Free Republic

Remember the Keystone XL Pipeline project? Remember what a cause célèbre it was for both the left and right? What the heck ever happened to it? Have you wondered that?Well, in short it was killed pretty much for good, or at least the foreseeable future – both here in the USSA and now in Canada. As you are no doubt aware, it was Obama who, with the left in the federal and various state legislatures – and with some help from Choo-choo Warren Buffet who owns most of the rail cars now hauling crude down south, vetoed the pipeline. And...

A recent advertisement, set to go up across Montreal was struck down, out of fear that it would offend the local Muslim population. The billboard ad, designed by the producers of The Rebel website, criticizes Mayor Denis Coderre for choosing "Charia [sic] oil" over Canadian oil, and features an image of King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Coderre previously had struck down a bill to build an oil pipeline from Alberta, citing environmental...

TransCanada Corp is formally requesting arbitration over U.S. President Barack Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, seeking $15 billion in damages, the company said in legal papers dated Friday. TransCanada submitted a notice for an arbitration claim in January and had then tried to negotiate with the U.S. government to “reach an amicable settlement,” the company said in files posted on the pipeline’s website. “Unfortunately, the parties were unable to settle the dispute.” TransCanada said it then filed its formal arbitration request under North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provisions, seeking to recover what it says are costs and...

Police in a U.S. town bordering Mexico have apprehended an undocumented, Middle Eastern woman in possession of the region’s gas pipeline plans, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. Authorities describe the woman as an “Islamic refugee” pulled over during a traffic stop by a deputy sheriff in Luna County, New Mexico which shares a 54-mile border with Mexico. County authorities alerted the U.S. Border Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) has been deployed to the area to investigate, sources with firsthand knowledge of the probe confirm. The gas pipeline plans in the woman’s...

BRUGES, Belgium -- The idea may have seemed mad, but after all, the beer is called the Madman of Bruges - or Brugse Zot in Dutch. And with the help of crowdfunding efforts among some 400 Madman fans, the dream of building a beer pipeline through the Belgian city of Bruges is becoming real. "You have to be a bit crazy - like the beer - to do such a project. I just had the money for that, and I liked it. So I went crazy and gave the money to the brewery," said local restaurant owner Philippe Le Loup,...

COAL RUN — A section of a proposed natural gas pipeline is scheduled to go through an area of Coal Township known for having abandoned mine workings and a underground mine fire...

Shell Pipeline crews are still cleaning up from the most recent spill near Interstate 580 and the border between Alameda and San Joaquin counties four days after the 24-inch diameter line broke. Crews with the oil giant were able to complete repairs on the pipe on Monday, according to a Shell official. The San Pablo Bay Pipeline stretches from Coalinga in Fresno County to Martinez. The rupture on the line was first reported at 3 a.m. on Friday, said Lisa Medina, an environmental specialist at the San Joaquin County Environmental Health Department. Shell discovered a drop in pressure in the...

The United States and Canada work well together. The countries share the world’s largest and most comprehensive trade relationship, exchanging more than $2 billion per day in goods and services; the U.S. is Canada’s largest foreign investor and Canada is the third-largest foreign investor in the U.S. The partnership clearly isn’t broken, but it may need some mending as bilateral and international gas trade stands to complicate matters in short order. As with most current global natural gas issues, we must first look back to the shale gas revolution. In 2005 – just as hydraulic fracturing was finding its feet...

Iran’s Hassan Rouhani arrived Friday in Pakistan on a landmark visit, his first since becoming president, at a time when Saudi Arabia is courting Islamabad to increase participation in a new Saudi-led military alliance of mostly Sunni nations, a coalition perceived by Tehran as an anti-Shiite block. Pakistan, a majority Sunni country, has traditionally close ties with Saudi Arabia, which is hostile to Iran, a Shiite power. The kingdom accuses Tehran of supporting Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen against the internationally recognized president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. […] On the eve of his visit, Rouhani said that “constructive relations with...

American billionaire Warren Buffett, through his Nebraska-based company Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A), has acquired a $400 million stake in struggling pipeline company, Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI). According to a Berkshire Hathaway US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the 26.53 million shares of Kinder Morgan are valued at $395.8 million. The purchase adds to Buffett’s oil interests, which includes a recently purchased 14.3 percent stake in oil refiner Phillips 66 at a time when other oil and gas investors are looking for the exit. True to Buffett’s form, the Kinder Morgan purchase came shortly after its stock price fell 53...

A number of recently completed and upcoming natural gas infrastructure projects are expected to increase the reach of natural gas produced in the Marcellus and Utica regions of the Northeastern United States (see map). These projects are intended to transport natural gas from production centers to consuming markets or export terminals. Over the past several years, natural gas production in the Marcellus and Utica areas has grown significantly: their combined growth of 12 billion cubic feet per day since 2011 accounts for 89% of the United States's total growth in natural gas production. The Marcellus and Utica shale plays are...

Natural gas spot prices around the United States are often compared to prices at the Henry Hub in Louisiana. At trading points in and around the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, natural gas prices consistently trade below the Henry Hub national benchmark price. However, the difference between these pricing points and the Henry Hub has narrowed in recent months as new pipeline projects have come online. Most of the natural gas produced in the region is consumed in other areas of the country. With limited infrastructure to deliver natural gas to consumers, the Marcellus...

The U.S. Forest Service has rejected the latest proposed route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline because of the 42-inch natural gas pipeline's potential damage to the habitat of sensitive animal species protected by two national forests in Virginia and West Virginia. In a letter to the Dominion-led pipeline company on Tuesday, the Forest Service said the proposed route is "inconsistent" with Forest Service plans and commitments to protect the habitats of the Cow Knob salamander, Cheat Mountain salamander and West Virginia northern flying squirrel, as well as the red spruce forest ecosystem in which they live. Consequently, the pipeline project...

orth Dakota regulators granted a route permit Wednesday for what will be the largest crude oil pipeline out of the state's fruitful Bakken oil field, leaving Iowa as the only state left to approve the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. Public Service Commission members Julie Fedorchak and Brian Kalk voted to grant the permit for Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, which plans initially to ship up to 450,000 barrels of oil per day on the 1,168-mile pipeline from the Bakken and Three Forks regions in western North Dakota. "This is a massive infrastructure construction project,...

The oil markets are on edge with oil sinking into the $20s per barrel. And last week we reported on one place where oil is already trading in the single-digits. Canada’s bitumen is selling for just $8 per barrel. But even that rock bottom price is higher than what one oil seller earned for a shipment recently. In a bizarre turn of events, Bloomberg reported that Flint Hill Resources, a refining unit owned by the Koch brothers, said that they would purchase sour crude from North Dakota for $-0.50 per barrel. That’s right: a negative price. Oil has become so...

When TransCanada filed its two lawsuits on January 6, company spokesman Mark Cooper said, "TransCanada has undertaken a careful evaluation of the [Obama] Administration's action and believe there has been a clear violation of NAFTA, and the U.S. Constitution, in these circumstances." In the federal lawsuit, filed in Texas, TransCanada is seeking to limit presidential powers to prohibit future presidents from unilaterally rejecting such projects based on how the United States might be perceived by the international community. Environmentalists want to leave untapped oil reserves in the ground and fought successfully over the past seven years to have the president...

The U.S. says it wants to help finance an oil pipeline in Africa. TransCanada took Uncle Sam to court last week to reclaim some of the damage done by the Obama Administration’s multiyear, drawn-out rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline. It may not come up in the litigation, but someone should point out that the same Obama Administration that rejected Keystone seems to have no problem supporting a new oil pipeline project in Africa. That was the story last week out of Kenya, where U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec told Kenya’s energy minister that Washington would help Nairobi raise $18 billion...

The U.S. government says it will help Kenya get the financing it needs to build an $18 billion pipeline from the oil fields in the country's northwest to its southeastern Indian Ocean coast to help it become a net exporter of oil. The pipeline would stretch nearly 500 miles from Lokichar in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley to the coastal town of Lamu, and would be an almost impossibly expensive project for the East African nation. Yet there is enough oil there to make the plan worthwhile. The pan-African financial institution Ecobank Transnational Inc. says it has proven reserves of about...

The Canadian company that proposed the Keystone XL oil pipeline filed a lawsuit over the U.S. government's rejection of the project and announced it plans to file a second legal challenge that will seek more than $15 billion in damages.

North Carolina's citizens could see an annual energy savings of over $134 million in a few years. That's what Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy was told regarding the benefits of a large natural gas pipeline project that should be underway soon. The commission met on Tuesday, Jan. 5, and heard an update on the progress of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia to near Norfolk and then down into North Carolina. Bruce McKay of Dominion power company said that construction on the nearly $5 billion project could begin later this year and be in service...