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How Shale Helped Frack Mexico’s Energy Impasse

After decades of inertia, the energy-reform proposal given general approval by the Mexican Senate late Tuesday goes even further than many had expected. The country’s rapidly changing energy relationship with its northern neighbor helps explain why. Mexico’s dismal decline in oil production, to 2.94 million barrels per day last year from 3.85 million in 2004, is the obvious impetus for trying to coax in more foreign money and expertise. But an even starker picture emerges when you look at Mexico’s overall energy trade in oil and gas with the U.S. Using trailing 12-month averages, Mexico’s exports of crude oil to the U.S. peaked at 1.63 million barrels per day in fall 2006. By August this year, that was down to less than 0.9 million barrels—a level last seen in the early 1990s. U.S. exports of crude oil are effectively prohibited, but that isn’t true for refined products such as […]

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Mexico Lower House Passes Oil Overhaul to End State Monopoly

Mexico ’s lower house passed an energy bill that ends Petroleos Mexicanos’s 75-year oil monopoly in a bid to attract foreign investment and boost growth. Lawmakers approved the bill in general terms in a 354-134 vote late yesterday and continue to discuss minority-party challenges to specific articles. If these are rejected, the initiative will be sent to Mexico’s states, where it’s likely to receive approval from more than half of the legislatures, the threshold for changing the constitution. The bill, passed by the Senate two days ago, would change Mexico’s charter to permit companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX) to drill for oil for the first time since 1938. It would allow production sharing and licenses for outside companies that will also be able to log crude reserves for accounting purposes. Supporters say it will boost economic growth, while opponents say it will funnel […]

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Japan sets aside $1 billion for nuclear fallout storage

The total cost of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown may never be known, but the country has at least put a number on how much it anticipates storing the radioactive debris will cost it.  Asahi Shimbun reports that the 2014 Japanese budget includes a 100 billion yen provision (roughly $970 million) for the purchase and development of land for “intermediate storage facilities.” Once construction and operation costs are also included, the total anticipated expense is calculated to be 1 trillion yen, or just under $10 billion. Though Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the disaster-stricken plant, was expected to handle all decontamination work, its financial struggles have delayed the cleanup and the government is now stepping in with public funds to speed things up. Construction and operation costs raise the total to 1 trillion yen There are multiple candidate sites in […]

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Exxon Presses for Exports

Exxon Mobil Corp, the nation’s largest energy producer, is calling for the U.S. to lift restrictions on exporting domestic oil that date back to the Arab oil embargo of 1973. The Irving, Texas, company’s public support for crude exports comes as it forecasts decades of abundant supplies of petroleum in the U.S. and elsewhere as well as increasing global demand for oil, according to its annual energy […]

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China’s Excess Fuel Supply Forecast at 34 Million Tons in 2020

China will face an excess supply of 34 million metric tons of fuels by 2020, below previous estimates, as new refineries may be delayed or scrapped, according to the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer. Diesel supply may exceed demand annually by 14 million tons, said Dai Jiaquan, a director at China National Petroleum Corp.’s Economic and Technology Research Institute. Gasoline will be oversupplied by 12 million tons and kerosene by 8 million tons, he said in a speech in Beijing today. An excess of 34 million tons is equivalent to 16 months worth of China’s exports including fuel oil , according to customs data. “The fuel glut in 2020 is significantly lower than our previous forecast,” Dai said without providing details. “We believe refiners may have to delay or cancel expansion plans due to environmental reasons, especially those in northern China.” China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer, faces […]

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Deepwater Oil Drilling in Gulf Included in Budget Deal

Deepwater oil and gas exploration would be allowed to proceed in parts of the western Gulf of Mexico as part of a budget compromise announced yesterday. Language in the legislation would implement a 2012 U.S.- Mexico Agreement concerning hydrocarbon reservoirs in parts of the gulf that cross the international maritime boundary. U.S. domestic crude production rose to a 25-year high as the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, unlocked supplies trapped in shale formations from Texas to North Dakota. Output from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico will account for 17 percent of total U.S. production this year, down from 20 percent in 2012, government data showed. “It’s a step in the right direction and it will add to oil supply,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group in Chicago . “It’s another reason that oil will be relatively cheap. The […]

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Fracking Boom Pushes U.S. Oil Output to 25-Year High

