Free Republic

As OPEC’s efforts to balance the oil market bear fruit, U.S. producers are reaping the benefits - and flooding Europe with a record amount of crude.

THE United States is flooding the European markets with record amounts crude oil as US producers seize on Russia and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) pact to cut output resulting in soaring oil prices. US crude oil is seen as the cheaper option as the OPEC and Russia pact begins to bite after agreeing jointly to oil output jointly by 1.8million barrels per day (bpd) help rebalance the market and to help elevate the benchmark Brent prices. Now, the relatively high prices brought about by that pact, coupled with surging US output, are making it harder to...

Hundreds of small, independent producers might soon be swallowed up by today’s unprecedented oil and gas boom in southeastern New Mexico. As industry titans like ExxonMobil and Concho Resources pump billions of dollars into previously untapped sections of New Mexico’s century-old oil patch, the state’s small- and medium-sized producers are struggling on the margins to keep running aging wells based on outdated technology. Those companies, which have flourished for decades in New Mexico’s side of the Permian Basin, don’t have the resources to invest in the modern drilling technology needed to dig into the oil-rich, hard shale-rock formations where the...

With oil prices hitting $75 per barrel, it was meant to be one of the smoothest meetings OPEC has had in recent years. The night before the meeting, the ministers gathered in Jeddah celebrated with a traditional Saudi sword dance - just as U.S. President Donald Trump had done when he visited Saudi Arabia last May. Little did they know that Trump was about to spoil their post-meeting party when he tweeted that oil prices had rallied too far. “Looks like OPEC is at it again. With record amounts of oil all over the place, including the fully loaded ships...

Trump blasts OPEC, says cartel is keeping oil prices 'artificially very high' and that 'will not be accepted' "Looks like OPEC is at it again," Trump tweets. "Oil prices are artificially Very High! WTI oil prices hit a three-year high above $69 a barrel this week. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih responds that "Markets should determine price." President Donald Trump blasted the oil-producing cartel OPEC on Twitter on Friday. "Looks like OPEC is at it again," he wrote. "With record amounts of Oil all over the place, including the fully loaded ships at sea, Oil prices are artificially Very High!...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump criticized OPEC on Friday for output curbs that have helped raise global oil prices and said “artificially” high prices would not be accepted, drawing rebukes from oil-producing countries as prices dipped following his remarks. “Looks like OPEC is at it again. With record amounts of Oil all over the place, including the fully loaded ships at sea. Oil prices are artificially Very High! No good and will not be accepted!” Trump wrote on Twitter. Several members of OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said in response that oil prices were not...

Up to 95 per cent of plastic polluting the world’s oceans pours in from just ten rivers, according to new research. The top 10 rivers – eight of which are in Asia – accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste. About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources – such as the Yangtze and the Ganges – could almost halve it, scientists claim. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt flew in coach-class seats on at least two trips home to Oklahoma when taxpayers weren’t footing the bill, despite claims he...

Revenues from oil and gas sold to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are now the largest source of funds for the Islamic State (ISIS), as the militant group faces mounting military pressure in both Iraq and Syria. The Wall Street Journal reports that officials from the U.S. and Europe said the Assad regime, despite pronouncements that it is fighting the extremist group, is directly supporting ISIS through the purchase of energy, needed to power the Syrian capital Damascus and other parts of the country. Amos Hochstein of the U.S. State Department told the Journal that the group’s “revenue...

Pope Francis is a Soros puppet. Soros has placed his boy from Harvard, Jeffrey Sachs, in the Vatican for the last several years as Pope Francis' handler. Notice that Francis pushes the exact same things that Soros' puppet US president Obama did: Global warming illegal aliens muslims ------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey Sachs Encourages Catholic Organizations to Divest https://catholicclimatemovement.global/jeffrey-sachs-divestment/ Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, expressed his strong support of the four Catholic organizations that announced their plans today to divest from fossil fuels on the occasion of the first...

A sad case of self-immolation with fossil fuels, to protest fossil fuels A green activist who was a pioneering lawyer for gay and transgender rights — including in the infamous “Boys Don’t Cry” murder case — committed suicide by setting himself on fire Saturday morning in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.In a gruesome protest against the ecological destruction of the earth, David Buckel, 60, left behind a charred corpse and a typed suicide note that said he was burning himself to death using “fossil fuel” to reflect how mankind was likewise killing itself, police sources said. He left the note behind in...

The New York Post reports that environmental activist and legal expert David Buckel has committed suicide in the name of environmentalism. The high profile lawyer, who made a name for himself as a prolific gay and transgender rights attorney, set himself on fire in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park earlier today.   From the New York Post: "In a gruesome protest against the ecological destruction of the earth, David Buckel, 60, left behind a charred corpse and a typed suicide note that said he was burning himself to death using “fossil fuel” to reflect how mankind was likewise killing itself, police sources said.He...

It’s a good thing environmentalists have double standards – or they wouldn’t have any standards at all.  Empire State legislators worry that anything above the current 0.0001% methane in Earth’s atmosphere will cause catastrophic climate change, and that pipelines will disturb wildlife habitats. So they oppose fracking for natural gas in New York and pipelines that would import the clean fuel from Pennsylvania. But then they bribe or force rural and vacation area communities to accept dozens of towering wind turbines that impact thousands of acres, destroy scenic views, kill thousands of birds and bats annually, and affect the sleep and health of...

The Senate voted 50-48 Wednesday to confirm business lawyer John Ring to fill the open seat on the National Labor Relations Board, the federal government's main labor law enforcement agency, "giving the five-member board a majority consisting of President Trump's appointees through at least 2020"..... The board achieved a reputation for pro-union activism during the Obama administration, which the Trump White House and congressional Republicans have been eager to reverse. "Mr. Ring will be a principled and objective voice on the NLRB, and not a rubber stamp to special interests that were in favor during the Obama administration. We commend...

Enzymatic liquid membrane design and mechanism of carbon dioxide capture and separation. The Sandia/University of New Mexico membrane is fabricated by formation of 8-nanometer diameter mesopores. Using atomic layer deposition and oxygen plasma processing, the silica mesopores are engineered to be hydrophobic except for an 18-nm-deep region at the pore surface which is hydrophilic. Through capillary condensation, carbonic anhydrase enzymes and water spontaneously fill the hydrophilic mesopores to form an array of stabilized enzymes with an effective concentration greater than 10 times of that achievable in solution. These catalyze the capture and dissolution of carbon dioxide at the upstream surface...

It seems a little churlish to prod Jerry Brown on carbon issues. He's done as much as any leader in the world to move forward on the climate and energy crises that are the defining challenges of our time. All of California's environmental measures have been aimed at reducing the demand for energy, and none at slowing down the production of fossil fuel. Supply and demand are two equal halves of this fight; if we don't recognize that fact we simply will not solve the climate conundrum. With his time in elective office winding down, Brown has the rare chance...

Yemen’s rebel Houthi movement launched earlier on Wednesday drone strikes on a Saudi Aramco facility and on an airport in Saudi Arabia, Houthi-owned Al-Masirah TV channel reported on Wednesday. Aramco says that its plants are operating normally and safely, Reuters reports. The Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels, who have been fighting a Saudi-led Arab coalition in Yemen since 2015, said that they targeted on Wednesday morning local time the Abha airport in Asir and Aramco in Jazan, according to the Houthis’ Al-Masirah outlet. Saudi Aramco has a 400,000-bpd refinery in Jazan in the country’s southwest. The refinery is part of a project...

Oil prices soared on Wednesday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted earlier in the day that Russia would better “get ready” for U.S. missiles in Syria. At 08:33 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, WTI Crude was above $66 and Brent—above the $71 mark. WTI Crude was up 0.92 percent to $66.12, while Brent Crude had jumped 0.87 percent at $71.66. “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys...

The dominant narrative of modern Middle East history emphasizes European colonization and accepts as a truism that the former colonial powers prioritized the protection of their material interests—in oil, above all—above the dignity and self-determination of the region’s inhabitants. --Thus did botched decolonization result in endless instability...Thus did the region become a breeding ground for radicalism, intensified by Cold War rivalry between the superpowers, who replaced the European colonizers as the region’s meddling overlords...Then came Mikhail Gorbachev—a Westernizing reformer. At last, the Cold War was over. A new world order was at hand. What if this conventional wisdom is nonsense?...

Russia is considering replacing the U.S. dollar in crude oil payments on deals with Turkey and Iran, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said as quoted by RT. According to Novak, “There is a common understanding that we need to move towards the use of national currencies in our settlements. There is a need for this, as well as the wish of the parties. This concerns both Turkey and Iran – we are considering an option of payment in national currencies with them. This requires certain adjustments in the financial, economic and banking sectors.” Iran, under threat of returning U.S. sanctions, two...

In a state consumed by conservation and environmental issues, one highly endangered species has long gone unnoticed and unprotected – the California Conservative. Is it still possible to rescue them from the brink of extinction? Can their numbers be revived? And can they thrive here once again? While the nation continues to view California as a homogeneous voting block of individuals in lock step with an increasingly progressive liberal agenda, for Common Sense Californians up and down the left coast state, there’s a sense that a different tide is rising. The ripple began in Los Alamitos where the city council...