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Mid-Continent Crude Oil Markets Continue to Adjust to Rapid Rise in Bakken Production The differential between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and North Dakota's Bakken crudes continues to fluctuate, reflecting both production growth and changes in oil transportation capacity. Bakken crude sold at a $25-per-barrel discount to WTI in early 2012 and rose to a $5-per-barrel premium last September, before again being discounted below WTI this winter. So far this year, the gap between Bakken and WTI prices has narrowed, and once again, the Bakken price has risen above the WTI price, albeit modestly (Figure 1). West Texas Intermediate prices are...

It’s one thing for citizens to have a healthy debate about a controversial issue affecting a jurisdiction — but it’s another entirely to take the discussion outside those boundaries. That’s exactly what Thomas Homer-Dixon did with his editorial page piece that appeared in the New York Times on Monday, excoriating the oilsands and suggesting it would be good for Canada if President Barack Obama does not allow the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Waterloo University professor who is at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School for International Affairs makes...

After focusing for years on adding heat to the chilly contents of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, officials are planning to study a new approach to boosting line performance — decreasing the amount of water inside. With North Slope oil production in a 25-year-long decline, the pipeline is becoming more vulnerable to problems as the flow of crude decreases. A barrel of oil took just four days to travel the length of the 800-mile line in 1988, but now takes 18 days. Because of the slower flow rate, the temperature of oil can sometimes dip down to 32 degrees during its...

NEW YORK - Exxon Mobil was working to clean up thousands of barrels of oil in Mayflower, Arkansas, after a pipeline carrying heavy Canadian crude ruptured, a major spill likely to stoke debate over transporting Canada’s oil to the United States. Exxon shut the Pegasus pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Pakota, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas, after the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon, the company said in a statement. Exxon, hit with a $1.7 million fine by regulators this week over a 2011 spill in the Yellowstone River, said a...

New natural gas pipeline construction sagged in 2012 to the lowest level since 1997, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Just 367 new miles of natural gas pipelines were added last year, compared with more than 2,000 miles added in 2011. Although natural gas prices have fallen in recent years, the drop in building of pipelines appears to be a surprise, since large gas production is expected for decades at locations throughout the nation. The figure also seemed to contradict a 2011 study by the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, which projected rapid natural gas pipeline growth through...

The city of Valdez plans to spend up to $900,000 to try to defeat a bill aimed at advancing an in-state natural gas pipeline project. City manager John Hozey said a large-scale line capable of feeding overseas exports makes more sense for Alaska. Valdez has hoped to be the terminus for a major line, when and if one gets built, but Hozey said the PR campaign - including ads and a website - is geared at supporting what Valdez believes to be the better project. The city is using money it has won in challenges over taxation of the trans-Alaska...

Senate Democrats finally released their first budget plan in four years this month: It offers nearly $1 trillion in new taxes, an end to sequester budget savings, and almost no new spending restraint. Despite the failure of the 2009 stimulus package, Democrats also want an extra $100 billion to create jobs on infrastructure projects, few of which would be “shovel-ready” enough to hire workers anytime soon. President Obama won’t release his own budget till April, but he has a golden opportunity to improve on the Senate budget and create real jobs. All he has to do is end his four-year...

While many have long seen America as the global bad boy, everybody likes Canada. If Uncle Sam tucks his pack of Marlboros under his T-shirt sleeve and plays by his own rules, the Canadian moose — or whatever their Uncle Sam equivalent is — always wears his blue blazer and school tie and does his chores without being asked. Canada is a global citizen, a good neighbor, a northern Puerto Rico with an EU sensibility that earns its gold stars from the United Nations every day. This fact should have relevance below the 49th parallel. Right now, we’re all waiting...

There is a gap in Tom Mulcair's logic about oilsands development that's big enough to run a pipeline through. Actually, you could likely reroute the pipeline to skirt an environmentally sensitive aquifer or build a rail line to transport record amounts of crude oil by train and still have room to manoeuvre the tricky political terrain that Mulcair is hoping to cross. The federal NDP leader is in Washington this week proclaiming his opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas just as he opposed the Northern Gateway pipeline from the oilsands to the B.C. coast for...

A TransCanada Corp. executive says opponents to the Keystone XL pipeline should consider one consequence of delays in building the oil pipeline — an increase in dirtier and more dangerous rail transport. Alex Pourbaix, president of energy and oil pipelines at the Calgary-based pipeline and utility company, says although rail has an important role to play in moving oilsands crude to market, there are downsides to consider. "For every mile you move a barrel of oil by rail, you emit three times the (greenhouse gases) that you do by moving it by pipeline and you have an order of magnitude...

While many have long seen America as the global bad boy, everybody likes Canada. If Uncle Sam tucks his pack of Marlboros under his T-shirt sleeve and plays by his own rules, the Canadian moose -- or whatever their Uncle Sam equivalent is -- always wears his blue blazer and school tie and does his chores without being asked. Canada is a global citizen, a good neighbor, a northern Puerto Rico with an EU sensibility that earns its gold stars from the United Nations every day. This fact should have relevance below the 49th parallel. Right now, we're all...

House Republicans' big meeting with President Obama on the Hill yesterday didn't yield any sudden changes of heart on reaching some kind of big deficit bargain (shocking, considering how pure and straightforward I'm sure the president's motives were, hem hem), but the president also kept his cards close to the vest on energy and how his administration is going to play the Keystone pipeline when Republicans pushed him on it. The White House insists that he didn’t provide any clues as to which way internal deliberations are leaning, but he did take a moment to rag on the economic benefits...

A tug boat pushing an oil barge struck a pipeline in waters near New Orleans on Tuesday, setting off a fire and injuring the vessel's captain, and there were reports of oil in the water, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Tuesday. The Coast Guard said that all crew members had been able to escape the 47-foot (14-meter) tug, although the captain was reported to have suffered second- to third-degree burns. It added that the Coast Guard had responded by helicopter and boat to the incident near Bayou Perot, 30 miles south of New Orleans, and said there had been...

Syria's energy sector has been challenged since the onset of civil discord in March 2011, and it has been severely hindered by continuous fighting between government and opposition forces and the effects of international sanctions. Syria is not a major player in the global energy market, but because of its location, the country has significant potential to be an important energy transit country. The current conflict is preventing Syria from realizing that potential. Domestically, damage to Syria's energy infrastructure has made it difficult to meet internal energy demand. This difficulty is amplified by Western-led sanctions, which prevent activity by international...

US House Energy and Commerce Committee members released a discussion draft of legislation designed to jump-start approval of the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project. The draft bill by Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) would eliminate the need for a presidential permit and find that the Aug. 26, 2011, final environmental impact statement issued by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton satisfied all National Environmental Policy Act requirements. Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and John Barrow (D-Ga.) cosponsored the proposal, which also would limit legal challenges to the project so it would not be delayed further. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred...

I HOPE the president turns down the Keystone XL oil pipeline. (Who wants the U.S. to facilitate the dirtiest extraction of the dirtiest crude from tar sands in Canada’s far north?) But I don’t think he will. So I hope that Bill McKibben and his 350.org coalition go crazy. I’m talking chain-themselves-to-the-White-House-fence-stop-traffic-at-the-Capitol kind of crazy, because I think if we all make enough noise about this, we might be able to trade a lousy Keystone pipeline for some really good systemic responses to climate change. We don’t get such an opportunity often — namely, a second-term Democratic president who is...

Ed. note: This piece was first published on Robert Rapier’s R-Squared Energy Blog.If not for the US government’s latest demonstration of incompetence that played out at the end of last week (a.k.a. sequestration), the top news story might have been a report issued by the US State Department late Friday.The report was the Draft Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Keystone XL Pipeline project, and it was unwelcome news for environmentalists who have been protesting the crude pipeline extension that would link Canada’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.It may seem arbitrary, given the large number of oil and...

Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan has entered a joint venture to build the “first major crude by rail destination facility” in the Houston area — a 210,000 barrel-per-day project expected to come on line in the first quarter of 2014. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners and Watco Co. LLC have struck a long-term agreement with Mercuria Energy Trading Co. to build the project at Greens Point Industrial Park on the Houston Shipping Channel. The KW Express venture will open the way for Mercuria to source crude from various locations, including the Bakken shale area, Western Canada, Cushing, Okla., and West Texas. The...

When progressives talk of government, it is in an alluring can-do spirit. Making the case for more spending, President Barack Obama invokes the 19th century as a heroic age that built government-supported railroads. MSNBC hosts pose in front of monumental 20th-century public-works projects and speak of what all of us can do together. This is all well and good as nostalgia, but is utterly detached from the spirit and the practices of 21st-century government. We don’t excel at building things. We excel at studying things, and putting up obstacles to building them. We delay, cavil, and sue. We protest and...

War On Energy: In yet another clean bill of health, the State Department's draft review says the pipeline from Canada will not affect global warming or harm aquifers it crosses. But it will create jobs and economic growth. The U.S. State Department's second Keystone XL supplemental environmental impact statement, which represents the project's fourth environmental review, finds the pipeline would not accelerate global greenhouse gas emissions or significantly harm the natural habitats along its route. This sent the administration's environmentalist base into spasms of hysteria. Greenies had warned that the extraction of crude from Alberta's oil sands would release dangerous...