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EIA: U.S. August Lower 48 Natural-Gas Output Up 0.3% to Record High

By David Bird NEW YORK–U.S. natural-gas output in the Lower 48 states climbed 0.3% in August from an upwardly revised July level to a record high of 74.82 billion cubic feet per day, preliminary government figures released Thursday show. The Energy Information Administration data show August output was up 3.1% from a year earlier. That is the largest year-on-year growth for any month since output rose by 5% on this basis in September 2012. The EIA revised July output up to 74.62 billion cubic feet per day from the preliminary level of 74.52 billion cubic feet per day reported a month earlier. The biggest rise in output in August came from what EIA refers to as “other states,” or those outside the traditional producing areas of Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. Output from this region rose 2.4%, or 0.64 billion cubic feet per day, as new wells […]

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Chevron inks shale gas deal in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine, Oct. 31 (UPI) — The Ukrainian government announced it approved a draft agreement with Chevron for shale natural gas extraction in the western part of the country. Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said under the draft deal Chevron would invest $350 million in shale exploration at the Oleske field in western Ukraine, the National Radio Company of Ukraine reported Wednesday. NRCU reported the field is expected to hold more than 100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The announcement comes after Russian energy company Gazprom said Ukraine was late in paying off its natural gas debt. Gazprom cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine most recently in 2009 because of payment concerns. Ukraine says it’s paying more for Russian gas than its regional counterparts. Ukraine is one of the Eastern European countries thought to be rich in shale natural gas. The government said there may be enough natural […]

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Lebanon’s energy minister say gas reserves now near 96 tcf

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 30 (UPI) — Energy Minister Gebran Bassil says natural gas reserves off Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast are far greater than previously estimated, saying there may be 95.9 trillion cubic feet plus 865 million barrels of oil. The estimates mark a massive increase in Lebanon’s potential energy wealth, fueling growing expectations the violence-prone country is on the brink of a boom that will, at a stroke, eliminate its deepening economic distress — a debt approaching $60 billion — as it stumbles from day to day without a government and faces calamity from the spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria. Indeed, the figures cited by Bassil, whose term has been marked by a steadily deteriorating electrical supply that leaves much of Lebanon without power daily, are almost too good to be true, even with his caveats. “The current estimate, with a probability of 50 percent, for almost […]

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Lebanon's energy minister say gas reserves now near 96 tcf

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 30 (UPI) — Energy Minister Gebran Bassil says natural gas reserves off Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast are far greater than previously estimated, saying there may be 95.9 trillion cubic feet plus 865 million barrels of oil. The estimates mark a massive increase in Lebanon’s potential energy wealth, fueling growing expectations the violence-prone country is on the brink of a boom that will, at a stroke, eliminate its deepening economic distress — a debt approaching $60 billion — as it stumbles from day to day without a government and faces calamity from the spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria. Indeed, the figures cited by Bassil, whose term has been marked by a steadily deteriorating electrical supply that leaves much of Lebanon without power daily, are almost too good to be true, even with his caveats. “The current estimate, with a probability of 50 percent, for almost […]

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Work completed on North Dakota natural gas pipeline

BISMARCK, N.D., Oct. 30 (UPI) — A new 80-mile natural gas pipeline in North Dakota will help the state reduce the amount of gas burned off during oil production, the state’s governor said. Gov. Jack Dalrymple marked the completion of an 80-mile natural gas pipeline with developer Alliance pipeline. “This state-of-the-art pipeline will help us reduce flaring, add value to our natural resources and support our nation’s energy security,” he said in a statement Tuesday. Flaring is the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction. Dalrymple’s office said Alliance plans to solicit state producers to satisfy the 12-inch pipeline’s designed capacity for 126 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The pipeline is designed to deliver natural gas from a Hess Corp. gas processing plant near Tioga to the Chicago-area market hub. Alliance started building the $170 million pipeline one year ago. Hess said the pipeline would […]

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U.S. reviewing whether or not to allow oil, gas work in Atlantic Ocean

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) — The U.S. government doesn’t necessarily need a full set of data on the reserve potential in the Atlantic basin to consider a lease sale, a director said. Tommy Beaudreau, director of the U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said his agency should have enough information on hand to consider the east coast for a five-year lease plan beginning in 2017. “You don’t have to have a complete set of seismic data … to schedule a sale,” he said in an interview with the Platts energy news service published Tuesday. In a five-year lease plan outlined in 2011, BOEM said the oil and natural gas potential in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf is not well understood and surveys of these areas are incomplete and out of date. “We have a strategy for evaluating whether and, if so, under what configuration to have sales, […]

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Russia's Gazprom says no to shale natural gas production

MOSCOW, Oct. 30 (UPI) — Russian energy company Gazprom said it wasn’t ready to examine the shale natural gas potential in the country because of abundant conventional reserves. The board of directors at Gazprom met Tuesday in Moscow to survey the prospects for shale natural gas production. “The meeting participants affirmed that at the moment shale gas production in Russia would be inexpedient due to the abundance of conventional gas reserves with their recovery cost being considerably lower than the estimated cost of shale gas production,” the company said in a statement. “In addition, it was pointed out that shale gas production was related to considerable environmental risks.” Last year, the United States produced an average 25.7 billion cubic feet per day in shale natural gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said this month the United States passed Russia as the world’s leading natural gas producer thanks in part […]

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Russia’s Gazprom says no to shale natural gas production

MOSCOW, Oct. 30 (UPI) — Russian energy company Gazprom said it wasn’t ready to examine the shale natural gas potential in the country because of abundant conventional reserves. The board of directors at Gazprom met Tuesday in Moscow to survey the prospects for shale natural gas production. “The meeting participants affirmed that at the moment shale gas production in Russia would be inexpedient due to the abundance of conventional gas reserves with their recovery cost being considerably lower than the estimated cost of shale gas production,” the company said in a statement. “In addition, it was pointed out that shale gas production was related to considerable environmental risks.” Last year, the United States produced an average 25.7 billion cubic feet per day in shale natural gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said this month the United States passed Russia as the world’s leading natural gas producer thanks in part […]

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Gazprom’s Demands Shouldn’t Scare Europe – MoneyBeat – WSJ

By Alexis Flynn Here’s your morning jolt of news, insight and analysis on the global energy business. Send us tips, suggestions and complaints: [email protected] Click here to receive this morning email newsletter GAZPROM SPAT REVIVES BAD MEMORIES Hopes that competitive natural gas markets—thanks in large part to the U.S. shale boom—had finally put paid to Gazprom’s ability to squeeze its Western neighbors may be premature. Like the villain in a slasher film, returning from the dead for one last bout of terror, the state-owned gas giant looks to be reprising its tactics from 2006 and 2009, when a payment dispute led Russia to cut off gas supplies to Ukraine. Reviving memories of past “gas wars,” Gazprom complained yesterday that Ukraine still owed it hundreds of millions of dollars that needed to be paid immediately, the Journal’s James Marson reports from Moscow . Although Gazprom hasn’t threatened to halt deliveries, […]

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Russia and shale can solve Europe’s energy problem

The sooner the region realises its energy policy is a mess, the sooner it can grow, says Paolo Scaroni The aim of European energy policy should be to combine economic growth with environmental sustainability. However, we have ended up with energy costs that hamper growth – yet greenhouse gas emissions have not fallen despite the decline in energy consumption. The problem is that we have, so far, failed to grasp the implications of the US shale revolution for Europe. Thanks to the rapid increase in efficient non-conventional gas production, US companies pay about $3.50 per million British thermal units (mBtu) for their natural gas. That is about a third of what Europeans pay. Turning to electricity, not only are European consumers hit by relatively high gas feedstock prices, but they also have to pay an extra charge to cover the more than €30bn of incentives to invest in renewables […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple