英语论文网

OPEC along with Egypt and Syria, all together comprising OAPEC, decided to place an embargo on shipments of crude oil to nations that had supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt, mainly targeting at the United States and Netherlands. The result of this decision also brought about major oil price increases. Because of the fact that OPEC was the dominant oil distributor at the time, the price increase implied serious impacts on the national economies of the targeted countries, therefore suggesting an international range crisis. Although the embargo was lifted in March 1974, the effects of the energy crisis, mainly in terms of price increase, lingered on throughout the 1970s, with the Iranian crisis aggravating the situation (see also 4.1).

Suggesting a crisis that was mainly expressed on the basis of high energy pricing, the outcome of the previous questions concerned with the determination of energy price influential parameters may be illustrated. In fact, the impact of a more or less unanticipated event changed the correlation patterns between supply and demand and imposed the attachment of high tensions in the market balance, the latter entailing the high volatility of oil price and its potential outburst ever since (Regnier, 2007). The market structures, the dominance of OPEC and the political tension, all suggest aspects of the crisis illustrating the importance of considering qualitative parameters as well. As Godet well pointed out, one cannot neglect the wishes and decisions of major actors when configuring the future (e.g. OPEC members).

Similar to the 1973 oil crisis, the California energy crisis occurring some 27 years later also revealed the strength of key actors in completely changing what was meant to follow a past trend or ameliorate a past situation. The deregulation of the electricity market in California (during 1998) targeting to decrease the highest of retail prices among the States turned into a complete fiasco that abetted the manipulation of the market by the energy companies. The crisis main characteristics involved very high wholesale prices, interrupted service of customers (rolling blackouts), bankrupt utilities and huge state expenditures, while the crisis main causes were:

* The lack of new generating capacity inside California (California was heavily dependent on energy imports from nearby states (CEC, 2007a)).

* The coincidence of a dry year and natural gas spikes with other market oriented factors (California was largely based on hydro and natural gas for the consumers' electrification).

* The market structure allowing generators to manipulate wholesale prices in the power exchange market through escalating power plants' outages that caused market disorder (on the other hand there was a retail price cap that did not allow the investor owned utilities to pass the increasing cost of wholesale purchases to consumers).

* The delay and inability of the regulators to predict the crisis and respond to it (it was only after a certain time that a wholesale cap was set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and an increase of retail prices was allowed to the investor owned utilities).

Emphasizing on the manipulation本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。