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Hedge Funds’ Natural Gas Bets Jump as Thermometer Drops: Energy

Hedge funds got more bullish on natural gas, betting the most on rising prices in 11 weeks as cold weather in the U.S. diminished fuel inventories. Money managers boosted net-long positions by 44 percent in the seven days ended Dec. 10, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. The total was the most since Sept. 24. Bullish wagers increased for a third week. Gas surged 6.6 percent during the report week as forecasts showed widespread below-normal temperatures. MDA Weather Services in Gaithersburg, Maryland , predicted it would be colder than average in most of the contiguous U.S. from Dec. 23 through Dec. 27. A government report on Dec. 5 showed a weekly drop in gas supply that surpassed analysts’ estimates. “The weather has been incredibly cold,” said Teri Viswanath, director of commodities strategy at BNP Paribas SA in New York. “The expectation is that we’re going […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Chevron agrees to explore Polish shale gas potential

WARSAW, Poland, Dec. 13 (UPI) — PGNiG, a Polish state-owned energy company, said it reached a deal with a Chevron subsidiary to explore for shale natural gas in southeastern Poland. State-owned Polish Petroleum and Gas Mining, known by its Polish initials PGNiG, said the deal was signed in Warsaw with Chevron Polish Energy Resources. PGNiG President Jerzy Kurella said both sides would benefit by sharing the exploration risks, including the possible costs associated with development of the shale gas reserves in southeastern Poland. "We could benefit from the experience of Chevron in the exploration and production of shale gas around the world," he said in a statement Thursday. Chevron said if the exploration effort proves successful, both sides would form a joint venture for further operations in the license areas. Neither company offered an estimate of the reserve potential in the license areas. The Polish government estimates it has […]

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Titan moon’s colossal methane seas

Ligeia Mare is twice the area of Lake Michigan in the US Measurements of a big sea on Titan, a moon of Saturn, show that it contains about 9,000 cubic km of mostly liquid methane. This huge volume is equivalent, say scientists, to about 40 times the proven reserves of oil and gas on Earth. The extraordinary thing is that Ligeia Mare is only the second largest hydrocarbon sea on Titan . The body of liquid methane known as Kraken is perhaps five times as big. "What you’re talking about here is essentially liquefied natural gas," explained Randy Kirk from the US Geological Survey (USGS). "People ask me if you could bring it to Earth, and that’s a dumb idea on many levels. But what you might not realise is that there […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Titan moon's colossal methane seas

Ligeia Mare is twice the area of Lake Michigan in the US Measurements of a big sea on Titan, a moon of Saturn, show that it contains about 9,000 cubic km of mostly liquid methane. This huge volume is equivalent, say scientists, to about 40 times the proven reserves of oil and gas on Earth. The extraordinary thing is that Ligeia Mare is only the second largest hydrocarbon sea on Titan . The body of liquid methane known as Kraken is perhaps five times as big. "What you’re talking about here is essentially liquefied natural gas," explained Randy Kirk from the US Geological Survey (USGS). "People ask me if you could bring it to Earth, and that’s a dumb idea on many levels. But what you might not realise is that there […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EIA Sees 2014 US Natgas Output Up From 2013 Record High

The U.S. Energy Information Administration raised its estimate on Tuesday for domestic natural gas production in 2014, expecting output next year to be up 1.4 percent from 2013’s estimated record-high levels. In its December Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA said it expected marketed natural gas production in 2014 to rise by 0.98 billion cubic feet per day from 2013 to 71.43 bcf per day, up from its November outlook of 71.03 bcf daily. If the forecast is realized, it would be the fourth straight year of record production. Growth has mostly been driven by rising production in the Marcellus shale play in Appalachia, which has more than outpaced declines in offshore Gulf of Mexico and Haynesville shale output. Pipeline imports from Canada are expected to decline slightly next year, falling to […]

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Exxon forecasts natural gas to be world’s second most-used fuel

Natural gas will overtake coal as a global energy source in the middle of the next decade, in part because of the environmental benefits it offers, according to ExxonMobil , the world’s largest oil and gas company. In its annual forecasts of the energy outlook for the next three decades, published on Thursday morning, Exxon says that around 2025 gas will become the world’s second most-used fuel on an energy-equivalent basis, behind oil. By 2040, it expects natural gas consumption to rise 65 per cent, but coal use to be no higher than it is today, rising and then falling again during the next two decades. The forecasts sketch out the battleground for a contest between gas and coal to be the dominant fuel for power generation. Exxon is significantly more negative about the outlook for global coal use than other forecasters. The International Energy Agency, the think-tank backed […]

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Europe will sleep warm, Ukraine says

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said European energy consumers will stay warm this winter as a result of efforts to resolve gas issues with Russia. “Europe will sleep calmly, in warmth, if Ukraine maintains normal relations with Russia,” he was quoted by the National News Agency of Ukraine as saying Tuesday. Ukraine was able to reach an agreement with Russia to defer payments toward debt incurred this year from natural gas deliveries from Russian energy company Gazprom. Disagreement in 2009 prompted Gazprom to cut gas deliveries through Ukraine, which left European consumers in the cold for several weeks. European consumers get about 20 percent of their gas needs met by Russia, much of it through a Soviet-era transmission network in Ukraine. The deal that broke the 2009 impasse left Ukraine with a higher debt burden for gas than its European counterparts. Yanukovych said the […]

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U.S. Natural-Gas Production at Multiyear High in November

U.S. natural-gas production hit its highest level since at least 2009 in November, according to a government report released Tuesday, and domestic production is expected to grow in 2014. The rise in output is expected to be met by a decline in imports, leading to a leveling out of U.S. natural-gas supplies next year, the Energy Information Administration said in its short-term energy outlook. Total marketed production in the U.S. hit 72 billion cubic feet per day in November, up from 71.2 bcf/d in October and 70.3 bcf/d in November 2012. U.S. natural-gas production has soared as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques have enabled energy producers to tap into supplies trapped in shale-gas fields. The EIA also expects a decline in imports, from an average of 8.6 bcf/d in 2012 to 7.84 bcf/d this year and 7.77 bcf/d in 2014. Total primary supply of natural gas in the […]

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Natural Gas: Not All It’s Fracked Up to Be?

Natural gas is being touted as a “game changer” and a “bridge to a low carbon economy.” It is an abundant, made-in-America energy source.  It is about half as carbon intensive as coal when burned. The figure below suggests that a natural gas fueled transition to a less carbon intensive economy has already begun. Domestic, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have declined 12 percent since the peak in 2007. An important driver of this trend is the substitution of natural gas for coal in electricity generation. Of course, this picture gets much more complicated when you look upstream and broaden your perspective to consider not just carbon dioxide -the most prevalent anthropogenic greenhouse gas- but also “fugitive” methane emissions. Methane, the primary constituent of natural gas, can escape during extraction, processing, and distribution. These emissions have the potential to eliminate the carbon advantage of gas over coal and oil. There […]

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Iraq to Become Iran’s Largest Gas Customer

Iraq is willing to boost its gas imports from Iran to 90 million cubic meters (mcm) per day, a senior Iranian gas official said. This comes as on July 21, Iranian and Iraqi oil ministers signed the first deal to transfer Iran’s natural gas to power plants in Baghdad and Diyala provinces. Iran expects to begin exporting gas to neighboring Iraq by July next year, with initial volumes set at 7 million cubic metres per day, an the volume expected to increase to 25 mcm/day by 2015 and ultimately 40 mcm/day, said National Iranian Gas Export Company Director General Alireza Kameli on Saturday. The pipeline will stretch from Assaluyeh, near the massive offshore South Pars gas field in southern Iran, and will continue into neighboring Iraq to feed Iraqi power plants running on gas. Iraq’s electricity ministry said earlier this year it had signed […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple