Free Republic

US Permian Basin pipeline capacity is slated to soon expand by about 500,000 b/d, matching growing production with takeaway capacity. But the balancing act may be short-lived, as horizontal drilling is expected to unlock more oil in the legacy field. Producers are applying shale drilling techniques learned in the North Dakota Bakken and South Texas Eagle Ford to the Permian, and some longterm forecasts for the West Texas play have been revised northward in the past year. The Permian Basin lies under West Texas and southeast New Mexico and historically produces light sweet West Texas Intermediate crude and medium sour...

The Obama administration on Friday said it was giving eight federal agencies more time to weigh in on the Keystone XL pipeline, a move almost certain to delay a final decision on the controversial project until after the Nov. 4 midterm elections. That timeline spares President Barack Obama from making a politically difficult decision that would either anger environmentalists or jeopardize some Senate Democrats seeking reelection in red states. But Friday’s move alienated stakeholders on all sides of the issue, including oil industry allies who accused the White House of playing politics and environmentalists who want Obama to swiftly reject...

...The announcement made it clear that Canadian pipeline backers will not get the answer they wanted in time for the summer construction season, pushing completion of the project until 2015 — at best. The State Department said it needs more time to prepare its recommendation to the president because the pipeline route is mired in uncertainty. A legal dispute is underway in Nebraska over the route and it is unlikely to be resolved before next year.... Speculation had been rampant about whether the Obama administration might try to punt the politically sensitive decision until after this year’s midterms. That’s because...

The Obama administration has extended a key review period for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Fox News has learned, potentially pushing off a decision until after the midterm elections.

The man who oversaw an energy crisis has come out strongly against the Keystone XL pipeline. In a letter with other Nobel laureates, former President Jimmy Carter urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the pipeline, claiming that allowing the project to move forward would worsen climate change.

Russia is rolling out two major projects—a gas pipeline and a Crimea deep water port—with China, as EU countries and the US weigh options on economic sanctions. Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told EUobserver on Wednesday (16 April) that work on the “Power of Siberia” pipeline and the Chinese construction of a 25-meter-deep port in Crimea are proceeding as normal despite the Ukraine crisis. Describing the pipeline as a “mega-project”, he said it will pump 60 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year from the Kovykta and Tchayandinskoe gas fields to Russia’s far east, with a branch...

Nearly a dozen Senate Democrats, including five up for re-election this year, are pressing President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and they say they want a decision by the end of next month. Most Republicans support the pipeline, but the 11 Democrats who wrote a letter to Mr. Obama urging him to approve the project deliberately made it a one party-effort. While a set of bipartisan signatures can be a powerful thing in the art of Washington letter-writing, these lawmakers clearly want to accentuate the pressure Mr. Obama faces from his own party on this issue. “It’s...

If, as he hinted not too long ago, President Obama really is planning on approving the Keystone XL pipeline before this November’s elections, he apparently has yet to let Senate Democrats in on that little secret (or, maybe he has, and they’re taking the opportunity to starkly differentiate themselves from him and his politically toxic policies regardless), but either way: For all of the raging against supposed Congressional obstructionism and gridlock that the White House does, Keystone XL is so beyond bipartisan it’s just stupid. Nearly a dozen Senate Democrats, including five up for re-election this year, are pressing President...

A natural gas pipeline stretching 435 miles across Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is just one piece of General Electric’s multibillion-dollar bid to shore up energy infrastructure in North America, where an oil and gas boom has drawn a wave of investments to new pipelines. GE’s energy investing arm has more than $3 billion tied up in 43,500 miles of pipeline, the largest U.S. liquefied natural gas export facility and other energy transportation and storage ventures. But it has started to shift its attention to early-stage ventures as U.S. and Canadian pipeline operators collect billions for new projects that link remote shale...

Like a blockbuster movie that never quite arrives, President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline has been “coming soon” for years. He has been weighing whether the project should be built since he first entered the Oval Office, and rationalizations for further delay are thin on the ground. After a February White House meeting between Obama and a number of governors, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) told reporters that Obama had said he expected to make a call “in a couple of months.” But the White House has not even acknowledged that such a suggestion was made, let...

Russian President Vladimir Putin was all smiles as he signed the annexation treaty between Crimea and the Russian Federation on March 18th that will allow the Crimea to be absorbed by Russia. In a speech to the Russian Duma, Putin congratulated the 82% of Crimea citizens voting by a 96% majority to secede from the Ukraine. But Putin’s Cheshire-Cat smile isn’t just about welcoming two million more countrymen. The day before, Crimea’s parliament nationalized Chornomornaftohaz and Ukrtransgaz, the two energy companies that control substantial offshore oil and gas reserves. Putin intends for Russia to make a profit on acquiring and...

Even with all the speculation and debate about Vladimir Putin’s nationalistic motives for Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, there still seems to be room for more thoughtful consideration of the oil and gas aspects of the conflict. Putin may be a nationalist and he may primarily worry about Russia’s national cohesion and periphery but Russia is fundamentally a petro-state and it is important not to forget that fact in analyzing the thorny problem of the Ukraine. Russia relies heavily on oil and gas for its national budget and has been under pressure from the prospects of increased competition. So far,...

New England's electric grid operator says a lack of pipelines is driving the price up for natural gas, and hiked wholesale electricity prices in the region by 55 percent last year. ISO-New England said Tuesday that the average price of wholesale electric energy rose to $56.06 per megawatt hour, up from a historic low of $36.09 in 2012. Natural gas is the predominant fuel used to generate the region's electricity, amounting to about 46 percent of generation in 2013. Wholesale power prices tend to track the price of natural gas.

Yet another poll on the general public’s feelings on the Keystone XL pipeline, this one from Pew, is out today confirming pretty much everything we already knew about the beleaguered project: That the majority of Americans are cool with it, while the majority of the opposition is coming from out-of-touch wealthy liberals. Shocker. As the Obama administration deliberates over whether to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built, the proposed pipeline continues to draw broad support from the public. Currently, 61% favor building the pipeline while 27% are opposed. These views have changed little over the past year.As previous...

Companies will need to invest $641 billion over the next two decades in pipelines, pumps and other infrastructure to keep up with the gas, crude oil and natural gas liquids flowing from U.S. fields, according to a study released Tuesday. The analysis, prepared by ICF International for two natural gas advocacy groups, predicts that $30 billion worth of new midstream infrastructure will be needed each year through 2035 — essentially triple the $10 billion in average annual investments over the past decade. “We’re in a heavy growth period right now, said Kevin Petak, an economist with ICF who authored the...

Meandering south from Cold Lake on small roads, I entered a new landscape. The boreal forest of northern Alberta gave way to rolling prairie, grain silos, and rural crossroads. The oil sands were now behind me — or rather, flowing beneath me. Every road had pipeline crossing signs or ditches for new lines alongside or piles of pipe sections waiting to be laid. All pipes led to the place I was headed: Hardisty, home to Canada’s largest oil depot and the site where the Keystone XL was slated to begin. LAt first glance, Hardisty, population 650, looked much like other...

Louisiana-based horizontal driller Ranger Field Service lowers pipe for a 2.1-mile line that runs across the Texas-Louisiana border and under the Sabine River. Some are speculating that the drill is the longest horizontal length that has ever been drilled on land and under a river, one of the biggest obstacles Mother Nature can throw at a pipeline drill. - - - - A private drilling company in Louisiana said this week it has drilled a 2.1-mile horizontal length under the Sabine River and across the Texas-Louisiana border. The 11,065-foot span is raising speculation that it was the longest horizontal length...

I can at least appreciate the semi-honesty about their real goals here. Via The Hill: A letter sent to Kerry on Friday, signed by 27 House Democrats, details what they said would be the climate impacts of approving the $5.4 billion project, which would run from oil sands in Alberta to Gulf refineries.“The math doesn’t add up. In order to meet our commitment to fight climate change, we need to keep at least 80 percent of carbon reserves below ground,” the letter, spearheaded by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), Mike Quigley (Ill.), Rush Holt (N.J.) and Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), states.“If the...

Europe, including all EU members plus Turkey, Norway, Switzerland, and the non-EU Balkan states, consumed 18.7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas in 2013. Russia supplied 30% (5.7 Tcf) of this volume, with a significant amount flowing through Ukraine. EIA estimates 16% (3.0 Tcf) of Europe's total natural gas imports passed through Ukraine's pipeline network, based on data reported by Gazprom and Eastern Bloc Energy. Two major pipeline systems carry Russian gas through Ukraine to Western Europe—the Bratstvo (Brotherhood) and Soyuz (Union) pipelines. The Bratstvo pipeline is Russia's largest pipeline to Europe. It crosses from Ukraine to Slovakia and...

During a hearing on the State Department’s 2015 budget, Ms. Landrieu, a Democrat who has been a strong pipeline proponent and faces a tough re-election fight this year, pressed Mr. Kerry to approve the project, which would carry crude from Canada’s oil sands and from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale Formation to Gulf Coast refineries. Ms. Landrieu, the new chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee, said, “Canada is our closest, strongest trading partner,” and “a majority of American people” support Keystone. “It is hard for me to understand why there are still questions about whether building this pipeline is in our...