Free Republic

The U.S. more than doubled its imports of oil from Iraq between August and September, according to a Platts analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration statistics. The dramatic increase in Iraqi oil imports is only adding to the already-massive supply glut that has pushed down oil prices. Crude oil prices sank to a four-month low of $40.06 a barrel this week and they're down 12% in November alone. The increase in Iraqi oil imports comes at a time of heightened concerns about security in the volatile Middle East region. France, U.S. and Russia have stepped up airstrikes in Syria aimed...

The Senate voted Tuesday to block a pair of regulations representing the central pillars of President Obama's climate change initiative. The votes approving resolutions under the Congressional Review Act come less than two weeks before Obama and other world leaders meet in Paris to agree to a worldwide pact to fight global warming. The votes are symbolic, since Obama would veto the resolutions and supporters do not have the two-thirds majority needed in both chambers to override the vetoes. Senators voted 52-46 to stop the carbon dioxide limits for existing power plants, which mandate a 32 percent cut in the...

Iraq's semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan has for the first time detailed its secretive oil exports operations and said it plans to sell more, whether Baghdad likes it or not, as it needs money to survive and fight Islamic State. The region's minister for natural resources, Ashti Hawrami, said that to avoid detection oil was often funneled through Israel, transferred directly between ships off the coast of Malta, and decoy ships used to make it harder for Baghdad to track. Kurdistan says it had been forced to bypass Baghdad and begin exporting oil directly because the latter refused to respect budgets...

The Ecologist speculates that the aim of the ISIS terrorists, who have claimed responsibility for the recent Paris terrorist atrocity, might have been aimed at protecting ISIS’ oil business from an anticipated new climate agreement. According to The Ecologist; Is it a coincidence that the terrorist outrage in Paris was committed weeks before COP21, the biggest climate conference since 2009? Perhaps, writes Oliver Tickell. But failure to reach a strong climate agreement now looks more probable. And that’s an outcome that would suit ISIS – which makes $500m a year from oil sales – together with other oil producers. But...

The federal government's failure to secure the Texas-Mexico border continues to put critical oil and gas infrastructure in the state at risk, Texas Railroad Commission Chairman David Porter said in a Nov. 16 letter to the Homeland Security Department. Citing several news articles, Porter said ISIS has attacked against oil and gas pipelines in the Middle East, and to do so in Texas could be part of the terror group's plans. In 2013, the Yemeni oil minister said the destruction resulted in almost $1 billion in lost revenue. Porter was echoing sentiments he expressed in a letter last year to...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weeks away from signing a document that will lead to the resumption of efforts to develop Israel's natural gas sector, the country's energy minister said Tuesday. Rigzone heard Energy Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz tell the Universal Oil & Gas Conference in Tel Aviv that Prime Minister Netanyahu will meet with the Israeli parliament's Economic Affairs Committee over the next couple of weeks before signing Article 52. This act will end a year-long delay in the development of the Tamar and Leviathan offshore natural gas fields that began when Israel's antitrust authority said in December...

Rochester Gas & Electric filed with the New York State Public Service Commission on Nov. 10 a heavily-redacted copy of an Oct. 27 report on what it is doing, and plans to do, in case the Ginna nuclear plant of Exelon (NYSE: EXC) is retired later this decade. Since last year, Exelon has been working at the New York PSC and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend the life of Ginna, which the company says is not economic to operate in the current power market following the expiration last year of a long-term contract to supply power to...

Environmental activism among college students has recently been channeled into a movement to pressure college endowments to divest their holdings of stock in companies that extract fossil fuels. Beginning at Swarthmore College, the fossil fuel divestment movement (FFDM) has already had an impact on some colleges and universities, including Stanford, Georgetown, and Oxford. Many activists hope the FFDM will help persuade governments to restrict the extraction and use of fossil fuels. Whatever the economic consequences for colleges and universities, widespread divestment, particularly if it leads to restrictions on fossil fuels, will do a great deal of harm without much benefit...

The Paris tragedy clearly showed the world that the war on terror has gone global. If that had not already been made clear by terror bombings in Baghdad, Beirut, and the Russian airliner in recent weeks, it was hammered home by Paris. Israeli media (debka.com) reports that no western intelligence picked up any signs of the attack plan. The grim message to the world: It could happen anywhere. For any that still needed to be convinced, the attack also revealed that the greatest threat to the west comes from radical Islam, not from Iran, Russia, or China. That fact was...

Lawmakers in Lansing are working on legislation that would bring major changes to Michigan’s energy laws. Since energy policy is a hard-to-understand topic, it does not receive much public scrutiny. By its very nature, it involves a mind-numbing array of technical terms, acronyms and insider elitist jargon that average people find both boring and confusing. This in turn gives policy insiders and advocates more of an incentive than usual to disseminate misinformation. At the beginning of the year, there was an attempt to eliminate the competition — such as it is — that Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison face in...

American military officials have come to the conclusion that the U.S.-led air campaign targeting Syria’s oil infrastructure — which has provided the Islamic State with hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two years — has been too cautious. A new offensive aims to change that. Officials would not say if the rules of engagement for the U.S.-led air war against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, have changed to allow for a new and more aggressive round of strikes. But there was little doubt that the U.S. aerial assault that tore through 116 ISIS oil tankers parked...

Houston-area gasoline prices are back on the decline along with the price of oil, despite some global concerns about the reactions of terrorism in Paris and Beirut affecting markets. Average retail prices on Monday for regular unleaded gasoline dipped by 3 cents from last week down to $1.91 for the Houston area and $1.92 for Texas as a whole, according to GasBuddy's daily survey data. In Houston, prices are 78 cents lower than the same time last year. Nationwide, gasoline fell by 6 cents down to an average of $2.15 a gallon. The drop in gasoline costs come one week...

Russia’s central bank recently warned about the growing financial risks to the Russian economy from Saudi Arabia encroaching upon its traditional export market for crude oil. Russia sends 70 percent of its oil to Europe, but Saudi Arabia has been making inroads in the European market amid the oil price downturn. The result is a heavier discount for Russia’s crude oil, the so-called Urals blend. Bloomberg reported that the Urals typically lands in Rotterdam, a major European destination, at a discount to Brent of around $2 or less. But the discount has widened to $3.50 lately due to increased competition...

he previous West region was split into two regions, the Pacific and Mountain regions. Although both the new Pacific and Mountain regions are dominated by storage in depleted fields, the Pacific region facilities tend to have much higher deliverability--meaning gas is able to be withdrawn at higher rates. Average deliverability of fields in the Pacific is close to 0.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), which is nearly three times higher than that of the Mountain region, even though average working gas capacity is roughly the same in the two regions. Many facilities in the Pacific region use storage in...

Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State. The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey. -snip- To reduce the risk of harming civilians, two F-15 warplanes dropped leaflets...

Well, that didn’t take long at all. When Canadians went to the polls and kicked out the nasty conservatives in favor of an all liberal, all the time government, we were pretty sure there were some big changes coming. Among them were, no doubt, plans to fight carbon and save the planet, which is as hot of a topic among Canadian liberals as it is in the lower 48. That expectation was met quite rapidly with Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he was getting ready to ban… (wait for it) … oil tankers off the west coast. (Yahoo News) Campaign...

THE JACKI DAILY Show! Listen live at 2PM Eastern! The host of the Jacki Daily show has had an impressive career in energy, law, and politics.Most recently, Jacki served as General Counsel to an engineering firm specializing in energy, national security and environmental cleanup. Previously, she served many years as legal counsel on Capitol Hill to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and the former Ranking Member of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, advising on the oversight of federal agencies. Prior to her career in Washington, she worked as a corporate litigator, and as an Assistant Vice...

Well, that didn't take long at all. When Canadians went to the polls and kicked out the nasty conservatives in favor of an all liberal, all the time government, we were pretty sure there were some big changes coming. Among them were, no doubt, plans to fight carbon and save the planet, which is as hot of a topic among Canadian liberals as it is in the lower 48. That expectation was met quite rapidly with Justin Trudeau's announcement that he was getting ready to ban (wait for it) oil tankers off the west coast. (Yahoo News) Campaign promises often...

Panelists at Business First's second annual New Mexico Energy Outlook Summit yesterday offered but one common ground: Something needs to be done to turn the industry around. SPONSORED BY PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Tanja Jenkins Tanja Jenkins Boys & Girls Clubs of Central New Mexico Andrew G. Schultz Andrew G. Schultz City of Albuquerque Board of Ethics and Campaign Practices SPONSORTony Royle, CPA Tony Royle, CPA Moss Adams See More People on the Move Emceed by ABF publisher Candace Beeke, the event brought together Dr. Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy at New Mexico...

Increases in North Dakota's crude oil production have resulted in increased associated natural gas production from oil reservoirs, especially in the Bakken region. Because of insufficient infrastructure to collect, gather, and transport this natural gas, about one-fifth of North Dakota's natural gas production is flared rather than marketed. North Dakota's Industrial Commission (NDIC) has established natural gas capture targets in an effort to reduce the amount of flared gas, and they recently issued a revision to the flaring targets in response to faster-than-expected gas production growth in the Bakken region. North Dakota's current target is to capture and sell at...