Free Republic

Mexico overcame 75 years of nationalist pride to reform its flagging, state-owned oil industry. But as it prepares to develop rich shale fields along the Gulf Coast, and attract foreign investors, another challenge awaits: taming the brutal drug cartels that rule the region and are stealing billions of dollars’ worth of oil from pipelines. Figures released by Petroleos Mexicanos last week show the gangs are becoming more prolific and sophisticated. So far this year, thieves across Mexico have drilled 2,481 illegal taps into state-owned pipelines, up more than one-third from the same period of 2013. Pemex estimates it’s lost some...

Canada's largest oil and gas producer, Suncor Energy Inc, is shipping its first ever tanker of Western Canadian heavy crude from Canada's East Coast to Europe, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal confirmed Reuters shipping data that shows the aframax tanker Minerva Gloria was set to pick up a cargo of crude oil from the port of Sorel-Tracy on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Seetal declined to comment on where in Europe the crude cargo is going, citing commercial confidentiality. According to Reuters data it will be discharged in the Mediterranean. The crude was delivered...

Natural gas prices aren’t going to surge any time soon, panelists said at a Houston forum Tuesday, which could be good news for consumers adopting the fuel source as an alternative to gasoline and diesel — but not necessarily welcome news for producers. “2015 is going to be bad for gas,” said Dan Pickering, co-president of the energy investment firm Tudor, Pickering Holt and Co., at the forum hosted by the law firm Winston & Strawn. Since the middle of 2010, the spot price for domestic natural gas generally has remained under $5 per million British thermal units, except for...

From steel pipe manufacturers to companies that produce sand and gravel, the U.S. shale boom is buoying businesses far removed from the oil and gas fields, a new study finds. These companies are benefiting from the huge investments needed to explore, produce, process and transport oil and gas unlocked from previously inaccessible dense rock formations through advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, according to the findings by Houston-based energy analyst firm IHS. The boom has been most generous to companies working in states with the most oil and gas activity, but the economic boost has also trickled down to...

Renewable energy has become a potent rallying cry uniting Hollywood and the Beltway. “We can move our economy town by town, state by state to renewable energy and a sustainable future,” Leonardo DiCaprio says in his eight-minute climate movie Carbon, released in August. In his fiscal-showdown speech during his first term, in April 2011, President Obama put Paul Ryan’s proposals for a 70 percent cut in clean energy at the top of his list of reprehensible and unnecessary reductions. “These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings...

In May 2008, a locomotive with a grizzly bear painted on its side pulled into a railroad siding next to an abandoned grain elevator in the ghost town of Dore, N.D. The engine, property of the Yellowstone Valley Railroad, hitched up a couple of tank cars of crude from nearby oil wells and set off on a thousand-mile journey to Oklahoma. Dore would never be the same—and neither would the U.S. energy industry. Until then, most oil pumped in North America moved around the continent in pipelines. Suddenly, and just as the oil industry began a period of unprecedented growth,...

Increasing production of crude oil in the Permian Basin in western Texas, and parts of New Mexico, has outpaced pipeline infrastructure to move the crude to refineries, causing prices for crude in the Permian Basin (at Midland, Texas) to fall below similar crudes priced at Cushing, Oklahoma. While the price difference between Midland and Cushing has been increasing for almost a year, recent refinery outages in the region caused it to widen substantially. Several infrastructure projects that will allow more crude to flow from the Permian to the U.S. Gulf Coast are expected to come online soon, which should cause...

U.S. energy exports, much of which come from the Houston region, represent a large chunk of the nation's overall export growth in the coming years, according to a new national HSBC Bank USA report. The banking report notes that Houston will see an additional job creation surge going forward partially because of energy exports that target emerging foreign markets. HSBC specially mentions that "chemical plant expansions and liquefied natural gas terminal upgrades, coupled with the opening of Mexico's energy industry to foreign investment, will result in a new export boom for Houston and will create more than 55,000 new jobs."...

It's a sign of the times: The Islamic State is getting millions in oil revenues. According to one news organization, the terror group is even recruiting petroleum engineers. And farther north, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko secured a promise from the White House last week for the U.S. to join in a review of his country's Russian energy entanglements. Meanwhile, North Dakota's shale fields just passed 1 million barrels per day of production, a milestone only three fields in the U.S. have reached. For context, only ten shale fields have reached it in world history. These events point to the need...

Condensate is coming, and a whole lot of it too, U.S. Energy Information Administration Director Michael Schaal told attendees at a Platts, McGraw Hill Financial pipeline conference today. A comprehensive definition about what exactly condensate is, however, might have to wait. By one broad classification, lease condensate is a very light type of oil separated at field facilities from natural gas. Under that definition, lease condensate production has been growing rapidly in the U.S. as more oil is drawn from shale. In 2012, the EIA estimated that the U.S. pumped 274 million barrels of lease condensate from the ground, compared...

