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Total U.S. natural gas gross withdrawals reached a new high at 82 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2013, with shale gas wells becoming the largest source of total natural gas production. Natural gas gross withdrawals are a measure of full well stream production including all natural gas plant liquids and nonhydrocarbon gases after oil, lease condensate, and water have been removed. According to the Natural Gas Annual, gross withdrawals from shale gas wells increased from 5 Bcf/d in 2007 to 33 Bcf/d in 2013, representing 40% of total natural gas production, and surpassing production from nonshale natural gas...

One day, crude oil will lose its grip on cars and trains and ships, but with costs to produce alternative energy still high, a change that big will likely take many decades. How long is anyone’s guess, says one man with a head start on most prognosticators. Henrik Madsen, the CEO of Norway’s international shipping and oil field equipment classifier DNV GL, says the commercial automobile market is the last bastion of crude oil, after its disappearance from power plants and heating fuels in the second half of the 20th century. Its days in vehicles and vessels are numbered. Searing...

The new leader of North Dakota’s oil-rich Three Affiliated Tribes is pledging to speed negotiations on a proposed pipeline through tribal land that would curb the wasteful burning of natural gas in the state by more than 10 percent. North Dakota’s booming oil production has led to an unmanageable increase in the state’s output of natural gas, which is a byproduct of oil production. Oneok Inc., the biggest operator of natural gas pipelines and processing plants in North Dakota, wants to build a 20-mile-long pipeline to capture natural gas from oil wells in Dunn County and move it to an...

While everyone is watching to see how low oil prices will affect U.S. shale drillers, natural gas production continues to rise. Each month, the U.S. posts new production highs (see chart), and 2014 is shaping up to be a record year for natural gas drillers. With production ratcheting upwards, the U.S. has been able to achieve record levels of storage injections, building back inventories after last winter walloped the east coast and depleted supplies. The abundance of natural gas is allowing utilities to increasingly burn the fuel in power plants for electricity – a well-known trend that continues to accelerate....

B-I-N-G-O. They nailed it. Finally, an unbiased academic study that reiterated what we’ve been advocating all along on Powering America Radio. The University of Colorado, Boulder, by no means a bastion of pro-fracking advocacy, studied that dastardly substance that many a seasoned environmentalist have repeatedly used to demonize American Energy Independence: Frack Fluids. Their finding? What’ goes down the well is no more hazardous than what lies beneath your sink, or sits atop your laundry closet. This was the first-ever scientific report anywhere, and was conducted by a team of researchers from CU Boulder. They studied wells in Colorado, Louisiana,...

With many stakeholders, several major interrelated components and an aggressive timescale, the Interior Energy Project presents something of a challenge. The project, with funding support from AIDEA, or the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, is designed to bring affordable natural gas to Fairbanks and the Alaska Interior via a to-be-constructed liquefied natural gas plant on the North Slope and an LNG trucking operation on the North Slope Haul Road. AIDEA has commissioned engineering firm MWH to manage the construction of the LNG plant. The Interior Gas Utility and Fairbanks Natural Gas, the two Fairbanks gas utilities, will arrange the...

Selected portions of the report, full report at the link: North Sea Brent crude oil spot prices fell from $95/barrel (bbl) on October 1 to $84/bbl at the end of the month. The causes included weakening outlooks for global economic and oil demand growth, the return to the market of previously disrupted Libyan crude oil production, and continued growth in U.S. tight oil production. Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $87/bbl in October, the first month Brent prices have averaged below $90/bbl since November 2010. EIA projects that Brent crude oil prices will average $83/bbl in 2015, $18/bbl lower than...

Many employers struggle to translate a military veteran’s service to the civilian workplace, and 2014 unemployment statistics still reflect a gap between general civilian unemployment rates and the younger, post-9/11 veteran unemployment rates. However, the oil and gas industry reflects a different story. Leading up to Veteran’s Day, U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) made a statement regarding efforts to increase the hiring of U.S. military veterans in the U.S. oil and gas industry. "As Veterans Day approaches, we are reminded of the promise we made to our American heroes who have served at home and overseas - that we will...

“A few more decades of ungoverned fossil-fuel use and we burn up, to put it bluntly.” — Bill McKibben, leading environmental activist, 1989 I came across this quote, along with many others of comparable value, while reading Alex Epstein’s just-published book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. But Epstein’s book is much more than a fantastic collection of such delightfully mad environmentalist pronouncements — although that part alone is worth the purchase price. Rather, what Epstein presents is a powerful, systematic, and relentlessly logical philosophical case for the moral value of the fossil-fuel industry, and the fundamentally immoral basis...

