Category:

Looming Energy Crisis Again Confronts Egypt’s Leaders

A growing energy shortage that helped inflame the protests against President Mohamed Morsi before his ouster last year is returning to vex Egypt’s new military-led government. Festering complaints by international energy companies that Egypt has failed to pay them for pumping its petroleum or to allow them promised gas to export spilled into the open on Thursday. BG, the British company that is one of the country’s biggest gas producers, warned in a statement that its Egyptian liquefied natural gas business “is increasingly at risk” without “concerted action from the Egyptian government.” A joint venture partly owned by the Italian oil giant Eni cited similar reasons more than a year ago when it closed the only other Egyptian plant making liquefied gas, which can be shipped as well as transported by a pipeline. BG’s statement was a blunt reminder of the challenges still facing the new government, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

BG Group: Egyptian operations in doubt

Future operations in the natural gas sector in Egypt are at risk because of poor reservoir performance and domestic offtake, BG Group said Thursday. BG Group announced its first quarter operations were hurt by issues with its liquefied natural gas business in Egypt. "Group production volumes for the first quarter were consistent with our anticipated seasonal phasing, although production entitlement from Egypt was lower than expected as domestic offtake remains well above contractual commitments and reservoir performance deteriorates," interim Executive Chairman Andrew Gould said in a statement . BG Group said that no cargoes of LNG left Egypt during the first quarter and profits from that sector of its operations were down 7 percent compared with the previous quarter. In terms of production, the company said it produced 66,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in Egypt, down 35 percent from fourth quarter 2013. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Egypt: Suicide bombers hit in Sinai, kill soldier

Security officials say two suicide bombers have struck in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula, killing one soldier and wounding nine people. The officials say the attacks happened early on Friday in the region of el-Tor. In the first attack, the bomber targeted an army checkpoint. One soldier died and five were wounded in the explosion. The second bomber stepped out on a road and blew himself up in front of a bus. Four passengers were wounded from that explosion. The officials say body parts of the bombers littered the sites of the attacks. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Insurgent attacks in Sinai have surged since the military’s ouster last July of Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Natural Gas Weekly Update

Decreasing natural gas price seasonality keeps inventories in April at 11-year low Natural gas net storage injections for the Lower 48 totaled 82 billion cubic feet (Bcf) for the week ending on April 25. This was the fourth consecutive week of net storage injections, which this year began in the week ending on April 4. Over this period, cumulative net injections totaled 163 Bcf, a 53% increase when compared to the same weeks in 2013, but only 8% above the 5-year average for these weeks of 151 Bcf . Total Lower 48 working inventories totaled 981 Bcf, an 11-year low. This was well below the 2009-13 minimum for that week of 1,716 Bcf, as can be seen from the storage graph below this article. It is also the latest point in the year that inventories have remained below 1,000 Bcf since 2003. Despite a steady increase in natural gas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Toyota Joins California Hydrogen Push in Station Funding

Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) is funding a startup led by General Motors Co.’s former marketing chief to speed up the opening of hydrogen-fuel stations in California needed for zero-emission cars. Toyota is backing FirstElement Fuel, led by Joel Ewanick , with at least $7.2 million, according to letters filed with the California Energy Commission and obtained by Bloomberg News . FirstElement, based in Newport Beach , California, plans to operate pumps and sell hydrogen for passenger cars from at least 19 new stations in California. The Japanese automaker’s support for the closely held company comes as California provides grants worth $46.6 million for hydrogen-fuel stations that will help companies including Toyota, Hyundai Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. build a market for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles arriving this year and next. “This is really the first step in creating a fueling network that for the first time allows people to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

EIA: Decreasing U.S. oil import trend continues

U.S. crude oil imports are on a general rate of decline, though the level is barely less than the same time last year, the U.S. Energy Department said. The Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, said in its weekly petroleum update crude oil imports averaged 7.5 million barrels per day last week, down 313,000 bpd from the previous week. "Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports averaged over 7.7 million barrels per day, 0.1 percent below the same four-week period last year," EIA’s Wednesday report said. The U.S. economy is relying less on imported crude oil because of the increase in domestic production from shale reserves. EIA said the amount for crude oil in the U.S. inventory, not counting those volumes in the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, increased by 1.7 million barrels from the previous week’s report. That puts total […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

FERC gives Cameron LNG clean bill of health

There may be some environmental impacts from the Cameron liquefied natural gas in Louisiana, but they’ll be manageable, a U.S. regulator said. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued its final environmental impact statement on the Cameron LNG facility . It said Wednesday the construction and operation would result in some environmental damage, but that damage would be rendered "less-than-significant" by the company’s proposed mitigation strategies. There was no statement from the project company on FERC’s assessment. The project will be able to export about 12 million tons of LNG sourced from U.S. natural gas basins each year. In February, it received regulatory approval to ship LNG from a terminal in Cameron Parish, La., to countries that don’t have a U.S.-free trade agreement, such as India and Japan. Cameron is the sixth such project in the United States to receive non-FTA approval since 2011. Construction […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Senate Likely to Vote Soon on Keystone Approval, Democrats Say

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he was prepared to bring a measure approving the Keystone XL pipeline to the Senate floor, despite the Obama administration’s reluctance to decide its fate during an election year. Supporters were still searching for the handful of votes needed for such a bill to pass the Senate, but they were energized by the prospect of a floor vote. The Republican-controlled House strongly supports the pipeline. The administration two weeks ago said it was extending a State Department review of the proposed TransCanada Corp. pipeline—first proposed in 2008—because of litigation related to the project in Nebraska. Mr. Reid’s comments reflect the Democrats’ calculus that a Keystone vote could provide a boost to vulnerable Democrats running for re-election in conservative-leaning states who must hold their seats for the party to retain control of the chamber in November’s midterm elections. But it also would expose […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Permian Basin oil quality variability marked in western area: ConocoPhillps exec

Crude quality varies across West Texas’ Permian Basin, but the variation is particularly noticeable in the western areas of that mature oil field where production is fast ramping up, a top manager for ConocoPhillips said Thursday. The 4,500 feet of potentially productive "stacked," or layered, pay zones that underlies that basin is showing some "very significant variation" in the quality of crude oil, particularly in the Delaware sub-basin in the far-western Permian, said Matt Fox, ConocoPhillips’ executive vice president for exploration and production. "In some places it’s gas with a high liquids yields; in some areas it’s relatively low API [gravity] oil," Fox said during a quarterly company earnings conference call.. As industry’s understanding of the basin develops, "it will affect implications for what sort of offtake and infrastructure requirements are required to fully evacuate all these products from the area." Article continues below… […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

ExxonMobil Profits Pumped Higher On Natural Gas Price Boost

Exxon Mobil Corp, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, posted a quarterly profit on Thursday that hands down beat Wall Street’s expectations as a bitterly cold winter throughout much of the United States boosted natural gas prices. The past winter, which affected much of the U.S. in January and February, pushed Exxon Mobil’s average U.S. natural gas sale price up 49 percent, helping offset a dip in global production. Prices for natural gas rose globally as well, even as the price the company receives for its crude oil slipped both in the U.S. and internationally. Exxon Mobil reported first-quarter net income of $9.10 billion, or $2.10 per share, compared with $9.50 billion, or $2.12 per share, in the year-ago quarter. The results surpassed analysts’ expectation for profit of $1.88 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Total production fell about 6 percent to 4.2 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple