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Energy-producing states blast Obama climate change plan

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration’s far-reaching plan to address climate change would cause job losses and lead to higher electricity prices and even power outages, attorneys general from two energy-producing states said Tuesday. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt told a Senate panel that the administration’s plan to cut heat-trapping pollutants from coal-fired power plants would cause existing plants to retire early and prevent new ones from being completed. "Make no mistake about it: finalizing this proposal would have a devastating impact on my state, other coal-producing states and citizens from across the country who will feel the impact of high electricity prices and reduced reliability of the power grid," Morrisey told a clean air subcommittee of the Senate Environment Committee. Pruitt called the plan an attempt by President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency to "expand federal bureaucrats’ authority" over […]

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AAA: Gas prices up for 20 straight days

Gasoline prices increase in the United States for 20 consecutive days in response to refinery issues and a rally on the crude oil market. Photo by Monika Graff/UPI WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) — Higher crude oil prices and seasonal maintenance at U.S. refineries means gasoline prices have increased for 20 straight days, motor club AAA said. AAA reports a national average retail price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline at $2.63 per gallon, a 3.5 percent increase from last week. Gas prices Tuesday are 10 percent, or 24 cents, more per gallon than they were a month ago and mark the 20th consecutive day for an increase in price at the pump . Spring prices are typically elevated as refineries conduct seasonal maintenance and switch over to a summer blend of gasoline, which is more expensive to produce because of additional environmental safeguards. "Unexpected refinery issues are also […]

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U.S. shale players doing more with less

Companies working in U.S. shale basins are finding costs go down, leading some in the industry to raise their production forecasts for the year. Photo courtesy: Anadarko Petroleum. HOUSTON, May 5 (UPI) — Though net profits and spending are down, companies working in U.S. shale basins are finding well costs going down while production forecasts grow. The low price of oil is forcing energy companies to spend less on exploration and production efforts. Oil field services companies Halliburton and Baker Hughes are merging in an effort to control costs, while others shed numbers from their work force. Anadarko Petroleum said it’s delivered strong production results during the first quarter while spending less. At shale basins in Colorado, the company said it’s saved around $500,000 on drilling operations so far this year. In the Eagle Ford shale basin in Texas, the company said the cost of drilling a well is […]

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New refinery online in North Dakota

New North Dakota refinery is expected to help drive economy in oil-rich state, operator says. Photo by George Spade/Shutterstock DICKINSON, N.D., May 5 (UPI) — A new refinery in North Dakota, the first of its kind in the country in nearly 40 years, will help drive the state’s economy forward, MDU Resources said. MDU Resources and Calumet Specialty Products Partners announced its Dakota Prairie refinery started producing diesel fuel primarily for the state economy. "With more than two-thirds of North Dakota’s diesel fuel currently imported into the state, the Dakota Prairie refinery is well positioned to meet strong regional demand with additional, locally produced supplies of diesel fuel," David Goodin, president and chief executive officer of MDU Resources, said in a statement. "Over time, we expect that this refinery has the potential to be an important contributor to the economic growth of the local and state economy." North Dakota’s […]

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UPS to Use Renewable Natural Gas for Part of Delivery Fleet

Clean Energy Fuels produces a product called Redeem, which is the first renewable natural gas available in commercial quantities. The RNG will be used in stations across California beginning this month to fuel tractors and delivery vehicles. The stations in Sacramento, Los Angeles and Fresno will provide about 1.5 million gallon equivalents of RNG fuel to about 400 vehicles in the state. The company already uses natural gas on tractors in the U.K. RNG, or biomethane, can be created from sources such as decomposing organic waste in landfills. “Renewable natural gas is critical to our effort to minimize UPS’s environmental impact while meeting the growing demand for our services,” said Mitch Nichols, UPS senior vice president of transportation and engineering. The Atlanta-based delivery giant said in April that revenue for U.S. ground packages grew 5.3% to $6.36 billion in the first quarter. That helped buoy total U.S. domestic-package operating […]

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Nowhere Is Safe From California Drought—Not Even Beverly Hills

Freshly tilled dirt in the front yard of Robert Wunderlich’s home in Beverly Hills, Calif., Monday. Mr. Wunderlich is replacing his grass front lawn with drought-tolerant landscaping. Photo: Stuart Palley for The Wall Street Journal BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.—This enclave of movie-star glamour—famous for its tree-lined boulevards and manicured yards—is starting to turn heads for another look: dying grass and ripped-out lawns. Beverly Hills has been identified by state officials as among California’s biggest urban water guzzlers and, under rules expected to be approved this week, ordered to cut its consumption by 36% or face fines up to $10,000 per violation. Anticipating the crackdown, the city in mid-April stopped watering its grassy medians. On April 21, the City Council adopted tough new restrictions that include a limit on lawn watering to two days a week, and a ban on draining and refilling swimming pools under penalty of maximum $1,000 fines. […]

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Denbury, Chesapeake Are Beyond the Shale

ENLARGE North Dakota oil drilling is seen here. Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn has knocked shale-oil drilling as not profitable enough. Photo: Getty Images Talk about throwing the baby out with the frackwater. It seemed like the entire North American hydrocarbon industry was tarred with the same brush on Monday when Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn presented at the annual Sohn Investment Conference . The hedge-fund manager’s chief target, the “motherfracker” as he dubbed it, was Pioneer Natural Resources Co. PXD -3.14 % The charge: Shale-oil drilling chews up too much cash for too little benefit. Two companies set to report first-quarter results Wednesday, Denbury Resources Inc. DNR -3.62 % and Chesapeake Energy Corp. CHK -3.23 % , bear only a passing resemblance to the accused. But they dipped by 2.8% and 1.6%, respectively, in the minutes after Mr. Einhorn’s comments. Their results certainly won’t be pretty. Analysts see Denbury reporting […]

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Implications of Increasing Light Tight Oil Production for U.S. Refining

1. Background and Analytical Framework Background Recent and projected increases in U.S. crude production have sparked discussion about the implications of current limitations on crude oil exports for prices, including both world and domestic crude oil and petroleum product prices, and for the level of domestic crude production and refining activity. In response to multiple requests, the U.S. Energy Information Administration is developing analyses that shed light on these issues. Studies completed since May 2014 have considered the characteristics of domestic crude production streams, price formation for gasoline and other petroleum products, tools to better track displacement of crude imports by domestic production, and technical options for processing additional light tight crude oil. Given that some responses to the growth in production that has already occurred since 2011, including the like-for-like replacement of crude oil imports comparable in quality to new domestic streams, are inherently limited going forward, the […]

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Crude by rail accounts for more than half of East Coast refinery supply in February

graph of net crude supply to PADD1 by source, as explained in the article text Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Monthly Note: All sources are net receipts except field production. PADD is Petroleum Administration for Defense District. Monthly rail receipts of crude oil accounted for more than half (52%) of the crude oil supply to East Coast refineries in February. As U.S. and Canadian production of crude oil has increased, crude supply by rail to East Coast (PADD 1) refineries has grown, displacing waterborne imports of crude oil from countries other than Canada , such as Nigeria. While refinery utilization in Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) 1 in early 2015 has been below typical levels, this still marks the first time in EIA’s dataset that crude deliveries by rail have accounted for such a high percentage of East Coast refinery supply. The growth since 2010 in […]

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ESAI: Refinery closures could hit 2 million b/d by yearend 2016

Global refinery closures by yearend 2016 could be more than the previously announced 1 million b/d of capacity, Energy Security Analysis Inc. reported. “The total capacity at risk of closure by that time is as high as 2 million b/d,” ESAI Refining Manager Christopher Barber said. Weaker refining margins in Europe and Asia will put more pressure on marginal operations as changing government policies put even more capacity at risk in Asia and Russia, the Wakefield, Mass., energy and power market research and strategic advisory firm said in its latest Global Refining Outlook . ESAI said refiners in Europe already plan to rationalize 320,000 b/d of capacity by yearend 2016, while petroleum product manufacturers in former Soviet Union countries intend to shut another 280,000 b/d. Refiners in Taiwan, Australia, and Japan plan to cut another 420,000 b/d, the analysis said. Reports also suggest that Saudi Aramco is planning to […]

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U.S. Seen Joining Biggest Oil Exporters If Ban Is Lifted

The U.S. will become one of the world’s largest oil exporters if domestic production continues to surge and policy makers lift a four-decade ban that keeps most crude from leaving the country, a government-sponsored study shows. America would be capable of sending as much as 2.4 million barrels a day overseas in 2025 if federal policy makers were to eliminate restrictions on most crude exports, an analysis by Turner, Mason & Co. for the Energy Information Administration shows. That would make the U.S. the fourth-largest oil exporter, behind Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, based on 2013 EIA data. The report assumes domestic output rises by 7.2 million barrels a day from 2013. The analysis is part of a series of studies the U.S. government is performing following a 71 percent surge in domestic oil production over the last four years. Drillers including Harold Hamm of Continental […]

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Vestas Lifts Outlook After Orders for Wind Turbines Surge

An employee walks between wind turbine blades at the Vestas Wind Systems A/S blade factory in Lem, Denmark. Photographer: Freya Ingrid Morales/Bloomberg Vestas Wind Systems A/S raised its sales and income forecast after strong orders in the usually weak first quarter drove the backlog at the biggest wind turbine maker to a record. Shares surged to a five-year high. The Aarhus, Denmark-based company reported net income of 56 million euros ($63 million) in the first three months, almost double the 29.7 million euro average that analysts had expected. It also enjoyed a 13 percent increase in revenue from its services business even though the year-ago period was fattened with rare contracts maintaining machines offshore. “This has been a historically strong first quarter on revenue, margins, order intake, and return on invested capital,” Chief Executive Officer Anders Runevad said. “Vestas is making good progress toward achieving its profitable growth objectives. […]

