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Dive Brief: With a 100% renewable goal now on the table and oil prices falling, Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) has revealed he opposes plans to import liquefied natural gas as a bridge fuel to cleaner and less expensive power. At a business and policy conference this week in Honolulu, Ige, a keynote speaker, said the state does not need LNG and should be moving forward on its renewable goals instead. Both Hawaiian Electric (HECO) and Hawaii Gas have floated plans to construct import terminals, with gas deliveries beginning to reach the state in 2019. HECO has pledged to push...

A $27 billion energy project is rising rapidly on this icy peninsula jutting above the Arctic Circle, but the race to shore up its finances has emerged as a test of Moscow’s ability to weather Western sanctions. U.S. restrictions on OAO Novatek, the project’s Russian leader, are squeezing the massive Yamal LNG liquefied-natural-gas venture, a centerpiece of President Vladimir Putin’s plan for Russia to reduce its heavy dependence on natural-gas customers in Europe by increasing exports to Asia and, in turn, cementing Russian ties with China. Barred by the sanctions from raising long-term dollar loans, Novatek and its foreign partners,...

Chinese oil companies say they are bracing for a turbulent second half and no relent of the low oil prices that have sent their earnings plunging. Amid weak global economic growth that is constraining demand for everything from oil to natural gas and iron ore, first-half results on Wednesday underscored the magnitude of a spending pullback by China’s oil majors. In releasing interim results, Chinese oil companies Cnooc Ltd. and Sinopec Corp. said they had little expectation for a sharp rebound in oil and natural gas prices. “There is little optimism in the world’s macro-economic environment,” Cnooc Chairman Yang Hua...

A four-year investigation has concluded that officials of the solar company Solyndra misrepresented facts and omitted key information in their efforts to get a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. government. Solyndra was the first company to get federal loan guarantees under a program that was created in 2005 and expanded by President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package. The company’s failure soon after receiving the loan guarantee likely will cost taxpayers more than $500 million. Republicans and other critics cite it as an example of wasteful spending under the stimulus program. The report by the Energy Department’s inspector...

We recently looked at the restart of the first Japanese nuclear reactor in four years, and assessed its impact on Japanese oil demand. It was somewhat burying the lede, however, not to address the impact on LNG demand. So with Japan’s developments still fresh in our minds, here are ten challenges faced by the global LNG market: 1) Asia is the key market for LNG. Japan accounts for approximately 35% of the global LNG market. Combined with South Korea, it accounts for ~50% of it, while Asia as a whole accounts for 75%. The gradual return of nuclear reactors in...

Offshore engineering company McDermott International’s stock shot up by more than 30 percent Wednesday after the company said it had landed a $1.5 billion-plus contract with Saudi Aramco. McDermott CEO David Dickson called the contract an important step in a turnaround for the Houston-based company, which as recently as 2013 had been struggling to build offshore platforms and support structures profitably. Investors sent the company’s shares up $1.03 to $4.49 in midday trading Thursday. “We had a tough time through the end of 2013; 2014 was a real turnaround,” Dickson said in an interview with FuelFix. He joined McDermott in...

Recently announced crude oil swaps with Mexico likely to provide economic and environmental benefits Under licenses approved earlier this month by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), an office within the Department of Commerce that administers export controls on crude oil, volumes of crude oil produced in the United States and Mexico up to the approved volume cap will be exchanged. These swaps will likely involve U.S light sweet crude, such as the growing output from shale formations in the United States, and Mexican heavy sour crude. The approved swaps are expected to be both economically and environmentally beneficial...

Southern Company isn’t alone in spending billions to position itself for the natural gas future. One of the largest companies that owns utilities in the U.S., Southern Company, announced a big deal this week that highlights just how aggressively power firms are looking to boost their natural gas power resources at the expense of the declining coal industry. On Monday, Southern Company SO 2.61% said it plans to buy natural-gas distributor AGL Resources GAS -0.08% for $8 billion in cash. The deal, which is for $12 billion but includes $4 billion in debt, offers AGL shareholders a 38% premium over...

Nine months after OPEC decided to leave its production target unchanged and pursue market share instead of trying to prop up prices, the group is facing a set of complex problems and decisions going forward. At first blush, the collapse of oil prices and the resiliency of U.S. shale appears to hand OPEC, and its most powerful member in Saudi Arabia, a stinging defeat. U.S. oil production has leveled off but has not dramatically declined. Meanwhile, oil prices are at their lowest levels since the financial crisis and the revenues of OPEC members have fallen precipitously along with the price...

With crude prices hovering around $40 a barrel, the broader market is on tenterhooks. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell almost 7% in the past week. The troubles grew as oil prices hovered close to its lowest level in almost seven years. The bearish mood is compounded by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s opinion that the commodity is slated to fall to $30 per barrel or less. Whiting Refinery Unit Restarted Amid the gloom, the news that BP Plc (BP - Analyst Report) has restarted the largest of three crude distillation units (CDUs) in its refinery in Whiting, IN., cast...

