The Oil and the Middle East Programme of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies was established in 2009. It is dedicated to the advanced study of contemporary oil markets, production, consumption and policy. With a historical focus on the resource-rich economies of the Middle East, research on the Programme has expanded to include major non-OPEC producing regions such as North America and Russia, and emerging energy markets such as China and India.
This research stream encompasses the study of oil price cycles, evolution of pricing benchmarks, behaviour of oil market participants, the impact of new supply sources on market dynamics, producer-consumer relations, and international oil and product trade flows.
Research under this stream relates to the economic prospects for conventional and unconventional production in the world’s major producing economies as well as newly emerging provinces, and includes the Middle East, Africa, North America and Russia. It covers topics such as the evolution of fiscal regimes.
The programme’s third main research stream focuses on emerging centres of energy demand outside traditional OECD energy consumers. Research under this stream analyses demand and supply patterns in emerging energy markets, including Russia, India, China, Latin America and Africa.
The fourth key area of research concentrates on the management of natural resource wealth within resource-rich economies, including resource-based development strategies and economic growth, distribution of natural resource rents, challenges related to domestic demand growth, diversification, and the deployment of renewables.
Research is disseminated via a dedicated research paper series, short energy comments and contributions to academic journals and specialised publications, in addition to a book series published by Oxford University Press. Members of programme staff have also been involved in a range of international collaborative publications, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Energy Forum (IEF). The Programme’s research group is composed of core staff, and draws on a network of external contributors from a wide range of disciplinary and professional backgrounds.
On 25 February this year Platts, a division of S&P Global, announced the inclusion of delivered, or CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight), Rotterdam offers of North Sea oil cargoes into its flagship Dated Brent benchmark starting from 1 October 2019. Competing price reporting agency (PRA) Argus is already publishing its ‘New North Sea Dated’ assessment […]
President Trump’s tweet on February 25 urging OPEC to ‘relax’ and to take it ‘easy’ with their cuts, and that a ‘fragile’ global economy can’t tolerate a higher oil price, did have an immediate price impact, with the Brent price declining by 4 per cent on the day, from nearly $67/b down to $64/b. But […]
The current sweet-sour crude oil imbalance is creating challenges for producers and refineries alike. While OPEC+ is striving to balance the market by the first half of 2019, unplanned outages from countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Canada and OPEC+ cuts have contributed to a large deficit in medium/heavy sour crudes. This is having a […]
Following a pause as the country complied with the recent OPEC/Non-OPEC deal Russia is set to expand its oil output again. Fields currently under development will see production rise consistently until the early 2020s, but the key question will be whether this can be sustained for the longer term. Existing fields in West Siberia and […]
In an effort to increase oil export revenue and to meet local electricity demands, the Kuwaiti government is planning to replace the majority of crude and petroleum products with imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) in its power generation by 2030. The basic motivation for this plan is that it will enable freeing crude and petroleum […]
Iran is once more confronted with sanctions. Since November 2018, in an attempt to impose “maximum economic pressure” on the country, the US has been targeting the Iranian energy industry and other sectors of the economy. Sanctions also apply to energy trade and economic relations between Iran and third countries. The effects of US sanctions […]
We are interested in hearing from students and researchers working on oil and the Middle East academically worldwide. For information about the programme and questions, please email;
Changes to the ‘Dated Brent’ benchmark: more to come https://t.co/gW10n8rPMi
March 21st
New OIES paper looks at LNG projects vying for FID in 2019-20, reviews 5 areas, costs and competitiveness, and the… https://t.co/pz3UDcUcQU
March 20th
Outlook for Competitive LNG Supply https://t.co/qmG43CklMw
March 20th