U.S. crude production rose to the highest level in a quarter-century as a shale drilling boom in states such as Texas and North Dakota cut the need for foreign oil and pushed the country closer to energy independence. The U.S. pumped 8.075 million barrels a day in the week ended Dec. 6, a gain of 0.8 percent, or 64,000 barrels a day, the Energy Information Administration said today. It’s the most since October 1988. “You can’t swing a cat without hitting a barrel of oil in North America,” said Stephen Schork , president of the Schork Group Inc., an energy consulting firm in Villanova, Pennsylvania. “It’s amazing how quickly things can change.” U.S. oil output grew 18 percent in the past 12 months, the fastest pace on record, boosting fuel exports and reducing reliance on imports, according to the EIA. The boom will make the country the world’s largest […]

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Exxon: Rising living standards propel energy needs

Exxon Mobil says the drive for higher living standards around the world will keep demand for electricity and transportation fuels growing even as economies get more efficient and governments put a price on pollution. The company’s annual long-term energy outlook, released Thursday, predicts world energy demand will grow 35 percent by 2040 as electricity and modern fuels are brought to some of the billions of people in the developing world who currently live without power or burn wood or other biomass for cooking and heating. Those growing needs will be somewhat offset by a slow decline in consumption in the far more energy-hungry economies of the developed world. “People want a warm home, a refrigerator, a TV, someday a car, and a cellphone,” said William Colton, Exxon’s vice president for corporate strategic planning, in an interview. There are ample supplies of fuel to meet the […]

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In Utah, Energy and Environment Clash

After watching its oil industry dwindle for decades, Utah is suddenly seeing a burst of activity that it hopes will make it the next North Dakota. The push is being led not by global energy titans, but smaller companies that have honed their techniques looking for oil in places like North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. These companies are now moving quickly here to snap up leases and bring advanced drilling techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal wells to Utah’s boom-and-bust oil patch. But the surge in oil drilling in places like Vernal has drawn the ire of some in the state’s far-larger tourism-and-recreation industry, which doesn’t want more drill pads and oil-tanker trucks in the spectacular scenery of the high desert. No one would have imagined such a dispute just a few years ago, when most here thought the sagebrush-covered hills of eastern Utah were largely out of fresh […]

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North Sea Oil Output Seen 4% Lower in January Than December

The amount of crude oil to be pumped from fields in the North Sea in January will be lower than in December, according to loading programs for the four key grades. The biggest fall will be in the Brent grade, where only five cargoes of crude will be loaded, compared with seven scheduled to load in December. Loading programs are released and circulated among oil traders and brokers, but don’t give a perfect indication of oil volumes because they can be subject to change. The total month-on-month fall will be 3.9%, according to the programs. These changes are often seasonal, and can alter dramatically if one of the four key fields — Brent, Forties, Oseberg and Ekofisk — have scheduled maintenance work or need to be shut in for emergency reasons. Overall, however, production in the North Sea is in decline. To date, 41 billion barrels […]

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Exxon forecasts natural gas to be world’s second most-used fuel

Natural gas will overtake coal as a global energy source in the middle of the next decade, in part because of the environmental benefits it offers, according to ExxonMobil , the world’s largest oil and gas company. In its annual forecasts of the energy outlook for the next three decades, published on Thursday morning, Exxon says that around 2025 gas will become the world’s second most-used fuel on an energy-equivalent basis, behind oil. By 2040, it expects natural gas consumption to rise 65 per cent, but coal use to be no higher than it is today, rising and then falling again during the next two decades. The forecasts sketch out the battleground for a contest between gas and coal to be the dominant fuel for power generation. Exxon is significantly more negative about the outlook for global coal use than other forecasters. The International Energy Agency, the think-tank backed […]

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US military to seek bulk purchases of advanced drop-in biofuels

se more alternative fuels. Under USDA’s and Navy’s “Farm-to-Fleet” venture, biofuel blends for the first time will now be part of the Department of Defense’s domestic solicitations for jet engine and marine diesel fuels. The Navy said it would seek to purchase JP-5 and F-76 advanced drop-in biofuels blended from 10-50% with conventional fuels. “A secure, domestically produced energy source is very important to our national security,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in a statement. “The Farm-to-Fleet initiative we are announcing today is important to advancing a commercial market for advanced biofuel, which will give us an alternative fuel source and help lessen our dependence on foreign oil.” […]

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Europe will sleep warm, Ukraine says

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said European energy consumers will stay warm this winter as a result of efforts to resolve gas issues with Russia. “Europe will sleep calmly, in warmth, if Ukraine maintains normal relations with Russia,” he was quoted by the National News Agency of Ukraine as saying Tuesday. Ukraine was able to reach an agreement with Russia to defer payments toward debt incurred this year from natural gas deliveries from Russian energy company Gazprom. Disagreement in 2009 prompted Gazprom to cut gas deliveries through Ukraine, which left European consumers in the cold for several weeks. European consumers get about 20 percent of their gas needs met by Russia, much of it through a Soviet-era transmission network in Ukraine. The deal that broke the 2009 impasse left Ukraine with a higher debt burden for gas than its European counterparts. Yanukovych said the […]

