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Seattle protesters plan kayak blockade to stop Shell rig departure

Seattle activists opposed to Arctic drilling have vowed to launch a kayak blockade to prevent the departure of Shell’s drilling rig , and said they have hundreds of protesters standing to hit the water as soon as the Polar Pioneer departs. “Our effort is to create as large a flotilla as we can to make it impossible for them to get permission to leave,” Bill Moyer, executive director of the Backbone Campaign, an environmental justice organization, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. Although Shell has not announced a departure date, activists with ShellNo said on its website that the rig could leave for Alaskan waters as early as Wednesday. There it will drill exploratory wells approved by the U.S. government last month. ”Work continues as planned in preparation for the Polar Pioneer’s departure to Alaska,” Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said in an email. “The rig and its crew will depart […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil Firms Agree to Pay Millions in Compensation for Quebec Train Blast

Oil companies have quietly agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars into a compensation fund for deaths and damage caused by a 2013 oil-train explosion in Quebec, though the energy industry has maintained it wasn’t responsible for the disaster. If U.S. and Canadian courts approve the fund, the companies would be shielded from several lawsuits claiming wrongful death and negligence in connection with the tragedy. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., the small railroad hauling the crude oil, sought bankruptcy protection soon after the accident, in which an unattended train carrying oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation derailed and erupted into flames, killing 47. A trustee appointed by the bankruptcy court, who has approved the compensation fund, contended in court filings that oil producers were well aware the oil they were selling was dangerously volatile and failed to take action to make transporting it safer. Oil companies, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Energy-Rich States Saw the Strongest Economic Growth in 2014

Energy-rich North Dakota and Texas had the fastest-growing state economies in 2014, but that booming growth could be reversed this year. North Dakota’s gross domestic product expanded 6.3% last year and the Texas economy advanced 5.2%, the Commerce Department said Wednesday as part of its annual accounting of state economies . Those growth rates were more than twice as strong as the nation’s 2.2% expansion. Two other states, West Virginia and Wyoming, topped 5% growth. Colorado ranked fifth with a 4.7% expansion. Each of the top five states was propelled by mining, an industry category that includes oil and natural-gas extraction. Mining “was not a significant contributor” to economic growth for U.S. overall, the Commerce Department said. But “this industry was a large contributor in the five fastest-growing states.” Those states, however, could be challenged to continue that growth pace because oil prices have moderated. A year ago, oil […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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West Coast of North America to be Slammed by 2016 with 80% As Much Fukushima Radiation As Japan

A professor from Japan’s Fukushima University Institute of Environmental Radioactivity (Michio Aoyama) told Kyodo in April that the West Coast of North America will be hit with around 800 terabecquerels of Cesium- 137 by 2016 . EneNews notes that this is 80% of the cesium-137 deposited in Japan by Fukushima, according to the company which runs Fukushima, Tepco: (a petabequeral or “PBq” equals 1,000 terabecquerels .) This is not news for those who have been paying attention. For example, we noted 2 days after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that the West Coast of North America could be slammed with radiation from Fukushima. We pointed out the next year that a previously-secret 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents, and there could be “pockets” and “streams” of highly-concentrated radiation . The same year, we noted that 15 out of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Gazprom Now Settling All Crude Sales To China In Renminbi

Two topics we’ve deemed critically important to a thorough understanding of both global finance and the shifting geopolitical landscape are the death of the petrodollar and the idea of yuan hegemony. Last November, in “ How The Petrodollar Quietly Died And No One Noticed ,” we said the following about the slow motion demise of the system that has served to perpetuate decades of dollar dominance: Two years ago, in hushed tones at first, then ever louder, the financial world began discussing that which shall never be discussed in polite company – the end of the system that according to many has framed and facilitated the US Dollar’s reserve currency status: the Petrodollar, or the world in which oil export countries would recycle the dollars they received in exchange for their oil exports, by purchasing more USD-denominated assets, boosting the financial strength of the reserve currency, leading to even […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Could hemp nanosheets topple graphene for making the ideal supercapacitor?

Enlarge Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) image of graphene on Ir(111). The image size is 15 nm × 15 nm. Credit: ESRF As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors. They’re presenting their research, which a Canadian start-up company is working on scaling up, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). David Mitlin, Ph.D., explains that supercapacitors are energy storage devices that have huge potential to transform the way future electronics are powered. Unlike today’s rechargeable batteries, which sip up energy over several hours, supercapacitors can charge and discharge within seconds. But they normally can’t store nearly as much energy as batteries, an important property known as energy density. One approach researchers are […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Why EIA, IEA, and BP Oil Forecasts are Too High

When forecasting how much oil will be available in future years, a standard approach seems to be the following: Figure out how much GDP growth the researcher hopes to have in the future. “Work backward” to see how much oil is needed, based on how much oil was used for a given level of GDP in the past. Adjust this amount for hoped-for efficiency gains and transfers to other fuel uses. Verify that there is actually enough oil available to support this level of growth in oil consumption. In fact, this seems to be the approach used by most forecasting agencies, including EIA, IEA and BP. It seems to me that this approach has a fundamental flaw. It doesn’t consider the possibility of continued low oil prices and the impact that these low oil prices are likely to have on future oil production. Hoped-for future GDP growth may not […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil Extends Gains Ahead of U.S. Inventory Data

Oil prices extended gains in Asian trade Wednesday with Nymex futures trading above the $60 mark, as U.S. inventory numbers are expected to signal further slowing of shale oil production. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at $60.88 a barrel at 0257 GMT, up $0.74 in the Globex electronic session. July Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.48 to $65.36 a barrel. Both Nymex and Brent oil futures gained nearly 3.5% overnight, and have settled higher for two of the past three trading sessions. Nymex crude is trading around 13% higher year-to-date and Brent around 14% higher year-to-date. The oil price rally since yesterday comes from oil bulls returning to the market, as most of them were probably holding off their trades until the OPEC meeting concluded last week, analyst Daniel Ang at Phillip Futures said. “This accounts […]

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Oil prices rise on hopes for China stimulus

SEOUL Oil prices edged up on Tuesday on hopes of more economic stimulus in China after disappointing data from the world’s No.2 economy. China’s consumer inflation weakened more than expected, to 1.2 percent year-on-year in May, raising concerns about growing deflationary pressures as the economy cools. Its producer prices fell for the 38th straight month. "The weak data continues to point out the sluggish demand in the real economy. The government should roll out more easing measures to lower the real financing costs to boost growth," said Yu Yafang, macro strategist at Huachuang Securities in Beijing. Front month U.S. crude CLc1 climbed 41 cents to $58.55 a barrel by 0655 GMT (0255 ET) , after ending the previous session down 99 cents. Brent for July delivery LCOc1 rose 45 cents to $63.14 a barrel, having settled down 62 cents in the previous session. Chinese oil imports fell about 11 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Short-Term Energy Outlook

Highlights North Sea Brent crude oil prices averaged $64/barrel (b) in May, a $5/b increase from April and the highest monthly average of 2015. Despite estimated global inventories increasing by more than 2 million barrels per day (b/d) for the third consecutive month, several factors contributed to higher prices in May, including continued signals of higher global oil demand growth, expectations for declining U.S. tight oil production in the coming months, and the growing risk of unplanned supply outages in the Middle East and North Africa. EIA forecasts Brent crude oil prices will average $61/b in 2015 and $67/b in 2016. The 2016 price forecast is $3/b lower than in last month’s STEO. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices in both 2015 and 2016 are expected to average $5/b less than the Brent price. The current values of futures and options contracts for December 2015 delivery suggest ( Market Prices […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple