Free Republic

Are you tempted by nice dividends such as BP’s 7.53 percent and Shell’s 7.31 percent? Long-term investors are. They’re lapping up the oil majors on dips to cash in on their impressive dividend yields in hopes that the massive rally in crude oil from the lows of $27.10 per barrel is an indication that crude has bottomed out and higher prices are around the corner. The large investors are pursuing the oil majors for their stability and safety, which has boosted their prices, but even after the rise, prices remain below their 2015 highs. The oil majors are expected to...

Saudi Arabia single-handedly scuttled the Doha meeting, knowing all along that Iran would not participate, with a valid reason. The Russians and others agreed to proceed without Iran, planning to include them at a later date. So if everything was known beforehand, why did the Saudi’s pour cold water on the aspirations of the remaining members, risking its alienation from Russia and the OPEC community? Was it simply Saudi enmity toward Iran? Not exactly. Upon closer scrutiny, we can find the Saudi masterstroke behind Doha. It is well known that Saudi Arabia is heavily dependent on oil revenues, and that...

Jacki is joined by Dr. David Grantham, senior research fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis to discuss how oil and antiquities from terrorist networks has made its way to America and what we can do to stop it. Jacki also speaks with Brendan Williams to talk about the importance of energy issues in the upcoming Presidential election. Lastly Jacki is joined by Doug Domenech, director of the Fueling Freedom Project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, to talk about the history of Earth Day.

Jacki Talks With Dr. Grantham About How ISIS Oil Has Made Its Way To the USA

No incentive for Saudis to let up Getty Saudi Arabia's minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Ali al-Naimi (C) arrives for the OPEC meeting, in the Qatari capital Doha, By WilliamWatts Deputy markets editor Why would the Saudis give up now?That’s the question crude oil bulls should have been asking themselves ahead of the Sunday meeting of major oil producers that failed to produce an agreement to put a lid on production. Prospects for a deal fell apart after Iran refused to sign up, prompting Saudi Arabia, the world’s swing producer, to effectively walk away. Those that believed Riyadh had...

In recent years, proponents of clean energy have taken heart in the falling prices of solar and wind power, hoping they will drive an energy revolution. But a new study co-authored by an MIT professor suggests otherwise: Technology-driven cost reductions in fossil fuels will lead us to continue using all the oil, gas, and coal we can, unless governments pass new taxes on carbon emissions. “If we don’t adopt new policies, we’re not going to be leaving fossil fuels in the ground,” says Christopher Knittel, an energy economist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “We need both a policy...

As Libya wrangles over who is going to control its oil, the Islamic State is closing in, using sporadic attacks designed to rattle nerves and force oil-field evacuations or worker strikes out of fear. In recent months, ISIS has deployed a large number of fighters at several oil fields, and has been planning attacks on foreign workers as well as oil wells. In February 2015, one of the ISIS-inspired attacks on the Mabruk field killed nearly 12 people including four foreign nationals. In early January, ISIS launched an attack on the Es-Sidra and Ras Lanuf oil export terminals in the...

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...

Saudi Arabia turns oil weapon on Iran: Kemp By Reuters Published: 13:22 GMT, 18 April 2016 | Updated: 13:22 GMT, 18 April 2016 By John Kemp LONDON, April 18 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's decision to scupper negotiations on a coordinated oil output freeze in Doha on Sunday seems to confirm a significant shift in the kingdom's oil policy. For decades, the kingdom has insisted it does not wield oil as a diplomatic weapon, but at the weekend it did just that as part of an intensifying conflict with Iran. ("Saudi-Iran tensions scupper deal to freeze oil output", Reuters, April 17)...

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...

The Obama administration unveiled new regulations on offshore drilling on Thursday, rules that were several years in the making. The regulations stem from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a well blowout that resulted in the death of 11 workers and one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. The regulations call for new well-control measures, limits the volume of fluids that can be injected into wells, and requires heightened well monitoring. ExxonMobil and other companies say the rules will impose costs as high as $25 billion over the next decade, pushing many offshore projects...

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...

Huge traffic jams of tankers have formed around the world with some 200 million barrels of oil either waiting to be loaded or delivered as ports struggle to cope with record volumes in perhaps the most visible sign of the global oil glut. Almost all of the over 660 Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), the largest tankers in use to transport seaborne oil, are used to ship crude between the Middle East and Asia’s consumption hubs around India and the Far East. The map above shows all of these super tankers in operation on April 11. The icon on the...

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...

A report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has revealed that most of the world’s nations hiked their military budgets last year, marking the first increase in spending since the 2008 crisis. It seems that the only ones not taking part in this military spending hike are some of the world’s biggest oil producers. While the United States is still the country with the largest military budget at $596 billion spent in 2015, this figure was actually a decline on the previous year. Saudi Arabia, according to Bloomberg, would also have cut its military budget if not for the...

BP is facing a revolt from its shareholders over the salary of its CEO Bob Dudley. Dudley’s salary jumped 20 percent in 2015 to $19.6 million, the same year in which BP reported a record loss of $6.4 billion and laid off more than 5,000 workers. His rising salary has been met with opposition from shareholders because it is not only unseemly, but also because the raise is not connected to the company’s negative performance. "We consider the pay of the CEO to be simply too high, and particularly so in a year when the company suffered a record loss...

THE JACKI DAILY Show! Listen live at 2PM Eastern! Now playing also on station KWEL in Midland-Odessa! 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...

An enormous fire erupted an ExxonMobil refinery in Texas on Thursday. The Baytown refinery caught fire, leading to huge black plumes of smoke into the air, visible from downtown Houston. Almost as soon as the fire in the ExxonMobil refinery was extinguished, we got reports of a fire in a refinery belonging to LyondellBasell Industries. CNBC reported that the fire occured in the coker unit of the refinery that can process over 263.000 barrels per day.

Previous placement of rig HYSY 981 sparked riots in VietnamVietnam’s government on Thursday said it had told China to pull an oil rig from waters between the two countries that haven’t been demarcated and urged Beijing not to drill for oil or gas in the area. China National Offshore Oil Corp. towed the same rig, known as HYSY 981, into a disputed area of the South China Sea in May 2014, triggering an uproar in Vietnam. Anti-Chinese riots broke out in several parts of the country while Chinese and Vietnamese coast-guard and fishing vessels stood off against each other at...