Topic Resource Markets

Moving towards a "COAL-PEC"?

Coal has for many years been considered as a resource of the past and as a result its importance has been underestimated. Yet coal still is the main pillar for generating electricity in most countries: A quarter of the worldwide primary energy consumption is provided by coal. While the world's largest coal producers, China, the USA and India, are at the same time the largest consumers of coal. Smaller ...

Causes and Consequences of Rising Food Prices

Since mid 2007 there has been a dramatic rise in prices for basic foods such as internationally traded varieties of rice, corn and wheat. At the moment, it is rather impossible to estimate how far speculation in the commodity markets has contributed to this development. Irrespective of this, a long-term solution to present and future supply shortfalls, including investment in more efficient agro-technologies ...

Stepping on the Brakes

20-20-20 Competitiveness and Conflicts

A Complementarity Model for the European Natural Gas Market

In this paper, we present a detailed and comprehensive complementarity model for computing market equilibrium values in the European natural gas system. Market players include producers and their marketing arms which we call "traders", pipeline and storage operators, marketers, LNG liquefiers, regasifiers, tankers, and three end-use consumption sectors. The economic behavior of producers, traders, ...

Russia: Inadequate Priority Given to Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection

Russian energy production has increased substantially in recent years, with production of natural gas now actually exceeding the levels reached in the early 1990s. The growth in energy production has gone hand in hand with a rise in Russian energy exports. The European Union is an extremely important sales area for Russia. Vice versa, energy deliveries from Russia account for a very sizable share of ...

Linking Natural Gas Markets: Is LNG Doing Its Job?

The increase in liquefied natural gas trade has accelerated the integration of previously segmented markets in North America, Europe, and Asia. This paper provides evidence on the integration of the transatlantic natural gas market. We test the theoretical proposition that in integrating markets commodity prices should move closer than before. Using 2,059 pairs of daily spot prices for natural gas ...

Analysis of the World Market for Steam Coal Using a Complementarity Model

With its resource availability and the prospect of climate friendly technology, coal continues to play an important role in the global energy sector. We develop a complementarity model of the international market for steam coal. We want to analyze the level of competition in this market which is strategic for the importers' security of energy supply. In a spatial equilibrium framework, we assume the ...

Perspectives of the European Natural Gas Markets until 2025

We apply the EMF 23 study design to simulate the effects of the reference case and the scenarios to European natural gas supplies to 2025. We use GASMOD, a strategic severallayer model of European gas supply, consisting of upstream natural gas producers, traders in each consuming European country (or region), and final demand. Our model results suggest rather modest changes in the overall supply situation ...

Theory of Storage: An Empirical Assessment of the European Natural Gas Market

We analyze the relation between European natural gas storage facilities and price patterns at major trading points, considering the theory of storage to derive a testable hypothesis imposed by the non-arbitrage condition. To model the efficiency of the natural gas market, we apply two indirect tests absent the scarcity of European inventory data. We find that operators of storage facilities realize ...