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Investigating fracking

Looking around, as some journos do, during some research on fracking and taxation, I find this:

Oil and gas companies are price takers due to the oligopolistic nature of the
markets (Berger 1988; Lin 2014).

Which is barking. In an oligopoly suppliers have market power. That’s what we mean by saying that it’s an oligopolistic market. It’s in a competitive market that producers are price takers.

Seriously, if that’s a real assumption being made in the academic analyses of fracking no wonder the whole policy regime is entirely up the spout.

Because unconventional oil and gas are riskier to exploit than
conventional resources

You what? Given regulatory certainty – obvs, no certainty – there’s less risk. Sigh.

9 thoughts on “Investigating fracking”

  1. Authors: Acquah-Andoh, E., Ike, O., Ifelebuegu, A. & Owusu, A.

    The final conclusion of the paper is that you should send your bank details to a GMail address.

  2. Liked the last line of the paper, ‘would support the UK Government’s efforts to stimulate investment in shale gas development’.

    To me, if the UK wants shale gas, it needs to abolish the regulations that stop it.

  3. Sorry, all those peeps who’ve been so vocal in their desire to save the planet are getting what they want. Good and hard.

  4. p.s. Don’t forget that we here in the UK have had a very mild winter so far. What would the bleating be like if we had a winter the likes of ’47, ’63, ’78, ’81, 2010?

  5. Economics doesn’t seem to me to achieve much but at least it provides a handy, agreed vocabulary to use in discussing some topics. If these fuckers don’t understand “oligopoly” or “price-taker” they are not fit for purpose. Send them to Coventry.

  6. There’s an ongoing crusade to redefine language. Some idiots were coming out yesterday with the madness: “removing restrictions will impact poorest people worst”.
    No, *REMOVING* restrictions *UN*impacts people. *IMPOSING* restrictions impacts people.

    For several minutes I had a fantasy of this moron making this statement to me as a Magistrate, and chucking him in jug for fourteeen days for perjury.

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