Marin Katusa's Blog

A cheap, clean, efficient, and limitless source of energy - such a discovery would change our world. No longer would we be enslaved to oil nor chained to coal; no more would we struggle to power our societies without destroying our environment.

Between October 1973 and March 1974, the price of oil shot sky-high. OPEC embargoed its output, and prices spiked from $3 a barrel to $12 - a gain of 300% in six months. For the global oil machine, the OPEC oil crisis sparked a complete overhaul.

Are you an energy-sector investor? Do you balance your riskier assets with a nice complement of dividend-paying stocks that provide welcome income during turbulent times? Have you ever thought about how your portfolio would fare if those dividends were decimated?

The connections between oil, money, and power are very well established. These three factors can elevate individuals to office, give Big Oil companies major sway with national governments, lead countries into war with one another, and influence or control any number of major relationships and conflicts.

Dozens of countries are slowly altering their international allegiances because of energy considerations. Here I will shine a light on a few of the more significant transitions and how they might impact US and EU energy security.

Relations amongst the countries of the Middle East revolve around religion and historic allegiances. The region's Muslim countries are divided into Sunni and Shiite camps while Jews and Christians are in a constant battle for representation.

Stories of doubles, five-baggers, or even tenfold returns abound in the resource sector. These successes are exactly why we play the game: The discovery and development of a new oilfield or gas basin can create immense value, and being part of a story like that is extremely satisfying, not to mention financially rewarding.

News of a "monster" natural gas find in British Columbia has one again highlighted that North Americans need to make a choice. Do we want to keep the huge volumes of natural gas that have been discovered in recent years across the continent landlocked and transportable only by pipeline, or should we develop the infrastructure that will enable us to transport this fuel to the gas-hungry markets of Asia?

One of oil's most important characteristics is its fungibility, which means that a barrel of refined oil from Texas is equivalent to one from Saudi Arabia or Nigeria or anywhere else in the world. The global oil machine is built upon this premise - tankers take oil wherever it is needed, and one country pays almost the same as the next for this valuable commodity.

Competition is supposed to make competitors stronger, but when it comes to the battle between coal and shale gas for supremacy as the United States' power-generating fuel of choice, the rivalry instead has each commodity holding the other down.