NEW YORK, Nov 14 (Reuters) – “President Barack Obama
approves Keystone XL pipeline with minor revisions” is not a
headline that appeared anywhere last week, much to the relief
of the White House. But it is arguably a fair summary of the
president’s decision to call for additional information on
alternative routes on just one small section of the line.

The State Department’s request for information on
alternative routes, postponing a final decision until the first
quarter of 2013, safely beyond the next election, has drawn
predictable praise from environmental groups and outrage from
the American Petroleum Institute (API).

LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Global energy markets stand at a
crossroads. The big themes that dominated the opening years of
the century (prosperity, markets, peak oil, global warming and
clean technology) are giving way to a different set of concerns
centred on inequality, affordability, regulation and techniques
for extracting oil and gas from tight rock formations and
ever-deeper below the surface.

Some changes have come from outside the energy industry. The
financial crisis has diminished confidence in free markets.
Falling real incomes and rising unemployment in the advanced
economies have pushed climate concerns into the background in
favour of a focus on jobs and cutting household bills.

LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) – If North Dakota’s oil industry is
helping transform North American and global energy markets, then
oil is having just as big an impact on the state itself.

But the extent of the state’s success poses awkward
questions for political leaders in Washington and the rest of
the country.

LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) – Jobs related to oil and gas
drilling account for more than one in eight of all net new
nonfarm jobs in the United States since 2003, and almost one in
five in the private sector, according to an analysis of data
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Oil and gas drilling is one of the fastest growing sectors
of employment, as near-record prices spur a massive expansion in
activity and employment.

LONDON, Oct 31 (Reuters) – Soaring oil prices have spurred a
worldwide drilling boom that should result in much-faster growth
in oil production over the next 2-3 years, helping meet strong
growth in consumption, and tempering upward pressure on prices.

The number of rotary rigs drilling for oil and gas stands at
the highest level for over two decades, according to oilfield
services company Baker Hughes.

LONDON, Oct 28 (Reuters) – For all the bullish talk about
tight supplies next year if the global economy skirts renewed
recession, and occasional sharp short-covering rallies,
benchmark oil prices are softening.

In the past six months, each of a series of sharp
short-covering rallies has pushed the front-month Brent futures
contract to peak at a lower level than the previous one:
$127 on April 11, $126 on April 28, $121 on June 15, $120 on
Aug. 1, $116 on Sept. 8, $114 on Oct. 14 and now $112 on Oct.
27.

LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) – U.S. consumers have given up
hopes of a recovery, according to the gloomy findings of the
Conference Board’s regular survey, in a sign recessionary forces
are still gathering momentum and the economy is set to slow
further in the next few months.

Consumers who expect their total household income to shrink
in the next six months (19.2 percent) outnumber those who expect
it to rise (10.3 percent) by almost two-to-one. The negative
balance (-8.9 percentage points) is the worst since
February-April 2009, when the economy was contracting.
Households are far more pessimistic than in the aftermath of
earlier recessions ().

LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Britain’s inflation performance
is much worse than that of the other advanced economies and
rapid price rises are more widespread than officials are
comfortable admitting in public.

A surging inflation rate is recognised as a problem
everywhere but at the Bank of England — where officials
stubbornly insist the phenomenon is a “one shot spike”, that is
“very temporary”.

LONDON, Oct 12 (Reuters) – Hydraulic fracturing and
horizontal drilling revolutionised the natural gas market,
unlocking huge quantities of previous unrecoverable reserves
trapped in tight rock formations.

The question is whether they are about to do the same for
oil — unlocking billions of barrels of crude trapped in similar
rock forms, and thereby upending forecasts about increasing oil
scarcity and steeply rising prices.

LONDON, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Oil markets have swung from
irrational exuberance in the first half of the year to
increasingly irrational pessimism in recent weeks.

Participants risk exaggerating the risk of a deep and
prolonged recession hitting demand in both the advanced
economies and emerging markets.