Blogs overview

=Institutional=

The Barrel – by Platts
Platts, a major energy market information provider, runs 'The Barrel' blog, with posts running from hard-figure analysis to first-person essays on energy and commodity issues. The blog covers a range of topics, from supply/demand, derivatives and regulation to renewable fuels, electricity and gas production, carbon trading and the environment. The blog has a central “news desk” that links to other resources, such as reports from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), but also posts stories at-large from independent contributors. The Barrel considers at-large blog contributions at the email address webeditor@platts.com.

As a resource for journalists, The Barrel tends to bridge the gap somewhat between generic and hard-core energy reporting, with hard facts wrapped in an easier-to-digest narrative style.

http://www.platts.com/weblog/oilblog/

The Oil Drum
The Oil Drum blog is published by the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, a non-profit corporation in the United States. The blog is loosely affiliated with some of the leading "peak oil" blogs out there, but according to the blog's mission, it seeks to "facilitate civil, evidence-based discussions about energy and its impacts on the future of humanity". The Oil Drum is a resource well-suited to journalists and others seeking hard figures to back up their energy industry claims. Written by a group of lifelong scientists and Ph.Ds, the material is scientifically rigorous and gets "geeky" in the best sense of the word, but tries to stay digestible for all the lay readers out there. Case in point - the handy "acronym guide" that helps decipher some of the more esoteric industry jargon.

http://www.theoildrum.com/

Energy, Security, and Climate – by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
The brainchild of three CFR fellows - Michael A. Levi, Blake Clayton, and Daniel P. Ahn – the Energy, Security, and Climate handles the "softer" side of energy, providing a space for three think tankers to cut loose from the institutional PDF-paper mold. Coming from a think tank in the United States, the blog material is US-centric, mainly on policy challenges surrounding energy, security, and climate change.

http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/

=Non-institutional=

Crude Oil Trader
Crude Oil Trader is all about oil and gas prices. Readers in the blog's niche audience - mostly financial journalists, traders or speculators, likely - generally will need a basic understanding of, and high enthusiasm for, markets and other financial mechanisms. The writing is dry, to say the least, but impeccably detailed and a useful resource for anyone wanted to learn about energy markets.

http://crudeoiltrader.blogspot.de/

Institutional/independent – regional bias -