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Europe Must Embrace Fracking, U.K. Energy Minister Says

The Ukraine crisis has become a “wake-up call” for European governments on the need to develop local energy resources, including natural gas from shale, U.K. Energy Minister said. The use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to tap shale reserves that could meet demand for decades would provide greater security of supply at a time when Russia has threatened to curb gas shipments needed to power European economies, he said in an interview in Houston yesterday. “We have to ensure that we do maximize our indigenous resources,” Fallon said. “We can’t be reliant on dodgy parts of the world.” Escalating violence in Ukraine fanned by Russian separatists has intensified calls to develop local prospects, especially in countries such as Bulgaria that are more reliant on Russian gas, he said. Russia provides about a third of the EU’s oil and gas needs, mainly via state-controlled OAO Gazprom (GAZP) and OAO Rosneft […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas Weekly Update

Decreasing natural gas price seasonality keeps inventories in April at 11-year low Natural gas net storage injections for the Lower 48 totaled 82 billion cubic feet (Bcf) for the week ending on April 25. This was the fourth consecutive week of net storage injections, which this year began in the week ending on April 4. Over this period, cumulative net injections totaled 163 Bcf, a 53% increase when compared to the same weeks in 2013, but only 8% above the 5-year average for these weeks of 151 Bcf . Total Lower 48 working inventories totaled 981 Bcf, an 11-year low. This was well below the 2009-13 minimum for that week of 1,716 Bcf, as can be seen from the storage graph below this article. It is also the latest point in the year that inventories have remained below 1,000 Bcf since 2003. Despite a steady increase in natural gas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Analysts See 75 Billion Cubic-Feet Add to U.S. Natural-Gas Inventories

Analysts and traders expect government data scheduled for release Thursday to show natural-gas inventories grew last week by nearly 30% more than they usually would this time of year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is expected to report that storage levels rose by 75 billion cubic feet of gas during the week ended April 25, according to the average forecast of 18 analysts and traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The EIA is scheduled to release its storage data for the week on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EDT. For the April 25 week, the median estimate is for an addition of 76 bcf. Estimates range from an increase of 66 bcf to an increase of 84 bcf. The estimate for the latest week is higher than the 41 bcf added to storage for the same week last year and the 58-bcf five-year average injection for […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas-Gobbling Bacteria May Help Combat Oil Leaks

A type of bacteria that eats natural gases may provide a small defence against leaks such as BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 and curb global warming, a scientific report said on Monday. The study identified a strain of microbe able to grow on both methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and propane. Both are found in unrefined natural gas and scientists had previously thought that bacteria could only grow on one or the other. In consuming both methane and propane the bacteria prevent the gases reaching the atmosphere, Britain’s University of East Anglia said of the report written by two of its scientists in the journal Nature. That means the microbes "could help mitigate the effects of the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from both natural gas seeps in the environment and those arising from man-made activity such as fracking […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural gas – Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist

For those of us who follow energy issues closely, a long-standing, persistent question has been: Are methane hydrates for real? Are they a realistically large potential energy resource? The answer seems to be yes. Thirty years ago the information available to answer these questions was not available. Today the literature on methane hydrates (also known as methane clathrates, methane ice, fire ice) is extensive and growing. This blog post attempts to capture the main points I came away with in a detailed review of the subject. To this energy wonk it was both fascinating and disturbing – fascinating in nailing down a lot of details about a potentially new and very large energy resource, and disturbing in that it again raises serious concerns for me about our lack of a national energy policy. I will explain further. First a word about clathrates and hydrates: clathrate is a general term […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The Fracking Prostitutes of American Colleges

Lackawanna College, a two-year college in Scranton, Pa., has become a prostitute. The administration doesn’t think of themselves or their college as a prostitute. They believe they are doing a public service. Of course, streetwalkers and call-girls also believe they are doing a public service. Lackawanna College’s price is $2.5 million. That’s how much Cabot Oil & Gas paid to the School of Petroleum and Natural Gas, whose own nine-building campus is in New Milford in northeastern Pennsylvania.  On the School’s logo are now the words, “Endowed by Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation.” That would be the same Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation that has racked up more than 500 violations since it first used horizontal fracking to extract gas in the Marcellus Shale almost six years ago. That would be the same company that was found to be responsible for significant environmental and health damages in Dimock, Pennsylvania. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Cold economics may limit big LNG ambitions

Natural gas enthusiasts from Texas to Capitol Hill insist the world is clamoring to buy American supplies of the fuel and the only major obstacle is the federal government. But there’s an even bigger economic reality standing in the way: The facilities to super-chill gas for transport cost billions to build, and even with permits, few will ever make it past the drawing board. "It’s very easy for us in this country to blame everything on our regulators, but economics are the biggest driver here," said Joe Fagan, a partner at Day Pitney who advises clients on liquefied natural gas import and export matters. "Even […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Why Marcellus Shale Gas Doesn't Get to New England

Nearly 15 million people in New England live within driving distance of America’s biggest natural-gas field, yet heating and electricity prices reached a record for the region this winter. As states stretching from Massachusetts to Maine thaw out from bitter cold, questions linger about why New England hasn’t benefited from the energy boom in the nearby Marcellus Shale. The short answer is not enough pipelines. And the reason is an impasse between pipeline operators and power plants over how to pay for new capacity. The problem is that pipeline operators want long-term contracts in place before they spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to build a new pipeline or expand an existing one. But power companies, which buy gas to fuel generators on a need-to-have-it basis, work on a different timetable. Independent power-plant operators must supply electricity to utilities at the lowest cost possible, and utilities are […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Why Marcellus Shale Gas Doesn’t Get to New England

Nearly 15 million people in New England live within driving distance of America’s biggest natural-gas field, yet heating and electricity prices reached a record for the region this winter. As states stretching from Massachusetts to Maine thaw out from bitter cold, questions linger about why New England hasn’t benefited from the energy boom in the nearby Marcellus Shale. The short answer is not enough pipelines. And the reason is an impasse between pipeline operators and power plants over how to pay for new capacity. The problem is that pipeline operators want long-term contracts in place before they spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to build a new pipeline or expand an existing one. But power companies, which buy gas to fuel generators on a need-to-have-it basis, work on a different timetable. Independent power-plant operators must supply electricity to utilities at the lowest cost possible, and utilities are […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Texas: When fracking comes to town

Denton, about 40 miles northeast of Azle, is in the heart of the Barnett Shale gas patch. In rural areas the telltale sign of a gas well is a fenced-in field and signs saying, “No Trespassing” and “No Smoking.” But in cities, the placement gets more creative. In Denton, there are wells near the University of North Texas’s football stadium and on the grounds of a high school. But the prospect of a fracked future for their city has prompted a group of activists to fight back. “I didn’t set out to be a fracktivist,” says Maile Bush, a fast-talking stay-at-home mother who lives near the Ogletrees in the Meadows at Hickory Creek. “We’re moms and retirees and doctors and lawyers and nurses. We’re not some Berkeley enclave.” Bush is active in a group called Frack Free Denton, which in February began circulating a petition to outlaw hydraulic fracturing […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple