Free Republic

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has formalized two major energy agreements with U.S. firms HKN Energy and WesternZagros in Washington, D.C., Kurdish media reported on Monday, in deals valued at a combined $110 billion, despite a legal showdown with the federal government of Iraq over control of the country’s oil exports... ...The deals were formalized during KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani's official visit to the United States this week... ...Washington has been advocating for the resumption of Kurdish oil exports, which have been stalled since March 2023 due to legal disputes and pipeline shutdowns. Washington's push aims...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the Syrian transitional authority may be weeks away from potential collapse and full-scale civil war, defending US President Donald Trump's decision to lift Syria sanctions and to engage with the Damascus government. "It is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up," Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 31 (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and over a dozen were injured when a pipeline of state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) exploded in the central Mexican state of Puebla after it was breached by suspected fuel thieves, authorities said on Sunday. Alerted to a gas leak, the Puebla state government said it had averted a higher death toll by evacuating residents from the site in the San Pablo Xochimehuacan municipality before three explosions occurred, wrecking between 30 and 50 homes.... some 1,400 rescue workers had been mobilized....

I nominate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, as the most inconsistent, mysterious, and therefore most unpredictable major politician on the world stage. His victory in a referendum last Sunday formally bestows him with near-dictatorial powers that leave Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond in a greater state of uncertainty than ever.Here are some of the puzzles:Mystery #1: Holding the referendum. The Turkish electorate voted on April 16 in a remarkable national plebiscite that dealt not with the usual topic – floating a bond or recalling a politician – but with fundamental constitutional changes affecting the very nature of their...

The environmental organization Greenpeace was ordered to pay more than $660 million dollars to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer this week over its role in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests nearly a decade ago. The outcome was a blow to the environmental advocacy group, which has previously said that a lawsuit of this size could bankrupt its U.S. operations. Energy Transfer, the operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline, accused Greenpeace USA and International of playing a central role in organizing the resistance to the pipeline at Standing Rock in 2016 and 2017. The protests drew national attention as activists...

The environmental group Greenpeace has been ordered by a North Dakota jury to pay more than $660 million in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s construction.

While Greenpeace denied it played more than a peripheral role in the 2016 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the pipeline owner claimed the group organized a campaign of misinformation and direct training to the protesters... ANorth Dakota jury on Wednesday found Greenpeace liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages over its role in months-long protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017. After two days of deliberation, the New York Times reported, the jury returned the verdict. Energy Transfer, the owner and operator of the pipeline, filed the lawsuit in North Dakota state court against...

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota jury on Wednesday found Greenpeace liable for defamation and other claims brought by a pipeline company in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The nine-person jury awarded Dallas-based Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The lawsuit had accused Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts. When asked if Greenpeace plans to appeal, Senior Legal Adviser Deepa Padmanabha said, “We know that this fight is not over.” Padmanabha added that...

On Tuesday, President Trump gave his first major speech to a joint session of Congress, and it was a big deal. One thing in particular, though, had ears perking up all across the Great Land - you could almost hear them. That thing was the president's announcement of an intended natural gas pipeline, from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula town of Nikiski. And it will be a huge, beautiful pipeline:“My administration is working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our...

President Donald Trump turned his attention to the Keystone XL Pipeline on Monday evening, calling for the company building it to "come back to America, and get it built — NOW!" Trump said he was "just thinking" about how construction on the pipeline was "viciously jettisoned by the incompetent Biden Administration," and promised things are different now under his leadership. "I know they were treated very badly by Sleepy Joe Biden, but the Trump Administration is very different — Easy approvals, almost immediate start! If not them, perhaps another Pipeline Company. We want the Keystone XL Pipeline built!" The pipeline...

President Donald Trump rescinded 78 of former President Joe Biden’s executive actions with the stroke of a pen on Monday night. “Several EOs imposed crushing emissions standards designed to end gas powered vehicles, set an EV mandate by 2030, canceled the Keystone Pipeline, stopped drilling, and prevented permitting,” the sheet notes.

