David Olive & Oil

I've always enjoyed David Olive's articles in The Star; he presents his arguments with concrete facts but in a way that you're not caught up with the numbers. Here are two of my recent favourites all concerning the economy of oil.

Oil firms are caught in a squeeze play
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/407511

Here's a teaser:

"Last year, Exxon spent more money buying back its stock – $36 billion – than on reinvesting in the business. Since replacing his similarly unsentimental predecessor, Lee Raymond, in January of last year, Tillerson, 55, has raised capital spending just 18 per cent against a 75 per cent jump in expenditures on share buybacks.

That gambit increases earnings per share, but obviously doesn't add a drop of oil or gas to the firm's reserves in order to sustain the business. Yet Shell and Chevron Corp. also are furiously buying back their stock, at a rate that will see Exxon and Chevron retire all of their stock by about 2024. It comes down to this: buying back the company's stock is a far more certain bet on increasing investor returns than operating a new deep-water drilling program."

Oil dependency fuels crisis
http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/346541