In a special meeting Saturday, the town of Hollis voted to oppose the construction of a natural gas pipeline that would run under the town. Four-hundred and twenty people attended a special town meeting Saturday morning in the Hollis-Brookline High School gym. Townspeople debated the controversial pipeline, which would run through the middle of Hollis from the southwest to the northeast. Tennessee Gas Pipeline argues that the pipeline is necessary to meet increasing energy demands in the northeast. The natural gas company submitted a proposal to build the pipeline in 2018, which the New Hampshire Energy Facility Site Evaluation committee...

North Dakota’s natural gas production rose nearly 40 million cubic feet per day in July, a 3 percent increase, and the state’s gas capture also rose, increasing from 72 percent in June to 74 percent in July indicating that the industry’s efforts to capture more gas are working. However, those are cumulative statistics with some operators capturing more than 74 percent and others capturing less as drilling activity continuing to rise. The state’s Department of Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said the industry “will have to work very hard” in order to meet the upcoming requirements set by the North...

Soldiers and police have clashed in the last few days near Libya's biggest El Sharara oilfield in the south, while separate fighting erupted in the west not far from the Zawiya refinery, residents and medics said. The violence came as video emerged on social media purportedly showing a rival oil minister appointed by an armed opposition group controlling the capital Tripoli giving a speech at the oil ministry. If confirmed this could mean the central government has lost control of the oil ministry, potentially paralysing vital oil exports over questions of ownership. Apparently speaking from the office of the deputy...

...The guests at the compound that week were gearing up for another great leap: a push to export the United States' fracking boom to China's vast shale fields—and beyond. Attendees slid into black leather chairs behind glossy rosewood tables, facing a stage flanked by large projector screens. Chinese businessmen wore high-waist slacks with belts clasped over their bellies. I watched as one thumbed through business cards bearing the logos of Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Halliburton.... The U.S.-China Oil and Gas Industry Forum, sponsored by the U.S. departments of Commerce and Energy, as well as China's National Energy Administration, has...

The workers sometimes come in with stacks of $100 bills, their jeans and boots still covered in oil field mud as they scour the glass jewelry counter looking for clean sparkle. One oil field worker plopped down $25,000 for a diamond for his girlfriend back home. Many others settle on $1,000 necklace pendants in the shape of a tiny oil derrick, a diamond anchoring the bottom where the oil would be. “These guys spend lots of money on their women, and there’s plenty of money to be spent,” said Gina Abfalter, a clerk at Ritter Brothers Diamond Cutters downtown. “A...

Marking the sixth anniversary of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline's permit application, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) teased voters with a preview of what a GOP-controlled Senate would do. "If American people give us the opportunity to be in a majority next year, I'll be setting the agenda," McConnell said. "It's easier to score if you're on offense, and the majority leader is offensive coordinator." He added: "If we have a new majority next year, and a new majority leader, the Keystone pipeline will be voted on on the floor of the Senate, something the current majority has been avoiding...

Americans seem to have a love-hate relationship with major energy companies. On the one hand, our iconic brands are global leaders and symbols of U.S. technological and economic prowess. On the other hand, Big Energy takes the heat when the public gets restive over rising gas prices, or there’s an extended power outage. A new Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) report highlights an underappreciated fact about energy companies—they are huge investors in the U.S. economy. In fact, along with telecoms and Internet-based businesses, they are leading our economic recovery. Each year, PPI economists Michael Mandel and Diana Carew rank America’s top...

North Dakota Republicans on Wednesday unveiled an $800 million one-time spending plan to address immediate problems tied to the oil boom in the western part of the state.... The proposal includes $475 million to oil-producing counties and cities; $140 million to oil patch hub cities of Williston, Dickinson and Minot; $35 million to county schools affected by oil development; and $150 million for road projects outside of the oil patch.... Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said infrastructure needs and a shortage of workers are the biggest challenges facing North Dakota’s energy sector. The state has more...

Chevron has become the first energy company to meet a new set of voluntary shale gas drilling standards that aim to go beyond existing state laws in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, the Pittsburgh-based Center for Sustainable Shale announced Thursday... Chevron’s pledges to recycle drilling fluids, not use open waste pits and to reduce methane leaks address “very big” concerns for many people, said Davitt Woodwell, president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. Chevron also says it now discloses all of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process in the region. Woodwell said his group hopes other drilling...

Energy company Range Resources said Thursday it has agreed to pay a $4.15 million fine for environmental violations at a western Pennsylvania site that handled natural gas drilling waste. The penalty is the largest the state has ever imposed on the shale gas industry. Range, based in Fort Worth, said in a statement that it accepts the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fine and is “deeply disappointed” over the violations at Washington County wastewater impoundments, about 25 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. The fine was imposed for leaks at open pits Range operates to store the so-called flowback waste from natural...