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Oil and gasoline prices: many still missing the big picture

Gasoline prices in the United States have risen sharply recently, leading some newspapers to round up the usual suspects . (Ed. note: further interactive charts relating to this point appear in the original article here .) Data Source: GasBuddy.com But the reality is the price of crude oil has been remarkably stable over the last three years. The international price of crude oil ultimately determines the price Americans pay for gasoline at the pump. Seasonal factors can bring the price temporarily below the long-run relation , and this accounted for the temporarily low gasoline prices that we saw last fall and winter. Movements in gasoline prices back up this spring are basically a return to normal. Average retail price of U.S. gasoline (black) and price predicted on the basis of price of Brent crude oil (blue). Black: average U.S. price of retail gasoline, all formulations, in dollars per gallon, […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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House Energy Committee Passes Bill to Speed Up Natural-Gas Exports

Five Democrats joined all Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to pass legislation on Wednesday that would speed up the federal government’s review of natural-gas export applications. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Cory Gardner (R., Colo.), has gained momentum in light of Russia’s encroachment into Ukraine, which is one of several European nations heavily dependent upon Russia for natural gas. The bill will be considered on the floor—and likely pass—sometime in May, Mr. Gardner said in an interview. The bill would require the Energy Department to make a decision on pending applications no later than 90 days after the comment period ends for each particular application or 90 days after enactment of the bill. As originally drafted, the measure automatically approved all of the applications already pending before the department. The committee also agreed to an amendment offered by Rep. Mike Doyle (D., Pa.) that would allow […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Fracking Sends Sand Sales Soaring

The oil and gas industry can’t get enough sand. U.S. Silica Holdings Inc., which mines sand that can be used in hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells, sold 1.3 million tons of sand to the energy industry during the first quarter–a 45% increase over the same period last year. That helped fuel the company’s 6% boost in quarterly profit to $18.4 million, or 34 cents per share. In fact, U.S. Silica’s energy customers are asking for new contracts seeking four to five times as much sand as they’re currently buying. The demand for finer grained sand is even cutting into supplies available to make glass and high-tech products. During the fracking process, millions of pounds of sand are pumped into wells to hold open fissures in rock formations that contain crude oil and natural gas. Grains of a special variety of sand found in northern states like Wisconsin, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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CSX Oil Train Derails in Virginia With One Car Ablaze

A CSX Corp. (CSX) crude train derailed in Lynchburg, Virginia , sparking a fire in at least three tank cars, spilling oil into a river and forcing a partial evacuation of the city’s downtown. No injuries were reported, and the fire was out within about three hours after today’s accident. About 15 tank cars came off the tracks as the train rolled through Virginia from Chicago, according to a statement from CSX, the largest carrier in the eastern U.S. Crude, once an almost-negligible cargo for North American railroads, has grabbed regulators’ attention after recent U.S. and Canadian crashes including the Quebec derailment that killed 47 people in July. Canada tightened tank-car standards this month, and the U.S. is studying whether to follow suit. The Federal Railroad Administration sent inspectors to Lynchburg. The train was en route to a so-called transloading facility where crude is transferred to barges, Chief Executive […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Analysts See 75 Billion Cubic-Feet Add to U.S. Natural-Gas Inventories

Analysts and traders expect government data scheduled for release Thursday to show natural-gas inventories grew last week by nearly 30% more than they usually would this time of year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is expected to report that storage levels rose by 75 billion cubic feet of gas during the week ended April 25, according to the average forecast of 18 analysts and traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The EIA is scheduled to release its storage data for the week on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EDT. For the April 25 week, the median estimate is for an addition of 76 bcf. Estimates range from an increase of 66 bcf to an increase of 84 bcf. The estimate for the latest week is higher than the 41 bcf added to storage for the same week last year and the 58-bcf five-year average injection for […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Lower electricity demand growth would reduce fossil fuels’ projected generation share

In EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2014 (AEO2014) Reference case, electricity generation is expected to increase by 29% between 2012 and 2040, at an average annual rate of 0.9%, to meet steadily increasing demand. In the recently released Low Electricity Demand case , total electricity use in 2040 is just 7% higher than 2012 levels. Under lower electricity demand growth, the share of generation from coal and natural gas declines compared with the Reference case, while the shares of generation from nuclear and renewables increase. Total electricity sales declined in four of the five years between 2008 and 2012, driven by declining sales in the industrial sector and flat sales in the residential and commercial building sectors. Although industrial sales have shown some recovery since the 2009 recession, there are a number of factors that could contribute to slower demand growth in the future across all sectors, including changing customer […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Implications of low electricity demand growth

Although electricity demand fell in only three years between 1950 and 2007, it declined in four of the five years between 2008 and 2012. The largest drop occurred in 2009 (Figure IF8-1). One contributing factor was the steep economic downturn from late 2007 through 2009, which led to a large drop in electricity sales in the industrial sector. Other factors, such as efficiency improvements associated with new appliance standards in the buildings sectors and overall improvement in the efficiency of technologies powered by electricity, have slowed electricity demand growth and may contribute to slower growth in the future, even as the U.S. economy continues its recovery. Variations in AEO2014 renewable electricity projections Release Date: 4/29/14 In the AEO2014 Reference case, renewable electricity generation grows by 69% from 2012 to 2040, including an increase of more than 140% in generation from nonhydropower renewable energy sources. Renewables are collectively the fastest-growing […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Company Level Imports

Monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports in February 2014 has been released and it shows that two countries exported more than 1 million barrels per day to the United States (see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for 83 percent of United States crude oil imports in January while the top ten sources accounted for approximately 97 percent of all U.S. crude oil imports. The top five sources of US crude oil imports for January were Canada (2,594 thousand barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1,450 thousand barrels per day), Mexico (790 thousand barrels per day), Venezuela (757 thousand barrels per day), and Kuwait (348 thousand barrels per day). The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Iraq (290 thousand barrels per day), Colombia (288 thousand barrels per day), Ecuador (207 thousand barrels per day), Brazil (140 thousand barrels […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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US biodiesel production falls 48% in January: EIA

GMT US biodiesel production fell to 70 million gallons in January, down 48% from December, Energy Information Administration data showed Wednesday. Production was up 6.1% compared with January 2013. Of the 530 million lb of feedstock used to produce US biodiesel in January, soybean oil’s share reached 45.47%, down 8.85 percentage points from December, the EIA said. Article continues below… Platts Biofuelscan is a daily report, covering the latest worldwide biofuel news and prices. It provides a daily summary of market events and developments, along with closing market price assessments from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Platts Biofuelscan includes prices assessmenst for ethanol, ETBE, renewal indentification number (RIN) biofuels (US market0 and biodiesel. It also includes graphs depicting historic and current trends for major assessments. Soybean oil remained the largest biodiesel feedstock, with 241 million lb consumed. The next three largest feedstocks were corn oil […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Increasing Costs in Deepwater Development May Impede Projects

The United States accounts for more than one out of every 10 barrels of crude oil produced around the globe each day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This is due in part to rising production of tight oil found in shale rock formations, but overall produced crude oil in the United States mainly comes from a handful of states and the Gulf of Mexico. Five states and the GOM supplied more than 80 percent, or 6 million barrels per day, of the crude oil (including lease condensate) produced in the United States in 2013, the agency reported. Texas alone provided almost 35 percent, according to preliminary 2013 data released in the EIA’s March Petroleum Supply Monthly. The second-largest state producer was North Dakota with 12 percent of U.S. crude oil production, followed by California and Alaska at close to 7 percent each and Oklahoma at 4 percent. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple