Free Republic

Top environmental groups on Wednesday blasted G20 nations for failing to live up to the terms of the Paris climate accord, saying the countries are “talking out of both sides of their mouths” and perpetuating “sweetheart deals” for oil, gas, and coal companies at the same time they’re supposed to be cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The study, released by a coalition of leading green organizations, found that the nations of the G20 — which are meeting this week in Germany — spend roughly four times as much in public financing for fossil fuels than they do supporting renewable energy.

Natural Resources: Last week President Trump announced plans to make the U.S. not just energy independent, but a global energy powerhouse. Too bad everyone was hyperfocused on his tweets. On Thursday, Trump said he was ushering in a new energy policy that marked an end to decades of fretting about an alleged "energy crisis" brought on by supposed limited domestic supplies and an insatiable demand for fossil fuels. "We now know that was all a big, beautiful myth," Trump said in remarks at the Department of Energy. "The truth is that we have near-limitless supplies of energy in our country."...

The shale revolution in the U.S. has led to a boom in domestic natural gas production, to the point that America is expected to become a net exporter of natural gas on an average annual basis by 2018. Abundant gas at home has also led to a renaissance in the petrochemical industry in the U.S., which had suffered a downturn in 2008 and 2009. But then came the shale revolution, and chemical companies in the U.S. now use the affordable ethane—a natural gas liquid derived from shale gas—as a feedstock. Abundant and cheap, shale gas and ethane are now feeding...

The Trump administration said Thursday it is taking steps to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans as President Donald Trump continues to push for U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. The Interior Department is rewriting a five-year drilling plan established by the Obama administration, with an eye toward opening areas in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans that now are off-limits to drilling. It’s one of six initiatives that the president unveiled Thursday in hopes of generating more energy exports and jobs. “The golden era of American energy is now underway,” Trump said in a Thursday speech...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Iraqi Oil Ministry is ready to legally challenge oil exports from the Kurdistan Region from a tanker ship that has headed into the Atlantic Ocean, reported a provider of commodity information. “A senior Iraqi Oil Ministry official told S&P Global Platts that the ministry has been authorized to challenge the legality of the shipment and any other tankers, marking increased tension following recent warming between Baghdad and Erbil,” the UK-based S&P Global Platts reported in a statement on Tuesday. The Kurdistan Region sends oil through a pipeline terminating at Turkey’s Ceyhan port to ship to...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said that total Rosneft investment in the Kurdistan Region is possibly around $3 billion after signing a preliminary Memorandum of Understanding with the Russian oil giant. The agreement signed last week in St. Petersburg will not come into effect for another at least three months, after it is ratified by the Kurdish government, he explained. During that time, the two sides will enter negotiations to put the final touches on the oil and gas agreement aimed at increasing oil exports to up to 1 million barrels. The deal also touches on...

Secrets of ‘Office 39’: North Korean leader Kim gets Russian fuel via Singapore dealers, says defector who fled China Defector: ‘It is a wrong perception that North Korea is completely dependent on China’ North Korea secures up to 300,000 tonnes of oil products from Russia each year through Singapore-based dealers, a defector who formerly managed funds for the leadership has told Kyodo News, posing a challenge for the United States as it seeks to isolate Pyongyang. “North Korea has procured Russia-produced fuel from Singapore brokers and others since the 1990s...It is mostly diesel oil and partly gasoline,” Ri Jong-ho, 59,...

US Ambassador Nikki Haley has called for international action to address the crisis in Venezuela, after a US-backed proposal for regional mediation failed to win support at the Organization of American States. (The US-backed proposal failed to overcome opposition from the 14 similar national jurisdictions that benefit from turmoil and discounted Venezuelan oil.) "The tragic situation in Venezuela calls out for action. The Venezuelan people are starving while their government tramples their democracy". //Snipp// The Judiciary has sold out and military command is wavering as the country, pummeled by the plunge in oil prices and the Hugo Chávez, legacy of...

‘Energy Week’ highlights the role of American resources in securing prosperity This week, the Trump administration is hosting “Energy Week” to discuss with state, tribal, business and labor leaders how we can pave the path forward toward U.S. energy dominance. This is a truly amazing moment in the energy sector, and President Trump is seeking to capitalize on the opportunity for the betterment of the American economy and our citizens. For the first time in four decades, the energy story in the United States is about becoming an energy exporter and no longer about peak resources or being beholden to...

The current selloff in energy stocks is but an opportunity for buyers, according to a Thursday note from Goldman Sachs’ European energy team, who added that current prices are likely unsustainable in the long run. “We…see the sell off as an attractive buying opportunity in our favored stocks, including Total and Lundin, whilst we have also started to see investor interest in higher beta stocks that have sold off such as Tullow,” said Goldman.

That Louisiana is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico is not news. Rising seas and coastline erosion have been working together for decades, but this sinking may well be happening faster than previously thought—threatening billions and billions of Louisiana oil infrastructure. This is the central idea of a new study from Tulane University that set out to map the Louisiana coastline using new methods of measuring subsidence—the technical term for sinking land. The outcome of the measurements is an average 9 mm of wetlands lost to the sea every year. This compares to previous estimates of an annual subsidence rate...

Seeking to "roll out a red-carpet welcome" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Donald Trump would host him for a working dinner at the White House on Monday, the first of its kind under this administration. "The White House is very interested in making this a special visit. We're really seeking to roll out the red carpet. In fact, the two (leaders) will have dinner, a working dinner at the White House. “This will be the first dinner for a foreign dignitary at the White House under this administration. So, we think that's very significant," a senior administration official...

PARIS (AFP) - France is to stop granting new licences for oil and gas exploration on the mainland and in overseas territories, Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said Friday. "There will be no new exploration licences for hydrocarbons, we will pass the law this autumn," Hulot said on BFMTV. President Emmanuel Macron said during his election campaign in February that he was opposed to exploration for gas and shale gas in mainland France.

Boosting drilling and mining on America's protected federal lands can help the United States become not just independent, but "dominant" as a global energy force, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose agency manages about one-fifth of U.S. territory. In an interview with Reuters, Zinke outlined his approach to development and conservation in America's wildest spaces, and discussed how that philosophy was guiding his review of which national monuments created by past presidents should be rescinded or resized to make way for more business. "There is a social cost of not having jobs," the former Montana Congressman and Navy Seal...

[Reuters] Traders are increasingly storing oil in ageing supertankers in Southeast Asia as they grapple with a supply overhang that has left the system clogged with unneeded fuel despite an OPEC-led drive to cut production to prop up prices. Around 10 very large crude carriers (VLCCs), all between 16 and 20 years old, have been chartered since the end of May to store crude for periods ranging from 30 days to around six months, brokers told Reuters. Each VLCC can carry 2 million barrels of oil.

As Venezuela’s oil industry goes down it flames, it’s looking like it may just take Cuba down with it. Venezuela, once the crude powerhouse of South and Central America, is no longer able to produce enough oil to sustain its own economy, much less those of other countries. Cuba is frantically drilling in search for new reserves and reaching out for new suppliers, but there is no guarantee they’ll be able to stabilize their oil income any time soon. Cuba became dependent on Venezuelan oil in the 1990s, when they were sold cut-price crude in exchange for the services of...

Artificial intelligence is already here, with algorithms replacing traders on Wall Street and tanker watchers in ports. Robots are here, too, drilling wells and cleaning pipelines, assembling cars, and performing surgery. Make no mistake, the fourth industrial revolution is accelerating and it is running on oil and gas—at least for the time being. This is a fact that few of those active in the advancement of renewable energy would be willing to acknowledge or even consider, yet a fact it is: the revolution needs energy, and at the moment, renewable sources are simply incapable of supplying energy in amounts sufficient...

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

One day in March, the Rioja Knutsen tanker, filled with liquefied natural gas, was travelling from the US to Portugal. Suddenly, Mexico’s power company lobbed in a higher bid for its cargo. At the Bahamas, the ship abruptly made a starboard turn and headed south. How natural gas is bought and sold in the world’s scattered regional markets for the fuel is changing rapidly. Ships such as the Rioja Knutsen are stitching those regions together and a single global market is emerging. This is already how nearly every other hydrocarbon, from crude oil to obscure petrochemicals, is sold. As gas...

On his recent visit to Alaska, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke began laying the groundwork to open the 3% of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge contained in Area 1002 to oil development. He ordered a new assessment of the area's potential oil reserves. The most recent comprehensive study by the United States Geological Survey was completed in 1998, and its mean estimate of recoverable reserves in Area 1002 was 7.7 BBO (billion barrels of oil). At $45 a barrel, that's $346 billion. Most of this oil lies in the western portion, near the terminus of the Trans Alaska Pipeline at Prudhoe...