Free Republic

While everyone is talking about the failure of the Doha negotiations, Kuwait has more than made up for OPEC’s failure all on its own. Kuwait’s oil workers walked off the job this weekend, flexing their muscles over a pay dispute. The state-owned Kuwait Oil Company took to Twitter to report the damage done by the workers strike, announcing that oil production fell to 1.1 million barrels per day on Sunday, a catastrophic development considering it normally produces nearly 3 mb/d. Also, Kuwait Petroleum Corp., the state-owned refining company, said that its production of refined products dropped from 930,000 to 520,000...

Oil prices tumbled on Monday after a meeting by major exporters in Qatar collapsed without an agreement to freeze output, leaving the credibility of the OPEC producer cartel in tatters and the world awash with unwanted fuel. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran were blamed for the failure, which revived industry fears that major government-controlled producers will increase their battle for market share by offering ever-steeper discounts. "OPEC's credibility to coordinate output is now very low," said Peter Lee of BMI Research, a unit of rating agency Fitch. "This isn't just about oil for the Saudis. It's as much about...

In a version of "hit 'em while they're down,' the Obama administration has unleashed a slew of new regulations targeting U.S. oil and gas production. These include costly methane emission rules on all new and existing wells, reversals of promised offshore acreage leasing, a de facto freeze of leasing on federal lands, and burdensome EPA restrictions of fracking. Then there is Obama's recent budget proposal of a $10-per-barrel surtax on top of the high taxes and royalties already paid by oil companies. Just as low oil prices are driving hundreds of oil companies out of business, Obama is piling on...

In the course of writing about the ongoing fraud in which a cabal of left-wing lawyers with connections to the administrations of Barack Obama and Andrew Cuomo has attempted to extort many billions of dollars from Chevron, I had a memorable conversation with an executive at the energy giant. “We are the least sympathetic defendant there is,” he said. “We’re an oil company. You can say almost anything about an oil company. There are no stories in which the oil company is the good guy.” ...... New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, is taking a similar approach. He isn’t sure...

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...

Goodrich Petroleum filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday with investment firms slated to pick up the pieces, as yet another company sought court protection amid the shakeout in the oil and gas industry. Houston-based Goodrich, an oil and gas producer which struggled to cut its debt as crude prices tumbled, has a deal in place that would erase $400 million in debt from its books through a swap with a group of investors that own bonds the company issued last year. The Goodrich bondholders, who include Franklin Advisors, Penn Capital Management and Jefferies, have agreed to forgive $175 million in...

Climate change is a “global crisis,” and addressing it will bring “economic dislocation,” including job losses, Sen. Bernie Sanders said at Thursday’s CNN-hosted Democrat debate in Brooklyn. “Pope Francis reminded us that we are on a suicide course,” Sanders said. “Our legislation understands, …that there will be economic dislocation. It is absolutely true. There will be some people who lose their job. And we build into our legislation an enormous amount of money to protect those workers. It is not their fault that fossil fuels are destroying our climate. But we have got to stand up and say right now,...

The U.S. Department of Energy published data last week with some amazing revelations -- so amazing that most Americans will find them hard to believe. As a nation, the United States reduced its carbon emissions by 2 percent from last year. Over the past 14 years, our carbon emissions are down more than 10 percent. On a per-unit-of-GDP basis, U.S. carbon emissions are down by closer to 20 percent. Even more stunning: We've reduced our carbon emissions more than virtually any other nation in the world, including most of Europe. How can this be? We never ratified the Kyoto Treaty....

It’s easy to be against a policy when you don’t understand how that policy actually impacts your life. I believe that this is the case with one of Bernie Sanders’ proposals. Sanders has said multiple times that he would ban the process of hydraulic fracturing, but to my knowledge he has never addressed what the impact of such a ban might be. So let’s investigate. The technique of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” had been around since the late 1940s and has been used extensively to promote higher production rates from oil and gas wells. Fracking involves pumping water, chemicals and...

Peabody Energy, the nation's largest coal miner, has filed for bankruptcy protection as a crosscurrent of environmental, technological and economic changes wreak havoc across the industry. Mines and offices at Peabody, a company founded in 1833 by 24-year-old Francis S. Peabody, will continue to operate as it moves through the bankruptcy process. However, Peabody's planned sale of its New Mexico and Colorado assets were terminated after the buyer was unable to complete the deal. The company's bankruptcy filing comes less than three months after another from Arch Coal, the country's second-largest miner, which followed bankruptcy filings from Alpha Natural Resources,...

Donald Trump states in Pittsburgh he will bring back Pittsburgh's coal industry, clean coal. And also he will bring back Pittsburgh's steel industry.

Doug Hofer, a GE engineer in charge of the project, shows off a model of the turbine. ======================================================================================================= GE Global Research is testing a desk-size turbine that could power a small town of about 10,000 homes. The unit is driven by “supercritical carbon dioxide,” which is in a state that at very high pressure and up to 700 °C exists as neither a liquid nor a gas. After the carbon dioxide passes through the turbine, it's cooled and then repressurized before returning for another pass. The unit’s compact size and ability to turn on and off rapidly could make it...

... Bank of America (BAC) on Thursday announced it set aside $997 million to protect from loan losses, mainly in the bank's $22 billion energy portfolio. Wells Fargo (WFC) warned of "significant stress" and "deterioration" in the oil and gas space. The problems there forced Wells Fargo to add $200 million in loan-loss reserves, its first increase to this rainy-day fund since 2009. And JPMorgan Chase increased its provisions for credit losses by 88%, mostly due to the oil, natural gas and pipeline business. It was enough to cause JPMorgan's (JPM) first drop in profits since late 2014. ...

Bowie Resources Partners’ purchase of Peabody Energy Corp.‘s Twentymile Mine in Routt County has fallen through, and Peabody has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Peabody, the world’s largest privately owned producer of coal, joins other major coal companies including Arch Coal, owner of the West Elk Mine in the North Fork Valley, in going bankrupt. Arch Coal also is in Chapter 11 reorganization. Bowie, owner of the Bowie No. 2 Mine near Paonia, had agreed to buy Twentymile and two mine properties in New Mexico for $358 million. But Peabody previously had said Bowie was still trying to find...

If Bernie Sanders becomes president, America's fracking boom will be in danger. This week the Democratic presidential candidate called for a national ban on fracking, the controversial drilling technology that has not only led to a massive boom in oil and natural gas, created thousands of new jobs but also been linked to water contamination and even earthquakes. "If we are serious about combating climate change, we need to put an end to fracking, not only in New York and Vermont, but all over this country," Sanders said during a speech in Binghamton, New York this week. The anti-fracking crusade...

Overshadowed by the United States’ extension of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and the Production Tax Credit (PTC) last year, Mexico’s cornerstone Energy Transition Law is quickly yielding results, lifting the lid on a renewable market primed for take off. On March 29, Mexico concluded its first long-term power auction since more fully deregulating its electricity sector in 2013. The auction, it should be noted, was a smashing success, generating 227 bids from 69 tenderers. State-owned Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) – the still dominant player in the sector and the sole buyer for this first go-round – awarded contracts...

In a sign of the times, the world’s largest private sector coal miner just went bankrupt. The St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp. warned a month ago that it was considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and on Wednesday they made it official. Peabody’s mines will continue to operate uninterrupted through the bankruptcy process. According to Peabody’s court filing, it has obtained $800 million in debtor-in-possession financing facilities. “Through today’s action, we will seek an in-court solution to Peabody’s substantial debt burden amid a historically challenged industry backdrop. This process enables us to strengthen liquidity and reduce debt, build upon the...

The Obama administration's war on coal claimed its most significant victim as Peabody Coal, the largest private coal company in the world, filed for bankruptcy today, citing several factors, including "ongoging regulatory challenges."

“Cheap natural gas is killing coal.” While that headline has been written dozens of times over the last few years, it continues to be true. In fact, natural gas has become even cheaper over the past year, and the slow death of coal is poised to accelerate. In a new report from Moody’s, and reported on by SNL, the ratings agency predicts that cheap natural gas could lead to another massive wave of coal-fired power plant closures over the next year and a half.

Many analysts had anticipated that a dramatic drop in oil prices such as we’ve seen since the summer of 2014 could provide a big stimulus to the economy of a net oil importer like the United States. That doesn’t seem to be what we’ve observed in the data. There is no question that lower oil prices have been a big windfall for consumers. Americans today are spending $180 B less each year on energy goods and services than we were in July of 2014, which corresponds to about 1 percent of GDP. A year and a half ago, energy expenses...