S&P Global Commodity Insights
Jim Burkhard
Vice President & Head of research for oil markets, energy & mobility
Jim Burkhard is a vice president and heads S&P Global Commodity Insights crude oil research and energy and mobility research on how the automotive ecosystem impacts demand and influences the energy and automotive industries.
Jim is vice president and head of crude oil market and energy and mobility research. He is responsible for the development and coordination of Insights and messages for global and regional oil markets and scenarios. His expertise covers geopolitics, industry dynamics, and global oil demand and supply trends. He has more than 20 years of experience in energy markets. He also leads research into how changes in the automotive ecosystem are impacting the future of the energy and automotive industries. He led the ground-breaking S&P Global study, Reinventing the Wheel (RTW): The future of cars, oil, chemicals, and electric power. RTW has been cited by numerous press outlets around the world including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, CNBC, Bloomberg, and media outlets in China, Europe, and India.
Jim has led the development of each generation of S&P Global scenarios that bring together the entirety of energy research to form an integrated global outlook for the future of energy. The 2006 scenarios pointed to a major debt-induced global crisis two years before the 2008 recession; and in 2011, identified the roadmap to $50 oil by 2014/15. Also, in early 2020, his team was the first to identify the scale of production cuts that would materialize in the US and OPEC+ members in the second quarter of the year.
Jim has testified before the US Congress on energy issues and is frequently sought for comment by global media. He has participated in several US National Petroleum Council (NPC) studies that provide policy recommendations to the US Secretary of Energy on oil and gas issues. Prior to joining Cambridge Energy Research Associates before its acquisition by S&P Global, he was a member of the US Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa, where he directed infrastructure projects to improve water availability and credit facilities.
Jim holds a BA from Hamline University and an MS from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.