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Left-Leaning Party Sweeps to Power in Canada’s Oil-Rich Alberta

ENLARGE Supporters of the Alberta New Democratic Party cheer as election results come in at election headquarters in Edmonton on Tuesday. Photo: Dan Riedlhuber/Reuters CALGARY—The longtime ruling party of Canada’s energy-rich Alberta province lost its four-decade hold on power on Tuesday, ushering in a left-leaning government that has pledged to raise corporate taxes and increase oil and gas royalties. The Alberta New Democratic Party swept enough districts to form a majority, taking most of the seats in both the business center of Calgary and the provincial capital of Edmonton, according to preliminary results from Elections Alberta. The outcome was a blow to Premier Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservative party and one that threatens to roil the province’s economy amid a slump in energy prices. “We need to start down the road to a diversified and resilient economy. We need finally to end the boom-and-bust roller coaster that we have been […]

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Rail Executive Blasts Oil-Train Rules

ENLARGE Railroad industry plans to petition for a reconsideration or challenge in court U.S. oil-train safety rules. Photo: RUSSELL GOLD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Norfolk Southern Corp. NSC -3.08 % Chief Executive Charles W. “Wick” Moorman said that the rail industry will challenge the federal government’s new crude-by-rail rules, adding regulators have “made some serious mistakes in the regulations.” The new safety rules could make shipping crude oil by train prohibitively expensive, Mr. Moorman said in an interview on Tuesday. “At a certain point, the economics are such that you can’t justify shipping the oil. The price to get it to the refinery is too high and the downside of that is that it will throttle the journey toward energy independence in this country,” Mr. Moorman said. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Transportation called for installing new braking systems on trains hauling more than 70 cars of […]

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The Keystone XL Pipeline: What Do You Really Know?

The Keystone XL pipeline has been on the drawing board for years. Photo: Amy Harder/The Wall Street Journal The Keystone XL pipeline has been under review by the U.S. government for more than six years. President Barack Obama could make a decision on the project in the coming weeks, though he faces no deadline. You’ve probably heard about this pipeline, but how much do you actually know about it? Take this quiz to find out. 1. What company is proposing to build the pipeline? a. ExxonMobil b. TransCanada c. EnergyFirst d. Enbridge Answer: B. TransCanada, of Calgary, Alberta, first announced it was going to build Keystone in 2008. 2. Approximately how many gallons of oil a day are proposed to ship through the pipeline? a. 35 million b. 830,000 c. 255 million d. 50 million Answer: A. By comparison, the U.S. consumes about 800 million gallons of oil a […]

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Investment in upstream oil production down 20% on year in 2015, says IEA chief economist

Global investment in upstream oil production this year is down around $100 billion, almost 20% lower than in 2014 and the largest drop ever seen, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist Fatih Birol said Wednesday, May 6. The biggest portion of this is in the US, Canada and Brazil, Birol told journalists in Doha. "Especially for shale oil, the decline rates are very steep. Investment decisions have to be taken in a very short time, as they are much more price sensitive", Birol said. "At the price level seen at the beginning of this year [around $45/barrel], there will not be many projects in North America that will be profitable," he said. This is despite declining supply chain costs which have made US shale producers significantly more efficient. "There is still a huge gap between the cost of shale and the cost of [crude oil] production in the Middle […]

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New Oil-By-Rail Regulations Are Big Win for Oil and Rail Industries, Won’t Stop “Bomb Trains”

via Shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission. The long-awaited  oil-by-rail regulations  released today [May 1] are basically a guidebook for the oil and rail industries to continue doing business as usual when it comes to moving explosive Bakken crude oil by rail. DeSmog  recently reported  on how the Obama administration has worked behind the scenes to help achieve the oil industry’s top goal when it came to these new regulations — allowing the oil producers to continue to put the highly volatile Bakken crude oil into rail tank cars without removing the natural gas liquids that make it such an explosive mixture. As we’ve reported, there is a relatively simple fix to end, or significantly reduce, the “bomb train” disasters, via a process known as  stabilization. But the new regulations not only give the industry a pass on doing this, they add to the “we need more research before we […]

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Russia Gas Fields Key to Crude Output After Sanctions Hit Arctic

Gasoline is pumped into railway gasoline tankers at an oil refinery operated by OAO Bashneft in Ufa, Russia. Gas condensate is more valuable than other types of crude because when it’s refined it produces a very high proportion of high-value gasoline. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg With Siberia’s aging oil fields slowly running dry, Russia is turning to a natural gas by-product to help maintain crude production and meet President Vladimir Putin’s target of 10 million barrels a day. As companies including OAO Gazprom, OAO Novatek and OAO Rosneft get new Siberian gas fields up and running, they’re also boosting output of condensate, a prized, ultra-light form of crude that’s a common component of underground gas reserves. Condensate is especially important now because it’s not covered by sanctions on Russia’s oil industry that have targeted Arctic drilling and shale projects. Production of the ultra-light crude will swell as much as 17 […]

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Mixed signals emerge for eurozone economy

LONDON (AP) — Following a solid start to the year, signs emerged Wednesday that the 19-country eurozone economy is losing some traction. While a closely-watched survey indicated that economic activity grew at a steady pace in April, a separate report pointed to a sharp drop in retail sales in March. Financial information company Markit said its purchasing managers’ index, a broad gauge of business activity, was 53.9 points in April. Though slightly lower than the near four-year high of 54.0 in March, it remained well above the 50-point threshold that separates growth from decline. The firm said the survey provides further evidence that countries that have made bold economic reforms over the past few years are reaping the benefits. Overall, Markit said the survey points to quarterly economic growth of 0.4 percent in the first quarter of the year, in line with expectations. "The fact that the rate of […]

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The Great Oil Game: Resource Crisis in Russia?

Weekly pageviews of "Resource Crisis." My blog seems to be having a remarkable success in Russia, but do the Russians understand the problem of resource depletion? Complex structures, such as states and empires, are always prone to collapse and they usually give little or no previous warnings. The collapse of the Soviet Union, indeed, had not been predicted by anyone and it came completely unexpected. In the present crisis, instead, Western analysts seem to have fallen in the opposite mistake, predicting the rapid demise of the Russian Federation. But that didn’t happen. On the contrary, the Russian economic system showed a remarkable resilience and it strongly rebounded after a bad moment, last year. (image below from Bloomberg). So, predicting collapses is always very difficult in a world’s situation that looks more and more like a Russian Roulette (an appropriate name in this context), but played with nuclear weapons. It […]

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Dmitry Orlov Peak Oil Lessons From The Soviet Union

4 Comments on "Dmitry Orlov Peak Oil Lessons From The Soviet Union" Plantagenet on Mon, 4th May 2015 1:55 pm  The Soviet Union was never at peak oil. The problem in the USSR had to do with bad economic policies and genocide and repression carried out by a totalitarian red fascist police state. sugarseam on Mon, 4th May 2015 3:43 pm  As always, you don’t appear to know what you’re talking about, Plant. Your Red Scare is showing, as is the case with most narrow-minded cons. “Red fascist.” What a laughable bastardization of language. They showed us their underbelly after the Wall fell, and predatory capitalists went in and pilfered their country to the tune of hundreds of billions (Harvard Foundation, et al). The number of times that nation has offered an olive branch since Hiroshima only to have greedy Western fascists pull the rug out is hard to […]

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Never Mind Peak Oil, What About Uneconomic Oil?

There has been a lot of attention recently to the longer term viability of global fossil fuel reserves. Due to the fall in oil, natural gas and coal prices, the FT reports this week that all the oil majors have slipped into loss as a result of of the low oil and natural gas prices. Why Manufacturers Need to Ditch Purchase Price Variance That’s not the reason for the viability questions, though, that attention is due more as a result of future climate change legislation raising the cost of carbon-based fuels. Another article leads with comments made by Glencore Plc ’s chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, in the company’s recent sustainability report. Glencore’s Bullish Reacting to investor concerns (not just at Glencore but at all energy companies) he is quoted as saying “Although climate change issues are part of the political, societal and regulatory landscape, we do not believe that […]

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Why the World’s Appetite for Oil Will Peak Soon

Photo: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg News When it comes to oil demand, the conventional wisdom is clear: Population growth and a rising global middle class guarantee that demand—and prices—will rise over the coming decades. It is a story line that is almost universally accepted by investors, governments and industry alike. But like many such consensus views, it is one that should be treated with caution. The world’s economy is experiencing transformational changes that, I believe, will dramatically alter patterns of energy use over the next 20 years. Exponential gains in industrial productivity, software-assisted logistics, rapid urbanization, increased political turmoil in key regions of the developing world, and large bets on renewable energy are among the many factors that will combine to slow the previous breakneck growth for oil. The result, in my opinion, is as startling as it is world-changing: Global oil demand will peak within the next two decades. A […]

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Oil Prices Slip on Strengthening Dollar

NEW YORK—Oil prices ticked lower Monday on a stronger dollar and weak Chinese manufacturing data. Light, sweet crude for June delivery settled down 22 cents, or 0.4%, at $58.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, fell a penny to $66.45 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. The WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of other currencies, recently rose 0.2%. A stronger dollar makes oil—which is traded in dollars—more expensive to buyers using foreign currencies. China’s manufacturing sector posted its weakest performance in a year in April, according to the widely watched HSBC Purchasing Managers Index. China is the second-largest oil-consuming nation, behind the U.S. China’s oil demand grew by 7.7% in the first quarter compared with the year before, the biggest quarterly increase since 2012, according to Barclays. But “we think the slowing economy will continue to affect demand […]

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Brent crude slips towards $66 on Saudi plan to halt Yemen bombing

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Brent crude oil futures slipped towards $66 a barrel on Tuesday, falling from a 2015 high, as Saudi Arabia considered halting bombing in Yemen to allow the delivery of aid, which eased concerns about oil supply from the Middle East. A stronger U.S. dollar also weighed on the dollar-denominated commodity, while investors waited for data on U.S. commercial crude oil inventories later this week for more direction. Brent crude oil futures were down 17 cents at $66.28 a barrel at 0640 GMT, after touching a 2015 high of $67.10 on Monday. U.S. crude oil futures fell by 12 cents to $58.81 a barrel. "The stronger U.S. dollar and also news out of Saudi Arabia that they are halting the bombings in Yemen are two push-pull factors affecting the oil prices at the moment," said Ben Le Brun, a market analyst at OptionsXpress in Sydney. The Saudi […]

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Natural-Gas Futures Extend Rally

By Christian Berthelsen Natural-gas futures rose for the fifth straight session, driven by expectations that a heat wave along the East Coast in the coming days could drive power plant demand to generate electricity for air conditioning. The front-month June natural gas contract rose 4.5 cents, or 1.6%, to settle at $2.821 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the market’s highest settlement since March 18. Prices have gained more than 13% since setting a new 52-week low just a week ago. Weather forecasts say the Northeast and Eastern Seaboard are set to be hit with much-above normal temperatures until the middle of the month, before settling back to more seasonal levels in the second half. With more power plants switching to natural gas as a source fuel for generation, that could mean a spike in gas demand as people run air conditioners […]

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Brent inches towards $67, despite weak China factory activity

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Brent crude edged towards $67 a barrel on Monday, reversing earlier losses after weak Chinese data reinforced views that stimulus measures would be rolled out for the world’s second largest economy. China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer, posted its biggest drop in factory activity in a year to 48.9 in April, a private business survey showed on Monday. The sub-50 point level indicates a contraction compared with the previous month. The data came on the heels of a top government think tank’s forecast that China’s economic growth could slow further to 6.8 percent in the second quarter. "The Chinese data is weaker but it seems the oil market has had a limited reaction. What the market really wants to see is supply being cut to match the demand level," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at Sydney’s CMC Markets. Oil supplies from the Organization of the […]

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Saudi Arabia restructures oil giant Aramco

DUBAI/KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is restructuring the world’s biggest energy company, Saudi Aramco [SDABO.UL], in a move apparently aimed at letting it operate more at arm’s length from the powerful oil ministry. Analysts expected technocrats to get a freer hand in running the state-owned giant. Some said the restructuring might be the first step in a shake-up of the Saudi energy sector, and could possibly pave the way for a prince to take over the ministry itself, which is traditionally run by industry experts rather than members of the royal family. Citing unnamed sources, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV reported on Friday that Aramco would be separated from the oil ministry of the top OPEC member. Aramco officials could not be immediately reached for comment but Arabiya’s reports closely reflect official thinking. Mohammad Al Sabban, a former senior adviser to oil minister Ali al-Naimi, said the move […]

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Iran Nuclear Talks Open a Tangled Path to Ending Syria’s War

Photo Staffan de Mistura, left, the United Nations envoy for Syria, meeting in Damascus in February with the Syrian deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, in an effort to halt fighting in Aleppo. Credit Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images UNITED NATIONS — Wearing pinstripes and a pince-nez, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria , arrived at the Security Council one Tuesday afternoon in February and announced that President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to halt airstrikes over Aleppo. Would the rebels, Mr. de Mistura suggested, agree to halt their shelling? What he did not announce, but everyone knew by then, was that the Assad government had begun a military offensive to encircle opposition-held enclaves in Aleppo and that fierce fighting was underway. It would take only a few days for rebel leaders, having pushed back Syrian government forces, to outright reject Mr. de Mistura’s proposed freeze in […]

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Iran yanks gas contract from India

Iranian media said a natural gas development deal with India was refused after years of delays tied in part to sanctions. File Photo by UPI/Maryam Rahmanian. TEHRAN, May 4 (UPI) — The Iranian government said it was frustrated with delays from companies in India and pulled a deal for the development of a gas field off Iran’s coast. The semiofficial Fars News Agency reported Saturday a delegation from New Delhi was in Tehran in late April to discuss development of the offshore Farzad-B natural gas field. The press service said the field holds an estimated 13 trillion cubic feet of gas, though has not been pursued seriously by the Indian side since talks began in 2009. Citing Oil Ministry sources, Fars said an Indian package was turned down because of lingering project delays. The report blamed international sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector as one of the reasons for the […]

