by Battulga Odgerel

    China has emerged as a key player in the global natural gas market in the past decade, surpassing Japan as the top natural gas importer and the largest LNG importer in 2018 and 2021, respectively. China’s role in determining Asian natural gas trends—especially, gas pricing and LNG trade—is increasingly important as the country looks to replace greater volumes of coal with natural gas to implement its programs to reduce local air pollution. As part of EPRINC’s China Series, this publication evaluates market and policy trends in China and projects the country’s natural gas and LNG demand through 2030.

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  • EPRINC Distinguished Fellow Rafael Sandrea Has Been Alerting Us to the Oil Supply Issue for a Long Time
    As oil prices rise and energy security risks lead to supply shortages, we are reminded that EPRINC Distinguished Fellow Rafael Sandra has been alerting us to the oil supply issue for a long time. EPRINC is re-releasing his April 2021 paper, “With Global Oil Demand on the Rebound. What About Supply?” in the hopes that it helps answer some of the questions facing today’s world.
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  • Lucian Pugliaresi Testifies Before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce

    On Tuesday, November 16 2021, EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi participated in a marathon hearing with the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Some of the notable comments he made, pulling from EPRINC’s research on the ongoing energy transition, are listed below. In addition, the full testimony with charts is here and a video of the hearing in its entirety can be found here.

    1. The Energy System is highly complicated, inter-connected regionally and globally in ways that are not always apparent. The energy transition presents a new set of supply and price risks for consumers and manufacturers. Fully implementing an energy transition over the next 30 years is neither easy nor can it be assured.

    2. Achieving net zero in the developed world will reduce carbon emissions by only a small amount, likely no more than 20 percent of expected global emissions.

    3. Regulatory programs as well as private sector commitments to accelerate the energy transition – whether it be mandates, targets, financial and procurement guidelines create uncertainty and financial risks that limit investment commitments to current legacy fuels, many of which are likely to remain in demand for years to come.

    4. Most of the recent escalation in energy prices can be tied directly to dislocations in energy supplies (largely oil and gas) from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, government policies, such as the halt on leasing on federal lands, the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline, the potential cancellation of line 5 from Canada, rising regulatory requirements and permitting delays are all threatening North American oil and gas production. We undermine this strategic asset at our peril if we abandon these fuels before the energy transition is well established.

    5. Policy Matters. The US should see the current energy crisis in Europe as a cautionary tale and learn from it.

    6. Policy initiatives that seek to accelerate the U.S. to a fully renewable energy complex will have global implications for energy security.

    7. The transition will establish new environmental challenges and energy security issues in addition to the old.

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  • “The Future of Venezuela’s Oil Industry” by Rafael Sandrea and Martin Essenfeld

    Throughout much of the developed world, there is a consensus that concern over climate change is leading to a rapid downturn in petroleum use and that petroleum will likely have a rapidly declining role in the world’s energy mix over the next 30 years. However, a rapid energy transition to a world no longer reliant on fossil fuels represents a formidable challenge and a high likelihood remains, especially in the developing world, that petroleum’s important and large contribution to the world energy mix will not be so easily displaced. Recent EIA forecasts show that world oil and gas demand has reverted to trend. Supply requirements for the end of 2022 are likely to exceed 100 million barrels/day, a remarkable recovery from a decline in liquids demands of over 15 million barrels a day in 2020 from the Covid-19 pandemic. Although Venezuelan oil production has been constrained by both technical mismanagement and sanctions, the size of its reserve base documents its potentially important role in meeting future world oil demand.

    The timing of Venezuela’s petroleum future depends on whether it can enter the world oil market under traditional commercial conditions. On June 25, 2021, the U.S., Canada, and the E.U. issued a joint communiqué that made clear that a decision regarding the timing and specifics of the sanctions on Venezuela remains the primary determining factor on when and if Venezuela can play a larger role in the world oil market.

