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New U.S. Tank Car Rules Won't Come Until 2015

New regulations that could require the railroad industry to improve, phase out or retrofit the tank cars it uses to haul crude oil and other flammable liquids are still more than a year away, according to a schedule published by the U.S. Department of Transportation Tuesday. The new schedule, an update published in a short notice in the federal register, gave the most specific timetable yet for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration’s rule-making process. PHMSA is the agency responsible for the safety of hazardous-material transport. According to the schedule, PHMSA will publish its proposed changes to tank-car rules in November. It then will give the public 60 days to comment. Only after that period is scheduled to end in January 2015 would the agency incorporate the comments and issue final rules. Tank-car safety has become a hot issue following recent crude-oil derailments that have resulted in fiery crashes […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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New U.S. Tank Car Rules Won’t Come Until 2015

New regulations that could require the railroad industry to improve, phase out or retrofit the tank cars it uses to haul crude oil and other flammable liquids are still more than a year away, according to a schedule published by the U.S. Department of Transportation Tuesday. The new schedule, an update published in a short notice in the federal register, gave the most specific timetable yet for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration’s rule-making process. PHMSA is the agency responsible for the safety of hazardous-material transport. According to the schedule, PHMSA will publish its proposed changes to tank-car rules in November. It then will give the public 60 days to comment. Only after that period is scheduled to end in January 2015 would the agency incorporate the comments and issue final rules. Tank-car safety has become a hot issue following recent crude-oil derailments that have resulted in fiery crashes […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Greenland Targets $4 Billion in Offshore Funds to Double Its GDP

Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Greenland is looking for investors from the U.S. to Asia as the world’s largest island targets $4 billion in funds that the government predicts will allow the economy to double in size over the next decade. Investors with “the biggest risk appetite come from the east,” Business Minister Jens-Erik Kirkegaard said in a Jan. 13 phone interview from Nuuk, Greenland’s main city. “We welcome European and North American money just as much as investments coming from the Far East. We don’t have any priority.” The world’s most sparsely populated nation and home to some of the globe’s biggest untapped fossil fuel and mineral reserves says the strategy will help it win independence from Denmark , which still counts Greenland as part of its kingdom. The home rule government in Nuuk is now trying to explain the risks and political landscape to prospective investors, according to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas Rises a Third Day on Forecast for Falling Stockpiles

Natural gas increased for a third day on speculation the U.S. government will report a record drop in stockpiles after last week’s cold weather. Futures for February delivery rose as much as 1.4 percent to $4.333 per million British thermal units in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and were at $4.315 at 4:18 p.m. Singapore time. The contract climbed 5.5 percent yesterday, the most since April 29, to settle at $4.274. The volume of all futures traded was about 13 percent above the 100-day average. Prices are up 2 percent so far this year. Gas inventories probably fell by 303 billion cubic feet in the week ended Jan. 10, Citi Futures Perspective said before Energy Information Administration data on Jan. 16. That would surpass the biggest-ever decline of 285 billion on Dec. 13. Stockpiles totaled 2.817 trillion cubic feet on Jan. 3, 10 percent below the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Polish auditors slam government for slow pace of shale gas development

Poland’s national auditing agency this week criticized the slow place of developing the country’s shale gas industry, blaming government inefficiency. The Supreme Audit Office, or NIK, Monday issued a report warning that high hopes for establishing shale gas as a viable Polish industry by 2015 are being imperiled by “irregularities” in awarding concessions and the painfully slow establishment of a law governing the sector, Polish Radio reported. In the meantime, several foreign energy firms that came into Poland seeking to tap its shale gas potential, such as Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil and Talisman Energy, have pulled out due to mixed exploration results and the uncertain regulatory landscape. At the current rate, it will take 12 years before Poland’s shale gas potential can be properly tapped, the NIK said. “In order to carry this out, it would be desirable to have about 200 wells,” […]

