Coal is at the core of the debate about climate change mitigation policies, yet the international market for it is not well represented in most energy models. This paper presents the COALMOD framework which is a model of the international steam coal market that can be readily used to explore...

This report tracks the major geo-economic and geo-strategic ruptures between the EU and Russia on the future patterns of gas supplies and shipping routes to the EU and the Western Balkans. It identifies the objectives and interests of the actors involved in this struggle Russia, the EU, various...

China is a rising global power with a growing role and impact on the world's energy markets as well as on the Earth's climate system. China pursues its development in an essentially non-confrontational manner, a vision encapsulated by the notion of peaceful rise which is viewed positively in the...

Following a sharp drop amidst the global economic crisis and a subsequent recovery, the spot price of crude oil has been broadly stable for the past couple of years. This paper discusses the factors that drive oil demand and supply and, hence, the price of the resource. A set of oil demand...

Past episodes of energy insecurity have been fleeting and the fears have been assuaged by market forces or technical change. This paper analyses the nature of the EU's current energy security problems, emphasising the increased importance of natural gas and high level of dependence on Russian...

In 2004 the Austrian-based OMV acquired in a privatization process 51% of the Romanian national oil company Petrom. Two and a half years later this privatization is again in the focus of political attention in Romania. The current government and the media consider the selling price and the...

Russia and four other CIS countries - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - are important energy producers and possess substantial reserves, particularly as far as natural gas is concerned. Russia alone accommodates about one quarter of the global gas reserves and has established...

Although a certain amount of catching-up in the Western Balkans has been recorded in the construction of transport infrastructure in recent years, the railway density remains low and the motorway density is even lower. Also, the deficiency in energy infrastructure is substantial. The current...

Obgleich am Westbalkan in den letzten Jahren ein gewisser Aufholprozess bei der Errichtung von Verkehrsinfrastruktur zu verzeichnen war, bleibt die Eisenbahndichte gering und die Autobahndichte noch geringer. Auch der Nachholbedarf bei Energieinfrastruktur ist substantiell. Die aktuelle...