Peter is an economist, investment strategist, author and public speaker on issues vital to the future of energy.
He has clocked over 30 years of experience in the business of energy, spanning all systems from oil and gas to renewables. Peter’s passion is studying how society evolves its energy use and applying the lessons of the past into today’s strategic business issues. His holistic knowledge of physics, innovation, finance and economics allows him to give audiences thought provoking advice on how to think about the pressing issues on the future of energy systems.
An accomplished author, Peter’s two best-selling books, A Thousand Barrels a Second (McGraw-Hill, NY 2005) and The End of Energy Obesity (John Wiley & Sons, NY 2009) provide insight into the dynamic world of energy transitions through a thoughtful and highly readable examination of economic, environmental and geopolitical pressures. He has written over 600 weekly columns, current issues of which are distributed through various media channels.
Peter has an undergraduate degree in Geophysics from the University of Alberta, a graduate degree in Econometrics from the University of Southampton UK, and a Master of Science in Management of Technology from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. In addition to his principal roles at the ARC Energy Research Institute and ARC Financial, he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Calgary and has lectured at many leading universities and conferences around the world.
OPEC and its cartel of friends must be sweating condensates in advance of their May 25th meeting. The oil price war, triggered almost three years…
If dollars were votes, the Canadian oil sands is getting an approval rating of about 55 percent this year. Maybe that sounds like a great…
Wow. It’s not often a chart can say so much about human behavior, economic theory, oil consumption and maybe even the future of energy all…
Like us humans, it seems that oil markets have two ears. Going in one ear, is the squeal of the resurgent U.S. oil industry. In…
Get yourself a ruler, a pencil and a piece of paper. Place the ruler at about 45 degrees and draw a line upward across the…
Canadian rigs are going back to the field, coaxed by higher commodity prices and greater productivity. Across the land, 345 iron masts were turning bits…
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck? Okay, that’s trite, but assuming a woodchuck can chuck wood, the classic children’s alliteration leads economists to think…
Recently, I gave a presentation on the future of energy to an audience of about 250 oil and gas professionals. Halfway through, I asked the…
For an energy veteran like me, North America’s oil industry reminds me of “That’s Life,” the classic Frank Sinatra tune. After every oil price crash…
There’s less than two weeks left before the 2016 calendar gets tossed. So for the pundit community it’s time to publish the obligatory list of,…
“If you don’t have your crews lined up by now, you’re not going to be able to complete your wells in Q1,” replied my oilfield…
The OPEC drama is behind us (for now) with the cartel and its friends agreeing to a peak supply. But the topic that’s talked about…
Where is all this oil coming from? Millions of barrels of excess crude oil are weighing down tankers that are being filled from pipelines coming…
Politicking for the U.S. presidential election is now behind us, so I thought I would write about something that’s more predictable – like oil market…
I don’t know much about fashion, but I have heard that blue is the new black. And I know that by the time I buy…
Natural gas has taken significant market share in North American energy markets, especially the United States. Annual consumption of the robust fuel has gone from…
Headlines surrounding ride sharing apps and autonomous vehicles are nudging into my daily reading list like people butting in front of me in traffic. But…
The charts look terrible. In the ruthless court of equity markets, the verdict is clear: The energy business – whether oil, gas, coal, solar, wind,…
“How much more productive can these new wells get?” I asked my host who had kindly invited me on a field trip to some of…
The world buys about $US 3.5 trillion worth of primary energy – coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear and renewables – every year. Fighting for every…