    Even if Venezuela were somehow to find its way free of sanctions, the road back to higher production will require massive capital investment. Venezuela, which produced over 3 million barrels in day in the 1970s, is now at only 600,000 barrels per day. The authors estimate that the level of investment and amount of time required to rehabilitate the production potential of Venezuela would approach $30 billion USD in two stages:

    Stage 1 – Pre-sanctions recovery: An investment of $7-9 billion over 2-3 years to get back to production prevalent before sanctions started in 2017 (about 2 million barrels/day).

    Stage 2 – Post-recovery: An investment of an additional $20 billion/year for 2-3 years. These investments would take 4-5 years to yield additional production. This would require investment into offshore and underdeveloped onshore projects to bring them up to full production capacity. With proper investment, Venezuela can sustain a production output of approximately 2.5 million b/d over the next 20-30 years.

    The authors provide an overview of Venezuela’s production potential, and evaluate the technical obstacles that must be addressed to restore Venezuelan oil production. Their paper can be found here.

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EPRINC Joins Group of Thought Leaders In Writing to Japan’s Prime Minister About Natural Gas and Its Importance to Energy Security

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023, concurrent with CERAWeek in Houston, the leadership of several prominent energy trade associations and think-tanks convened a half-day meeting with senior G7 energy delegates dubbed The Joint Energy Security Forum. Ahead of the deliberations that will lead to and be a part of the G7 leadership meeting on May 19-21, 2023 in Hiroshima, Japan, the Forum discussed the importance of natural gas in meeting global energy security and climate-related goals, especially in the context of Russia’s maligned use of its natural resources.

 
Key to these goals is the continued and expedited investment in all components of natural gas production and trade by G7 countries. Concluding the Forum, the Energy Policy Research Foundation, along with LNG Allies, the American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others, authored and signed a letter to Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, cc’ing the leadership of other G7 countries, affirming the importance of global energy security and natural gas’ critical capabilities to achieve them.
 

“The Low Carbon Energy Transition” by Ivan Sandrea and Lucian Pugliaresi

EPRINC Trustee, OIES Research Associate, CEBRI International Board Member Ivan R. Sandrea Silva and EPRINC President Lucian Pugliaresi have authored a paper entitled “The Low Carbon Energy Transition: A window of opportunity for a new phase of economic development in Africa and Latin America?” This paper is directly related to a presentation given by Ivan at the CEBRI  online conference called “Sustainability and the New Energy Economy in a Multipolar World.” A pull quote from the paper is below:

“In the African and Latin American regions, climate change concerns and the energy transition have received a lot of negative and positive attention and is building significant support especially among the growing youth. But the energy transition is also causing recurring dislocations for both global and regional leaders, the industry, investors, and policymakers. The environment itself is also being affected, and ironically, the level of confidence for the net zero path is dropping as rising energy prices hit the region’s economies. This is because the energy transition “movement’ in the Western world is occurring in a very disorganized and uncoordinated manner, and that is where we see both a major problem unfolding and an opportunity for the leading economies and leaders.”

“Fueling the Dragon: Understanding China’s Natural Gas and LNG Demand” by Battulga Odgerel

China has emerged as a key player in the global natural gas market in the past decade, surpassing Japan as the top natural gas importer and the largest LNG importer in 2018 and 2021, respectively. China’s role in determining Asian natural gas trends—especially, gas pricing and LNG trade—is increasingly important as the country looks to replace greater volumes of coal with natural gas to implement its programs to reduce local air pollution. As part of EPRINC’s China Series, this publication evaluates market and policy trends in China and projects the country’s natural gas and LNG demand through 2030.

Max Pyziur Quoted on Russian Oil Import Ban

EPRINC’s Max Pyziur was quoted extensively in the Miami Herald’s article “What Does Biden’s Ban on Russian Oil Imports Mean for People in the U.S.? What to Know“. The article was published on March 8, 2022. 

A quote from the article: 

“We are in a situation of war. This isn’t just an isolated event in Eastern Europe. This is something that affects the world,” Pyziur said. “It’s going to impact living standards. It’s going to impact national security, it’s going to impact food security, it’s going to impact energy security – all these things.”

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