One clear winner on election night was energy. While the economy may have been voters' primary concern and the president's health care law second, energy issues played a key role, especially in those states that gave Republicans control of the Senate. It's a message that those newly elected senators, all of whom stressed their support for expanding energy development, aren't likely to forget. And it's one that Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell, who repeatedly stressed his support for the Kentucky coal industry in his campaign, will push to the forefront. First should come the easy stuff. There is bipartisan support...

BEIJING – The leaders of China and Russia have signed agreements to boost their energy cooperation, including an understanding to develop a second major route to supply the Chinese side with Russian natural gas following an initial $400 billion deal in May.

Working natural gas in storage ended October at 3,571 billion cubic feet (Bcf), a record increase of 2,734 Bcf during the April 1 to October 31 injection season, and within 7% of the average of the last five end-of-season storage levels. While end-October natural gas stocks are at a five-year low, increased natural gas production, which has reached an all-time high, and new pipeline projects will help meet winter natural gas demand. Higher production means that even if this winter were as cold as last year, EIA expects that natural gas storage at the end of March 2015 will be...

Even as it fills the railroads of the Upper Midwest with oil tank cars, the Bakken has allowed its natural gas riches to languish. Less profitable than oil and more difficult to transport, natural gas has been so secondary in North Dakota that drillers still burn off more than a fourth of what rises from the ground. In satellite pictures, the flames sprawl across the Williston basin, lighting it up like a giant suburb. A quiet transformation is underway, however, as the state bids to turn natural gas into a native business and drive down flaring. A growing network of...

t's no secret that Houston's office market is driven by the energy sector. But how much of a boost is oil and gas to Houston's commercial real estate market? It's significant, according to CBRE Group Inc. The commercial real estate brokerage firm analyzed 33 cities across the world and found that the average prime office rental growth is up by 25.2 percent in energy dependent cities, compared to 4.5 percent in non-energy dependent cities. This means that oil and gas cities can see as much as five times the growth in office rental market than other non-energy cities. There are...

TransCanada Corporation has announced that it is moving forward with its Vaughan pipeline project and associated facilities as part of CAN$ 475 million in pipeline and facility expansions within the Eastern Triangle portion of the Canadian Mainline system. This is the next step of development for natural gas infrastructure in southern Ontario and is the result of collaboration between TransCanada, Enbridge Gas Distribution, Gaz Metro and Union Gas. Construction of TransCanada's Kings North Connection, Parkway West Connection and Hamilton Area Project are expected to cost about CAN$ 255 million and be in-service in November 2015. The Vaughan pipeline and associated...

Greyrock Energy said it plans to build a small scale gas-to-liquids facility in Houston in late 2015, taking advantage of a glut of cheap natural gas to be converted into high grade diesel fuel. The company, based in Sacramento, California, has not announced where the plant will be set up, nor who its customers will be. But the project has backing from Sterling Private Capital and Eagle Oil & Gas Co., both based in Dallas. The facility will be able to process as much as 50 million cubic feet per day of natural gas to produce 5,000 barrels per day...

New regulations covering disposal wells from fracking operations go into effect in Texas beginning in November 2014. The new regulations by the Texas Railroad Commission (Texas RRC, or Commission), the state’s regulating entity for oil and gas, are centered on the possible linkage between seismic activity and disposing wells. There are four main components of the new regulations: - Applicants for disposal wells must conduct a search on the U.S. Geological Survey seismic database to determine if there is a history of earthquakes within a 100-square-mile area around the site of the proposed disposal well - Clarify that the Commission...

European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger and Ukraine Energy Minister Yuri Prodan will speak by phone on Monday to prepare for trilateral talks with Russia on resolving a gas pricing row, a Commission official said. Citing unpaid bills, Russia cut off gas flows to Kiev in mid-June, adding to East-West tensions triggered by Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and conflict in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. Last Tuesday, the latest round of talks between Russia and Ukraine, brokered by the Commission, to try to resolve the gas supply dispute ended without a deal. Since then, relations between Russia and Ukraine may have been...

A month after implementing new rules regarding the flaring of natural gas, the state of North Dakota was near compliance with the new limits as oil and gas production companies in the Bakken work to reduce flaring, according to the United States Department of Energy (DOE). In August, 28 percent of North Dakota’s natural gas was flared, the state reported. That was near North Dakota’s flare-rate goal of 26 percent in 4Q 2014, despite an increase in oil production in the Bakken in August, according to the website Bakken.com. Following criticism from royalty holders regarding extensive flaring that made North...

American workers and motorists got some badly-needed relief this week when the price of oil plunged to its lowest level in years. The oil price has fallen by about 20 to 25 percent since its peak back in June of $105 a barrel. This is translating to lower prices at the pump with many states now below $3 a gallon. Already the lower oil and gas prices are the equivalent of a $70 to 200 billion cost saving to American consumers and businesses. That’s $70 to 200 billion a year we don’t have to send to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and...