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Obama Administration to Propose New Offshore Areas for Oil and Gas Drilling

ENLARGE Tug boats transport the Chevron Corp. Jack St. Malo semi-submersible drilling and production platform to the Gulf of Mexico from Kiewit Offshore Services in Ingleside, Texas, U.S. on Nov. 15, 2013. Photo: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg News WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is planning to propose opening up new areas of the nation’s federally owned waters to oil and natural gas drilling, including areas along the Atlantic Coast, according to people familiar with the plan. The Interior Department is set to propose as soon as Tuesday its plan that will outline what leases the federal government will offer from 2017 to 2022, a step the government is required by law to take every five years. The plan is expected to come under increased scrutiny as low oil prices are testing the profit margins of energy companies and President Barack Obama is pursuing an aggressive climate-change agenda. Jessica Kershaw, an Interior Department spokeswoman, […]

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Boston leaking $90 million worth of natural gas

It is no secret the networks of aging underground pipes in many big cities can be dangerous. Now, a new study has found they are also bad for the environment. Focusing their attention on Boston, a group of Harvard researchers writing in current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that $90 million worth of natural gas — 15 billion cubic feet — escapes from its network of aging cast iron pipes each year. That accounts for 60 to 100 percent of the region’s release of the methane, a potent heat-trapping greenhouse gas. Methane has a 25 times greater impact on climate change than carbon dioxide over 100 years. It only represents about 9 percent of U.S. emissions (compared to 82 percent for carbon dioxide), but that is growing, partly due to contributions from the oil and gas industry. “This study helps us better understand […]

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Ministers impose curbs on fracking

Ministers have imposed a series of Labour demands on the UK’s fracking industry, in a last-minute move to avert a House of Commons defeat and pave the way for the development of shale oil and gas across Britain. A group of MPs failed on Monday to derail legislation to help fracking companies extract what experts believe are trillions of cubic feet of gas and billions of barrels of oil trapped beneath the UK. But, in a heated Commons debate, the government accepted an opposition amendment that will strengthen controls on the industry. More On this topic IN UK Politics & Policy Amber Rudd, energy minister, said it would take on board Labour’s proposals, which included tougher environmental monitoring, wider consultation, and a legal compulsion on companies to provide community benefit schemes. Activity in national parks would also be prohibited. Caroline Flint, Labour’s shadow energy and climate change secretary, commenting […]

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London in bed with shale, advocate says

British advocacy group publishes letter it says shows the government is working in favor of natural gas companies reviewing shale’s potential in the country. UPI/Gary C. Caskey LONDON, Jan. 26 (UPI) — The British Friends of the Earth said Monday it was worried by signs suggesting the government was working "hand-in-glove" with the shale gas industry. The group, a vocal opponent to the fledgling shale gas sector in the country, published a letter sent in September by the government to the "highly secret and top-level Economic Affairs Committee" on shale developments in Lancashire. Cuadrilla Resources estimates there may be as much as 200 trillion cubic feet of shale natural gas in the Bowland basin in Lancashire. Last year, the company deposited what it said was "most comprehensive" environment study of its kind to local leaders assessing its drilling ambitions. For Friends of the Earth, the letter shows the government […]

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BP Freezes Employee Pay in Response to Oil Price Slump

BP Plc (BP/) , Europe’s third-largest oil company by market value, will freeze employee pay in the latest example of cost cuts as the world’s top oil companies respond to plunging crude. The company “needs to take a number of measures in response to the harsh trading environment,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said in a memo to staff Monday. “One of the measures we are taking is a general freeze to base pay for 2015, with only a few exceptions.” BP, which employs more than 80,000 people around the world, is the first global oil company to announce a pay freeze for staff. Oil has slumped to under $50 a barrel, less than half the price six months ago, forcing producers to review spending on new projects, reduce staff and cut costs. More than 30,000 dismissals have been announced across the industry as companies slash budgets, according to […]

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Seven Ukrainian soldiers killed in past 24 hours: Kiev military

KIEV (Reuters) – Seven Ukrainian servicemen have been killed and 24 wounded in fighting in separatist eastern territories in the past 24 hours, Kiev military spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said on Monday. Fighting in eastern Ukraine is at its worst level since a ceasefire was agreed last September. The rebels have launched an offensive on the port city of Mariupol and vowed to encircle the town of Debaltseve, where Seleznyov said fighting was the most intense. (Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Alessandra Prentice)

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Russian banker warns west over Swift

Andrey Kostin, photographed during a lunch at the FT this afternoon. One of Russia’s top bankers on Friday warned that excluding the country from the Swift banking payment system would be tantamount to “war”. The suggestion that Russia could be shut out of Swift triggered widespread alarm in Moscow’s financial community when it was floated by western politicians last summer. Russia’s banks rely heavily on the Belgium-based payments system for both domestic and international payments. However, the move was at the time considered too punitive a sanction, being described by one adviser as “the nuclear option”. Speaking at a panel in Davos on Friday Andrei Kostin, chief executive of VTB , Russia’s second-largest bank, said: “If there is no Swift, there is no banking . . . relationship, it means that the countries are on the verge of war, or they are definitely in a cold war.” “The next day, the Russian and […]

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Russia downgraded to ‘junk’ by S&P

Historical Museum, St.Basil Cathedral, Red Square, Kremlin in Moscow at night ©iStock Russia’s credit rating was cut to “junk” by Standard & Poor’s on Monday night, underscoring the dramatic economic deterioration in the world’s largest energy exporter. The downgrade is the latest blow to the Kremlin, already buffeted by a collapse in oil prices , wild gyrations in the value of the rouble and western sanctions that have all but shut Russian companies out of global capital markets. It comes as a sharp increase in fighting has ripped apart a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, triggering threats of fresh sanctions against Russia from the west. The downgrade had been widely anticipated by investors, but the rouble nonetheless tumbled on the news, dropping to 68.76Rb to the dollar. S&P said the downgrade, the first time in a decade that Russia has been assessed as below investment-grade by one of the […]

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Cease-Fire in Shreds, Ukraine Sees Heaviest Fighting in Months

DONETSK, Ukraine — The shattered remains of a tank bearing a tattered Ukrainian flag sat beside the main highway to Mariupol on Monday afternoon, a remnant of what pro-Russian rebel forces said was a failed attempt by Ukrainian forces to push into rebel-held territory a few days after a shelling attack left 30 dead in that port city. With a cease-fire in shreds, pro-Russian separatist forces mounting regular new attacks and the Ukrainian military struggling to rebound from losses at the Donetsk airport last week, eastern Ukraine is seeing by far the heaviest fighting since August. Thunderous artillery blasts could be heard from several directions Monday in the largely isolated city of Donetsk. The Ukrainian government declared a state of emergency on Monday in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the areas controlled by the rebels, and put the entire country on high alert. In Brussels, at the request of […]

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Russia Rating Slips to Junk, and the Ruble Takes a Beating

A customer shops at a market in Russia’s Kemerovo region in October. ENLARGE Photo: Bloomberg News Russia’s fractured economy suffered another potential blow Monday after credit-rating firm Standard & Poor’s cut the country’s credit rating to junk, sending it below investment grade for the first time in more than a decade. While the move had been largely anticipated by financial markets, the news, which came late in the Russia day, helped drive the battered ruble even lower. In cutting Russia’s rating to “BB+”, S&P cited Russia’s limited flexibility to use monetary policy to help spur growth. Heavily dependent on oil exports, Russia faces mounting pressure from U.S. and European officials over the unrest in eastern Ukraine and its annexation of the Crimea region. On Saturday, U.S. and European leaders threatened new sanctions against Moscow. At the same time, a dramatic 51% slide in the ruble in the past seven […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple