Free Republic

The US House on Dec. 3 approved by a 249-174 vote an energy bill with provisions to authorize crude oil exports and facilitate natural gas pipeline construction. Members cast ballots largely along party lines, with nine Democrats joining Republicans in favor of the measure, and three Republicans siding with Democrats against it. HR 8's chances of becoming law appeared dim, however, because it acquired the crude export provision when the House added it as an amendment a day earlier. The White House said it opposes that concept, and the US Senate does not appear ready to take the matter up....

Gas pipes worth 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion) are to be left stranded on the shores of the Black Sea after Russia's decision to suspend work on the Turkish Stream pipeline, a potent symbol of Moscow's falling out with Ankara. Russia has set out to punish Turkey after it shot down a Russian warplane in Syria last week, imposing trade sanctions and releasing data it claims proves Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is involved in illegal oil deals with Islamic State. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Thursday work on Turkish Stream, a pipeline intended to pump Russian gas...

In a recent interview, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki compared the fossil fuel industry with American Southern slavery. That's very powerful rhetoric, but it's a completely false analogy. The slave economy involved a clear cause-and-effect relationship between behavior that is morally reprehensible in principle kidnapping and enslaving people and unambiguous harm to the victims, including captivity, family separation, frequent beatings, back-breaking labor without reward, and unsanitary living conditions. The fossil fuel energy economy is nothing like that. What's the difference? First, the basic behavior of mining coal, oil, and natural gas and extracting energy from them to meet people’s needs is...

President Barack Obama is poised to repeat his history of weak-handed negotiations on the world stage when nearly 200 countries gather in Paris on Monday to consider an international response to climate change. According to the president, rejecting the Keystone XL oil pipeline and piling regulations on the fossil fuel and power industries in the United States are necessary to preserving America's credibility as a leader on the world stage. But by doing this, Obama ignores the strongest card in America's hand as he steps to the table: the advances our energy sector has made to reduce carbon emissions while...

An energy study released today by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey concludes that New England does not need additional natural gas pipeline infrastructure to meet peak winter energy demand and that energy efficiency and "demand response" would be the best solution over the next 15 years for both consumers and the environment. The long-anticipated study concludes that New England's power system is not facing an imminent reliability threat through 2030. Healey, who acts as utility ratepayer advocate in Massachusetts, commissioned the study in July. "As we make long-term decisions about our energy future, it's imperative we have the facts," Healey...

The state's chief regulator for oil and gas fields issued an emergency order Wednesday demanding that the perpetrator of a nearly month-long natural gas leak in Aliso Canyon that has irritated residents of Porter Ranch turn over all its test data and submit plans to seal up the breach. State Oil and Gas Supervisor Steven Bohlen ordered Southern California Gas Co. to provide all testing results and data and asked for a written plan to seal the leak and,if necessary, a plan to complete a relief well. The company has tried since Oct. 23 to stem the flow of gas...

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...

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...

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...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has rejected a proposal to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in the waters off New York and New Jersey, effectively killing the project amid an outcry from residents of some coastal communities that it could endanger the environment and be a target for terrorists. The deep-water docking station known as Port Ambrose was to be built 19 miles off Jones Beach on Long Island and 29 miles off Long Brach, New Jersey. Liberty Natural Gas LLC, the company vying to develop Port Ambrose, said the port would allow it to inject natural gas into the New...

The number of oil and gas job losses in Texas may be far worse than an industry group originally predicted, potentially reaching 56,000, according to the latest analysis by the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. When crude prices started collapsing late last year, Karr Ingham, a petroleum economist for the alliance, initially forecast that the state could lose 40,000 to 50,000 upstream oil and gas jobs during the downturn, but the fresh plunge in oil prices over the summer forced additional round of layoffs across Texas. "We now appear to be well beyond that estimate and the end is not...

Plummeting prices for crude oil have restricted the spending power of many oil and gas companies over the last few quarters, as recent massive cuts in capital expenditures and slashed headcounts in Houston have shown. Illustrating how tight things have gotten for some companies, business research website FindTheCompany ranked firms in the U.S. by free-cash flow, which takes a company's operating cash flow and subtracts its capital expenditures. Using this metric, FindTheCompany showed that across all U.S. businesses, oil and gas producers had among the shortest strings on their budgets following the second quarter of 2015. Of the top 25...

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is reorganizing its upstream businesses in a move the company says will continue when it completes its $70-billion acquisition of BG Group next year (OGJ Online, Sept. 3, 2015). Shell also is slashing spending by the combined company. "We are reshaping the company, and this will accelerate once this transaction is complete," said Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden at a meeting with shareholders in London. Shell is making integrated gas a stand-alone organization and creating separate upstream and unconventional resources organizations. Maarten Wetselaar, currently executive vice-president of integrated gas, will be director of the stand-alone...

They've shooed pipeline surveyors from their pastures, made anti-pipeline signs for a protest at the county courthouse and at appearances by the Virginia governor. They've also kept up pressure on local officials. As the leader in this multigenerational band of family activists, Carolyn Reilly has found the experience exhilarating and bruising. "There are days when I am in tears in frustration and exhaustion," she said. "Then there are days when I'm fired up and ready to fight." From New England to North Carolina, scattered insurgencies have formed in opposition to a spider web of pipelines up and down the Eastern...

he U.S. has tied and is set to surpass a record for the amount of natural gas in storage, according to the latest Energy Department data. Inventory figures released Thursday show 3.929 trillion cubic feet in storage across the country, tying the previous weekly record of 3.929 trillion cubic feet set on Nov. 2, 2012. And with two or three weeks of additional inventory gains expected this year, it’s likely the U.S. will have a new high mark by the time the summer and fall injection season ends. The large amount of gas in storage, continued strong gas production and...

The United States’ energy renaissance is catching attention in Beijing, where Chinese leaders view the phenomenon as “a double-edged sword,” according to a white paper from the free-market group American Council for Capital Formation. “China trusted the United States more when U.S. oil import dependency was higher and Washington actively sought increases in global oil production, a mutually shared objective,” writes George David Banks, executive vice president of the group. “In Beijing’s view, the U.S. shale revolution has increased U.S. immunity to a reduction in global supply resulting from military conflict, political instability, or international sanctions, thereby making Washington a...

The state of Alaska will now own more of the big Alaska LNG Project. It will have to shell out more money for it, too. Alaska's Permanent Fund may have to be put up as collateral, also. Legislators have been meeting in special session in Juneau since Oct. 24 to review Gov. Bill Walker's proposal for the state to buy out TransCanada's share of the planned $45 billion to $65 billion pipeline and liquefied gas project. On Nov. 3 and 4, the state Senate (16-3) and House (39-0) gave their approvals. The acquisition is to be effective Dec. 1, under...

The debate over US crude oil exports provides a long-overdue chance to throw off the shackles of political gridlock. The Republican-dominated House voted last month to lift the 40-year-old ban on oil exports. President Obama vowed to veto the bill if it reaches him. However, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats are showing signs of disillusionment with the increasingly indefensible ban, which rewards US refiners at the expense of oil producers and the motoring public. Still, a favor to the oil industry won't be possible without a concession, probably one that recognizes the environmental harm from enabling more US oil...

Ridiculously overbudget? Check. Unnecessary? Check. Impossible to support in the long run? Check. Zero accountability? Check and double-check. If a novelist wrote this as a satire of government operations, there wouldn’t be an editor who’d buy it — not for 43 cents, and certainly not for $43 million: Nearly $43 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money was spent on building a gas station in Afghanistan — 140 times more than it should have cost, according to a government watchdog.The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) also said that one of the most “troubling” issues is how the Department of Defense...