Oilfield services, shipbuilders and other industries that rose with the pre-2014 oil price boom have had it hard. Since barrel rates fell, their previous patrons have become uninterested in doling out major purchase orders, leaving oil and gas equipment manufacturers without revenues.
China was responsible for 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2012. According to World Bank research, cities consume more than 65 percent of global energy and emit some 70 percent of greenhouse gases. Transforming cities into ‘low-carbon cities’ will therefore be an important policy tool in mitigating climate change.
Mylan is the latest pharmaceutical company to face controversy over its drug pricing. It has come under scrutiny and strong criticism from the public and government officials for raising the price of its EpiPen allergy device from about US$100 in 2008 to about US$600 currently.
Oil has broken down further today. The ostensible trigger was the larger than expected build in US inventories. However, the price of oil has been trending lower since the beginning of last week. It appears that our skepticism of talk of an output freeze is gaining support.
The Saudis have indicated that they do not see a need for action, while the Iranians have not yet returned output to pre-embargo levels.
The collapse of oil prices has ground shale drilling to a halt, but the one region where drilling is still active, and even increasing, is in West Texas.
Judging by the political winds, Silicon Valley seems headed for a showdown with antitrust regulators.
For the first time since 1988, the Democratic Party’s platform includes stronger antitrust enforcement, while leading liberals have singled out Google, Apple and Facebook for holding too much market power.
We have gone electric, and there is no going back at this point. Lithium is our new fuel, but like fossil fuels, the reserves we are currently tapping into are finite—and that is what investors can take to the bank.
You may think lithium got too popular too fast. You may suspect electric vehicles are too much buzz and not enough real future. You may, in short, be a lithium skeptic, one of many. Yet, despite this skepticism, lithium demand is rising steadily and sharply, and indications that a shortage may be looming are very real.
During the 2016 presidential election, we’ve seen an unusual amount of interest in issues regarding gender equality in the workplace. Discussions of equal pay, the glass ceiling and affordable childcare are not typical talking points in presidential elections.
Uber’s announcement that it will introduce driverless cars in Pittsburgh, US, throws into question the fate of not just the “sharing economy”, which Uber helped to make mainstream, but the future of employment in a wider sense too.
It’s possible that OPEC is crying wolf with hints of an output freeze next month in Algiers; but it’s also possible that they are ramping up production to take the sting out of a freeze. This is a delicate balancing act that the Saudis need to play very carefully.
The official chatter is that the OPEC meeting in Algeria from September 26 to 28 could conclude with an agreement to freeze production by the member nations, with even Russia joining forces in a freeze that may prevent further oil price erosion.
