This week I share some financial advice I recently gave to a close friend. Read More
It's hard to imagine anyone better suited to covering the energy-investment waterfront than Robert Rapier.
Robert is no armchair analyst—he has two decades of in-the-trenches experience in a wide range of fossil fuel and biofuel technologies, including refining, natural gas production, gas-to-liquids, ethanol production and butanol production.
During a six-year stretch at ConocoPhillips, Robert ran a team of engineers in Scotland working on oil and gas projects in the North Sea.
For two years, Robert was an efficiency expert in a Texas petrochemical plant. The process changes he implemented saved the facility $9 million a year. He later worked as the Engineering Director for a Dutch environmental-technology company and provided engineering support for a Chinese facility the company was constructing.
Robert was also a butanol engineer in Germany for the Celanese Corporation, where he designed a novel butanol unit that cut production costs by $5 million per year.
In all, Robert has spent more than a dozen years working on liquid fuels technologies. Along the way he's picked up five patents, including one for a breakthrough way to convert ethane into ethylene (U.S. Patent 7,074,977).
Now, in addition to guiding readers to timely investments in Utility Forecaster and Rapier's Income Accelerator, Robert travels the world evaluating startup energy companies for deep-pocketed investors. After grilling management and assessing the technology on-site, he makes a go/no-go investment decision. His wealthy private investors and hedge fund backers trust him to make the right choice for the same reason we do: his vast real-world experience in just about every facet of the energy industry. If Robert votes thumbs-up, millions of dollars flow into these cutting-edge outfits.
Robert earned his master of science in chemical engineering and a bachelor of science in chemistry and mathematics (double major) at Texas A&M University. He tells us he was "this close" to finishing his Ph.D. before he decided he was having a lot more fun making money in energy stocks.
A prolific writer, Robert's articles have appeared in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor -- and he has been a featured expert on 60 Minutes and The History Channel. His new book, Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil (Apress, 2012), helps investors sort through doom and gloom, hype and misinformation to understand the true costs, benefits and trade-offs for each of our major energy options.
In what little spare time he has left, Robert consults for a number of energy projects, including biodiesel, ethanol, butanol and biomass gasification facilities.
Analyst Articles
Congressional testimony from Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicates that rate cuts are on their way by mid-year. This time, Powell wasn't opaque. Read More
Bitcoin can seem too complicated to understand at times, but in this article we break it down to basics and discover what makes Bitcoin tick Read More
If you’re selective, annuities (yes, annuities) can play a complementary and important role in your income portfolio. Here’s why. Read More
As geopolitics sours, defense budgets soar, and commercial airlines rebound, now’s the time to tap the advice of an aerospace/defense expert. Read More
Crypto's swift price correction was followed by an even more rapid recovery. This dynamic could signal the start of a new altcoin season. Read More
No matter what the Fed is doing or Wall Street is saying, consumer spending ultimately determines how most companies will perform. Read More
New studies show that marijuana legalization is increasingly associated with a decline in beer sales, as consumers substitute brew with pot. Read More
To take advantage of sector rotation, consider exchange-traded funds for tactical asset allocation. Read More
Phil Ash, the president of Investing Daily, share with you an update on his personal portfolio using Jim Fink's Seasonal Stock Alert advisory. Read More