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DOT under fire for oil train rules

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) — The Department of Transportation in July published a 200-page proposal calling for the eventual elimination of older rail cars designated DOT 111 used to ship flammable liquids, "including most Bakken crude oil." The increase in U.S. crude oil production is more than the existing network of pipelines can handle and industry officials say rail is the primary alternative transit method. DOT-111 rail cars carrying crude oil have been involved in a series of disastrous derailments , including the deadly incident in Lac-Megantic, Quebec in 2013. Earthjustice, ForestEthics and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the Department of Transportation for not responding to a petition filed in July calling for a ban on shipping Bakken crude using DOT-111 cars. Matt Krogh, campaign director with ForestEthics, said DOT-111 cars are "tin cans on wheels." "We can’t run the risk of another disaster like Lac-Megantic," Earthjustice […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EIA: Tight Oil Stabilizes Brent Crude Prices

Rigzone Staff 8/29/2014 URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/134780/EIA_Tight_Oil_Stabilizes_Brent_Crude_Prices World events that threatened global oil production and distribution are scarcely having an effect on oil prices in the United States. The current period of stability, which contrasts with historic spikes that occurred during periods of strife in other regions, is due largely to the shale revolution, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a recent report. The price of Brent crude oil has been noteworthy for having fluctuated within a narrow range of $5/barrel (bbl) for 13 consecutive months. This was during a period of significant turmoil in Libya and Iraq. The lack of movement during that time is in sharp contrast with Brent crude oil prices for the period between early 2008 and the middle of 2013, when prices hit a high of $125/bbl in March 2012, and a low of $95/bbl just three months later, the EIA report said. Historically, commodity […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil Trades Sideways Ahead of U.S. Stocks Data

By Eric Yep Crude-oil futures traded in a narrow price range in Asia Tuesday with some support from international tensions but ample supply still dominates market sentiment. On the New York Mercantile Exchange light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $93.63 a barrel at 0527 GMT–up $0.28 in the Globex electronic session. October Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.13 to $102.78 a barrel. The presidents of Ukraine and Russia will meet in Minsk, Belarus later Tuesday. Tensions are high as a second convoy of vehicles carrying what Russia describes as humanitarian aid tries to enter Ukraine while Kiev accuses Moscow of moving tanks across the border. U.S. and its European allies have condemned escalating violence in Libya after Islamist militias took control of an international airport in Tripoli. Meanwhile, the U.S. is preparing to send surveillance aircraft into Syria to gather intelligence on […]

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Moscow fights back after sanctions; battle rages near Ukraine crash site

Russia fought back on Wednesday over new U.S. and EU sanctions imposed over Ukraine even as G7 leaders warned of further steps, while Ukraine’s government accused pro-Russian rebels of placing land mines near the site of a crashed Malaysian airliner to prevent a proper investigation. Russia announced a ban on most fruit and vegetable imports from Poland and said it could extend it to the entire European Union, a move Warsaw called Kremlin retaliation for new Western sanctions over Ukraine imposed on Russia on Tuesday. Moscow called the new EU and U.S. sanctions "destructive and short-sighted" and said they would lead to higher energy prices in Europe and damage cooperation with the United States on international affairs. The confrontation between Russia and the West entered a new phase this week, with the United States and European Union taking by far the strongest international steps yet against […]

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Peak Whiskey: supplies are running low

Bourbon lovers, you’d better stock up. A day of reckoning is quickly approaching, warns Buffalo Trace, one of the oldest distilleries in the country. A whiskey shortage may soon be upon us. While bourbon producers have seen this problem coming for more than a year, its impacts are just now beginning to hit the market and will likely only worsen. Here’s Buffalo Trace with more on the problem: Despite the increase in distillation over the past few years, bourbon demand still outpaces supply. The overall bourbon category is experiencing 5% growth, but premium brands are up nearly 20% from last year. Bourbon must be matured in new oak barrels and Buffalo Trace ages many of its barrels for eight to ten years, and some over two decades. That’s a long time to wait for a bottle of bourbon. Not to mention, with the amount of bourbon lost to evaporation over time, barrels are half empty after ten years. […]

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Analysts See 34 Billion-Cubic-Foot Addition 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 a smaller amount than average for this time of year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is expected to report that storage levels rose by 34 billion cubic feet of gas during the week ended April 11, 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 11 week, the median estimate is for an addition of 34 bcf. Estimates range from an increase of 22 bcf to an increase of 44 bcf. The estimate for April 11 is higher than the 25 bcf added to storage for the same week last year, and slightly lower than the 37-bcf five-year average injection […]

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Venezuela issues ID cards to curtail food hoarding

Battling food shortages, the government is rolling out a new ID system that is either a grocery loyalty card with extra muscle or the most dramatic step yet toward rationing in Venezuela, depending on who is describing it. President Nicolas Maduro’s administration says the cards to track families’ purchases will foil people who stock up on groceries at subsidized prices and then illegally resell them for several times the amount. Critics say it’s another sign the oil-rich Venezuelan economy is headed toward Cuba-style dysfunction. Registration begins at more than 100 government-run supermarkets across the country Tuesday, and working-class shoppers who sometimes endure hours-long lines at government-run stores to buy groceries at steeply reduced prices are welcoming the plan. "The rich people have things all hoarded away, and they pull the strings," said Juan Rodriguez, who waited two hours to enter the government-run Abastos Bicentenario supermarket […]

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BP’s Gulf Redemption May Take Decade to Bestow Barrels

BP ’s bids for its first new U.S. offshore leases in two years may not add any barrels of production until the middle of the next decade. The owner of the deep-water Macondo well that spewed millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico during a 2010 blowout was the highest bidder on 24 blocks offered for lease by the Interior Department, Tommy Beaudreau, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management , said in a conference call yesterday. The tracts are part of an area twice the size of Maine that attracted more than $1 billion in bids from oil and natural gas producers. It was only last week that BP received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s blessing to resume competing for federal drilling rights after the London-based company was barred from winning new leases in 2012 because of safety concerns. Although BP has regained credibility with […]

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Psychological Trigger Points For Crude Oil Demand Destruction

<img src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/sm-share-en.gif" width="83" height="16" alt="Bookmark and Share" style="border:0"/> <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hlL_Ax0fcZg/Uyh9250OnmI/AAAAAAAACCI/q2_QhL5AOjI/s1600/WhatWePay_p2.png" title="Psychological Trigger Points For Crude Oil Demand Destruction" alt="Psychological Trigger Points For Crude Oil Demand Destruction thumbnail" align="right" border="0" style="padding: 0px; margin: 5px 0px 10px 15px; width: 226px; height: 170px;"/> I’ve talked about demand destruction before in this blog. Demand destruction occurs when the marginal benefit of using more crude oil exceeds the marginal cost for people. Essentially, when oil prices go too high, people use less oil. On a personal level, this means that people may drive fewer miles by staying closer to home on the weekends, they might postpone a long-distance vacation, or they might start taking the bus or work from home instead of commuting by car. wrote a nice article on this phenomenon last year where they stated “in the rich world oil demand has already peaked: it has fallen since 2005.” While demand destruction […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EU Puts Brakes on Russia Natural Gas Pipelines

The European Union has slammed the brakes on two big Russian pipeline projects to supply more natural gas to Europe, as part of its efforts to turn up the heat on Moscow over its incursion into Crimea. The move will deal a blow to Russia’s ambitions of increasing its gas exports and bypassing Ukraine as a transit country. It comes as the 28-country bloc is weighing other options to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas, which accounts for over a third of EU supplies. Six EU countries, including Bulgaria and Lithuania, depend exclusively on Russia for natural gas. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said this week that it would freeze high-level talks on South Stream, a pipeline that aims to carry up to 15% of Europe’s annual gas demand via the Black Sea. It is due to be completed by 2018. The commission warned last year […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple