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California soaked but little drought help, damage

A storm that brought some of the highest rainfall totals to the Los Angeles area in years, including eight inches on some mountains, was just the beginning of what the region needs to pull out of a major drought. Although the storm was expected to remain strong Saturday, forecasters said such systems would have to become common for the state to make serious inroads against the drought. "We need several large storms and we just don’t see that on the horizon," National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Boldt said Friday. "This is a rogue storm. We will dry out next week." But the storm had yet to do serious damage either. At least not yet. In Azusa and neighboring foothill communities about 25 miles east of Los Angeles that sit beneath nearly 2,000 acres of steep mountain slopes that just weeks ago were menaced […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EPA Said Poised to Issue Lower Sulfur Limits on Fuel

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to unveil new regulations March 3 to reduce smog from automobiles, including cutting by two-thirds the level of sulfur in gasoline, people familiar with the agency’s deliberations said. The EPA is expected to stick to the broad targets included in a proposed rule published last year that would lower sulfur in gasoline to 10 parts per million from the current 30 parts, the three people said. New limits will also be imposed on tailpipe emissions. “This is the most significant move to protect public health that the EPA will make this year,” said Frank O’Donnell , president of Clean Air Watch , who said he hasn’t seen the final rules though supported the proposal. “There is literally no more effective tool to fight smog. Every American will breathe easier because of these standards.” Supporters of the rules say they could be one of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Winter Storm Aims at U.S. East as Commute Starts Monday

The 28th snowfall of the season is aiming at New York City for the start of the workweek as a storm threatens to coat roads with snow, sleet and ice from Washington to Boston. New York City may get 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 centimeters) of snow and Philadelphia 6 to 8 on top of a coating of ice, the National Weather Service said. “The most likely scenario is the Monday morning commute will be the most impacted, and that impact could be significant,” said Joey Picca, a weather service meteorologist in Upton, New York. Wave upon wave of storms this winter has grounded tens of thousands of flights, frozen pipes, collapsed roofs and disrupted business across the U.S. New York has had 27 storms since December with at least a trace of snow, weather service data show. Insured losses have reached more than $1.5 billion since […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Harsh weather likely to skew economic data again

After months of subpar economic data that has been blamed at least partially on the brutal winter weather, investors may still struggle to discern the real picture of the economy next week. The closely watched monthly jobs report due on Friday is expected show that employers stepped up hiring a bit in February, but there is a greater-than-unusual amount of uncertainty around forecasts given that the weather remained unseasonable. In addition, questions over whether Russia could be drawn into the conflict in Ukraine will likely weigh on investor sentiment. March futures on the CBOE Volatility index, Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge, shot up nearly a percent even as the S&P 500 closed at another record high on Friday. "It will be interesting to see the action on S&P futures on Sunday night based on the kind of developments we see in Ukraine. There are definitely […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Rail delivery of oil up 7.8 percent from 2013, AAR says

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (UPI) — U.S. rail delivery of petroleum and petroleum products was up 7.8 percent last week from the same period in 2013, the American Association of Railroads said. The AAR said 14,317 carloads of petroleum and petroleum products, or about 1 million barrels of oil, were delivered on the rail system for the week ending Feb. 22, up from the same time last year. Since Jan. 1, 114,290 carloads, or about 80 million barrels of oil, were delivered on the U.S. rail system, a 7.8 percent increase from the same period last year, the AAR said Thursday. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said this week the sustained cold gripping much of the eastern half of the country disrupted everything from crude oil refining to pipeline operations and rail deliveries. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports a cold snap is expected to continue through the end […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Review of Atlantic energy draws mixed reactions

Exploring U.S. waters in the Atlantic Ocean will enhance an already booming energy sector, the oil industry says, though the environmental community cried foul. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released its final environmental impact statement for proposed seismic surveys in U.S. waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The BOEM said the review establishes ways to minimize the impacts to marine life while "setting a path forward for survey activities that will update nearly four-decade-old data on offshore energy resources in the region." Erik Milito, director of upstream operations at the American Petroleum Institute, said the BOEM measure is a critical step in ensuring energy security for the United States. "To continue America’s energy renaissance in the future, we must explore and plan for the future now," he said in a statement Thursday. Athan Manuel, an advocacy director at the Sierra Club, said opening […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Seismic testing for Atlantic oil and gas?

The Obama administration has unveiled an environmental analysis that could pave the way for seismic testing for oil and gas in the Atlantic. The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in releasing the review Thursday, specified in a statement that it does not authorize any geological and geophysical testing activities, "but rather it establishes a framework for additional mandatory environmental reviews for site-specific actions and identifies broadly-applicable measures governing any future" such activities. Interior says oil and gas industry contractors have already submitted nine applications to do seismic surveys covering hundreds of thousands of miles, the Wall Street Journal reports. While President Obama had said in early 2010 that he planned to open up the Outer Continental Shelf off Virginia and several Atlantic states to leasing by the energy sector, he postponed consideration of those plans after the massive BP oil spill […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Canadian oil exports to U.S. increased last year

Canada sent an average of more than 2.5 million barrels of oil per day to the United States in 2013, up 10 percent from the previous year, government data show. The National Energy Board published crude oil export figures for 2013 that showed nearly 70 percent of the oil went to the Petroleum Administration for Defense District II, the U.S. Midwest. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he wants to add a layer of diversity to an export market that relies almost exclusively on the United States as its oil export designation. The NEB said about 82,880 bpd were sent to markets other than the United States last year, more than twice sent to non-U.S. markets. The board didn’t provide a breakdown of export destinations outside the United States. The Harper administration has expressed support for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, which would send […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Traders Watch Ukrainian Pipelines, Ports Amid Crimean Tensions

LONDON—As tensions ratchet higher in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, the country’s port operators, international shipping executives and European energy officials reported few disruptions to the vast commodities infrastructure that has made the country a linchpin in the global economy. Ukraine is a key supplier of wheat and corn, and it exports metals and minerals to Europe, Russia and beyond. Ukrainian farms rank as the world’s fourth and fifth largest exporters of corn and wheat, respectively. Much of that feeds African and Mideast markets. Its mills make it the world’s fifth-largest steel exporter. Ukraine also serves as a critical gateway for Russian natural gas to Western Europe. About a fifth of Europe’s annual gas needs flow across the country. Together with Russia, Ukraine forms the northern coast of the Black Sea, a major shipping route for energy, agricultural products and metals. The current unrest in the Crimean peninsula , which juts […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The rising of the waters

I grew up in the south of England. It is where my family comes from and has lived for centuries. It is my heritage, and wherever I go, it will be in me. This is what your culture does to you: there is no escape from the sediment it leaves within. It is best to get to the point where you don’t need to escape. The south of England of my childhood, and young adulthood, was overcrowded, mostly suburban, crawling with motorways and spreading chain stores; its old human culture was shrinking away. But still, it had frosty downs, green hills, white fields, hedges of blackthorn and woodbine, chalk carvings, ancient barrows, bluebell woods and small, old pubs. Our ancestral home, or our childhood place, stirs conflicting feelings in us. I once wrote a book which, in retrospect, seemed to be trying to reconcile those feelings with each other. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple