Free Republic

Some of the Democrats who have been spiking the ball in the end zone after the passage of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” probably didn’t read all of the finer details in the bill. They’ve been celebrating its passage along with Joe Biden as the “biggest climate legislation” to ever be passed. They have also been grudgingly thanking West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin for getting the bill over the finish line. But it turns out that Manchin snuck in a few items that haven’t drawn many headlines yet and the climate warriors aren’t going to be very happy about them....

The data shows that there were 4,082,478,000 barrels of crude oil produced in 2021, an amount that is greater than any time in American history, except 2020 and the peak in 2019. 2017: 3,415,257,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2018: 3,993,288,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2019: 4,485,635,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2020: 4,129,563,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2021: 4,082,478,000 Barrels of Crude Oil (https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/united-states-produces-more-oil-than-any-other-country-fact-check-russia-impact-on-gas-prices/65-7814c6e2-5437-4201-b021-face477e5462) Despite this drop from 2019's peak, the levels of production in 2021 were unmatched globally. "The United States is the number one oil producer in the world," Weiner said. "We produce more oil and gas than any other country in the...

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Steve Rattner, who served as counselor to the Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, stated that there is a bit of “schizophrenia” in our energy policy where “We’ve been discouraging oil companies from maintaining refineries or opening new ones. Because we theoretically are going to transition away from gasoline.” But the problem is, there was a “misjudgment as to how long of a transition it was going to be and what we needed to do to make the transition work.” Rattner stated that “refining capacity has gone down” due to refineries shutting down...

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pushed back against the notion that there were too many regulations on oil refineries, and that was behind the lack of production. Host Joe Scarborough asked Granholm if President Joe Biden should “level with the American people” and admit that overregulation was an issue.

U.S. petroleum refining capacity has declined and few plants have been built thanks to the projected decline in fuel demand and increased burdensome regulations. “There was already some contraction happening in the industry as a result of projected declines in U.S. gasoline demand into the future and companies just deciding that the assets were better used as other projects or shut down completely,” said Geoff Moody, the vice president of government relations at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers. “They just throw lots of red tape at these folks,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research,...

As of April, 2021, the United States had 18.1 million barrels per day of petroleum refining capacity (i.e., operable atmospheric crude oil distillation capacity). U.S. refining capacity had reached a record high of nearly 19.0 million barrels per day as of January 1, 2020, but several refineries have closed since then, resulting in a capacity decline of 4.5 percent. While the United States has been shuttering refineries, China has invested in them. In fact, for most of 2020, China’s refineries processed more crude than U.S. refineries. In April 2020, more crude oil was being refined in China’s refineries than in...

California remains the most expensive state for gas, outpacing the national average by more than a dollar, according to AAA. However, Hawaii and Washington and Oregon are not far behind, according to AAA's latest data. Currently, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in California will cost motorists $4.65, according to AAA. It's a significant jump from the national average, which rose one cent from a week ago to $3.31, according to AAA. This increase, which marks the third week of consecutive gains in 2022, is being "driven primarily by the cost of crude oil," according to AAA. Here...

Jean-Pierre made the comment during the White House daily press briefing in response to Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy, who asked why the Biden administration is "now considering shutting down the Line 5 pipeline from Canada to Michigan" while oil and gas prices continue to skyrocket. "So, Peter, that is inaccurate," Jean-Pierre fired back. "That is not right. So any reporting indicating that some decision has been made, again, is not accurate." "What’s inaccurate?" Doocy asked. "The reporting about us wanting to shut down the Line 5," Jean-Pierre responded. "I didn’t say ‘wanting,’" Doocy said. "I said, is...

Fox News reported, “The Biden administration is reportedly weighing the potential market consequences of shutting down an oil pipeline in Michigan. …” The pipeline, known as Line 5, is 30 inches in diameter and travels from Superior, Wisconsin, through both the Upper and Lower Peninsula of Michigan before ending in Sarnia, Ontario. According to Enbridge, which owns Line 5, closing the 645 mile-long pipeline would mean that Michigan would lose access to 756,000 gallons of propane a day, or 55% of the amount the company supplies to the state. Michigan's residential propane consumption is the nation's highest. About 315,000 homes...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. energy company says a cyberattack forced it to temporarily halt all operations on a major pipeline that delivers roughly 45% of all fuel consumed on the East Coast. Colonial Pipeline said the attack took place Friday and also affected some of its information technology systems. The company transports gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and home heating oil from refineries primarily located on the Gulf Coast through pipelines running from Texas to New Jersey. The Alpharetta, Georgia-based company said it hired an outside cybersecurity firm to investigate the nature and scope of the attack and has also...

In a stunning real-life example of why it is important that Americans retain their Second Amendment right to bear arms, a shooter at a Texas church on Sunday was fatally shot within seconds after he pulled a gun and shot two congregants during a service. The gunman — identified Monday as 43-year-old Keith Thomas Kinnunen, according to KXAS-TV — entered the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, near Forth Worth, and opened fire. Fortunately, he was quickly stopped by armed security, preventing any further deaths or injuries. Several other churchgoers also drew their weapons — a fact...

ATLANTA (AP) — Armed with a handheld video camera, a Georgia university student drove with a friend in April 2005 to Washington, D.C., and captured scenes of the Capitol, the Pentagon and other locations. Investigators say Syed Haris Ahmed, now 24, wasn't a tourist but a wannabe terrorist who wanted to send the videos of potential terror targets to an overseas contact. He was attending the Georgia Institute of Technology at the time. The charges, along with an allegation that Ahmed went to Pakistan and tried to join a terrorism group a few months later, are central to a federal...

The ethanol wars between King Corn and the oil and gas industry continue, with the corn faction finding a new champion this month in the person of Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois). It shouldn’t come as any surprise that she’s teaming up with Senators Ernst and Grassley since Illinois is the third largest ethanol producer in the country. The fight is still going on over the EPA granting waivers to smaller refineries from the ethanol blending requirements in the Renewable Fuel Standard, but Duckworth is raising the stakes. She’s asking the EPA’s Inspector General to investigate whether or not Trump’s EPA...

Refiners in the United States are stocking up on heavy crude, pushing prices higher, as the Trump administration prepares to slam more punitive measures on Caracas after the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela for a second term after elections considered illegitimate by Washington. Reuters reports that officials from the presidential administration met with oil industry executives to discuss the measures on the table, including the suspension ofrefined product exports to Venezuela or Venezuelan crude oil imports into the United States. Gulf Coast refiners have a limited choice of supplier when it comes to heavy crude. Besides local...

In case you’re growing tired of waking up every morning and checking social media or reading the Washington Post and hearing about how awful everything is these days, how about some good news? The U.S. Energy Information Administration has finished compiling all of the production numbers for last year and determined that America was the global leader in production of both petroleum and natural gas. And in terms of who else was in the hunt, it wasn’t even close.

For much of last year, the two crude oil benchmarks traced one another pretty closely, with Brent often trading at a relatively minor $1 to $3 per barrel premium to its American counterpart. But the spread between the two blew out after Hurricane Harvey, an event that took several million barrels per day of refining capacity offline for a few weeks. Crude oil piled up into storage, and the glut pushed the WTI benchmark down relative to Brent. The refineries along the Gulf Coast returned to operations within a relatively short period of time, but the effects of the disaster...

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Nate highlighted the exposure to life and property all along the Gulf Coast. Of the critical national assets that took a hit, the crux of the U.S. refining industry suffered dramatically. As a result of Harvey alone, twenty refineries in the 300 miles between Corpus Christi and Beaumont were forced to shut down or dramatically reduce rates. The spot price of ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) promptly increased by 10%, while that for gasoline and jet fuel increased by 25%. All three prices remain about 10% higher than before the hurricanes, in part due to regulatory constraints...

If you are near a gas station in metro Milwaukee, you might want to stop and fill up. Right now. As oil prices have hit their lowest price in 6 years this week, gasoline prices in Milwaukee are soaring. Wholesale gasoline prices are now higher than retail prices in the upper Midwest and that means prices at the pump will jump in coming days. "It's going to be very ugly," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at gasbuddy.com. The wholesale price of gasoline has risen 90 cents since Monday. As of Wednesday morning, the wholesale price was higher than retail,...

Union leaders called strikes on Sunday at nine U.S. refineries in a bid to pressure oil companies to agree to a new national contract covering workers at 63 plants. The walkouts, the first held in support of a nationwide pact since 1980, target plants that together account for more than 10 percent of U.S. refining capacity. The discord comes as plunging crude prices force oil companies to slash spending. Royal Dutch Shell, the lead industry negotiator, indicated talks had broken down. ... Shell activated a strike contingency plan at its sprawling joint venture refinery in Deer Park, Texas, to keep...

As a test of wills between OPEC nations and U.S. shale drillers fuels a global oil market slump, a brewing battle between Canadian and Saudi Arabia heavy crudes for America's Gulf Coast refinery market threatens to drive prices even lower. While the stand-off between the oil cartel and U.S. producers of light, sweet shale oil has captured the limelight in recent months, the clash over heavier grades - playing out in the shadowy, opaque physical market - may put even more pressure on global prices that have halved since mid-2014. Two factors will come into play over the next few...