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Australia Divided on Fracking

Debate over hydraulic fracturing is growing in Australia, where environmentalists are concerned about new efforts to tap the country’s substantial reserves of oil and natural gas . So far, experts say, hydraulic fracturing has made few inroads in Australia. But the practice, also known as fracking, is expected to grow as Australia seeks more natural gas for export. Fracking involves extracting oil or gas from shale rock with a high-pressure mix of water, sand and chemicals. Australia is poised at the “forefront of shale development,” because of its infrastructure, low population density and other factors, according to a report last week from the firm Lux Research. That is not what the country’s environmentalists want to hear. They have watched the rise of fracking in the United States, where the practice has proliferated in recent years, and fear the possibility of water contamination or overuse, as well as earthquakes from […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Shell to further scale down Australian operations?

Shell’s Australian investments are in the spotlight after the company offloaded its holdings in a major gas project in Western Australia. Shell announced Monday it is selling an 8 percent stake in the Wheatstone-Iago joint venture gas fields, and also a 6.4 percent holding in the Wheatstone gas project to Kuwait’s Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. for $1.3 billion. "Shell will remain a major player in Australia’s energy industry. However, we are refocusing our investment to where we can add the most value with Shell’s capital and technology," said Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden, in a statement announcing the Wheatstone sale. "We are making hard choices in our worldwide portfolio to improve Shell’s capital efficiency." The move follows Shell’s announcement of earnings Friday for the quarter that ended Dec. 31 of $2.9 billion, almost $1 billion less than market expectations. Other Shell assets […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Shell Sells Australian Assets for $1.14 Billion

Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Monday it is selling its stake in an Australian natural-gas project, the oil company’s first disposal since it issued a rare profit warning last week . Shell said it has agreed to sell its 8% equity interest in the Wheatstone-Iago gas field, which is operated by U.S.-based Chevron Corp. , and 6.4% interest in the Wheatstone liquefied-natural-gas project in Western Australia for $1.14 billion in cash to state-owned Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. "Shell will remain a major player in Australia’s energy industry," Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said. "However, we are refocusing our investment to where we can add the most value with Shell’s capital and technology." Shell said Friday it expects fourth-quarter earnings, which it will announce next week, to be $2.2 billion, down about 70% from $7.3 billion a year earlier. It projected full-year earnings of $16.8 billion, down […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Hundreds flee homes as heatwave fans Australia bushfires

Extreme heat and high winds fanned dozens of bushfires across Australia on Friday, prompting hundreds to flee their homes in some of the worst conditions seen since Black Saturday in 2009. One person died in the Grampians bushland in the southeastern state of Victoria, about 300 km (186 miles) west of Melbourne, where bushfires are burning out of control amid temperatures which have hit above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees F), destroying or damaging houses. Victoria was the hardest hit, with 70 bushfires burning out of control. Dozens of blazes are burning in South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales. Authorities have issued seven emergency warnings to severely affected areas, prompting hundreds of residents to flee their homes. Victoria Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said conditions were "up there" as the worst since the Black Saturday fires that killed 173 people in 2009. Lapsley said […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australia heat wave prompts fire alerts

Australians headed to the beach as temperatures soared South-east Australia has been hit with extreme hot weather, with temperatures of over 40C in some areas, and several bushfire warnings in place. In Victoria state, lightning strikes sparked more than 250 fires on Tuesday night, fire authorities said. A fire ban has been issued across the state. In Melbourne, a tennis player and a ball boy at the Australian Open collapsed in the heat. Temperatures in the city remained above 30C for much of Tuesday night. Country Fire Authority Chief Officer Euan Ferguson said in a statement: "The extreme temperatures [in Victoria] over the coming three days will test fire services and the community… it’s critical we minimise the risk of any fires before Friday." Road tar melting Meanwhile Adelaide, the capital of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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No deep freeze: Australia swelters in heat wave

Bats are dropping from trees, kangaroos are collapsing in the Outback and gardens are turning brown. While North America freezes under record polar temperatures, the southern hemisphere is experiencing the opposite extreme as heat records are being set in Australia after the hottest year ever. Weather forecasters in Australia said some parts of the sparsely populated Pilbara region along the rugged northwest coast on Thursday were approaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). The record high of 50.7 degrees Celsius (123.3 F) was set in 1960 in Oodnadatta, South Australia state. Outback resident Gian Tate, 60, spends much of the day soaking in a small wading pool at her home near Emu Creek in the Pilbara region, a remote area off the electric grid. The thermometer outside her home registered 50 degrees Celsius (122 F) on Wednesday, she said. Tate and her husband […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australia to reduce renewable energy target?

Australia’s renewable energy target appears to be on the table following Prime Minister Tony Abbott ‘s decision to review the country’s energy policy. Abbott announced Wednesday he will head an energy policy task force that will be "looking at new options to reduce the costs of energy." The review is expected to be completed in June. Australia’s Renewable Energy Target scheme, enacted in 2009, requires energy retailers and large customers to source a proportion of their energy from renewable sources. It calls for 20 percent of the country’s power generation to come from renewable sources by 2020. Abbott said "we support sensible use of renewable energy," but said circumstances had changed. "We have to accept that in the changed circumstances of today, the renewable energy target is causing pretty significant price pressure in the system and we ought to be an affordable energy […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australian coal projects at risk of being ‘stranded’

Australian coal projects are in danger of becoming "stranded," a new report by the University of Oxford warns. The report says Australia has proposals for 89 coal mines which could more than double annual output from about 430 million tons in 2011 to about 980 million tons by 2020. China is seen as a key export market for those projects. But the report, commissioned by HSBC’s Climate Change Center of Excellence, points to the changing nature of China’s outlook for coal and the impacts on resource-rich Australia, currently the world’s largest exporter of coal to China. "China’s demand for coal is changing as a result of environment-related factors, including environmental regulation, developments in cleaner technologies, air pollution, improving energy efficiency, developments in gas markets and political activism," Ben Caldecott, co-author of the report was quoted as saying by Business Green. "This could lead […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australian coal projects at risk of being 'stranded'

Australian coal projects are in danger of becoming "stranded," a new report by the University of Oxford warns. The report says Australia has proposals for 89 coal mines which could more than double annual output from about 430 million tons in 2011 to about 980 million tons by 2020. China is seen as a key export market for those projects. But the report, commissioned by HSBC’s Climate Change Center of Excellence, points to the changing nature of China’s outlook for coal and the impacts on resource-rich Australia, currently the world’s largest exporter of coal to China. "China’s demand for coal is changing as a result of environment-related factors, including environmental regulation, developments in cleaner technologies, air pollution, improving energy efficiency, developments in gas markets and political activism," Ben Caldecott, co-author of the report was quoted as saying by Business Green. "This could lead […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Another cost blowout for Chevron’s Gorgon LNG in Australia

Oil and gas giant Chevron Corporation has revealed the cost of its massive Gorgon liquefied natural gas project on Western Australia’s Barrow Island has increased to $54 billion. The cost blowout comes a year after the cost estimate for Gorgon, the world’s largest LNG development, was raised from $37 billion to $52 billion. Chevron said the project, under construction for four years, is nearly 75 percent complete. The company said Gorgon’s plant start-up and first gas is planned for mid-2015, a year later than initially planned. In a release Wednesday announcing the company’s 2014 overall capital and exploration budget, Chevron Vice Chairman George Kirkland said lessons learned from Gorgon’s complex construction were being applied to the $29 billion Wheatstone LNG project, also in Western Australia, which he said remains on schedule and on budget and is nearly 25 percent complete. The economics of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple