Free Republic

Buried in an otherwise-humdrum jobs report was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Department of Labor that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016, and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has added 35,000 jobs. What a turnaround. Liberals have been saying that Donald Trump was lying to the American people when he said that he could bring coal jobs back. Well, so far, he has delivered on his promise. There's more good news for the coal industry. Earlier this month, Peabody Energy — America's...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As New Mexico’s elected leaders wrangle over raising taxes to plug a budget shortfall, major multinational energy companies have quietly spent more than $13 billion in recent months on assets in the state’s oil and gas hot spots. The new wave of investment bodes well for the industry being able to generate much-needed revenues for the struggling state over the long haul, analysts said. The interest from companies such as Texas-based EOG Resources, ExxonMobil and Marathon Oil started last fall and is carrying into this year despite prices remaining around $50 a barrel. New Mexico also led...

Saudi Arabia will start reviewing a number of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure and development project—remnants from a better past when crude oil prices were in three-digit territory. Some of these, according to government sources, will be shelved and others will be restructured. The review is part of urgent reforms prompted by the oil price rout from 2014, which saw Saudi Arabia plunge into a budget deficit for the first time in its history. As part of efforts to reform the oil-reliant economy, last year Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman removed from their positions the Kingdom’s long-serving oil and finance ministers, Ali...

Over the past year oil companies have discovered five billion barrels or more of recoverable oil on Alaska’s North Slope*******************************INteractive chart****************************Varios prices by trading time. of day***************************************************Fracking has been utilized in Alaska since the 1980s, but on a small scale. An earlier version said this would be the first time fracking is used in Alaska.************************ Arctic lands and waters hold irresistible allure for global oil companies. Despite opposition from environmental groups and President Obama’s 2016 ban on drilling in federal Arctic waters, exploration in Alaska has revealed massive new volumes of oil.This comes at a time of low oil prices...

We love Mother Earth and look forward to Earth Day, April 22. These are exciting times for energy, as innovation improves the conversion of wind, solar and geothermal heat into power for our offices, homes and electric cars. Our lives improve as energy options increase. On a day we celebrate the Earth, it is reasonable for people to also acknowledge the role fossil fuels play in helping maintain and even improve our planet's condition. Fossil fuels continue providing most of our energy and will do so for generations to come. Without fossil fuels, we cannot build a single solar panel...

America's long war on fossil fuels is destroying the famed American prairie. According to a report by the Organic Consumers Association, 95% of the 240 million acres of prairie land that once blanketed the middle of our country, from Texas to North Dakota, already is gone. Only isolated pockets of prairie tall grass, some 35 million acres set aside for soil and wildlife conservation, remain. And that — largely in the Great Plains — is at risk of being destroyed. Among the factors most responsible for this tragic loss of our prairie heritage is the federal renewable fuel standard, a...

Energy Transfer Partners, the developer behind the so-called DAPL, is scheduled to start delivering oil on May 14 to Illinois, according to filings from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The oil project is expected to transport more than 500,000 barrels of oil a year across the eastern section of the country. ... The Obama administration rejected the previously approved pipeline last December ... President Donald Trump eventually issued orders approving the DAPL in January ... many demonstrators have begun diverting their attention to the equally contentious Keystone XL Pipeline, another oil pipeline Trump approved through executive order. Obama originally rejected...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told dozens of Pennsylvania coal miners Thursday that the “regulatory assault” on their industry is over, and that the environment can be protected without hurting business. “We’re going to do it the American way, grow jobs and show the rest of the world how it’s done,” Pruitt said before going on a mine tour about 50 miles south of Pittsburgh. “The regulatory assault is over,” he said, referring to tightened environmental and other regulatory standards on coal and other energy industries under former President Barack Obama. “We’re going to partner together with you.” Pruitt...

CHARLOTTE—Duke Energy has launched its Power/Forward Carolinas project -- a $13 billion, 10-year program to modernize the state's electric system. It says the initiative will result in nearly 14,000 new jobs a year and more than $1 billion in tax benefits to communities. Duke says project upgrades will harden the system against storms and outages; make it safer and more resilient against cyber-attacks and physical threats; help expand renewable energy; generate jobs and stimulate economic growth. It will also give 7 million people in North Carolina more information to manage their energy use. David Fountain, Duke Energy's North Carolina president...

Shale companies have pushed break-even oil prices below $40 per barrel---but so have major oil companies. Analysts commonly portray cost reduction as something unique to the tight oil companies. Data from annual reports filed with the U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) suggests otherwise. Along with tight oil companies, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and ChevronTexaco all had 2016 break-even prices below $40 per barrel (Figure 1). How is it possible that ponderous major oil companies have similar break-even prices as much smaller, innovative shale companies? Simple--costs have fallen for everyone since 2014 as oil field service companies competed for...

Russia’s Gazprom PJSC isn’t confident in Japan’s future as a growing natural gas user, which may damp prospects of a proposed pipeline between the countries as Premier Shinzo Abe travels to Moscow later this month. [snip] Abe, seeking to deepen economic ties with Russia in an effort to resolve a 70-year-old dispute over islands off Hokkaido, is set to visit Moscow on April 27. Russian gas supplies to Japan, including the possible pipeline between the nations, could be discussed during the visit, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported last month. [snip] Russia has turned to Asia as a growth market for its...

OPEC all but trashed the tanker market with its output cuts. That the damage hasn’t been even worse is thanks in large part to a flood of U.S. crude exports, particularly to Asia, Bloomberg reports. China zoomed past Canada to become the biggest foreign destination for American crude in February, accounting for more than 8 million barrels of U.S. cargoes. Tanker tracking is indicating no let up in U.S. oil flooding to Asia in March, boosting shipments on what is one of the industry’s longest-distance trade routes. Freight rates for oil collapsed this year after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting...

The White House is readying an executive order that aims to open up new areas of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans to offshore oil and gas drilling, according to multiple individuals briefed on the proposal. The White House is considering issuing instructions to the Interior Department to reverse President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of hundreds of millions of offshore acres from future drilling in December 2016. The executive order -- which could come out in the next few weeks -- represents President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to promote domestic energy exploration by rolling back restrictions put in place by previous administrations,...

The Trump administration is developing an order to open new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling, reversing former President Barack Obama’s unilateral decision to lock up most of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, according to industry sources. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke told industry representatives the new drilling plan would be signed soon, according to Bloomberg. However, he gave few details on what the order could include. The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) new five-year offshore drilling plan could take years to develop and would replace the Obama administration’s five-year plan finalized in November. President Donald Trump promised...

OSLO, Norway – Recent research from Rystad Energy shows that oilfield service companies should begin recruiting later this year following the significant workforce reduction in the industry throughout 2014 to 2016. Service companies working within the shale sector are already starting to recruit again, the analyst firm said, after the top four service companies, all of which were exposed to the US land market, were forced to lay off between 30-40% of their workforce. Rystad found that companies exposed to more of the international market have cut more modestly, in the range of 20-30%. “Among the top 50 service companies,...

China is now the largest foreign buyer of U.S. oil, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). U.S. crude oil exports in February jumped 35 percent from a month earlier, according to EIA. This rise in total exports caused China to start buying American oil. China purchased more oil because the U.S. was selling more. China’s dramatic economic growth over the last decade has fueled its lust for oil, and demand has long surpassed their oil industry’s production capabilities. As China’s need for oil imports rose, imports heading into the U.S. fell due to the hydraulic...

An expensive solar road project in Idaho can’t even power a microwave most days, according to the project’s energy data. The Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways project generated an average of 0.62 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day since it began publicly posting power data in late March. To put that in perspective, the average microwave or blow drier consumes about 1 kWh per day. On March 29th, the solar road panels generated 0.26 kWh, or less electricity than a single plasma television consumes. On March 31st, the panels generated 1.06 kWh, enough to barely power a single microwave. The panels...

As opponents of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline continue to fight the project, others who believe it will stimulate the economy recently ensured their voices were heard, sending hundreds of letters expressing a positive view of the pipeline to U.S. lawmakers. The Mid-Atlantic Region of the Laborer’s International Union of America (LIUNA), a union of construction workers and public service employees, on Friday hand-delivered about 1,600 letters from workers to U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. The letters express support for the proposed $5 billion natural gas pipeline, which would run about 600 miles from West Virginia to North...

SAINT-PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE, France — At a dusty construction site here amid the limestone ridges of Provence, workers scurry around immense slabs of concrete arranged in a ring like a modern-day Stonehenge. It looks like the beginnings of a large commercial power plant, but it is not. The project, called ITER, is an enormous, and enormously complex and costly, physics experiment. But if it succeeds, it could determine the power plants of the future and make an invaluable contribution to reducing planet-warming emissions. ITER, short for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (and pronounced EAT-er), is being built to test a long-held dream: that...

Full title................The War on Coal is over! President Trump signs executive order to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations .............................. President Donald Trump paid a visit to the Environmental Protection Agency today to sign an executive order that would roll back Obama's climate actions Coal miners were invited to the event as the president proclaimed that his administration 'is putting an end to the War on Coal' Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which he has labeled as a job killer