Free Republic

Shale debt, falling prices and slack demand has tight oil producers in trouble. And yet, there is still burgeoning production. Why? Well, we’ve seen this before. It’s the shale debt redux. Operators did it a few years ago in natural gas and prices have yet to recover. Unfortunately cheap money in the form of debt can mean poor investment choices for businesses and for investors. But it can also lead to an aberrant market because operators deep in debt won’t curtail production even though it is glutted. Debt coupons simply have to be met. The shale revolution has always been...

We live in an amazing modern world of turn-key solutions. Especially in America, we have an astounding variety of tools, technology and instant access to information at our finger tips for solving our day-to-day problems. While many of these assets are convenient, they can make us mentally lazy if we let them. We could start to think that being in possession of the "right" or "best" equipment will solve our problems for us. To help shake off this mass media languor, here are a few tips to consider when sharpening up your concealed-carry mindset: Concealed Firearms Do Not Make Us...

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a March 19 letter, called on the nation’s governors to reject the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulation that requires states to dramatically restructure their electricity systems based on how the agency thinks electricity should be produced and used in each state. The EPA’s demands under the proposed Clean Power Plan, McConnell noted, are “far beyond its legal authority.” In a letter to all 50 governors, McConnell wrote that he has “serious legal and policy concerns regarding the proposal.” McConnell asked the governors to “carefully review the consequences before signing up for...

An environmental review of a proposed Washington coal port will be delayed until 2017, one year after the analysis was scheduled to be completed. The delay comes after the project's developer, SSA Marine, submitted an updated plan for the Gateway Pacific Terminal to the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers. SSA Marine acquired more land in the area of the proposed dock and reconfigured its site plan, said Bob Watters, a company executive. The move will reduce the project's overall footprint by 17 percent and its impact on wetlands by 49 percent, he said. "From an environmental standpoint, we thought it...

Despite mounting protests, Japan continues to finance the building of coal-fired power plants with money earmarked for fighting climate change, with two new projects underway in India and Bangladesh, The Associated Press has found. The AP reported in December that Japan had counted $1 billion in loans for coal plants in Indonesia as climate finance, angering critics who say such financing should be going to clean energy like solar and wind power. Japanese officials now say they are also counting $630 million in loans for coal plants in Kudgi, India, and Matarbari, Bangladesh, as climate finance. The Kudgi project has...

Former Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday gave his support to lifting a decades-old ban on crude exports, calling it a “major error” to prevent U.S. oil from being shipped overseas. Perry, a likely candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, said that if he won the White House, he would propel North America into the global energy business “in a big way.” “If energy is going to be used as a weapon, we need to have the largest arsenal,” Perry said at the discussion hosted by Bloomberg at the JW Marriott in downtown Houston on Tuesday. Most crude exports have...

Last month the White House submitted President Obama’s annual economic report to Congress. Nestled in the findings is a compelling case for lifting the country’s antiquated ban on natural gas exports. “An increase in U.S. exports of natural gas, and the resulting price changes, would have a number of mostly beneficial effects,” the report states, for domestic employment, geopolitical security, our energy industry and the environment. The report ticks off numerous benefits — “create jobs in the short run,” “lower natural gas prices around the world,” “promote the use of cleaner energy abroad” — that make clear the question is...

For an average price of $8,732 per acre with 20 percent production royalties, the West Virginia Department of Commerce with allow Norway-based Statoil to frack for oil and natural gas thousands of feet beneath the Ohio River. The finalized lease agreement for drilling in state-owned mineral tracts under the river is in addition to those filed by Noble Energy and Gastar Exploration, which would pay the state $4.9 million and $749,000, respectively, in addition to the 20 percent royalties. These deals are not yet official, however, as the companies remain in negotiations with state leaders. "We are still finalizing agreements...

North American chemical companies have seen their revenues slip with the plunging crude price, but they aren’t expected to abandon the billions worth of expansions they announced when profits were higher, a new report finds. Petrochemical companies have enjoyed deep discounts on the oil-based naptha and natural gas liquids they use to power their plants since the price of oil has collapsed in recent months, but chemicals they manufacture have also been selling for cheaper, eroding their margins, according to a new report by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. Ethylene, a key building block for plastics, now fetches 35 percent...

Iran’s oil and gas sector holds plenty of promise but analysts say a deal between Tehran and global powers on nuclear issues this week is unlikely to spur either a flood of Iranian oil into the market or an investment bonanza by oil majors into the country. Iran and six world powers have been working to secure an agreement by March 24 to curb Tehran’s key nuclear activities for at least 10 years in exchange for gradual sanctions relief. “My guess is that on March 24th nothing will be done,” said Richard Nephew, who once led the Iran sanctions file...

