Energy markets

Marathon Oil, Manipulation, Misplaced Concreteness and the Cheesy Strategy

Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson The Houston Chronicle reports, “Marathon Oil Corp. says regulators have warned the company that it may face legal action for allegedly attempting to manipulate crude oil prices in 2003.” Marathon allegedly traded aggressively one day in 2003 in an after-hours market to drive down the price of a commonly-used benchmark, presumably to benefit …

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Did the Court’s Billion Dollar Result Rely on Invented Analysis by Commission Staff?

1 Comment / Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson A letter sent to FERC commissioners by a couple of high-paid economic consultants starts innocently enough: In light of two recent decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, we write to identify concerns regarding the analysis presented in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) Staff’s …

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FERC Chairman: State Lawmakers to Blame for Retail Competition Failures

Electricity, Energy markets, Politics / By

Michael Giberson FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher reached out to state policy makers in an effort to pass the blame for any failures of competitive retail power markets. As reported by Platts Electric Power Daily, in remarks to the American Bar Association Kelliher said some states have incorrectly blamed what they call lack of competition in …

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Innovation: Using Animal Fat to Produce Biodiesel

5 Comments / Economics, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By

Lynne Kiesling Conoco Phillips and Tyson Foods are going to announce a new joint venture today. They: … will announce a strategic alliance … to produce and market the next generation of renewable diesel fuel, which will help supplement the traditional petroleum-based diesel fuel supply. The alliance plans to use beef, pork and poultry by-product …

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Market Share Math

3 Comments / Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson So just as Lynne urges you to follow the prodigious output of theWSJ’s Energy Roundup blog, they reveal that they, too, are human by rushing out some less-than-carefully worked out language about market shares among traders in the over-the-counter energy derivatives markets: According to a recent survey by research firm Greenwich Associates, Goldman …

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Go Read Wsj’s Energy Roundup Blog

1 Comment / Economics, Electricity, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By

Lynne Kiesling I’ve been so head-down-focus-focus-focus for the past couple of weeks that I have neglected to link approvingly to the Wall Street Journal’s Energy Roundup blog, which is consistently chock full of good stuff. Take, for example, Mark Gongloff’s post about global-warming-adaptive investment strategies, arising from Charles Easterbrook’s April Atlantic Monthly article on the …

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Ethanol and Corn Markets: The Unintended Consequences Are Starting to Show Up

5 Comments / Economics, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By

Lynne Kiesling Back when the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed, many analysts (including myself) argued that in addition to ethanol’s dubious claim to be more “environmentally friendly” than fossil fuels, subsidizing and otherwise favoring the production of ethanol would distort agricultural commodity markets. (If you just read that sentence and thought to yourself …

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Market Monitors in Electric Power Markets, Ii

Electricity, Energy markets, Networks / By

Michael Giberson Not much analytical work has be published looking at the role of market monitors in regional power markets. One of the few pieces to be published in the trade press was an article by Prof. Robert Michaels in Public Utilities Fortnightly, “Watching the Watchers: Can RTO market monitors really be independent?” Writing in …

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The Role of Market Monitors in Electric Power Networks

1 Comment / Electricity, Energy markets, Networks / By

Michael Giberson Economists have devoted a great deal of attention to market power in electric power markets in the somewhat general, structural sense, but very little of that work focuses much attention on networked-nature of the industry. The network matters a lot – that’s one of the views well articulated in the Thomas, et al., …

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