Natural gas production across all major shale regions in EIA's Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) is projected to decrease for the first time in September. Production from these seven shale regions reached a high in May at 45.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) and is expected to decline to 44.9 Bcf/d in September. In each region, production from new wells is not large enough to offset production declines from existing, legacy wells. The DPR provides a month-ahead forecast of natural gas and crude oil production for the seven most significant shale formations in the United States. In order to estimate...

Exelon said three of its nuclear power plants did not clear the PJM capacity auction for the 2018-19 planning year. The Quad Cities nuclear plant in Illinois, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, and Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania will not receive capacity revenue from this auction, according to The Wall Street Journal. PJM said it would increase payments to power generators by 37 percent beginning in June 2018, increasing to $164.77 per megawatt per day. The increase is an almost $45 jump over the previous amount reached in auction last year. Power producers bid for long-term contracts...

As oilpatch layoffs mount and companies struggle to retain staff, Trilogy Energy Corp. has been able to keep its staff and cut costs at the same time. This summer management at the oil and gas producer asked employees to work a four-day week and apply for work share coverage, a form of employment insurance, through Service Canada. Trilogy confirmed its eligible employees recently received government approval for their work share compensation after applying back in May. “Reducing hours, we thought, was a better alternative than laying off staff,” Trilogy president and chief operating officer John Williams said. The Calgary-based company,...

Gasoline prices hit an 11-year seasonal low Monday, and gas will continue to drop along with the falling price of U.S. oil that is now just more than $38 per barrel, according to AAA. Monday’s national average price of gasoline is $2.59 per gallon, which is the lowest average for late August since 2004, AAA stated, despite record-high demand and ongoing refinery problems. The Houston area averaged a lower $2.33 a gallon, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey of 2,559 gas outlets in Houston. AAA is projecting gas prices will drop below $2 a gallon nationwide on average by late December...

Douglas-Westwood, an energy business strategy, research and commercial due diligence services provider, commented in its latest edition of DW Monday that low global crude prices have hit Saudi Arabia hard. With a considerable budget deficit, Saudi has been forced to begin borrowing from capital markets – $4 billion in July. The kingdom is highly reliant on oil – accounting for more than 90 percent of budget revenues. Cuts have not been made to capital expenditure and Saudi has engaged in an expensive conflict within Yemen. Consequently, the decision to ride out lower prices has put a huge strain on finances...

BOOK CLIFFS, Utah (AP) — On a remote Utah ridge covered in sagebrush, pines and wild grasses, a Canadian company is about to embark on something never before done commercially in the United States: digging sticky, black, tar-soaked sand from the ground and extracting the petroleum. The impending opening of the nation’s first tar sands mine has become another front in the battle across the West between preservationists and the energy industry. U.S. Oil Sands has invested nearly $100 million over the last decade to acquire rights to about 50 square miles, obtain permits and develop what it says is...

Several hundred protesters turned out Saturday to march across the Delaware River in opposition to a proposed 114-mile pipeline that would shuttle natural gas from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Those against PennEast’s proposal said during the mile-long march they’re concerned the pipeline would badly damage the landscape and natural resources in the region, and lower property values. “The people of Pennsylvania and New Jersey are showing they are unified in their message to PennEast: Go home, we don’t want your pipeline,” said Maya van Rossum, who leads the nonprofit Delaware Riverkeeper Network. “It’s also a message to politicians and regulators....

More than three-quarters of Canada's daily output of 2.2 million barrels of crude from oil sands is being produced at a loss at current prices, research from analysts at TD Securities shows, although producers are unlikely to halt operations. Only two mining and upgrading projects - Canadian Natural Resources Ltd's Horizon project and Suncor Energy's Millennium mine - are producing synthetic crude for less than its current outright price around $36 a barrel, analyst Menno Hulshof said on Thursday. Every thermal oil sands player is bleeding cash on every barrel produced with U.S. crude around $41 and the Canadian heavy...

While giant LyondellBasell has been expanding throughout the Houston area, CEO Bob Patel said the company is also looking to build a new polyethylene plant at one of its sites in southern Texas. Speaking at the Houston-based company’s sprawling Channelview complex where LyondellBasell will start up 250 million pounds of new ethylene capacity near the end of August, Patel said an announcement likely will come later this year on adding more production of polyethylene, the most common type of plastic. He said it could be a combination greenfield-brownfield project in the greater Houston region, but he noted that the region...

U.S. oil fell closer to $39 per barrel on Friday, as traders continued a rout that is likely to hand the next-month contract its longest string of consecutive weekly losses since the bust of 1986. Fears that China’s economy may be sputtering and signals that global production is on the rise have driven oil lower for the past seven weeks, and barring a large recovery Friday, soon to be eight weeks. Those concerns combined once more on Friday as an early economic indicator in China came in at a six-year low. “(China’s) stock market problems, their currency problems, all these...