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President Donald Trump on Friday issued a new presidential permit for the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, reaffirming his support for the controversial project while also apparently seeking to sidestep a current federal lawsuit that blocks construction. The president’s order on Friday supersedes and rescinds a previous permit Trump signed shortly after taking office in 2017. But it also seeks to kick-start the crude oil pipeline by opening a way around a current lawsuit.

The leak was caused by fuel thieves illegally tapping the pipeline in a small town in the state of Hidalgo, about 62 miles north of Mexico City, according to state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. Video footage showed dozens of residents near the town of Tlahuelilpan gathered to collect spilled fuel in buckets, garbage cans and other vessels. Fuel was seen spouting dozens of feet into the air from the tap. Footage then showed flames shooting high into the air against a night sky and the pipeline ablaze. Hidalgo Gov. Omar Fayad said 20 people were killed immediately and...

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is running into some trouble amid withering opposition from the Trump administration. As it stands, Russia still needs to ship large volumes of gas to Europe via Ukraine. Nord Stream 2 would allow Russian gas to bypass Ukraine, giving Russia more leverage to meddle in Ukraine while still reliably delivering gas to Europe. Merkel has been supportive of the project, not least because several major western European companies have stakes in the pipeline, including Royal Dutch Shell, as well as major German companies Wintershall and BASF. Last year, Merkel, under intense pressure from the Trump...

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called on Turkey to respect International Law at the Press Conference following the 5th trilateral meeting in Israel with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday... “We have emphasised the need for respect of international law in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. Respecting, in particular, the right of Cyprus to exercise its sovereign rights in its EEZ “. Mr Tsipras went on to underline the need for a just and viable solution of the Cypriot problem with the scrapping of the guarantees on the occupied part of the island and...

Poland took another step towards weening itself off Russian energy supplies on Wednesday by signing a 20-year agreement with San Diego-based Sempra Energy to import U.S. liquefied natural gas. In the coming years, Warsaw plans to replace Russian gas with pipeline supplies from Norway and shipments of LNG, or gas super-chilled to liquid from for transport by sea. This is a big deal," said Assistant Secretary Francis Fannon, who heads the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Energy Resources. Fannon told CNBC's "Power Lunch" that Poland is "stepping up and answering the call on energy security" for Europe.

Regulators on Friday accused one of California’s largest utilities of falsifying safety documents for natural gas pipelines for years following its criminal conviction and multimillion-dollar fine for a pipeline explosion that killed eight people near San Francisco. The California Public Utilities Commission said an investigation by its safety and enforcement division found Pacific Gas & Electric Co. lacked enough employees to fulfill requests to find and mark natural gas pipelines. Because of the staff shortage, PG&E pressured supervisors and locators to complete the work, leading staff to falsify data from 2012 to 2017, regulators said. The company “had common knowledge...

Colombia’s Cano Limon crude oil pipeline that can transport 210,000 bpd of crude has been bombed again, for the 78th time since the start of this year, Ecopetrol, the state oil company, said, as quoted by Reuters. Previous attacks have been blamed by the Colombian army on a rebel group, the national Liberation Army, or ELN, which is considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States. The pipeline was not operational at the time of the attack, which is the second in as many months. In September, Reuters reported that the pipeline was bombed again in...

A federal judge blocked the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline Thursday, ruling that the Trump administration hadn’t justified changing President Obama’s earlier rulings. Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for Montana, who was appointed by Mr. Obama, handed environmentalists a huge victory by saying Mr. Trump’s decision to sign the permit for the Canada-to-Texas pipeline shortly upon taking office did not have a sufficient basis ....

The fire, which started Wednesday evening in the community of Bay Point, apparently was caused by an electrical power line that fell, according to Chevron Pipe Line Company, which operates the threatened pipeline. said it shut down the gas line and worked with firefighters to evacuate the area as a precaution. The company is “working to reduce pressure in the at-risk gas line,” and the venting is producing a loud shrieking noise “that has been described as a jet-engine-like sound” coming from a pipeline facility in the nearby community of Antioch, the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District said. “This...

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says the U.S. Navy can blockade Russia if needed to keep it from controlling energy supplies in the Middle East as it does in Europe. "The United States has that ability, with our Navy, to make sure the sea lanes are open..." Zinke said on Friday at an industry event in Pittsburgh hosted by the Consumer Energy Alliance. He was there to explain why hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the shale energy boom has given the U.S. an edge over its rivals Russia and Iran, by making the U.S. less dependent on foreign sources of energy....

President Donald Trump publicly rebuked German Chancellor Angela Merkel on July 11 for Germany’s decision to buy a massive amount of gas from Russia. “I think it’s very sad,” he said. "Germany is totally controlled by Russia,” he later said, “I think it’s a very bad thing for nato and I don’t think it should have happened.” Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 are key components of Putin’s plan to tighten his grip on nations in Eastern Europe that used to be part of the Soviet Empire. Since these pipelines travel directly from Russia to Germany, they enable Putin to...

CALGARY – The federal government has vowed to build the Trans Mountain expansion project despite a major setback Thursday from a Federal Court of Appeal decision overturning the pipeline’s construction permits. Appeals Court judge Eleanor Dawson ruled Thursday that the federal government did not carry out its duty to consult with affected First Nations on the project and that the National Energy Board’s report was flawed because it did not consider the issue of tanker traffic. She described the consultation process as insufficient in part because it was “missing a genuine and sustained effort to pursue meaningful, two-way dialogue.” Now,...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Federal appeals judges ruled two key federal approvals don’t provide adequate protection on the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s route through the Jefferson National Forest, which includes Monroe County. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups had challenged approvals by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management over a 3.6-mile segment of the pipeline’s route through the national forest. The Mountain Valley Pipeline gained approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in mid-October. The $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline would extend 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline over 303 miles to transport West Virginia natural gas into...

Russia cut gas exports to Europe by 60 per cent today, plunging the continent into an energy crisis 'within hours' as a dispute with Ukraine escalated. This morning, gas companies in Ukraine said that Russia had completely cut off their supply. Six countries reported a complete shut-off of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine today, in a sharp escalation of a struggle over energy that threatens Europe as winter sets in. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine. Croatia said it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers while Bulgaria...

Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan relations, which experienced a significant thaw since the death of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenbashi), deteriorated again last week (June 19). The most recent conflict began when Turkmenistan started undertaking seismic work on a disputed oilfield in the Caspian Sea. The oilfield, discovered by Azerbaijani geologists, is called Kapyaz in Azeri and Serdar in Turkmen. Reserves in the oilfield total around 150 million barrels of oil. In response, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry summoned Turkmenistan’s ambassador in Baku, Toyly Komekov, where Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov expressed Azerbaijan`s strong protest over the violation of the agreement. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry...

“Germany is totally controlled by Russia … They will be getting between 60 and 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline, and you tell me if that is appropriate because I think its not,” Trump said. The U.S. president was speaking at a press conference in front of NATO representatives ahead of a two-day summit. The Trump administration’s policies indicate it views security and trade as intimately linked. And when it comes to the trade balance, no ally will be spared. Speaking in Brussels, Belgium on the first leg of his European trip, the U.S. president...

Russian gas giant Gazprom has resumed talks with South Korea over a decade-old idea to build a gas pipeline from Russia’s Far East to South Korea through North Korea, Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, said on Friday. “To date, the political situation has been somewhat different, and the South Korean side has asked Gazprom to resume the project, and a series of talks has been held on this issue, and these talks are continuing." “The ideas behind the pipeline look very difficult to implement, especially given the complex political-military context continuing on the Korean peninsula, and the...

Last Friday the Dakota Access Pipeline celebrated one year in operation. We’re a long way from the battles between “water protectors” and police that seemed to preoccupy the media for so many months. From Forbes: DAPL has been quietly transferring crude oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota at a rate of over 500,000 barrels per day. That has helped bolster North Dakota’s daily production numbers. According to the North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, North Dakota production hit 1.16 million barrels per day in March, thanks in large to part to DAPL…The Dakota Access Pipeline’s safety record...

As one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump signed presidential memoranda to revive both the KeystoneXL and Dakota Access pipelines by expediting the environmental review process. The Dakota Access pipeline is now in full operation. TransCanada’s annual report gives us an update on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Authorities in Pennsylvania were searching Wednesday for more than 640 pounds of high explosives that were reportedly stolen over the weekend from a work site in Lancaster County. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information that leads to the recovery. A contracting company reported the theft Monday, the Lebanon Daily News reported. The missing explosives include 640 pounds of dynamite and 400 blasting caps, the report said. A blasting cap is used to trigger an explosive device.