Free Republic

President Donald Trump will use fast-growing supplies of U.S. natural gas as a political tool when he meets in Warsaw on Thursday with leaders of a dozen countries that are captive to Russia for their energy needs. In recent years, Moscow has cut off gas shipments during pricing disputes with neighboring countries in winter months. Exports from the United States would help reduce their dependence on Russia. Trump will tell the group that Washington wants to help allies by making it as easy as possible for U.S. companies to ship more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to central and eastern...

European leaders criticizing President Donald Trump’s Thursday decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord have also been lobbying the administration to fast-track the approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals. ProPublica’s Andrew Revkin reported Friday that, while European leaders were “generally basking in the glow of the Paris Agreement,” they’ve been quietly lobbying Trump since February to fast-track approvals of multi-billion-dollar investments in U.S. LNG export terminals. Maros Sefcovic, who heads the European Union’s commission on energy policy, told ProPublica in April that “LNG exports were a central focus of meetings earlier in the year in Washington with...

Three Republicans joined Senate Democrats on Wednesday to reject an effort to overturn an Obama administration rule limiting methane emissions from oil and natural gas drilling. Only 49 senators voted to move forward with debate on legislation to undo the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule, short of the 51 votes needed. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined all 48 members of the Democratic caucus in rejecting the resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Graham and Collins had previously publicized their plans to vote against the legislation. But McCain’s vote came as a...

Tuesday the U.S. Geological Survey announced the largest ever assessment of “continuous oil” ever made in the United States. The Wolfcamp shale in the area of Midland, Texas is estimated to contain three times the oil and gas of the Bakken shale formation in Montana and North Dakota. From the USGS: The Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin portion of Texas’ Permian Basin province contains an estimated mean of 20 billion barrels of oil, 16 trillion cubic feet of associated natural gas, and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to an assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey. This...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the Turkish Stream pipeline is going ahead and will be implemented swiftly. The announcement came after Tuesday's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. The Turkish Stream project was parked late last year due to the dispute between Moscow and Ankara after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in Syria. However, with a thaw in relations the project is expected to be given another life. The pipeline was announced by President Putin in December 2014 during a visit to Turkey. The project was to replace the abandoned South Stream pipeline through Bulgaria....

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) officials said Wednesday that western Colorado has upwards of 40 times more natural gas than previously believed, making it the second largest natural gas producing formation in the U.S. The Mancos Shale formation in Colorado’s Piceance Basin, located in the western section of Colorado, nestles nearly 70 trillion (66.3 trillion) cubic feet of gas. This marks a massive uptick from the 1.6 trillion cubic feet estimated in 2003, research shows. A trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Department, is enough to heat 15 million homes for a year — 66. 3...

Last quarter, over 86% of energy sector operating profits were used to cover the interest payments on debt. U.S. energy sector (XLE) is facing $370 billion of debt, a number that has more than doubled in the past decade. But even as oil rebounds off 13-year lows, many energy companies are struggling to stay afloat. To simply make the interest payments on the debt, energy companies shelled out $16.7 billion last year—about half of their total operating profit, according to data compiled by FactSet and Yahoo Finance. The figures from the past quarter are increasingly grim: over 86% of energy...

The operator of the California power grid said on Wednesday that natural gas shortages related to a leak at the giant Aliso Canyon storage facility will threaten electric reliability in the southern part of the state this summer. The rest of the state, however, should have enough electricity to meet summer air conditioning demand, the California ISO, the grid operator, said in a release. In April, several California agencies prepared a report on potential power shortages related to last year's gas leak at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in the Los Angeles area. That report found significant risks to electricity...

Fracking accounts for close to 50 percent of all natural gas and oil production. Our production of natural gas from shale fields and tight gas has increased by 40 billion cubic feet per day since 2002. Our production of shale and tight oil from fracking has increased by 4 million barrels a day since 2002. Fracking is one of the main reasons why oil and natural gas prices are so low. That also makes it one of the main reasons why gasoline and diesel prices are so low, and electricity prices have dropped in many areas. Crude oil is the...

Separating reality from ideology and political agendas is difficult, but essential, if we are to revitalize our economy and help the world’s poorest families take their rightful places among Earth’s prosperous people. Energy reality is certainly in our favor. But ideological forces are powerful and persistent.Right now, 82% of all US energy and 87% of world energy comes from oil, natural gas and coal. Less than 3% is non-hydroelectric renewable energy – and globally half of that is traditional biomass: wood, grass and animal dung that cause millions of respiratory infections and deaths every year. Thankfully, the transition to fossil...

Natural gas spot prices in 2015 at the Henry Hub in Louisiana, a national benchmark, averaged $2.61 per million British thermal unit (MMBtu), the lowest annual average level since 1999. Daily prices fell below $2/MMBtu this year for the first time since 2012. Henry Hub spot prices began the year relatively low and fell throughout 2015, as production and storage inventories hit record levels and fourth-quarter temperatures were much warmer than normal. Natural gas prices at key regional trading hubs ended the year lower than their starting point. At northeastern locations, where natural gas transmission infrastructure is often constrained, prices...

As Europe seeks to diversify its sources of natural gas as an alternative to the politically sensitive Russian supply, a massive off-shore gas source in the Mediterranean is ready for exploration and drilling. There are game-changing stakes at play. Unfortunately, the Turkish leadership has threatened to use force to stop this from happening. Last October, Turkey sent the BARBAROS, its geophysics exploration ship, accompanied by naval vessels, into the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone waters. In November 2014, Turkish naval commander Admiral Bülent Bostanoğlu threatened the use of force against Greece, while speaking on board a Turkish naval corvette in Greek...

Proposed by Qatar, the pipeline would connect Israel to Gaza's power plant and relieve electricity shortage there; Qatar and Palestinian Authority to finance project.

Remember “peak oil”? We were solemnly lectured that the world was running out of hydrocarbon energy sources, so we must immediately lower our standard of living and reduce energy consumption. But as with all Malthusian predictions of shortage, that forecast failed to reckon with human ingenuity and the wonder of the price system stimulating new supply. The sky-is-falling faction turned to equally fallacious predictions of global warming as a means to bludgeon others into reducing their standard of living (while the warriors like Robert Kennedy and President Obama keep their private jets). Meanwhile, in the real world, energy supplies, in...

U.S. households are saving hundreds of dollars a year because natural gas prices are low, but that’s about to change. Astudy by NERA Economic Consulting has found new regulations on power plants mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) will increase natural gas prices to 2007 levels, virtually guaranteeing these savings will soon be wiped out. A study by the Brookings Institution found natural gas prices have plummeted as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, also known as horizontal “fracking,” has caused U.S. natural gas production to skyrocket to all-time highs, making the United States the world’s top producer of...

~ New System Available on 2016 Volvo Drive-E Family Engines ~ VANCOUVER, May 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ - Westport Innovations Inc. (TSX:WPT / NASDAQ:WPRT), engineering the world's most advanced natural gas engines and vehicles, today announced the opportunity to view Westport's new combustion technology in Volvo Car Group's new Drive-E powertrain bi-fuel engine at the World Gas Conference (WGC) in Paris, France from June 1 to 5 (www.wgc2015.org). Volvo Cars is the first OEM to feature the new Westport system. It will be used on Volvo's new two-litre, direct injection, four-cylinder Drive-E powertrain family, which will be available on the Volvo...

The green energy movement in America is dead. May it rest in peace. No, a majority of American energy over the next 20 years is not going to come from windmills and solar panels. One important lesson to be learned from the green energy fad’s rapid and expensive demise is that central planning doesn’t work. What crushed green energy was the boom in shale oil and gas along with the steep decline in the price of fossil fuel that few saw coming just a few years ago. A new International Energy Agency report concedes that green energy is in fast...

Statement from T. Boone Pickens on Legislation Filed in Texas to Move Government Vehicles to Natural Gas March 12, 2015 The bill that State Senator Carlos Uresti and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick announced today will provide a roadmap – literally – for other states to follow to transition their fleet vehicles from imported gasoline and diesel to cleaner, cheaper domestic alternatives, including natural gas. Getting off foreign oil and utilizing American resources is crucial to the Texas oil and gas industry because it keeps taxpayer dollars from going to OPEC, and invests them in America instead. The oil and gas...

Gov. Tom Wolf outlined his proposal for a 5 percent severance tax on natural gas production, most of the proceeds of which will go toward education funding. "It's not like this is out of the blue," he said, in a speech from a Chester County elementary school. "We're the only state in the union with natural resources without a severance tax." The tax, which Wolf said was modeled after one in place in West Virginia, was a key component of his gubernatorial campaign.

A former Environmental Protection Agency regulator warns that while the Obama administration now has coal in its crosshairs, natural gas is next in line. David Schnare cites a proposed rule on methane emissions as one of the ways President Obama and the EPA will clamp down on natural gas. The 33-year EPA veteran, who once sued utilities for coal-fired plants that didn’t meet Clean Air Act standards, is director of the Center of Energy and Environmental Stewardship at the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Schnare said the EPA — as part of its “Clean Power Plan” rule that would...