The flow of natural gas from Russia to Europe was suspended Wednesday after Ukraine said it would not renew a deal allowing Russian gas to transit its territory, ending an energy supply route that dates back some 60 years.In a statement posted to Telegram, Russian energy company Gazprom said it was no longer sending gas because of the expiration of the agreement Wednesday.“Due to the repeated and explicit refusal of the Ukrainian side to extend these agreements, Gazprom was deprived of the technical and legal ability to supply gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine from January 1, 2025....

Natural gas stopped flowing through a pipeline that runs from Russia through Ukraine on Wednesday, according to officials in both countries. The effects of the halt, though long expected, could ripple through Europe’s energy sector and potentially affect Moscow’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine. Here’s what you need to know: What happened?Why did this happen now?What will it mean for Europe?The most affected countriesWhat happened? Ukraine refused to renew an agreement that allowed Russia to send natural gas through a pipeline to Europe. The deal was honored even after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, kicking off the bloodiest...

Russian energy has continued to transit unimpeded through Ukrainian territory every day until now, with the taps being firmly closed on New Year’s Day. Zero Russian gas is flowing to European customers through Ukrainian pipelines for the first time in decades today, confirmation there was to be no last-minute deal to keep the route open, sending energy prices spiking on Tuesday. The route has seen billions of cubic feet of gas delivered since the end of the Cold War, and a five-year contract between Moscow and Kyiv governing the transit of gas continued to be observed, remarkably, right to the...

Gazprom reportedly confirmed the stoppage, saying Kyiv refused to extend a deal. LONDON -- Ukraine stopped the flow of Russian natural gas through its territory to Europe at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, as a long-held deal expired, Kyiv officials said. "We stopped the transit of Russian gas, this is a historic event," Herman Galushchenko, Ukraine's energy minister, said in a statement. "Russia is losing markets, it will suffer financial losses." The move had been expected, as Galushchenko and other officials signaled they were preparing to stop the transnational pipelines and discussing the move with neighboring nations. "We have undergone a...

Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine are to end on Wednesday, when a five-year deal between Ukraine's gas transit operator Naftogaz and Russia's Gazprom expires... (had given the EU a year to prepare)... ...The European Commission said the continent's gas system was "resilient and flexible" and that it had sufficient capacity to cope with the end of transit via Ukraine... ...Russia has transported gas to Europe through Ukraine since 1991... ...Once the Ukrainian transit route is cut off, the Black Sea's TurkStream - which reaches Turkey, Hungary and Serbia - will be the only (pipeline) Russian gas supply to...

BB Netanyahu's message after Speaking to Donald Trump about Iran, Hezbollah, and the Hostages.

Both Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump want to revive the long-dead cross-border Keystone XL pipeline project, but is that feasible? A major challenge in resuscitating the project will be ginning up enough political will and corporate determination to wade through the legal and regulatory requirements to begin construction, not to mention tackling the growing anti-fossil fuel advocacy across the continent. Former owner TC Energy terminated the project in June 2021. The pipeline system is now part of the spinoff company South Bow, and that adds to the challenges of resurrecting the Keystone XL expansion. On Nov....

It was one of Joe Biden’s first moves as president (and a message to the country on how he would rule): shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,200-mile Canada-to-Nebraska crude project that would have employed thousands of workers and transported up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day. Now President-elect Donald Trump reportedly wants to send his own message and restart the project, and although bringing it back to life would present numerous hurdles, oil workers are reportedly ecstatic over the idea. "It's a breath of fresh air. We're running on cloud nine," former Keystone Pipeline worker Bugsy Allen...

Migrants tied to criminality, sex traffickers, and fraudsters have used President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s parole pipeline to get into the United States, a bombshell interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee reveals. The report details the fraud and abuse plaguing the administration’s CHNV program — designed to get Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans into the U.S. by having them bypass the southern border and, instead, fly into domestic airports. Since January 2023, the CHNV program has welcomed 531,620 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to American towns.