First Post

Check out IBM featuring the book Oil 101 on the front of their global homepage this week (Feb 16-22, 2009). The oil industry is one of the world's biggest users of cutting edge technology.

Also, many thanks to the oil drum for reviewing Oil 101 on Monday (Feb 16, 2009). The oil drum is the leading global oil blog with a fantastic crew of experts.

I was quoted in Barron's last weekend in an article about the spread between heating oil and gasoline. Some have referred to the spread as the widow maker as many relative value traders foundered on it over the past year.

I called this blog 'Scarce Whales' as one of the many possible titles for Oil 101 was 'Scarce Whales and Dark Nights', which following visits to Nantucket, the 18th century Saudi Arabia, and reading about the whaleship Essex, I thought had a nice ring to it harking back to the the reason the modern oil industry sprang up (lack of inexpensive whales and a need for cheap lighting). The 'Dark Nights' part seemed a little too pessimistic and simply calling the book 'Scarce Whales' could have relegated it to the fisheries section of book shops.