Research Library

This issue brief examines how produced water recycling in Texas oilfields threatens landowners’ ability to earn revenue from selling frac water and disposal services, a more lucrative revenue stream compared to raising cattle.

This paper addresses the role of both the private sector and the public sector in altering Houston’s current situation relative to flooding.

In early 2017, Mayor Sylvester Turner appointed Baker Institute fellow Quianta Moore to his newly created Task Force on Equity, which was charged with developing actionable policy recommendations to make Houston a more equitable place to live.

As China’s demand for light oil products continues to drive incremental consumption growth, it is becoming apparent that commodities framed as “oil products” are increasingly not actually made from crude oil. Fellow Gabriel Collins explores the possible ramifications of this situation in this issue brief. He writes that oil producers — whether in Riyadh, Moscow or the Permian Basin — should take stock of how China’s growing use of “oil products” that do not actually come from crude oil may translate into effective reductions in demand and prices for the crude oil they produce.

Faculty scholar Jim Blackburn proposes a series of realistic ideas that can substantially reduce misery and damage the next time a catastrophic storm like Harvey tears through the Houston-Galveston area. 

Aside from the massive cost of constructing a physical barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, factors such as private and tribal land ownership and the impact on the environment must be taken into account.

This brief quantifies the potential exposure of key European countries to Russian gas price and supply manipulation, shows how Moscow has used energy as an instrument of coercive diplomacy since the early 1990s, and briefly assesses the impacts and future policy implications of Russian entities’ past use of the “energy weapon” in and near Europe. Although it has not been widely successful to date in the former Soviet zone, Russia's use of the energy weapon against Western European countries in various forms still constitutes a strategic threat that warrants close attention from policymakers in Washington and throughout Europe, writes fellow Gabriel Collins.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro appears to be a month away from destroying all remnants of what was once one of Latin America's most stable democracies.

On March 28, 2017, Energy Dialogues organized an event co-hosted with Shell at the Shell Woodcreek Campus in west Houston in which participants from across the oil and gas sector engaged in discussions that centered on three themes: economy, environment, and coalition-building. This report summarizes the day's discussions.

Mexico is gradually laying the foundation for an oil and gas sector where private—along with some state-owned—international companies are taking central stage. However, authorities should not ignore the necessity of developing a domestic oil and gas sector, writes Adrian Duhalt in a post for the Baker Institute blog.