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Russian economy at risk from oil markets, IMF says

MOSCOW, Dec. 11 (UPI) — The International Monetary Fund said there were risks to the health of the Russian economy because of its heavy reliance on the oil industry. Antonio Spilimbergo, an economist with the IMF, said he was concerned about the health of the Russian economy following a week-long visit to the country, which ended Tuesday. In a statement following his visit, Spilimbergo said growth in the Russian economy had slowed down and vulnerabilities persist. Inflation remains in check, however, and the economy is moving at its full capacity despite a slowdown in the growth of the Russian gross domestic product. “These projections are subject to risks — prospective tightening of international financial conditions, Russia’s dependence on international oil prices, growth in unsecured credit, and the impact of uncertainty concerning the pace of structural reforms on business climate and investment,” he said in a statement. He said the […]

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6 ways to become more miserable about climate change and peak oil

Page added on December 11, 2013 It’s bad enough that most middle-class people still have to struggle to keep their jobs and homes in today’s Second Great Depression. But if you’re even a little bit awake, then you also have to worry about longer-term threats: climate change, Fukushima, peak oil and the impending collapse of industrial civilization. There’s plenty of reason for anyone to be depressed these days. Yet, somehow, some people still manage to keep calm and carry on. So, for the ordinary person who thinks that happiness is for dopes and who needs a little help finding their way to the bottom, therapist Cloe Madanes offers “14 Habits of Highly Miserable People.” Here, for those who are energy- and climate-aware, I offer my own adaptation of Madanes’s six top points to succeed at self-sabotage: Be afraid, be very afraid, of economic loss. If you know that fiat […]

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The future of oil supply

Page added on December 11, 2013 Were they crying “Wolf”? Concerns about “peak oil” have recurred repeatedly since the resource was first developed, but they reached an unprecedented height in 2007 just prior to the global economic recession. Since then public concern has diminished, partly as a result of shale oil production in the United States. Yet, despite these developments and globally rising reserves, oil prices have almost doubled since 2010 and have tripled in a decade. The ‘peak oil’ debate has not gone away – oil remains critically important, adequate substitutes have yet to be found and concerns about depletion persist. This volume presents the best scientific evidence on why a decline in oil supply may, or may not, be in sight. It considers the production and resources of conventional oil and the potential for developing alternative liquid fuels from tar sands, shales, biomass, coal and gas. It […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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The future of oil supply

Were they crying “Wolf”? Concerns about “peak oil” have recurred repeatedly since the resource was first developed, but they reached an unprecedented height in 2007 just prior to the global economic recession. Since then public concern has diminished, partly as a result of shale oil production in the United States. Yet, despite these developments and globally rising reserves, oil prices have almost doubled since 2010 and have tripled in a decade. The ‘peak oil’ debate has not gone away – oil remains critically important, adequate substitutes have yet to be found and concerns about depletion persist. This volume presents the best scientific evidence on why a decline in oil supply may, or may not, be in sight. It considers the production and resources of conventional oil and the potential for developing alternative liquid fuels from tar sands, shales, biomass, coal and gas. It describes how economies might react and […]

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Crude Oil Rangebound as Markets Assess Stockpile Data, Agency Forecasts

Crude-oil futures traded in a tight price range in Asian hours Wednesday as investors digested stockpile data, agency projections about oil markets and reports of easing tensions in Libya. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in January traded at $98.41 a barrel at 0541 GMT, down $0.10 in the Globex electronic session. January Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.01 to $109.39 a barrel. Late Tuesday, data from the American Petroleum Institute, a trade body, showed U.S. crude oil stocks fell by 7.5 million barrels last week. The more closely watched inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration is due later Wednesday. U.S. crude-oil stocks are expected to fall for the second consecutive week, by 2.5 million barrels on average for the week ended Dec. 6, according to a survey of 11 analysts surveyed by The Wall […]

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Oil price steady above $98 ahead of supply data

The price of oil was steady above $98 a barrel Wednesday ahead of a report on U.S. crude stockpiles. Benchmark crude for January delivery was down 5 cents to $98.46 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract jumped $1.17 to $98.51 on Tuesday, its highest level in six weeks, on optimism that the U.S. Energy Department’s report Wednesday would show supplies fell for the second week in a row. Data for the week ending Dec. 6 is expected to show a draw of 2.8 million barrels in crude oil stocks and a draw of 2.1 million barrels in gasoline stocks, according to a survey of analysts by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. Oil has fallen from $110 in September on high supplies, muted demand and a lessening of Middle East tensions. It sank to nearly $92 late last month but has since […]

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WTI Trades Near Six-Week High as U.S. Crude Supplies Drop

West Texas Intermediate traded near the highest price since October after industry data showed crude inventories declined for a second week in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer. Futures fluctuated in New York after rising 1.2 percent yesterday. Crude stockpiles shrank by 7.5 million barrels last week, a report from the American Petroleum Institute showed yesterday. Government data today is forecast to show supplies dropped by 3 million, according to a Bloomberg News survey. In Libya, three eastern ports will reopen Dec. 15, said the head of the country’s energy-protection force. “The run of inventory increases had the market rattled, but it now appears to be reversing and the focus is coming back to global growth numbers,” said Michael McCarthy, a chief strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney. “The outlook is for a test of higher levels for crude.” WTI for January delivery was at $98.48 a barrel […]

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Natural-Gas Futures Finish Higher as Cold Weather Props Up Prices

Natural-gas futures rose slightly Tuesday as some traders bet that the recent rally could run out of steam, while others were reluctant to sell with expectations of a prolonged cold weather and increased demand for the heating fuel. Natural gas for January delivery settled 0.5 cent higher, or 0.1%, to $4.237 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had risen as much as 1.2%, climbing to a new six-month intraday high earlier in the session, but later gave back most of those gains. “It’s hard to buy find new, fresh, willing buyers at these lofty heights and a lot of people are saying ‘where do we go from […]

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Coal Prices May Run Out of Steam

Thermal-coal prices may be running out of steam as Asian power producers wind down purchases after a period of prewinter stockpiling and an underlying supply glut reasserts itself. Prices of the power-generation fuel have rallied to multimonth highs in China and Australia, two countries that dominate coal supply-demand fundamentals, mirroring moves seen with iron ore. China’s continued economic strength has underpinned Australian coal, whose price has climbed to its highest level in more than five months. Chinese coal has also been on streak, rising for nine successive weeks and gaining 15% since early October. China’s economic growth rate of 7.8% in the July-September quarter may slow due to tightening credit, with some economists tipping it to move toward 7% in 2014, damping industry demand for electricity and the coal used to make it. Prices at Newcastle port on Australia’s east coast, the world’s largest coal export facility, have stabilized […]

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EIA Sees 2013 U.S. Oil Use Posting First Rise Since 2010

U.S. oil demand will rise by 1.7% this year, posting the first rise since 2010, government forecasters said Tuesday. The gain of 310,000 barrels a day, to 18.8 million barrels a day, is an upward revision from the month-earlier rise of 1.1% projected by the Energy Information Administration. Oil demand in the world’s largest oil consumer has dropped by an average of 345,000 barrels a day over the previous two years. Data in EIA’s short-term energy outlook show the stronger oil demand outlook comes as analysts lifted their estimate for 2013 growth in U.S. real gross domestic product to 1.7% from a rise of 1.5% in the month-earlier forecast. For 2014, GDP growth of 2.4% is expected, down slightly from the forecast issued last month for 2.5% growth. Oil demand in 2014 is expected to slip 0.2% from 2013, to 18.77 million barrels a day […]

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IEA Says Iran Oil Exports Rising But Challenges Abound

Iran’s oil exports are already rebounding after an interim deal with the West but the Islamic Republic won’t flood markets even if international sanctions are lifted, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday. The IEA, the top energy watchdog, said global oil demand will be higher than expected next year and that could push up oil prices amid persistent production disruptions. In its closely watched monthly oil market report, the IEA said preliminary estimates indicate that receipts of Iran’s crude oil and condensate exports rose by 89,000 barrels a day in November, to 850,000 barrels a day as the Chinese bought more and shipments to Taiwan resumed. By contrast, the agency had said last month that Iran’s crude exports had reached their lowest level in 21 months in October. The Iranian oil export rebound comes as, on Nov. 24, Iran and six world powers agreed to a […]

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OPEC surprised by North American oil production

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Tuesday oil supply growth from non-member states, mainly from North America, was greater than expected. OPEC published its monthly oil market report Tuesday. It said supply from non-member states for the year is expected to increase by 1.2 million barrels per day. Non-members should be able to duplicate that level of production next year. “Non-OPEC supply growth in 2013 has performed better than initially expected to stand at 1.2 million bpd,” the cartel’s report said. “Growth is supported mainly by the United States and Canada, adding around 1 million bpd.” Much of the oil production gains in North America have come as a result of the exploration of shale deposits. OPEC said Canadian oil production should average 3.9 million bpd for 2013. Last month, U.S. oil production passed the 8 million bpd mark for the first time […]

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IEA Boosts 2014 Global Oil Demand Estimate Amid U.S. Recovery

Global oil demand in 2014 will be higher than previously forecast, after consumption in the U.S. rebounded to its strongest level in five years, the International Energy Agency said. The IEA forecast today in its monthly oil market report that demand will increase by 1.2 million barrels a day, or 1.3 percent, to 92.4 million a day next year, raising its projection from last month by 240,000 a day. U.S. fuel use rose above 20 million barrels a day in November for the first time since 2008, according to preliminary data. While the agency boosted estimates for the amount of crude OPEC will need to supply, “making room” for the potential return of Iranian exports “could be a challenge for other producers” in the group, it said. “The geopoliticals are now bearish, while the fundamentals are bullish,” Michael Lynch , president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, […]

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OPEC Pumps Least Crude in More Than 2 Years as Saudi Cuts

OPEC reduced crude production in November to the lowest level in more than two years as output dropped below the organization’s 30 million barrel-a-day ceiling for a third month. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 29.63 million barrels last month compared with 29.83 million in October, OPEC said in its monthly oil market report today, citing data from secondary sources. That’s the lowest since May 2011. The group decided to maintain its output limit of 30 million at a meeting in Vienna last week because members were “all satisfied,” Ali al-Naimi , Saudi Arabia ’s oil minister, told reporters on Dec. 4. “In taking this decision, member countries reconfirmed their readiness to promptly respond to unforeseen developments that could have an adverse impact on an orderly and balanced oil market,” OPEC said in today’s report. Analysts at banks including BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG […]

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Iran sees progress in talks with powers on nuclear deal implementation

A senior Iranian official indicated on Tuesday that progress was being achieved in expert-level talks between Tehran and six world powers over the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal. But Iranian Ambassador Reza Najafi added that the meeting, which began on Monday at the Vienna headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, would continue for a third day on Wednesday. The goal is to work out nitty gritty details of implementing the November 24 interim accord under which Iran will curb its disputed nuclear program in return for some easing of sanctions that have battered its oil-dependent economy. Asked whether good progress was being made, Najafi told reporters: "Yes. We are going to continue tomorrow." Najafi is Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, which will have a key role in verifying that Iran fulfils its side of the agreement. Officials from Iran, […]

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United States suspends non-lethal assistance into northern Syria

The United States has suspended all non-lethal assistance into northern Syria after Islamic Front forces seized headquarters and warehouses belonging to the opposition’s Supreme Military Council (SMC), a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Ankara said. Fighters from the Islamic Front, a union of six major rebel groups, took control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) bases at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on Syria’s northwestern border with Turkey late on Friday. Turkey shut its side of the border crossing, in Hatay province, due to a reported increase in clashes on the Syrian side, customs sources told Reuters. There was no immediate confirmation from Turkish officials. Infighting among Syrian rebels has weakened their efforts to bring down President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict which began as peaceful protests against his rule in March 2011 and has descended into civil war. It was unclear why the Islamic Front had seized […]

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Iran Seen by IEA Unable to Sustain Increase in Crude Oil Exports

Iran, once OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, will be unable to sustain an increase in crude exports that support its economy when some measures to curb those shipments are eased, the International Energy Agency said. The European Union said last month that it intends to suspend a ban on insuring tankers carrying the Iranian oil from December or January. The U.S. said it will stop forcing buyers to cut purchases, even if they still aren’t allowed to increase them. The concessions are in return for commitments from the Persian Gulf state to provide more information on its nuclear program, which western powers claim is intended to make weapons. Neither the EU nor the U.S. lifted sanctions on importing the nation’s oil. “The fact that the oil sanctions remain fully in place leaves on the face of it no room for any sustained increase in exports,” the IEA, a Paris-based adviser […]

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Lebanon Worries That Housing Will Make Syrian Refugees Stay

The modest shelter housing some Syrian refugees here, a few hundred yards south of the border with Syria , hardly looks objectionable. Made of plywood walls on a concrete foundation of some 250 square feet, with one door, two windows and a corrugated zinc roof, the squat structure is called a “box shelter.” But Lebanon has banned box shelters, regarding them as a threat to this already fragile nation. In the eyes of the Lebanese, the box shelters, made by the Danish Refugee Council, look too permanent and could encourage the Syrians to stay. “The fear of permanence is very embedded in the Lebanese political psyche,” said Makram Malaeb, a manager in the Syrian refugee crisis unit at the Ministry of Social Affairs. “We had Palestinian refugees who were supposed to stay here for a month in 1948, and now they are a population of […]

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Iraq Forces Clash With Gunmen in Syria Border Area

Iraqi forces battled gunmen trying to infiltrate the country from neighboring Syria on Monday, while attacks in Baghdad and north of the capital killed more than 20 people, officials said. Twenty sport utility vehicles and more than two dozen motorcycles carrying gunmen tried to enter Iraq in Anbar Province, but Iraqi border forces turned them back after a two-hour clash, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement. It gave no details about casualties or the identities of the armed men. Iraq has been seized by violence that has taken on sectarian overtones, and many fear that the civil war in neighboring Syria will only intensify those divisions. Some militant Sunnis linked to Al Qaeda have flocked to the rebel cause in Syria, fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and the Shiites backing his government. Major bombings in Iraq have become an almost daily occurrence, and on Monday […]

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Suicide bomber kills 11 at Shi'ite funeral in Iraq

A suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 20 at a Shi’ite Muslim funeral in a city northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said, as Iraqi insurgents pursue a campaign of deadly attacks. The bombing took place in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) from of the capital at a funeral for a group of Shi’ite shepherds who had been killed by unidentified gunmen outside the city. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suicide bombings have been a favored tactic of Sunni insurgents linked to al Qaeda and who are widely blamed for this year’s surge in violence that has mostly targeted civilians. Baquba has been hit by some of the deadliest attacks, and earlier this month a suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral in a nearby town. Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government says the violence is being fuelled by the war in neighboring Syria, which has […]

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Suicide bomber kills 11 at Shi’ite funeral in Iraq

A suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 20 at a Shi’ite Muslim funeral in a city northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said, as Iraqi insurgents pursue a campaign of deadly attacks. The bombing took place in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) from of the capital at a funeral for a group of Shi’ite shepherds who had been killed by unidentified gunmen outside the city. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suicide bombings have been a favored tactic of Sunni insurgents linked to al Qaeda and who are widely blamed for this year’s surge in violence that has mostly targeted civilians. Baquba has been hit by some of the deadliest attacks, and earlier this month a suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral in a nearby town. Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government says the violence is being fuelled by the war in neighboring Syria, which has […]

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Libyan Ports That Buoyed Brent Crude Seen Opening in Days

Ports in eastern Libya that helped boost international oil prices when they were halted four months ago are within days of reopening, the head of the nation’s energy-protection force said. Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, with combined capacity of 600,000 barrels a day, and a third port, Zueitina, will reopen on Dec. 15, Idris Bukhamada, head of the Petroleum Facilities Guard, a group that protects Libya’s oil installations, said by phone from Ajdabiya today. Ibrahim Al Jedran, a former regional PFG commander whose men blockaded the terminals, agreed to the resumption after intervention by the Al Magharba tribe, Bukhamada said. Al Jedran himself said resumption depends on certain conditions being met. Disrupted exports from Libya has helped buoy the price of Brent crude , a global benchmark, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the International Energy Agency . Brent’s premium over U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate narrowed to […]

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BG Group says Tanzania emerging as natural gas powerhouse

British energy company BG Group said Tuesday it estimated there are 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in its reserve basins off the Tanzanian coast. The company said Tuesday its latest discovery, dubbed Mzia, off the southern Tanzania coast holds an estimated 4.7 trillion cubic feet of total recoverable natural gas. The company said that brings its total estimate for reserves spread out over three areas to around 15 trillion cubic feet. BG Group Chief Executive Officer Chris Finlayson said he expected the Tanzanian government to lay out eventual plans to build an export terminal for the country’s natural gas resources. Export plans with its partners at British energy company Ophir Energy and Norway’s Statoil call for deliveries of liquefied natural gas. Statoil last week announced it discovered more than 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas at its Mronge-1 reserve area off […]

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Mexico's Pemex Oil Monopoly Nears an End

Mexico’s Senate passed an energy bill late Tuesday that may end a 75-year-old monopoly held by state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos. The bill allows private companies to drill for oil and gas through flexible contracts and licenses. Private companies have been kept out of oil and gas production–except for those working under contract to Pemex. The bill gives private companies a share in oil production in return for taking all the exploratory risks. It allows them to book reserves as expected cash flow. The Senate passed President Enrique Pena Nieto’s energy reform bill by 95-28. Several articles were reserved for further debate but no significant changes are expected. The bill now goes to the lower house which is expected to pass it this week. The end of Pemex’s monopoly is seen by some as the biggest economic change in Mexico since the North American Free […]

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Mexico’s Pemex Oil Monopoly Nears an End

Mexico’s Senate passed an energy bill late Tuesday that may end a 75-year-old monopoly held by state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos. The bill allows private companies to drill for oil and gas through flexible contracts and licenses. Private companies have been kept out of oil and gas production–except for those working under contract to Pemex. The bill gives private companies a share in oil production in return for taking all the exploratory risks. It allows them to book reserves as expected cash flow. The Senate passed President Enrique Pena Nieto’s energy reform bill by 95-28. Several articles were reserved for further debate but no significant changes are expected. The bill now goes to the lower house which is expected to pass it this week. The end of Pemex’s monopoly is seen by some as the biggest economic change in Mexico since the North American Free […]

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Mexican Senate Approves Energy Overhaul Aimed at Production Boom

Mexico ’s Senate approved an energy overhaul bill that supporters say will make the country the world’s fifth-largest oil producer in about a decade, spurring growth in Latin America ’s second-biggest economy. Mexican senators passed the bill in general terms 95 to 28 last night to permit foreign companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX) to drill for national oil for the first time since 1938. Senators are still debating the bill’s specifics and can make amendments before sending it to the lower house. The plan would change the constitution to allow production sharing and licenses for outside companies that will also be able to log crude reserves for accounting purposes. Mexico is the world’s ninth-largest oil producer, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and possesses the biggest unexplored crude area after the Arctic Circle. Industry analysts and the bill’s authors say the overhaul […]

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China's massive water diversion project starts delivering water

A portion of China’s massive South-to-North Water Diversion Project has started to supply water. Shandong province will get about 1,200 million cubic feet of water in the first use of the project’s east route, officials said, China Daily reported Tuesday. The three-route project, expected to cost $81 billion, is considered the biggest engineering endeavor in Chinese history, and involves a mix of canals, tunnels and aqueducts spanning thousands of miles. It is designed to rely entirely on gravity to transfer 1,582 billion cubic feet of water annually from the country’s water-rich south to the arid north, including Beijing. The east route’s more than $8.2 billion first phase was completed in March, China Daily reported. Water diversion for that phase started last month, bringing water from the Yangtze River in Jiangsu province to Shandong along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. It is expected to supply as […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China’s massive water diversion project starts delivering water

A portion of China’s massive South-to-North Water Diversion Project has started to supply water. Shandong province will get about 1,200 million cubic feet of water in the first use of the project’s east route, officials said, China Daily reported Tuesday. The three-route project, expected to cost $81 billion, is considered the biggest engineering endeavor in Chinese history, and involves a mix of canals, tunnels and aqueducts spanning thousands of miles. It is designed to rely entirely on gravity to transfer 1,582 billion cubic feet of water annually from the country’s water-rich south to the arid north, including Beijing. The east route’s more than $8.2 billion first phase was completed in March, China Daily reported. Water diversion for that phase started last month, bringing water from the Yangtze River in Jiangsu province to Shandong along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. It is expected to supply as […]

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China’s Rust Belt Cities Hit With New Air Pollution Fines

A province in the heart of China’s rust belt has levied air pollution fines on city governments for the first time, in a sign that pressure to improve air quality in the world’s second-largest economy is trickling down to the local level. An electronic screen shines amid heavy smog in Shenyang on October 28. Reuters Liaoning, one of the nation’s largest industrial hubs, has so far collected a total of 54.2 million yuan ($8.9 million) from eight of its cities after it passed tougher air-pollution regulations last year, the official Xinhua news agency reported Monday. The fines are the first of their kind for the province and also come after China’s central government released a nationwide reform blueprint last month that vowed to impose more fees and taxes on polluters . Although China is test piloting anti-pollution measures such as carbon trading, it has been hesitant to announce nationwide […]

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China Releases Blueprint for Adapting to Climate Change

China issued its first nation-wide blueprint for adapting to climate change, as governments around the world shift their efforts from focusing solely on curbing global warming to minimizing its impact on people and the environment. “Addressing climate change isn’t only about reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, it’s also about taking initiative on adaptation,” the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning agency, said in a report posted to its website. The agency calculated that climate change has cost China more than 200 billion yuan ($32.9 billion) since 1990. In the same period, more than 2,000 people have died here because of extreme weather-related disasters such as floods, droughts, typhoons and storms, it said. “China isn’t only the world’s largest carbon-dioxide emitter but also a vulnerable country that suffers a lot […]

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Breathe in that dirty doublethink

Shanghai’s solution to the ‘airpocalypse’: ‘adjust’ the pollution standard, says Patti Waldmeir ©Reuters Clogged: a rush-hour traffic jam on a Shanghai highway Last year, Shanghai’s favourite winter sport was checking the air pollution readings in Beijing and gloating over how high they were. That’s not so much fun this year. In the past week Shanghai has wracked up its worst pollution since records began, with the concentration of deadly PM2.5 fine particles topping 600 micrograms per cubic metre on Friday afternoon, at a time when Beijing’s level was half that. (The World Health Organisation’s safe level is 25 µg/m 3 as a daily mean.) The Shanghai government has the perfect solution to the current “airpocalypse”: it “adjusted” the city’s pollution standard so that it would trigger fewer hazard warnings. What a relief, it was so annoying constantly being warned about the deadly assault on my lungs. Now my lungs […]

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India Considers Importing More Iranian Crude

India is exploring the possibility of increasing crude-oil imports from Iran, following a recent deal between Tehran and world powers that is expected to ease sanctions on Iranian crude, an Indian official said. While sanctions on Iran’s sales of crude oil are yet to be eased, observers say the deal is likely to lead to a gradual loosening of existing restrictions on dollar-based payments that would enable importers such as India to buy more crude from Iran. India and Iran presently have a barter trade system in place to bypass payment problems caused by the Western sanctions. Under an agreement last year, India pays for about half its crude-oil imports from Iran in Indian rupees instead of U.S. dollars. Indian and Iranian officials had detailed discussions on the possibility of increasing crude-oil imports from Iran, India’s Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram told reporters after a meeting with an […]

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Crude Inventories in U.S. Fell a Second Week, Survey Says

U.S. crude supplies probably dropped for a second week as refineries increased operating rates to the highest level since July 2012, a Bloomberg survey showed. Inventories decreased by 3 million barrels, or 0.8 percent, to 382.8 million in the week ended Dec. 6, based on the median of nine analyst estimates before a report tomorrow from the Energy Information Administration. Eight of the respondents forecast a decline and one said there was a gain. The refinery utilization rate rose to 92.9 percent from 92.4 percent the prior week, the survey showed. That would leave operating rates at the highest level since July 20, 2012, according to the EIA, the Energy Department’s statistical arm. Refineries have increased processing in three of the last four weekly reports. “There’s a strong feeling that there will be another sizable draw in crude supplies,” said John Kilduff , a partner at Again Capital LLC, […]

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U.S. Natural-Gas Production at Multiyear High in November

U.S. natural-gas production hit its highest level since at least 2009 in November, according to a government report released Tuesday, and domestic production is expected to grow in 2014. The rise in output is expected to be met by a decline in imports, leading to a leveling out of U.S. natural-gas supplies next year, the Energy Information Administration said in its short-term energy outlook. Total marketed production in the U.S. hit 72 billion cubic feet per day in November, up from 71.2 bcf/d in October and 70.3 bcf/d in November 2012. U.S. natural-gas production has soared as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques have enabled energy producers to tap into supplies trapped in shale-gas fields. The EIA also expects a decline in imports, from an average of 8.6 bcf/d in 2012 to 7.84 bcf/d this year and 7.77 bcf/d in 2014. Total primary supply of natural gas in the […]

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Ex-BP Supervisors Win Dismissal of Some Manslaughter Charges

Two former BP Plc supervisors won the dismissal on Tuesday of some of the manslaughter charges facing them over the Gulf of Mexico drilling rig explosion that killed 11 people in 2010. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval in New Orleans dismissed 11 counts of seaman’s manslaughter facing Deepwater Horizon rig well site leaders Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine. But the judge refused to dismiss 11 other counts of involuntary manslaughter, leaving those and a Clean Water Act violation charge to be heard at a trial starting in June. David Gerger, a lawyer for Kaluza, said he was reviewing the decision. A lawyer for Vidrine and representatives for the U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Kaluza and Vidrine were the two highest-ranking supervisors on board the Deepwater Horizon when disaster struck on April […]

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Natural Gas: Not All It’s Fracked Up to Be?

Natural gas is being touted as a “game changer” and a “bridge to a low carbon economy.” It is an abundant, made-in-America energy source.  It is about half as carbon intensive as coal when burned. The figure below suggests that a natural gas fueled transition to a less carbon intensive economy has already begun. Domestic, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have declined 12 percent since the peak in 2007. An important driver of this trend is the substitution of natural gas for coal in electricity generation. Of course, this picture gets much more complicated when you look upstream and broaden your perspective to consider not just carbon dioxide -the most prevalent anthropogenic greenhouse gas- but also “fugitive” methane emissions. Methane, the primary constituent of natural gas, can escape during extraction, processing, and distribution. These emissions have the potential to eliminate the carbon advantage of gas over coal and oil. There […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple