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On the one hand, many environmental and conservation groups are bitterly opposed to shale development. Ranged against them are those within and beyond the energy industry who believe that the exploitation of shale gas can prove not only vital but hugely positive for the British economy. Rather oddly, hardly anyone seems to have asked the one question which is surely fundamental: does shale development make economic sense? My conclusion is that it does not. That Britain needs new energy sources is surely beyond dispute. Between 2003 and 2013, domestic production of oil and gas slumped by 62pc and 65pc respectively,...

Biofuels Power Corp. plans to build a small-scale plant to convert natural gas to synthetic crude on a former power plant site south of downtown Houston as it looks to capitalize on abundant supplies of cheap natural gas, the company announced Monday. The gas-to-liquids plant is a pilot project, the first step in the Humble-based company’s plans to build several small plants at oil fields across the U.S. to capture and convert natural gas now stranded at well sites that don’t have processing or transportation infrastructure to carry the gas to market. Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — PPL Corp. said Thursday it wants to spend billions of dollars to build a 725-mile system of electric transmission lines that will bring energy from the booming Marcellus Shale natural gas fields to customers on the heavily populated Eastern Seaboard. The Allentown-based utility said the 500-kilovolt line would span much of Pennsylvania and reach into New York, New Jersey and Maryland, although the route has not been determined. The cost was expected to exceed $4 billion, and it could take more than a decade to build....

Thanks to the Independent, we may know the answer, and it is a doozy, because according to some it is nothing shy of a sequel to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact: allegedly Germany and Russia have been working on a secret plan to broker a peaceful solution to end international tensions over the Ukraine, one which would negotiate to trade Crimea's sovereignty for guarantees on energy security and trade.

Shell announced today that it has declared force majeure on its unconventional gas exploration activities in eastern Ukraine, near the site where flight MH17 crashed. However, it's too early to tell what impact the latest round of EU and US sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine will have on the Anglo-Dutch major, sources said. Shell has been engaging in shale gas exploration in Ukraine and its Russian assets include a stake in Sakhalin-2, one of the largest LNG projects in the world, where it is working with Gazprom to expand the project. Shell CEO Ben van Beurden was...

WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department on Thursday approved Oregon LNG to export liquefied natural gas, as the Obama administration works through applications to export fuel from the domestic drilling boom to markets in Asia and Europe. Oregon LNG, which is controlled by Leucadia National Corp , has been authorized by the department to export up to 1.25 billion cubic feet per day of the fuel for 20 years. It hopes to begin exporting LNG in 2017. The Astoria, Oregon-based project still needs approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which will review the project's environmental...

As the Obama administration weans the U.S. off dirty fuels blamed for global warming, energy companies have been sending more of America's unwanted energy leftovers to other parts of the world where they could create even more pollution. This fossil fuel trade threatens to undermine President Barack Obama's strategy for reducing the gases blamed for climate change and reveals a little-discussed side effect of countries acting alone on a global problem. The contribution of this exported pollution to global warming is not something the administration wants to measure, or even talk about.

The Obama administration on Friday gave the oil industry the green light to use air guns and sonic sensors to search for possible oil and gas under Atlantic waters, overriding environmentalists concerned that the seismic research can harm whales and other marine life. Although geophysical research companies will still have to apply for individual permits to conduct seismic studies along the south- and mid-Atlantic coast — and undergo more rigorous environmental scrutiny of their specific plans — the Interior Department’s formal decision opens the door for the activity. Friday’s move also helps pave the way for possible drilling off the...

Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze said that increased drilling and a shortage of staff are behind his agency’s request for a fee system to increase the agency’s inspection capacity. ... BLM is focused on a range of inspections, including drilling and production inspections. ... Irregular and declining budgets have hindered our ability to move out aggressively in this area. Through the President’s 2015 budget proposal, we are now seeking to fund inspections through a fee system that will allow us to be much more responsive to the needs of industry and, importantly, to meet the foundational safety and...

Denton late Tuesday night became the latest jurisdiction to announce a referendum on a drilling technique, joining Colorado and New York in allowing voters to decide where hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas may take place. This a deeply worrying trend that mixes misinformation with a not-in-my-backyard attitude that too often ignores science, engineering and the nation's need for energy. In many ways, though, the drilling companies and state regulators have themselves to blame for public outrage by failing to quickly and transparently address the concerns of local residents. First, let me say I've spoken to a lot of people...

Some climate change proponents are saying the huge amounts of methane gas, stored under the Arctic ice is a potential "ticking time bomb." They claim that we must stop extracting fossil fuels that put more CO2 into our atmosphere or face disaster. Methane is only one of a number of gases called greenhouse gases (GHG) that can absorb and emit infrared radiation, or in other words, this means they can trap and absorb heat. The most abundant GHG is water vapor, followed by carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and CFC's. By measuring atmospheric infrared radiation, climatologists are able to...

Houston outpaced every city in the nation in annual wage growth during the second quarter, thanks largely to a bump in oil and gas-industry pay, according to PayScale. The Seattle-based pay tracker said the city’s 3 percent rise in annual wages beat the national average of 1.8 percent from April to June. That’s the second consecutive quarter that Houston wage-earners beat the national average, after a sluggish 2013 that saw pay in the energy capital flatten. (Average wage earners weren’t the only ones who had flat paydays last year: Some compensation packages for the chief executives of oil and gas...

The EU wants the US to lift its restrictions on exporting gas and crude oil as part of ongoing trade talks, according to a leaked European Commission document. The strategy paper by the EU executive, obtained by the Washington Post, calls for “a legally binding commitment … guaranteeing the free export of crude oil and gas resources”. EU and US trade officials will hold their sixth round of talks on an ambitious Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in Brussels next week, which officials argue could be worth €100 billion per year, equivalent to an additional 0.5 percent of EU...

A wave of gas-to-liquids investments and other U.S. industrial projects will likely boost demand for natural gas by 19 to 31 percent through the end of the decade, a new study shows. After shale gas flooded U.S. markets, chemical makers and other firms planned enough gas-intensive industrial projects – now under construction or obtaining permits – to boost daily industrial gas demand from 19.6 to 23.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day in 2020, according to the University of Texas’ Center for Energy Economics. All told, that’s an $83 billion venture. If all 144 proposed industrial projects are built,...

Royal Dutch Shell is ending investments in a gas development project in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the shale gas industry has opened up more lucrative opportunities for energy companies elsewhere. Shell has decided to end further investment in the Kidan area of the Empty Quarter, the sea of sand dunes that cover south-east Saudi Arabia. Italy's ENI, Spain's Repsol and France's Total - have already abandoned the search for commercially viable gas deposits in that part of Saudi Arabia. Kidan, rich in sour gas...

Like most of its Asian neighbors, the Philippines has been a net energy importer for decades. The country’s dependence on hydrocarbons is relatively lower as compared to South Korea or Singapore as it has alternatives such as geothermal, hydropower and other renewable sources for electricity generation. But rising energy consumption and the expected depletion of gas resource at the offshore Malampaya field – the country’s major gas development – in a decade’s time has induced the Philippines to seek alternative energy supplies. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) import, together with the accompanying gas receiving facilities, is one of the options being...

ix members of the Climate Summer 2014 Team Western Mass. have been bicycling across the state and will be at the farmers' market here Thursday (July 3) to highlight concerns about the proposed expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline. The expansion of the pipeline in the Northeastern United States is believed to include a route through Franklin County, though a company spokesman said routes haven't been finalized and the company is committed to public safety and protection of the environment. Tennessee Gas Pipeline is part of the Kinder-Morgan company of Houston, Texas. The proposed mainline route of the company's Northeast...

Statoil ASA recently announced a container system to reduce flaring in the Bakken. The company’s timing could not have been better, considering that North Dakota just approved new flaring regulations. More restrictive regulations covering flaring on existing wells were passed by the North Dakota Industrial Commission – the state’s regulating entity for oil and gas – July 1. The goal of the commission is to reduce flaring to 26 percent by the fourth quarter of 2014, 23 percent by the first quarter of 2016, and 10 percent – with the potential of 5 percent – by the fourth quarter of...

"Crisis" may be a little hyperbolic. But shale production of oil and gas in America suddenly got a lot riskier this week. That's because of a landmark decision from one of the highest state courts in the land. Upholding the right of individual towns to regulate shale drilling, trumping state or federal regulatory regimes. The ruling came down yesterday in New York. Where the State Court of Appeals voted 5-2 to reject challenges to fracking rules imposed on the oil and gas industry by two municipalities in the state: Dryden and Middlefield. The saga started in 2011. When the two...

New England states are united in proposing that a tariff be imposed on electricity rates throughout the region to fund more natural gas pipelines and increased transmission infrastructure — to reverse electricity costs that are among the highest in the nation. The proposal is a necessary step because the region has limited gas pipeline capacity despite a demand that has grown from 6 percent in 2000 to 46 percent in 2013, energy experts said at a forum sponsored by The New England Council at St. Anselm's College in Manchester Monday. At the same time, more and more coal-fired, oil and...