Just why did the United States and the International Energy Agency decide to release 60 million barrels of oil next month from their strategic petroleum reserves? The IEA cites the loss of 1.5 million barrels of Libyan production but that’s been going on since February. So why has it taken until July for them to [...]

There are many ways that oil shocks affect the economy, and none of them is good. As the prices of gasoline, diesel and home heating fuel rise, consumers’ energy bills eat up a growing share of their after-tax income, forcing cutbacks in more discretionary areas of spending. The next thing you know, people are going [...]

Environmentalists on both sides of the border are cheering the recent announcement from Washington and Ottawa that both the United States and Canada will soon simultaneously impose much tougher fuel-emission standards for car manufacturers. Any given vehicle producer’s combined fleet of cars and trucks must average 35 miles per gallon by 2016 (or 100 kilometers [...]

What does $80-per-barrel oil say to you? Three years ago, it would have told you that global oil markets were at record tightness. Back then, the US president was making a personal pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to vainly plead for more production. And economists were worrying about the implications for global economic growth. Today, it [...]

It’s Wednesday, and the week’s US oil inventories numbers will soon be out. I have no clue what they will say, nor much interest, either. But others do. Exactly why oil traders and speculators think the data has anything to do with the state of world oil demand is beyond me. I suppose, like Pavlov’s [...]