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The proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. would make "OPEC obsolete," billionaire energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens told CNBC on Wednesday. "Canadians say they have 250 billion barrels [of oil]. That's exactly what the Saudis claim they have," he said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "You're sitting there with the same amount of oil available to the United States from Canada … as Saudi Arabia." "But when you move the oil through the Strait of Hormuz everyday, it's 17 million barrels," Pickens said. "The Navy is shepherding a cartel daily through the Strait of Hormuz. And...

A natural gas pipeline fire in rural northwest Oklahoma was extinguished on Wednesday morning with no injuries reported, and the company that owns it, Northern Natural Gas, is working to determine the cause of the blast, a company spokesman said. The fire occurred at 11 p.m. CST on Tuesday (0400 GMT Wednesday) in a remote and rural area in Oklahoma's panhandle, and could be seen up to 50 miles away, according to local media reports. No injuries were reported. About "a half dozen" area volunteer fire departments responded to Tuesday night's blaze, said Mike Loeffler, spokesman for Northern Natural Gas....

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners is tacking on 18 miles of lateral pipeline in the Eagle Ford Shale to carry crude and condensate from its DeWitt County, Texas station to a new facility it will build northwest in Gonzales County. The company’s $74 million pipeline addition would allow it to reach markets along the Houston Ship Channel and a pipeline that services a Phillips 66 refinery in Brazoria County. Kinder Morgan said Wednesday it struck a deal with a large producer in the Eagle Ford to extend the 178-mile pipeline in the South Texas shale play, but did not disclose the...

The August LPS Mortgage Monitor was released this morning. It shows good news and bad news. The good news (if you are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). The GSE mortgage share (blue line) has risen since 2011. mtgmktshare The bad news? The percentage of mortgages that are “out of the money” for refinancing has topped 50%. Again. %inmoney The good news? The mortgage pipeline is shrinking rapidly, particularly in judicial foreclosure states. forecpipecl The bad news? Judicial foreclosure states like New York, New Jersey and Hawaii have stubbornly high foreclosure pipeline ratios. For non-judicial foreclosure states, Massachusetts leads the nation....

LIVE OAK COUNTY — At Dobie Ranch, brushy plants common across South Texas blanket the rolling hills: granjeno, tasajillo, hog-plum, mesquite, prickly pear. But where a new pipeline route slices the property, native grasses such as slender gramma and pappusgrass sway in the breeze, knee- to waist-high and giving a glimpse of what the land once looked like. Thousands of miles of pipelines are under construction across the state. And in South Texas, where historic cattle overgrazing caused thick brush to take hold of the land, the new pipelines provide a chance to replant native prairie grasses that have been...

Alberta’s carbon dioxide pipeline project has nailed down solid dates for construction as its main gas supplier, the new Redwater bitumen refinery, gets rolling. Enhance Energy needs to time its project to match the North West Redwater Partnership’s $6 billion bitumen-to-diesel refinery, which was officially kicked off last week on a large patch of former farmland. The refinery is a bit behind its original schedule, and is expected to open in mid-2016. For Enhance president Susan Cole, that sets her Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL) on a firm timeline. “We will be ready when North West begins, but we don’t...

New construction technology, stringent and continuously improving regulations, and years of industry experience make Canada's oil shipping industry well-equipped to accommodate increased tanker traffic on the West Coast should new pipeline projects proceed, concludes the leading independent consulting firm IHS CERA. In addition, should an incident occur, Canada has access to more than $1.3-billion in ompensation, exceeding what is generally available internationally, says the IHS CERA report, Assessing Marine Transport for Oil Sands on Canada's West Coast. "There have been a great many questions from the public asking what it would mean to ship more crude oil off Canada's West...

It’s now been just over five years since TransCanada first filed an application for a presidential permit to build a cross-border pipeline, but that hasn’t done anything to temper the radical eco-lobbies’ relentlessly combative campaign based on nothing more than untenable arguments and outrageous outrage. Points for their steadfast commitment, I suppose, but those points are completely negated by these out-of-touch green groups’ and millionaire donors‘ refusal to contend with the facts that the southern portions of the Keystone pipeline are already in operation or nearly complete, that the pipeline will be used to ship domestic oil too, and that...

Pipeline operators have been roaring into public markets in search of badly needed capital, diving into an untapped money pool as the country grapples with a lack of energy transportation infrastructure. Yield-starved investors, bouncing from low interest rates on bonds to a choppy stock market, have appeared happy to fork over the millions that midstream companies — most of them tax-advantaged master limited partnerships — have asked for in the past year. And based on the market’s momentum, the industry could see five to 10 more similar public offerings announced before the year is out, said Joe Dunleavy, a partner...

Both the Alberta and federal governments see a West Coast pipeline as crucial to opening Asia as a large market for Canadian energy resources.

“With a subtle motion of the hand”, China took away the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) pipeline project from the USA and became yesterday the chief controller of gas resources in Central and South Asia. Somebody else’s ideas and plans have been expropriated by means of contract for sale of 25 billion cubic meters of gas per year concluded between State Concern Turkmengas and Chinese Company CNPC. The deal will increase the total volume of Turkmen gas supplied to China up to 65 billion cubic meters. At the same time, the agreement is achieved on the planned new direction of Turkmenistan–China pipeline (D...

PHILADELPHIA – Is the reported willingness of Arab Gulf states to fund a U.S. military campaign in Syria really about major oil and gas interests that run through the country? The potential for trillions of dollars of energy revenue in deals that snake through Syrian territory may be a motivating factor for the U.S., Russia, Turkey and Arab states in the current Syria crisis.

CALGARY • An anti-Keystone XL pipeline commercial funded by President Barack Obama supporter and hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer confirms what many Canadians have long suspected — American anti-oil activists have gone mad. The commercial was intended to be aired Tuesday evening on WRC-TV, an affiliate of NBC in Washington, D.C., to coincide with the president’s appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The commercial is so offensive the station refused to air it. While intended as a parody, it insults TransCanada Corp. CEO Russ Girling, whose company is proposing Keystone XL; it’s a low blow to Canada; and it...

OTTAWA--Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has told U.S. President Barack Obama that he's ready to work on joint plan between the two countries to reduce carbon emissions in the energy sector in an effort to secure approval of the Keystone XL pipeline project, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Friday. The CBC, citing unnamed sources, said Mr. Harper wrote to Mr. Obama in late August, signaling he is ready to accept carbon-reduction targets proposed by the U.S. and prepared to work with the White House to address concerns raised about Keystone and its impact on greenhouse-gas emissions. A spokesman for Mr....

Why has the little nation of Qatar spent 3 billion dollars to support the rebels in Syria? Could it be because Qatar is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas in the world and Assad won't let them build a natural gas pipeline through Syria? Of course. Qatar wants to install a puppet regime in Syria that will allow them to build a pipeline which will enable them to sell lots and lots of natural gas to Europe. Why is Saudi Arabia spending huge amounts of money to help the rebels and why has Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan been...

The religion of violence has struck again and these are the savages that Barack Obama, John Kerry, and now John Boehner (no real surprise there) are wanting us to support. Alalam is now reporting that the Obama backed and supported al-Qaeda Syrian rebels forced 24 civilians off a bus traveling from Tarus to Ras al-Ain in the northeast of Syria and beheaded them all, including a mother and her baby. Alalam reports: Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria have beheaded all 24 Syrian passengers traveling from Tartus to Ras al-Ain in northeast of Syria, among them a mother and a 40-days...

Nothing brings the most useless people in society together like an environmental protest. I thought the unwashed groups of green cultists and fading celebs opposing the Keystone XL pipeline were brainless until we were exposed to the ‘Line 9’ protesters. There isn’t one neuron firing in the entire crowd. Not one.

Allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to move forward would cut into the revenue of rail freight operators that transport oil and other liquids, but there would still be plenty of growth opportunities for cost-conscious operators, BNSF Railway CEO Matthew Rose said Wednesday. Rose told a lunch gathering at the annual Summer North America Prospect Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston that pipelines present increasing competition to his company and his peers. “We know that rail on the surface is without a doubt the most efficient and lowest price, but we know that when we compete with...

It’s crunch time in the fight over constructing the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. Both sides believe a decision by President Obama could come by the end of the year, making the next few months critical for lobbying and messaging efforts. Opponents plan a burst of demonstrations and other events across the country to rally environmental pressure on Obama to reject the Alberta-to-the-Gulf-Coast pipeline. Supporters are also campaigning, with the American Petroleum Institute (API) promoting its message that Keystone’s construction will create jobs, with rallies in more than a dozen “priority states” in the coming months, API spokeswoman Sabrina Fang...

Keystone XL would not add to greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study published Thursday by an independent research group that echoed the findings of government-backed reports. The study found that the addition of the new pipeline connecting Canadian oil sands fields with the U.S. Gulf Coast wouldn’t make a substantial difference in emissions because U.S. refineries would get similar crude from Venezuela or elsewhere. Production, processing and transportation of Venezuelan heavy crude results in about the same greenhouse gas emissions as oil sands crude, according to the study from energy-focused information and research firm IHS CERA. A prior report...