Energy

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Press Release - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

American Energy Society Names Meghan O’Sullivan 2017 “Energy Writer of the Year”

| Nov. 13, 2017

The American Energy Society has named the Belfer Center’s Meghan O’Sullivan the 2017 “Energy Writer of the Year.” O’Sullivan, the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Belfer Center's Geopolitics of Energy Project, received the prestigious award for her recently published book Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power and for her New York Times commentary “How Trump Can Harness the U.S. Energy Boom.”

Report

The Global Oil Market: No Safe Haven for Prices

| Feb. 23, 2016

Leonardo Maugeri explains why oil production continued to grow despite the collapse of oil prices since November 2014. Investment in production capacity did not abate. In point of fact, oil producers are just beginning to see results from recently completed or soon-to-be-completed investments – as he suggested in 2012. This momentum means today’s oil surpluses will grow, putting further downward pressure on prices.

Will global demand catch up to absorb this glut? It seems unlikely.

Oil refining factory in Perm, Russia

wikimedia CC

Paper - National Bureau of Asian Research

China’s Energy Hedging Strategy: Less Than Meets the Eye for Russian Gas Pipelines

| February 9, 2015

China’s energy needs have been a major factor shaping the global energy landscape in the 21st century. A significant contributor to rising global energy consumption and increasing prices over the last decade, the country is being actively courted by the world’s largest oil and gas exporters as a pivotal growth market for the future. As part of this, policymakers and industry leaders have been closely monitoring the potential for growing strategic and energy ties between China and its producer neighbor, Russia.

Discussion Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Falling Short: A Reality Check for Global LNG Exports

| December 19, 2014

In 2012, when many energy experts argued that oil production had peaked, Leonardo Maugeri published “Oil: The Next Revolution,” which forecast a glut of oil and collapsing prices in the next several years. His prediction proved prescient. Now, as analysts look past today’s oil-market drama to a near future of robust liquefied natural gas exports, Maugeri is again challenging conventional wisdom. The long-hoped-for and hyped-up gas market, he concludes, will disappoint.

“Falling Short: A Reality Check for Global LNG Exports” details the new findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now an associate with the Geopolitics of Energy project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The U.S. Shale Oil Boom: Potential Impacts and Vulnerabilities of an Unconventional Energy Source

AP Images

Policy Brief - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

The U.S. Shale Oil Boom: Potential Impacts and Vulnerabilities of an Unconventional Energy Source

| June 2013

A new study by Belfer Center Geopolitics of Energy researcher Leonardo Maugeri finds that oil production capacity is surging throughout the world, but the United States in particular will experience unprecedented output as a result of technological advances and some unique attributes. This increased production will not be without challenges, however, as the drilling industry adapts to this relatively new method and overall output depending greatly on price stability. In the end, the U.S. may yet still import oil from other countries. The findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, are based on an original field-by-field analysis of the world’s major oil formations and exploration projects.

The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon

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Discussion Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon

| June 2013

A study just released by Belfer Center researcher Leonardo Maugeri finds that the shale oil revolution taking place in the United States could result in the tripling of shale oil output to five million barrels a day by 2017, likely making the U.S. the top oil producer in the world in just a few years. The study by Maugeri, a Roy Family Fellow working with the Belfer Center's Geopolitics of Energy project, looked at whether the surge in shale oil production is just a temporary bubble or an event capable of significantly altering the U.S.—and possibly global—energy outlook.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

On Tap at Belfer Center: Oil and Water

Winter 2012-2013

Leonardo Maugeri writes that oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020—possibly prompting a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices.

An oil pump jack in Santa Maria, California, a three-story humming contraption struck residents as a mere curiosity until someone uttered the petroleum industry's dirty word: fracking.

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Discussion Paper

North American Oil and Gas Reserves: Prospects and Policy

| July 2012

Expanding estimates of North America’s supply of accessible shale gas, and more recently, shale oil, have been trumpeted in many circles as the most significant energy resource development since the oil boom in Texas in the late 1920s. How large are these resources? What challenges will need to be overcome if their potential is to be realized? How will they impact U.S. energy policy?

To address these questions, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and two of its programs ― the Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Geopolitics of Energy Project ― convened a group of experts from business, government, and academia on May 1, 2012, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The following report summarizes the major issues discussed at this workshop. Since the discussions were off-the-record, no comments are attributed to any individual. Rather, this report attempts to summarize the arguments on all sides of the issues.