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Energy Resources

View Archive Iran says U.S. oil reps headed to Tehran 3 hours ago TEHRAN, May 4 (UPI) — Delegates from the U.S. oil industry are expected in Tehran to explore the possibility of conducting business there, Iran’s deputy oil minister said Monday. Iran says U.S. oil reps headed to Tehran Chinese stock gains lift oil prices 3 hours ago NEW YORK, May 4 (UPI) — A running of the bulls in the Chinese stock market pushed oil prices into positive territory Monday, with major indices up nearly a full percent. Chinese stock gains lift oil prices IEA: Holistic effort needed in renewables 4 hours ago PARIS, May 4 (UPI) — More than just U.N. intervention is needed to advance the low-carbon economy needed to meet climate goals, the International Energy Agency said Monday. IEA: Holistic effort needed in renewables EU energy strategy extends beyond Europe 5 hours ago BRUSSELS, […]

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Syrian Forces Kill Attackers in Damascus

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Security forces battled armed men in Damascus on Monday, killing the attackers as one blew himself up, state news outlets reported, in a type of clash that remains rare in the capital even after more than four years of war in Syria . Websites that are for and against the government displayed photographs of a column of smoke towering above six-story apartment houses in Rukineddine, a northern district of central Damascus. A pro-government radio station reported that opposition fighters had crossed an agricultural area from insurgent-held suburbs, perhaps to carry out an attack on Berniah Street, a major thoroughfare near the scene of the clash. A Twitter account associated with the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, said that three members of the group had carried out the attack, which was on a military supplies and logistics headquarters. The Nusra Front has in the past […]

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Protesters close eastern Libyan oil port of Zueitina: port engineer

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Protesters demanding state jobs have shut down the eastern Libyan oil export port of Zueitina, a port engineer said on Monday. No more information was immediately available. Libyan oil ports and oilfields regularly have to shut down due to protesters seizing them or armed groups fighting for control of the facilities. The protesters were complaining they had not been hired by the state as promised by a previous oil minister, said the engineer, asking not to be named. "They closed a pipeline leading to the port," he said. Zueitina is one of the few Libyan ports still exporting oil as the largest have closed due to fighting or blocked oilfields connected to them, part of turmoil gripping the North African country four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. Zueitina port, located near the main eastern city of Benghazi, has closed several times since 2011 due […]

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The Devastation of Energy Poverty

The McKinsey Company has recently issued a report, Powering Africa.  The first sentence makes a statement that is obvious—“There is a direct correlation between economic growth and electricity supply”.  It goes on to state that “if sub-Saharan Africa is to fulfill its promise, it needs power—and lots of it”.  The sub-Saharan region is starved for electricity, as are many other emerging economies.  According to McKinsey, no matter what criterion is used—energy access, installed capacity, or consumption, the region’s power sector is seriously underdeveloped. Without access to commercial energy, countries cannot achieve, much less sustain economic growth.  Although the region’s potential capacity is great, electric power access is severely limited.  McKinsey notes that Countries with electrification rates of less than 80 percent of the population consistently suffer from reduced GDP per capita.  Even countries like Angola and Gabon that have significant natural resources, still have electrification rates under 80 percent.  […]

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China Oil Industry, Experts Resist Proposal to Merge Companies

ENLARGE Sinopec is one of several big oil companies being considered as potential merger candidates. Photo: Billy H.C. Kwok/Bloomberg News BEIJING—A proposal that would combine China’s already massive energy companies into even larger entities is facing resistance from officials in the oil industry and government advisers who say such a move would stymie competition and undermine Beijing’s effort to remake the economy. In preliminary discussions, oil-industry executives have argued Chinese consumers would be better served by more market-driven overhauls instead of government-driven consolidations , people familiar with the talks said. “There is big pushback from the industry,” said one of those people, who is familiar with the deliberations at the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, which oversees large state companies, including the oil giants. Government advisers are also expressing skepticism. “Merging big oil companies would only lead to greater state monopoly and less inefficiency, and would be bad […]

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This is how China is trying to save its economy

China has had 35 years of hypergrowth, but now it’s over. It’s going to have to settle for really, really good growth instead. But that’s still going to be hard now that fewer Chinese are working-age, fewer people are moving to the cities and, most of all, now that China has a debt bubble it’s trying to deflate without bursting its economy as a whole. That’s left the country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), in the awkward position of trying to help the parts of the economy that need help without helping the rest too much. Specifically, the PBOC will let banks loan out more of their money and  give them cheap loans in return for local government debt. This sure looks like China is stepping on the monetary gas to try to keep economic growth, which has already slowed to a six-year low of 7 percent ( if […]

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Fukushima Report Delayed as Tepco Gets New Chance to Explain

A building covering the Unit 1 reactor, left, is removed by a crane at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan on Nov. 12, 2014. Photographer: Shizuo Kambayashi/AFP Photo/Pool/Getty Images The reactor building of Unit 3 at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (Tepco) Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station in Fukushima, Japan. Source: Tokyo Electric Power Co. via Bloomberg The International Atomic Energy Agency delayed a report about meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to give Japanese officials another chance to explain radiation leaking into the Pacific Ocean. The IAEA’s report about mid- to long-term plans to decommission the stricken reactors will be published in “mid-May,” agency spokesman Serge Gas said in an e-mailed reply to questions. The report had initially been scheduled for release by the end of March on the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. “The Japanese government invited IAEA […]

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Shell’s Arctic return faces hurdle at Seattle port

(Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell’s quest to return to Arctic drilling for the first time in three years could face delays after Seattle ruled that the city’s port must apply for a permit for the company to use it as a hub for drilling rigs. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a Democrat who has fought against new projects by coal and oil companies, applauded the requirement by the city’s planning department. "This is an opportunity for the port and all of us to make a bold statement about how oil companies contribute to climate change, oil spills and other environmental disasters – and reject this short-term lease," Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray said on his website. The Puget Sound region has a decades-long history as a hub for equipment used in energy drilling in Alaska. But some environmental groups and politicians have pushed for the region’s economy to move beyond oil, […]

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U.S. Banks Expect Rise in Energy-Sector Loan Defaults

ENLARGE A pumpjack stands near storage containers on the site of an oil well outside Williston, N.D., in February. Photo: Bloomberg News Banks in the U.S. are cutting credit lines to energy companies and forcing firms to cough up more collateral to guard against fallout from the past year’s plunge in oil prices , a Federal Reserve survey found. Banks expect more delinquencies and charge-offs from the sector over the course of this year, “but they indicated that their exposures were small, and that they were undertaking a number of actions to mitigate the risk of loan losses,” senior loan officers at commercial banks told the Fed in a survey tracking changes in loan terms and standards in the first quarter of the year. U.S. oil and gas companies went deep into debt during the energy boom as they looked to cash in on new technologies that allowed sizable […]

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Fallout of Energy-Price Crash Spreads to Towns Far From the Oil Fields

ENLARGE The former fishing town of Burgeo, shown here, is one of a number of Newfoundland towns feeling the slump as many of its workers can no longer find work in Canada’s oil fields thousands of miles away. Photo: ALISTAIR MACDONALD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BURGEO, Newfoundland—Glen Hann and his wife traveled from Newfoundland to western Canada’s oil fields eight winters in a row, returning to this former fishing town in the spring with income they could never hope to earn closer to home. Then, this past December, Mr. Hann’s employers told him to stay home. Mr. Hann is among the thousands of Newfoundlanders who have traveled west over the past decade to work in Canada’s booming oil sands, a trek that has become one of North America’s longest commutes and has supported communities in some of Canada’s poorest eastern provinces. Now, falling oil prices are putting an […]

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Dougals-Westwood: Layoffs and Another Lost Generations

Douglas-Westwood (DW),UK’s energy business strategy, research and commercial due-diligence services provider, commented on "Layoffs and Another Lost Generations?" in its May 4 edition of DW Monday. The oil & gas industry currently suffers a shortage of mid-career professionals primed for leadership & supervisory roles, the legacy of the last oil price downturn in the 1980s to mid-90s. At that time the industry endured significant job losses, and hiring came to a standstill. As a result of the limited talent added, the group of individuals advancing into supervisory or eventual leadership positions in the oil and gas industry is notably small. Since oil price started declining late last summer, layoffs in today’s industry are nearing 100,000 worldwide. Oilfield service companies Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, and Halliburton announced layoffs of around 20,000, 10,500, and 9,000 employees respectively, while E&Ps BP and Chevron each announced layoffs approaching 10,000 of their employees. According to […]

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US shale oil drillers move rigs to more productive areas -Goldman Sachs

SINGAPORE May 4 (Reuters) – In an attempt to increase productivity, shale oil drillers in the United States have begun moving rigs to more productive areas of the Permian and Eagle Ford basins, analysts at Goldman Sachs said. Data from oil services firm Baker Hughes Inc showed on Friday that the fall in U.S. oil rig count slowed last week, suggesting the collapse in drilling may be coming to an end as prices recover. "The county level rig data is showing potential signs of high grading with rig increases in some of the more productive counties of the Permian and Eagle Ford plays, despite the aggregate rig count still declining," analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a weekly report. The observation comes after the analysts in the past several weeks have said the rig data showed little evidence of high grading. High grading, with producers eliminating the least efficient […]

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Natural gas, renewables projected to provide larger shares of electricity generation

Republished 1:15 p.m. May 4, 2015 to correct an error in the graph. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2015 EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2015 (AEO2015) Reference case projects that electricity consumption will increase at an average annual rate of 0.8% from 2013 to 2040, nearly in line with expected population growth. Continuing a recent trend toward lower levels of carbon-intensive generation, natural gas and renewable generation meet almost all of the increase. Electricity generation from renewable sources provided 13% of U.S. electricity in 2013. In the AEO2015 Reference case, which reflects current laws and regulations—but not pending rules, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan —this percentage is projected to increase to 18% by 2040. Wind and solar generation account for nearly two-thirds of the growth in renewable generation. Solar is the fastest-growing renewable generation source, but wind accounts for the largest absolute increase […]

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The Shale Boom Has Already Gone Bust – At Least For Now

