News from EPRINC click here
June 2008
Since
moving from New York City 18
months ago, EPRINC has broadened its focus beyond the petroleum
industry.
We have been especially active in evaluating the growing alternative
fuels
industry and other aspects of energy policy that extend past the
petroleum
industry. Formerly known as the Petroleum Industry Research
Foundation
(PIRINC), we have had a close following by government, the media, and
the
public due to our unique expertise in the petroleum industry (for more
on the
history of EPRINC and PIRINC please see the About Us section of our
website). We
certainly have no plans to abandon a 60 year tradition of leading edge
assessments of developments in the petroleum industry, even as we
broaden our
analysis and expertise into new fuels and topics.
As the world has experienced rapid changes in its energy and
commodity markets over the past few years, EPRINC has devoted itself to
increasing the amount research and analysis that it makes available to
the
public. The Foundation has begun leading workshops with industry
experts
on current energy developments to help foster discussion and
fact-finding.
It has hired new research staff to augment the Foundation's
analytical
capacity and will be spending more time discussing these developments
with
interested parties in government, the public, and the media.
On April 15 EPRINC, along with
the Energy Information Agency (EIA), held a roundtable discussion on
the U.S.
Government's ethanol mandate for 2008. Following the event, which
included representatives from several Federal agencies along with
industry
experts, Larry Kumins wrote a report summarizing the ethanol workshop's
findings. That report can be downloaded here.
In March, EPRINC released a paper entitled "A Series of Unfortunate Events".
The paper discusses the relationship between expectations of oil
production and
the price of oil. It examines predictions for future crude oil
production
made at the beginning of the decade and how a perfect storm of
unforeseen
events, primarily resource nationalism and civil strife, during the
past few
years have caused a string of supply disruptions, thereby lowering
expectations
for future output and resulting in a tight supply of oil. An
update of
this report will be published in the Oil and Gas Journal
on July 7,
2008.
All
of EPRINC's publications are
available free of charge and can be accessed from our Publications
page.