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Study cautions on sole focus on energy crop biomass yield; perennial grasslands deliver greater ecosystems services than corn

«Study cautions on sole focus on energy crop biomass yield; perennial grasslands deliver greater ecosystems services than corn A study by a team from the DOE’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Center has concluded that focusing on the yield of an energy crop alone can come at the expense of many other environmental benefits. The study, published as an open access paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that switchgrass and prairie plantings harbored significantly greater plant, methanotrophic bacteria, arthropod, and bird diversity than corn. Although the corn biomass yield was higher, all other ecosystem services, including methane consumption, pest suppression, pollination, and conservation of grassland birds, were higher in perennial grasslands. Agriculture is being challenged to provide food, and increasingly fuel, for an […]

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Fears of global oil crisis aired at Transatlantic Energy Security Dialogue

Jeremy Leggett column in Recharge magazine : “We are betting our entire national economic life on the hope — indeed the expectation — that the fracking boom will continue until well into the 2020s, and that, at a rate and cost we desire, significant amounts of ‘yet to be discovered’ oil will somehow be found to meet the demand.” “If any of that proves incorrect, we have no plan, no alternative, and have given no thought to how we would respond in such a case.”The speaker is national-security expert Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, a veteran of four tours of duty with the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am not a military man, but I worry just as much about the energy security of my own country as he does about his. In the UK, the government, the civil service and most of the big energy companies seem […]

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Oil prices remain near $92 on Iran, Libya outlook

The price of oil struggled to advance much beyond $92 a barrel Tuesday on expectations that supplies will rise with ramped up output in Libya and the North Sea, along with more exports from Iran if a deal on its nuclear program succeeds. By midday in Europe, the benchmark U.S. oil contract for February delivery was up 23 cents at $92.03 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 92 cents to close at $91.80 on Monday. Brent crude, used to set prices for international varieties of crude used by many U.S. refineries, was flat at $105.27. An agreement Sunday between Iran and six world powers may enable Iran’s oil industry, whose exports were severely limited by economic sanctions over its nuclear program, to sell more crude after the deal takes effect Jan. 20. The planned six-month interim agreement will limit Tehran’s uranium […]

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WTI Oil Trims Worst Start to Year Since 2009 Before Supply Data

West Texas Intermediate crude trimmed its worst start to any year since 2009 amid estimates U.S. fuel stockpiles increased for a third week, signaling slowing demand in the world’s biggest oil consumer. Futures gained as much as 0.6 percent in New York , paring their decline since Dec. 31 to 6.2 percent. Distillate inventories, including heating oil and diesel, probably rose by 1.38 million barrels last week, a Bloomberg News survey showed before Energy Information Administration data tomorrow. Deutsche Bank AG lowered its 2014 forecasts for WTI and Brent amid “rampant U.S. oil-supply growth.” “We’re bearish for the first few months of the year,” said Frank Klumpp, an analyst at Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart, Germany . “The market will be driven by the supply side in 2014. Maybe the trend of better-than-expected U.S. supplies will continue in 2014.” WTI for February delivery rose as much as 53 cents to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil Price Forecasts Cut by Deutsche Bank on U.S. Supply

Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) reduced its price forecasts for Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude this year as “rampant” increases in crude supply from U.S. shale resources will help create a glut of oil. The German bank cut its 2014 forecast for Brent to $97.50 a barrel, from $106.25, and its estimate for WTI to $88.75 a barrel, from $98.75, according to an e-mailed report today. A recovery in Iranian oil exports, should sanctions be resolved, is a “non-negligible” risk for this year, the bank said. “A third year of rampant U.S. oil supply growth propelled by tight/shale oil development combined with the potential for the normalization of Iranian oil exports is increasingly painting a picture of an oversupplied global oil balance,” Soozhana Choi, a markets research strategist for the bank in Washington , wrote in the report. Such a balance “poses meaningful downward pressure on oil prices ,” […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple