Category:

How Nebraskans are winning the fight against Keystone XL

Resilience Published on Resilience (http://www.resilience.org) Published by Waging Nonviolence on 2015-01-28 Art Tanderup and his wife speaking at Harvest the Hope in September 2014. (Flickr / Hear Nebraska / Chris Dinan) Senate Democrats filibustered a measure yesterday that would speed up the vote on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which could take the decision on Keystone out of the hands of both the White House and the State Department. Known as cloture, the move — pushed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — would have effectively quashed 12 amendments to the bill brought by Democrats, including one to close the “Haliburton loophole” and mandate that gas drilling companies comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act, and another to require that oil companies contribute money to government clean-up efforts in the event of spills or leakage. In the wake of the 50,000 gallon crude oil spill into Montana’s […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

California County Declares Fiscal Emergency Due To Oil Price Plunge

URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/136974/California_County_Declares_Fiscal_Emergency_Due_To_Oil_Price_Plunge LOS ANGELES, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Plunging oil prices led California’s Kern County to declare a fiscal emergency on Tuesday, a move that allows officials to tap into a reserve fund as tax revenue faces a big decline due to the lower oil prices. A roughly 50 percent drop in crude prices since the summer is hitting budgets in U.S. oil regions. Kern County, in central California, is at the heart of the state’s oil production. Officials in Kern County, with a population of about 900,000, say the plunge in oil prices has cut projected property tax revenue for the 2015/16 fiscal year budget by $61 million. Oil companies account for about 30 percent of the county’s property tax revenues, said Lee Smith, an assistant county assessor. Roughly two-thirds of the county’s revenue is gleaned from property tax. Overall, the projected drop in property tax revenues, combined […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Fracking Moratorium Voted Down in Colorado Town

URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/136975/Fracking_Moratorium_Voted_Down_in_Colorado_Town The Board of Trustees of Erie, Colorado voted against imposing a moratorium on fracking in the Front Range town Tuesday evening. In the video-streamed event, the seven-member board consisting of the Mayor, the Mayor Pro-Tem and five trustees cast four votes against the one-year moratorium. Representatives from Encana Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. were present for the meeting, as were industry groups and a number of local residents who were for and against the moratorium. Memorandums of understanding (MOU) agreements between the two drillers and the township of Erie will continue. The agreements “contain best management practices the operators agree to use and are included as part of their state drilling permits,” according to a Jan. 27 story in the Denver Post. The moratorium was said by the Board of Trustees not to be seen as a vote against drilling in the area, but rather as a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Transit Agencies Brace for Low Gas Prices to Siphon Away Riders

ENLARGE High gasoline prices in recent years helped give public-transit agencies across the U.S. their best ridership numbers in half a century. Now, falling prices run the risk of putting those gains in reverse. The swift drop in gas prices, to less than $2 a gallon in much of the nation, already appears to be encouraging Americans to drive more. Miles driven increased 3% in October from a year earlier,the largest year-over-year gain since 2006,and advanced 1.1% in November, according to the U. S. Federal Highway Administration. It is too soon to say whether those Americans who are driving more are forgoing public transit, but an extended run of low gas prices could change the cost calculus for transit riders. And a lasting shift could boost pressure on governments from Seattle to Salt Lake City to Cleveland to re-evaluate their expansion plans for buses, subways and trains amid limited […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Canada’s Imperial Oil Considering Sale of Esso-Branded Fuel Stations

Exxon Mobil Corp. ’s Canadian subsidiary said Wednesday that it was considering the sale of its remaining company-owned Esso-branded retail fuel stations to independent third-party operators. Calgary-based Imperial Oil Ltd. said most of its 1,700 Esso sites in Canada already operate under that model, which sees the company supply fuel to third parties who own and/or operate the sites under the Esso banner. The move announced Wednesday covers the remaining 500 company-owned sites, and will involve a nonbinding bid process, it said. The integrated energy company also said it would look at options for the On the Run convenience-store brand in Canada. Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. acquired about 450 of Exxon’s On the Run convenience stores in the U.S. in 2009. “Esso has a long, successful history as a leading retailer of high-quality fuels,” said Brad Merkel, vice president of fuels and lubricants at Imperial Oil. “This evaluation will […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Scrapped: Oil Prices Shelve an $11 Billion Gulf Coast Project

A rendering for one of Sasol’s projects near Lake Charles, La. ENLARGE Photo: C.H. Fenstermaker & Associates, LLC South African energy giant Sasol Ltd. said Wednesday it was shelving an $11 billion project on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, imperiling one of the largest foreign investments on U.S. soil because of the plunge in oil prices. Sasol has spent years planning to expand its chemical factory outside Lake Charles, La., into a sprawling facility to turn natural gas into industrial compounds and diesel fuel. In October, the company committed $8 billion for equipment that produces ethylene, which is used to make plastics and other products. That plant is still going forward, but Sasol said on Wednesday that a bigger project, to use natural gas rather than crude to make diesel, is on hold. Plummeting oil prices have forced it to push back its own 2016 deadline for deciding whether to build […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Oil Will Recover Once Producers Quit Spending, Hamm Says

(Bloomberg) — Oil prices will recover as early as the first half of this year as producers cut back, Continental Resources Inc. founder and CEO Harold Hamm said Wednesday. Hamm said Continental, the largest leaseholder and producer in the Bakken shale play of North Dakota and Montana, can weather low crude prices “forever” as it idles wells. He expects other drillers to cut spending by 50 to 75 percent, in line with Continental’s announced reductions. “A lot of people think, well, if you start drilling, you’ve got about a six-month process before you can slow down,” Hamm said in an interview at the Argus Americas Crude Summit in Houston. “Wrong. Because after all, you drill that well, it takes about a month to drill it, or 25 days. You don’t have to complete it.” Spending at Oklahoma City-based Continental will fall by 41 percent to $2.7 billion in 2015 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Kinder Eyes Pipeline to Export Ultra Light Oil From West

(Bloomberg) — Kinder Morgan Inc., the world’s largest pipeline company by market value, is proposing a link that would give the ultra light oil from Texas fields a second path out of the country. The Houston-based company is marketing a pipeline that would be capable of carrying 200,000 barrels a day of oil and 100,000 of ultra light crude known as condensate to central California from Texas, Tom Martin, president of Kinder Morgan’s gas pipelines, said in a presentation on Wednesday. From there the condensate could move to Asia, where petrochemical plants are boosting demand for lighter oil. Condensate has emerged as one of the few exceptions to a four-decade ban that keeps most crude from leaving the country. Federal regulators have been issuing rulings since last year allowing companies to send the processed oil abroad from the Gulf Coast. The proposal is a resurrection of Kinder’s previous plan […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Top Canadian oil producer cuts spending

One of Canada’s top oil producer, Cenovus, cutting spending plans as national energy sector slows. (UPI/Shutterstock/ekina) CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 28 (UPI) — Canada’s second-largest oil producer, Cenovus Energy, said Wednesday it was cutting its capital expenditures for 2015 deeper than originally planned. The company in December said it was trimming its capital spending plan by 15 percent to $2 billion. With oil prices off roughly 30 percent since then, the company said it was cutting the projected spending again to around $1.5 billion. Cenovus President and Chief Executive Officer Brian Ferguson said the company has the flexibility to make further cuts without compromising growth objectives . "Our plan is to continue to pursue our long-term growth strategy, but at a pace we believe is more in line with the current pricing environment," he said in a statement. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said last week oil production nation-wide […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

North Dakota: oil producers aim to cut radioactive waste bills

WILLISTON, N.D. (Reuters) – North Dakota’s oil industry is pushing to change the state’s radioactive waste disposal laws as part of a broad effort to conserve cash as oil prices tumble. The waste, which becomes slightly radioactive as part of the hydraulic fracturing process that churns up isotopes locked underground, must be trucked out of state. That’s because rules prohibit North Dakota landfills from accepting anything but miniscule amounts of radiation. The most common form of radioactive waste is a filter sock, a mesh tube resembling a sandbag through which fracking water is pumped before it’s injected back into the earth. Tank and pipeline sludge are also radioactive. It’s not clear how much of this waste is generated, as North Dakota officials only began requiring tracking last year; final 2014 reports aren’t due until next month. Some put the number at 70 tons per day; others say 27 tons. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple