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Alaska prepares for potential LNG future

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said a Senate vote in favor of a liquefied natural gas project was a vote in favor of his state’s economic future. The Alaska State Senate passed Bill 138 and sent it to the House of Representatives for approval. Parnell said the bill creates a framework for the state to become a co-owner of an LNG project planned by BP, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and pipeline company TransCanada Corp. Parnell said in a statement he applauded the vote. "Our legislation paves the way for Alaskans to become owners in the project and ensures an open, public process going forward," he said in a statement Tuesday. The Senate bill passed 15-5, with four state Democrats and one Republican voting in opposition. Opponents, like Minority Leader Sen. Hollis French, said the bill makes it possible for the state to eventually cede its stake in the project to the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Winter's snowy barrage hammers US road budgets

In Michigan’s way-up-north Keweenaw Peninsula, where 200 inches of snow in a single season elicits barely a shrug, officials know there’s nothing in the budget more important than keeping the roads passable. Yet even they have been caught short this merciless winter. Houghton County planned to spend around $2.1 million for plowing, salting and related maintenance, which experience suggested would be plenty, but has overshot it by $500,000 and counting. State and local governments across a huge swath of the nation, from the Great Plains to the Upper Midwest and the Deep South to New England, are experiencing sticker shock after one of the coldest, snowiest, iciest winters in memory. Many have spent two or three times as much as they budgeted for clearing roads. More bad weather could send costs higher. Even as Thursday’s official arrival of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Winter’s snowy barrage hammers US road budgets

In Michigan’s way-up-north Keweenaw Peninsula, where 200 inches of snow in a single season elicits barely a shrug, officials know there’s nothing in the budget more important than keeping the roads passable. Yet even they have been caught short this merciless winter. Houghton County planned to spend around $2.1 million for plowing, salting and related maintenance, which experience suggested would be plenty, but has overshot it by $500,000 and counting. State and local governments across a huge swath of the nation, from the Great Plains to the Upper Midwest and the Deep South to New England, are experiencing sticker shock after one of the coldest, snowiest, iciest winters in memory. Many have spent two or three times as much as they budgeted for clearing roads. More bad weather could send costs higher. Even as Thursday’s official arrival of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Obama Keystone Choice Pits Donors Against At-Risk Senate

President Barack Obama ’s advisers are lining up against the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline. Top Democratic donors oppose the project. And Obama himself dismisses claims that it will create many jobs. Yet there’s still one big obstacle to the president saying no to Keystone: election-year politics. If Obama rejects the pipeline, it might sink Democratic candidates in states with big energy industries, such as Louisiana and Alaska . That could cost Democrats control of the Senate — a risk that’s likely to weigh heavily on any decision the president makes, to approve the pipeline, reject it or wait until […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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BP’s Gulf Redemption May Take Decade to Bestow Barrels

BP ’s bids for its first new U.S. offshore leases in two years may not add any barrels of production until the middle of the next decade. The owner of the deep-water Macondo well that spewed millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico during a 2010 blowout was the highest bidder on 24 blocks offered for lease by the Interior Department, Tommy Beaudreau, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management , said in a conference call yesterday. The tracts are part of an area twice the size of Maine that attracted more than $1 billion in bids from oil and natural gas producers. It was only last week that BP received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s blessing to resume competing for federal drilling rights after the London-based company was barred from winning new leases in 2012 because of safety concerns. Although BP has regained credibility with […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Wildcatters Rush Spindletop in Return to East Texas Oil

A drilling crew poses for a photo atop Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas, in 1901. Close Source: Texas Energy Museum/Newsmakers via Getty Images A drilling crew poses for a photo atop Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas, in 1901. A drilling crew poses for a photo atop Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas, in 1901. Close Source: Texas Energy Museum/Newsmakers via Getty Images The famous Lucas Gusher blows out oil on January 10, 1901, on Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas. The famous Lucas Gusher blows out oil on January 10, 1901, on Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas. Close Photographer: David Wethe/Bloomberg Mark Plummer, founder and Chief Executive Officer of closely held Chestnut Exploration & Production, visits for the… Read More Mark Plummer, founder and Chief Executive Officer of closely held Chestnut Exploration & Production, visits for the first time in person […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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U.S. current account gap hits 14-year low in fourth quarter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. current account deficit tumbled to a 14-year low in the fourth quarter as exports touched a record high, a government report showed on Wednesday. The Commerce Department said the current account gap, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments into and out of the country, narrowed to $81.1 billion. That was the smallest since the third quarter of 1999 and followed a revised $96.4 billion gap in the third quarter. It represented 1.9 percent of gross domestic product, the smallest share since the third quarter of 1997. That was down from 2.3 percent in the July-September period. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the current account deficit narrowing to $88 billion in the final three months of 2013 from a previously reported $94.84 billion in the prior period. For all of 2013, the current account deficit averaged 2.3 percent of GDP, the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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New Canadian Resources Minister to Face Keystone Pipeline Challenge

Greg Rickford, the man Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has selected to take over as Canada’s Resources Minister, immediately takes on one of the biggest challenges facing the Canadian economy: the stalled effort to get approval for Keystone XL. Under the Conservative government, the resources job has emerged as a high-profile role, responsible for the push to get landlocked Alberta crude to markets around the world. Pipeline construction has taken on heightened importance as Canada’s largest buyer of crude, the U.S., experiences an energy boom of its own toward a path of energy self-sufficiency. The job of Resources Minister became vacant after Joe Oliver was moved from that post to Finance, to fill the vacancy left by the resignation Tuesday of Jim Flaherty. Mr. Rickford was a junior minister in the cabinet, with responsibility for science policy and northern development in Canada’s largest province, Ontario. A key part of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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“The Oil and Gas Weapon Won’t Work”: Davis & Leggett on Ukraine

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis & Jeremy Leggett in  The National Interest : “After many weeks of political chaos and bloodshed in Kiev, Moscow sent soldiers across the frontier into the Crimea on February 27, claiming it aimed to protect the Russian-speaking population.” “Writing in the  Washington Post  on March 7, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice captured the essence of many in the US who advocate using oil as a weapon against Russia. She wrote that “soon, North America’s bounty of oil and gas will swamp Moscow’s capacity. Authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline and championing natural gas exports would signal that we intend to do precisely that.” Secretary Rice’s assumptions regarding the state of US tight oil and gas as “bountiful” are common among many opinion leaders in the West. They also happen to be wrong. Before contemplating the use of US oil and gas as a strategic weapon, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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“The Oil and Gas Weapon Won’t Work”: Davis & Leggett on Ukraine

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis & Jeremy Leggett in  The National Interest : “After many weeks of political chaos and bloodshed in Kiev, Moscow sent soldiers across the frontier into the Crimea on February 27, claiming it aimed to protect the Russian-speaking population.” “Writing in the  Washington Post  on March 7, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice captured the essence of many in the US who advocate using oil as a weapon against Russia. She wrote that “soon, North America’s bounty of oil and gas will swamp Moscow’s capacity. Authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline and championing natural gas exports would signal that we intend to do precisely that.” Secretary Rice’s assumptions regarding the state of US tight oil and gas as “bountiful” are common among many opinion leaders in the West. They also happen to be wrong. Before contemplating the use of US oil and gas as a strategic weapon, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple