Virendra Chauhan

Visiting Research Fellow

Dr. Virendra Chauhan is currently an Oil Analyst at Energy Aspects in London. Prior to his current role, he worked as an equity analyst at Nomura covering the European Integrated Oil companies for 18 months. Virendra’s work at Energy Aspects centres on crude markets. He analyses global supply demand fundamentals, with a particular emphasis on the upstream and tight (shale) oil. He also examines the impact of shale on oil markets, trade flows and benchmarks, producing analysis that is regularly referenced by leading media outlets. His research covers specialist areas such as the economics of tight oil for independent US producers. More broadly, he reviews the potential for tight oil on a global scale, applying data-rich analysis to wider developments in the energy market.

He holds a Ph.D in Chemical Physics from Imperial College, London with a focus on renewable energy technologies. During this time he wrote several papers for peer-reviewed and leading journals in the field of materials engineering, Chemistry and Physics.

Contact

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                    [post_content] => Each oil price crash has brought with it talks of decommissioning, and of bringing down the curtain on North Sea production once and for all. Despite this grim outlook, caution must be taken not to tarnish the whole region with a single brush. The outlooks for the UK and for Norway differ quite substantially. At present, both countries are benefiting from the fruits of several years of high and stable prices, which filled producers with a false sense of confidence, allowing them to chase projects at seemingly any cost. However, one year of low oil prices has transformed the outlook. The UK will benefit in the next two years from new project start-ups and from producers shifting capital to maximize short-term output to manage the downturn. But beyond the short-term respite, UK production is likely to fall as decline rates accelerate, and as the investment, along with the expertise, of IOCs exits the basin.

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                    [post_content] => Less than 10 years ago, at the height of the commodities boom, Brazil was all but assured a place as an oil world powerhouse following the discovery of oil in its subsalt basins. Much faith has been put in Brazil delivering the barrels needed to keep the medium-term oil market in reasonable balance. Whether it is the IEA, EIA, OPEC, major oil companies, or indeed the Brazilian government, all projected the country’s oil production to increase substantially in the coming years. This optimism was brought to the forefront of the global oil and gas industries by the 2007/2008 discovery of the vast pre-salt basins, specifically the Tupi field. This ranks alongside Kashagan as one of the largest and most significant oil discoveries of the past few decades and the biggest in the Americas since the Cantarell field in Mexico in 1976. However, as has often been the case in recent history for the oil markets, a number of project delays and cost overruns have since taken the shine off the initial optimism, and has also kept Brazil from playing a bigger role in the non-OPEC supply picture.

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Latest Publications by Virendra Chauhan