Andrew J. Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Astenbeck Capital Management LLC. Photographer: Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg The meteoric rise in U.S. oil production has ended, easing a global glut and driving a rebound in crude prices from below $50 a barrel, according to crude trader and hedge fund manager Andrew J. Hall. Oil production from Texas to North Dakota peaked at almost 10 million barrels a day in February and has been falling since then, Hall said in a letter Friday to investors in Astenbeck Capital Management LLC, his commodities hedge fund. A drastic reduction in drilling rigs is starting to shrink U.S. oil output, according to U.S. government data cited by Hall. That’s helped drive a 36 percent rally in the past six weeks, and prices will continue to rise because it will be harder for producers to ramp up than it was to cut back, Hall said in his […]

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Greenlight’s Einhorn slams oil frackers at Sohn conference

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Billionaire hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who often moves a stock simply by speaking its name, on Monday kicked off the year’s most prominent investment conference by laying out a case against oil frackers, arguing these companies drill "lots and lots of holes" and burn through plenty of cash. Einhorn, who often unveils so-called short-bets against companies at these events, cited Pioneer Natural Resources Co ( PXD.N ) as a particular offender at the 20th annual Sohn Investment Conference. "We call it the motherfracker," he said, prompting investors to kick the share price down as much as 5.3 percent. The company should trade closer to $78 a share, he said, not the $166.50 the stock is trading at now. "Pioneer is burning cash and its reserves are not growing," said Einhorn, who runs $11 billion Greenlight Capital, adding "Pioneer ought to stop touting estimates based […]

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Another rig company stumbles

Diamond Offshore, one of the largest rig companies in the world, is the latest in a long list of those in the energy industry to take a loss in a weak market. File Photo by project1photography/Shutterstock HOUSTON, May 4 (UPI) — One of the largest rig services companies in the world, Diamond Offshore Drilling, said Monday it lost $256 million during the first quarter of the year. Crude oil is trading in a bear market, forcing most major energy companies to spend less on exploration and production. That’s led to major profit losses for rig services companies ranging from Schlumberger to Halliburton. Diamond said Monday its net loss of $256 million for the first quarter compared to a net income of $146 million year-on-year. Three of its rigs are to be retired and scrapped. "We have continued to implement cost savings measures while maintaining our focus on safe operations […]

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Rig data show Oklahoma beats North Dakota

Oklahoma has more rigs in active service than North Dakota, a state at the heart of the U.S. shale oil boom. File Photo by Calin Tatu/Shutterstock. BISMARCK, N.D., May 4 (UPI) — Oklahoma has 20 percent more rigs in active service than North Dakota as shale activity in the United States evolves, state data show. XTO Energy, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, is the largest operator of active wells in North Dakota, with 14 percent of the 86 active wells in the state at the heart of the nation’s oil boom. Overall, the number of rigs in service in North Dakota is down 7.5 percent since the start of April. Last year, XTO said it owned 531,000 net acres in North Dakota and gross production in February 2014 was 44,516 barrels of oil per day. Federal data show state oil production in February 2014 was 953,000 bpd, about 24 […]

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Brent inches towards $67, despite weak China factory activity

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Brent crude edged towards $67 a barrel on Monday, reversing earlier losses after weak Chinese data reinforced views that stimulus measures would be rolled out for the world’s second largest economy. China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer, posted its biggest drop in factory activity in a year to 48.9 in April, a private business survey showed on Monday. The sub-50 point level indicates a contraction compared with the previous month. The data came on the heels of a top government think tank’s forecast that China’s economic growth could slow further to 6.8 percent in the second quarter. "The Chinese data is weaker but it seems the oil market has had a limited reaction. What the market really wants to see is supply being cut to match the demand level," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at Sydney’s CMC Markets. Oil supplies from the Organization of the […]

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Peak Russia + Peak USA means Peak World

Since around 2005 many countries have increased their oil production but more have decreased. But the combined production of the United States and Russia have kept the world on a slight uptrend since that time. World since 2000 World oil production jumped in 2011, hardly moved at all in 2013 but it was up by more than  1.5 million barrels per day in 2014. And after such a huge gain everyone and their brother were singing “peak oil is dead’. But if you scroll down through the 37 major world oil producers it becomes obvious that a majority of nations have peaked and most of them are in steep decline. The above chart is EIA data however the next four charts below are JODI data with the last data point February 2015. The data on all charts is thousand barrels per day. Spuds per Rig Permits & Spuds Continue reading […]

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Libyan protesters end strike at eastern port of Brega: spokesman

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Protesters have ended a strike at state-run Sirte Oil Co in eastern Libyan port of Brega which had forced the closure of the Irda gas field, a company spokesman said on Sunday. "We have reached an agreement with the protesters to end their strike," the spokesman said. The protesters had demanded jobs at the oil firm and had prevented staff from working at the company’s headquarters. It was not immediately clear whether the Irda field had resumed work. (Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; writing by Ulf Laessing ; editing by Jason Neely )

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple