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In U.S. Energy Boom, Alaska Is Unlikely Loser

WSince joining the Alaskan oil rush in the early 1980s, Richard Repper has jumped from project to project in the state, with no job more than a three-hour flight from this town about 70 miles south of Anchorage. But last fall, he began working in North Dakota, more than 2,000 miles away. A construction manager for an oil-field-services company, the 60-year-old Mr. Repper is finding more opportunity in the Bakken Shale oil fields than on Alaska’s North Slope. He returned to his farmhouse here for just two weeks between Halloween and Easter. "The job keeps getting longer and longer," says his wife Irene. "I didn’t know he would be working so much." The energy boom sweeping North America is producing […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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BNSF Nears Shift To One-Member Crews, Possibly Even on Dangerous Oil Trains

This is a guest post by Cole Stangler. For decades, the U.S. railroad industry has successfully shed labor costs by shifting to smaller and smaller operating crews. Now, it’s on the verge of what was once an unthinkable victory: single-member crews, even on dangerous oil trains. A tentative agreement reached by BNSF Railway and the Transportation Division of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation (SMART) union would allow a single engineer to operate most of the company’s routes. It would mark a dramatic change to a labor contract that covers about 3,000 workers, or 60 percent of the BNSF system.   It’s not just bad news for workers. The contract has major safety implications—especially amid North America’s dangerous, and sometimes deadly, crude-by-rail boom. Last year’s Bakken shale oil train derailment and explosion in Lac Mégantic, Quebec, which killed 47 people, brought increased scrutiny to oil trains.  In response, Canadian regulators outlawed […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ukraine Rebuffs Rebels’ Cease-Fire Call; Sanctions Mulled

Ukraine’s military demanded that pro-Russian rebels surrender and dismissed their offer of a cease-fire as lawmakers prepared to consider sanctions that may curb Russian shipments of natural gas to Europe . “If there’s an initiative, it should be implemented by practical means, not only with words — by raising white flags and putting down weapons,” Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the country’s military, told reporters yesterday in Kiev. “In that case, no one will shoot at them.” Ukraine is trying to dislodge thousands of separatists from its easternmost regions, where its U.S and European allies say President Vladimir Putin has been stoking deadly unrest for months. Russia , which denies involvement, wants its neighbor’s military campaign to end and is offering assistance to tackle what it describes as a worsening humanitarian disaster. As ties between the former Soviet allies sour further, lawmakers in Kiev will vote tomorrow on a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ukraine Troops 'Tighten the Ring' Around Donetsk

A woman holds a newborn baby inside a bomb shelter in a maternity hospital during shelling in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian rebels were vowing to make a final stand. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Intensifying gunfire and explosions rocked Donetsk again Sunday as Ukrainian forces fought to complete the encirclement of pro-Russia insurgents in their largest remaining stronghold. Amid warnings by the rebels of civilian suffering, Russia said it was in talks with Kiev and international agencies about delivering humanitarian relief to the rebel-held cities. Overnight, troops advanced to "tighten the ring" around Donetsk, destroying "a large quantity of armor" and killing many insurgents, the Ukrainian command said. The Donetsk city council said that during a "massive bombardment from heavy weapons," shells hit an outpatient clinic, a private house and other civilian infrastructure, injuring one woman. The separatists said they are turning Donetsk into a military camp and described conditions […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ukraine Troops ‘Tighten the Ring’ Around Donetsk

A woman holds a newborn baby inside a bomb shelter in a maternity hospital during shelling in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian rebels were vowing to make a final stand. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Intensifying gunfire and explosions rocked Donetsk again Sunday as Ukrainian forces fought to complete the encirclement of pro-Russia insurgents in their largest remaining stronghold. Amid warnings by the rebels of civilian suffering, Russia said it was in talks with Kiev and international agencies about delivering humanitarian relief to the rebel-held cities. Overnight, troops advanced to "tighten the ring" around Donetsk, destroying "a large quantity of armor" and killing many insurgents, the Ukrainian command said. The Donetsk city council said that during a "massive bombardment from heavy weapons," shells hit an outpatient clinic, a private house and other civilian infrastructure, injuring one woman. The separatists said they are turning Donetsk into a military camp and described conditions […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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US sanctions not mere ‘trifles’ for Russia’s oil industry

Gennady Timchenko is grounded. Ever since the Russian billionaire and friend of Vladimir Putin was hit by US sanctions back in March, his private jet has been stuck on the tarmac: Gulfstream will not service it or provide spare parts. In an interview with the ITAR-TASS news agency this week, Mr Timchenko admitted that the US penalties had caused him “certain difficulties” – but these were “trifles” compared with the task of safeguarding Russia’s national interests. More On this topic IN Oil & Gas Mr Timchenko is one of the most high-profile targets of a sanctions campaign aimed at Russia’s most strategic industry – oil and gas. Last month the US Treasury in effect barred Rosneft and Novatek , in which Mr Timchenko has a 23 per cent stake, from long-term US capital markets. Yet such sanctions could turn out to be as trifling as Mr Timchenko’s little local […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Scientists may have cracked the giant Siberian crater mystery — and the news isn’t good

A crater, discovered recently in the Yamal Peninsula, in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. (AP Photo/Associated Press Television) Researchers have long contended that the epicenter of global warming is also farthest from the reach of humanity. It’s in the barren landscapes of the frozen North, where red-cheeked children wear fur, the sun barely rises in the winter and temperatures can plunge dozens of degrees below zero. Such a place is the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, translated as “the ends of the Earth,” a desolate spit of land where a group called the Nenets live. By now, you’ve heard of the crater on the Yamal Peninsula. It’s the one that suddenly appeared, yawning nearly 100 feet in diameter, and made  several rounds in the global viral media machine. The adjectives most often used to describe it: giant, mysterious, curious. Scientists were subsequently “baffled.” Locals were “mystified.” There were whispers that aliens were responsible. Nearby residents peddled theories […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Before the fear of war, fear of fracking in Ukraine

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — A hot July day, and the neighbors and children of a half-ruined five-story building on Bulvarnaya Avenue gathered around a bench for a long discussion of their daily fears. Locals seemed to have consensus on who’s at war: the U.S. and Russia over control of Ukraine, they all agreed. But even now, three months past the day the first shell fell on Slovyansk, they still had trouble comprehending why their green, sleepy hometown still was trapped in this conflict. Residents of the bombed building remembered how in April, local and Russian-assigned rebel commanders chose to set up the capital for their forces in this town. shale, Donbass, Ukraine The people of the Donbass, the country’s gritty industrial region in the east, were not naive. They realized that gas pipelines crossing the border with Russia and the shale gas fields near Slovyansk — with a potential reserve […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Peak Oil: Written on Tombstones

Not too long, another in the endless procession of skate-past-facts-we-don’t like articles made its way into publication via a piece entitled “Here’s The Statistic That Will Be Written On The Tombstones Of Peak Energy Believers” Those concerned about the peak in oil production have apparently earned themselves a promotion! Now we are peak “energy” advocates. Who knew? Seriously … who knew? A nice little attempt to distract from the facts, but use whatcha got! ‘Peak oil’ proponents – the guys and gals who believe overconsumption combined with scarce resources will lead to stratospheric energy prices – are now clinging* to the hope that the shale oil and gas boom will fizzle out as the cost of drilling climbs. For the most part, the boom has held up, though no one believes it will last forever. But there is a fifth-column phenomenon this group has completely overlooked that will once-and-for-all […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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SUV Back in Vogue

SUV Back in Vogue SUV redux Until the second half of the 2000s, big SUVs were undisputed road royalty in the United States. But then Katrina and her sisters made gas prices spike by destroying oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Financial Crisis made the economy tank, forcing a lot of people to downsize. Add to the mix new CAFE fuel economy regulations that, for the first time in a loooong time, forced automakers to make a bigger effort to boost the MPG numbers of their vehicles, and it looked like we were really moving in the right direction. But there’s now a new wave of SUV revival going on. For the first time in many years, more people are buying SUVs than sedans. This is partly because the economy is also reviving, and to many people “bigger = better”. But it’s also because many […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple