Free Republic

Reuters said Novatek had stopped operations at its Arctic LNG 2 project, which processes gas from the Utrenneye field on West Siberia' Gydan Peninsula, in the latest blow to Russian fuel exports. It comes as Russian exports funding Putin's war have been hampered by repeated drone strikes on oil facilities, blamed on Ukraine. One energy industry expert told Newsweek that state oil giant Rosneft had reduced daily oil processing in March by a fifth. Sanctions have caused a lack of specialist tankers to transport the LNG from Russia through thick sea ice. Six Arc7 tankers were due to be built...

Gasoline production in Russia has fallen after a series of strikes by Kyiv on the country's oil refineries, figures show. Rosstat, Russia's Federal State Statistics Service, said that in the week ending March 24, the nation's production of motor petrol fell by approximately 7.4 percent to 754,600 tons compared to the week prior, when production was at 815,300 tons, local media reported. Moscow depends on its oil exports and energy industry, which make up some 30 percent of the country's budget revenues and are crucial for the funding of the war in Ukraine. Kyiv ramped up its attacks on Russian...

“A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.” – Laurence J. Peter A few weeks ago, Charlie Angus took to the floor of the Canadian Parliament to propose Bill C-372, otherwise known as the Fossil Fuels Advertising Act. Angus is a quintessential member of the Canadian political left and a backbencher in the New Democratic Party (NDP), the junior partner in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government. As a private member’s bill—one that is not proposed by a minister nor formally backed by the full weight of the government’s machinery—Bill C-372 stands virtually no...

It’s not really an exaggeration (if at all) to say that every single day we hear from Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Joe Scarborough, the media, and others about how dangerous President Trump is—ad nauseam they declare how “like Hitler” he is. And, it seems every single day, Joe Biden issues some new executive order or regulation assaulting our freedoms and our prosperity. He knows he can’t get his radical agenda through Congress so he just goes around them. He violates his oath of office by not only refusing to enforce immigration laws that Congress passed, but sabotaging our sovereignty too.It...

This was originally posted at the Washington Post on February 27, 2004. By David Hoffman In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a memoir by a Reagan White House official. .... Snip.... Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time, describes the episode in “At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold...

Is US$200 a barrel oil likely if policies to reduce climate change take hold? Yes, says a Middle East oil minister and industry analysts. But not until the mid-century deadline for net-zero emissions. It would require cancelling short-term investments in the industry, plus a 75 per cent plummet in global oil demand, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) outline of how to achieve the environmental goal. “Recommending that we should no longer invest in new oil… I think that’s extremely dangerous,” Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Rumhi, Oman’s energy minister, told a conference on clean energy transitions on Thursday. “My biggest...

The United States imported a rare cargo of 1.033 million barrels of Iranian crude in March despite sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed. The cargo is only the second oil import by the United States from Iran since late 1991, data on EIA’s website showed.

During the final 2020 presidential debate on Thursday, Joe Biden made what is perhaps the biggest gaffe in the history of such debates by pledging to bring about the termination of the entire oil industry. As a result, on the following day, the Biden campaign was forced to perform damage control which you can read about in many outlets such as Politico and the Washington Post. Their lame spin is that Biden really didn't mean to end the oil industry, just the subsidies for it. Of course, if you read the transcript of what Biden said, it is obvious that...

VIDEO Joe Biden declared that he would terminate the entire oil industry at the last presidential debate. Easily the Mother of All Gaffes. Yet when you check the media spin control on the debate, most never even mention this incredible gaffe by Biden. They are hoping by projecting a FAKE NEWS Alternate Reality of what really happened at the debate will somehow carry Biden over the finish line.

California has sued the auto industry, utility companies, energy-producing businesses such as oil companies, and Republican Presidential administrations Environmentalists claim global warming can be mitigated, but only if humans are forced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This pseudo-science is what California’s leftist politicians have adopted to control human activity, and the unelected bureaucrats at the California Air Resources Board based its cap-and-trade carbon auction program on. Now, seven California municipalities—four cities and three counties—are suing Exxon Mobil Corp. and other major oil producers to force those companies to cover the costs and hold fossil-fuel companies responsible for climate-change costs of...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Calgary is "top of mind" in Ottawa as his government moves to grow the economy — while protecting the environment — by allowing two major pipeline projects to go ahead. ​Last month, Trudeau's cabinet gave the green light to both the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and Enbridge's Line 3 project, while rejecting the controversial Enbridge-backed Northern Gateway project. He told a business audience at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce year-end breakfast Wednesday morning that the two projects will create upward of 22,000 jobs.

Donald Trump intends to select Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a senior transition official confirmed to NBC News Wednesday — the clearest sign yet the president-elect will pursue an agenda that could undue President Obama's climate change legacy. An ally to the fossil fuel industry, Pruitt has aggressively fought against environmental regulations, becoming one of a number of attorneys general to craft a 28-state lawsuit against the Obama administration's rules to curb carbon emissions. The case is currently awaiting a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which...

Citigroup is “especially bullish” on commodities in 2017, the bank says. “The oil market is treading water for now, but the oil price overshot to the downside earlier this year and this is clearly setting the stage for a bullish end to the decade,” Citi analysts, led by Ed Morse, wrote in a research note published on July 11. There is a quite a bit of volatility in commodity markets, especially for oil, but global demand continues to grow at a steady pace. Prices have crashed on oversupply, but with oil production going offline, particularly in the U.S., the markets...

Computer automated hedge fund strategies weren't the only winners amid recent volatility. Hedge funds also appear to have timed oil’s recent slump and rebound. That's according to Bloomberg's Moming Zhou, who reports  that hedge fund significantly curbed their bearish positions in crude oil just after it fell to a 12-year low last week -- and then rebounded in its biggest jump since 2008. While oil had a brutal start to 2016 after a disappointing 2015 showing, many are coming around to the idea of a recovery in prices, as Citi argued it could be the trade of the year, some...

<p>Many smart people thought U.S. oil production would fall off a cliff along with the crash in crude prices.</p> <p>In reality, it hasn't even come close to killing American production. The U.S. pumped 9.35 million barrels of oil a day in October, according to the latest government statistics available. That's up from 9.13 million barrels in October 2014.</p>

Global energy demand will increase 25% between 2014 and 2040, driven by population growth and economic expansion, according to ExxonMobil Corp.'s 2016 Outlook for Energy. Most of this growth will occur in nations outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At the same time, the carbon intensity of the global economy will decline by half because of energy efficiency gains and increased use of renewable energy sources and lower carbon fuels, such as natural gas. In 2040, oil will provide one third of the world's energy, remaining the No. 1 source of fuel, and natural gas will move into...

Last year, 42 North American drillers filed for bankruptcy, according to law firm Haynes and Boone. It's only likely to get worse this year. Experts say there are a lot of parallels between today's crisis and the last oil crash in 1986. Back then, 27% of exploration and production companies went bust. Defaults are skyrocketing again. In December, exploration and production company defaults topped 11%, up from just 0.5% the previous year, according to Fitch Ratings. That's a 2,000%-plus jump. It's just the beginning, says John La Forge, head of real assets strategy at Wells Fargo. If history repeats, people...

So, without further ado here are 25 deeply distressed companies, whose banks we found have quietly shrunk the borrowing base of their credit facilities anywhere from 6 percent in the case of Black Ridge Oil and Gas to a whopping 51 percent for soon to be insolvent New Source Energy Partners. [Link to chart here.]

Oil prices dropped to fresh lows during midday trading on January 20, with WTI dipping below $27 per barrel and Brent trading under $28. The crash in oil since December has only deepened the pain for oil-exporting countries, even for those within OPEC. Despite the cartel’s inability to agree on a production target at its meeting in early December, some of its members are clamoring for action. Venezuela recently requested an emergency meeting in a letter sent to the other 12 members of OPEC. That is not necessarily news since Venezuela did the same thing last year, but there are...

The epic-crash in oil prices has wiped out tens-of-thousands of jobs, caused dozens of bankruptcies and spooked global financial markets. The fallout is already being felt in oil-rich states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, where home foreclosure rates are spiking and economic growth is slowing. Now there are calls in at least some corners for the federal government to come to the rescue. "It is time to send out an S.O.S., before it's too late," John Kilduff, founding partner of energy hedge fund Again Capital, wrote in a recent CNBC column. In the Kilduff dictionary, by the way, S.O.S....