Saudi Arabia’s refusal late last year to rein in oil production helped trigger the price crash that has hurt oil-producing countries and publicly listed energy companies alike. And now even the kingdom’s own oil company is feeling the pain. As a result, state-owned Saudi Aramco is looking for ways to cut costs everywhere, from pushing contractors for better deals on oil-well services to negotiating discounts on its phone and power bills, according to people familiar with the matter. The company—the world’s largest oil producer—is also considering slashing its future spending on production and exploration by as much as 25%, much...

The boom in U.S. oil production over the past decade led thousands of workers to prairie cities from Texas to North Dakota. Now, Saudi Arabia hopes those workers—many of them casualties of the ongoing downturn in crude prices—will consider the deserts of the Middle East instead. Saudi Arabia has a long history of recruiting skilled workers from the West to develop its vast oil reserves. The country, however, also possesses shale oil deposits, and observers say the current oil market provides an opportunity for the Saudis to begin developing those resources. “With the layoffs, it’s a great time to do...

<p>The latest row erupted this week as UN envoy Bernardino Leon, who is mediating between Libya's warring factions, warned the country was heading towards destruction unless a political deal is found.</p> <p>It also comes as the jihadist Islamic State group, which has made huge profits from illegal oil sales in Syria and Iraq where it has seized chunks of territory, has gained a foothold in Libya.</p>

OPEC and lower global oil prices delivered a one-two punch to the drillers in North Dakota and Texas who brought the U.S. one of the biggest booms in the history of the global oil industry. Now they are fighting back. Companies are leaning on new techniques and technology to get more oil out of every well they drill, and furiously cutting costs in an effort to keep U.S. oil competitive with much lower-cost oil flowing out of the Middle East, Russia and elsewhere. “Everybody gets a little more imaginative, because they need to,” says Hans-Christian Freitag, vice president of technology...

The billowing canopies went up on a bare patch of the Texas City refinery grounds during a repair cycle last fall. Some workers saw the tents as just a place to eat lunch. Brian Ambrose saw a nightmare repeating itself. He is one of the few remaining employees who encountered the horrors of 2005, when the BP unit on the same patch of earth erupted in explosions, leaving a charred mass of twisted metal, pulverized office trailers and the remains of 15 people. Others, including many of the roughly 180 injured, have retired or moved elsewhere. Ambrose, who was assigned...

After increasing for 15 consecutive weeks, crude oil storage at Cushing, Oklahoma, reached 54.4 million barrels on March 13, according to EIA's Weekly Petroleum Status Report. This volume is the highest on record, but not the highest percent of storage utilization, as working storage capacity at Cushing has also increased over time. Storage levels at Cushing are significant, because Cushing serves as the delivery point for the United States crude oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate. Sited in central Oklahoma, Cushing is home to both a network of crude oil pipelines and storage capacity. The 70.8 million barrels of storage capacity...

Q: Outside the U.S., where have companies drilled for shale resources? All over—big oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. have invested in Canada, Europe, Russia, South America and Asia, hoping shale reserves there could be similarly productive to those in the U.S. Q: Which of those countries are producing? Outside the U.S., only Canada, China and Argentina have commercial production from shale, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says. Q: What happened everywhere else? In some places—like Sweden, Poland and Romania—companies didn’t find enough gas or oil to keep drilling. In others, like Germany...

Prospects for an uptick in business investment this year are facing a major drag: The collapse in oil prices is spurring significant cutbacks by the energy-production industry, which had been a standout in an otherwise lackluster U.S. economic expansion. Business capital spending rose 6% last year due to gains from a broad base of U.S. industries. The drag from energy this year could cut that growth rate in half in 2015, according to economists at Goldman Sachs. Moreover, equity analysts at the bank estimate capital spending globally by energy companies in the S&P 500 will fall 25%, leading to the...

...Brent for delivery in May fell 1.1% to $54.71 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in May traded at $45.64 a barrel, down 2% from last week’s close. Both contracts gained last week with U.S. crude snapping a four-week losing streak. On Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s influential oil minister Ali al-Naimi told a conference in Riyadh that there was no conspiracy behind the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ decision last fall to maintain its output target. He said the group could have lost market share if it...

Energy-sector deals have been a bright spot at a time when once-lucrative businesses, such as fixed-income trading and consumer lending, are flagging thanks to tighter rules, low interest rates and uneven economic growth, analysts said. Investment banks helped fuel the oil-and-gas exploration boom of the past decade by making loans valued at about $1 trillion to companies in the energy industry, most of which they sold to investors. The banks sold much of the debt to loan mutual funds, which grew rapidly from 2011 to 2013, but that demand dwindled as individual investors yanked $35 billion from the funds over...