Energy Comment

The Georgia-Russia standoff and the future of Caspian and Central Asian energy supplies — The latest military conflict between Georgia and Russia over the autonomous region of South Ossetia is likely to have a serious impact on export routes for the Caspian and Central Asian hydrocarbons and as a result on the existing European and Chinese plans of diversification of oil and gas supplies. The new energy game in the region is likely to be dominated by Russia, China and the energy producing nations of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and could potentially include Iran, - says Dr Shamil Yenikeyeff of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Lies, damned lies and..energy targets — Energy targets seem to be in vogue, but do they add value to policy-making? Malcolm Keay looks at the case for targets and how their effectiveness might be improved.

Politicians and prices - the itch to intervene — The temptation for EU governments to be seen to "do something" about rolling back energy prices has increased, is increasing and ought to be resisted, argues David Buchan.

Security of European Gas Supplies - a survey of gas industry opinion from the FLAME Conference, Amsterdam, March 4, 2008 — The results of a poll of gas industry professionals at the FLAME Conference in Amsterdam reveal far less concern about dependence on gas imports, and specifically dependence on Russian gas supplies, than is found in most political and media commentary. 60% of respondents were either "not at all" or "a little" worried about Europe's increasing gas import dependence. The same percentage believed that, of the non-European sources of gas, Russia would be the most reliable supplier over the next five years.

Prospects of the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contracts — In this comment, Bassam Fattouh re-assesses the prospects of DME's Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract by focusing on three aspects: retroactive pricing, physical delivery and liquidity. He argues that in terms of providing better tools for risk management, enhancing price transparency and constituting the basis of a new benchmark, the DME's contract has not made any significant breakthroughs and that so far the main success of the DME contract has been in providing a flexible way to access physical Oman crude oil.