oil prices saw their largest weekly drop since mid-July on weak economic data, but managed to break an eight day losing streak on Friday when the September employment report was not as bad as some feared...after falling 3.6% to $55.91 a barrel after the Saudis restored their oil production to the pre-attack level last week, prices of US light sweet crude for November delivery tanked on Monday on reports that the Trump administration was considering more extreme measures in its economic war with China and ended down $1.84, or 3.3%, at $54.07 a barrel, as fears of a supply shortfall after the Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Arabia faded...oil prices rebounded early Tuesday on a Reuters report that oil output from the world’s largest oil producers fell during the third quarter, but then turned lower after a report showing US manufacturing had slowed by the most in over ten years, with US crude settling down 45 cents at $53.62 a barrel...oil prices rebounded again early Wednesday after oil industry data showed a surprise drop in U.S. crude inventories, but quickly reversed after the EIA report showed that US crude inventories had actually risen by more than was expected, and ended down 98 cents at $52.64 a barrel after the ADP reported that September private payrolls came in below expectations...oil prices moved lower for an eighth-straight session on Thursday after a report that U.S. services sector growth had slowed to its most anemic pace in three years, but recovered from the session low of $50.99 to finish at $52.45 a barrel, down just 19 cents on the day...oil prices finally moved higher Friday after the Labor Department reported payroll jobs increased moderately in September and that the unemployment rate dropped to a 50-year low of 3.5%, and ended 36 cents higher at $52.81 a barrel, but still ended more than 5% lower for the week, its second consecutive weekly decline...
natural gas prices also ended the week lower even as they broke a 12 day losing streak on Thursday after the longer term weather forecasts suggested cooler weather and hence the onset of the heating season for the middle section of the country...after falling each day last week (and in fact every day since September 16th) and ending down nearly 6% at $2.404 per mmBTU, the quoted contract price of natural gas for November delivery resumed its downward slide on Monday, falling 7.4 cents to $2.33 per mmBTU, after weekend data had indicated a new all-time high for gas production, and forecasts suggested reduced cooling demand without the need for much heating...natural gas prices fell 4.7 cents on Tuesday and then 3.6 cents more on Wednesday, the 12th straight decline in a slump that had seen prices for November gas fall 17.5% over the prior 2 and a half weeks....however, on Thursday, despite a storage report that was on the high side of estimates, prices quickly recovered after the EIA report as mid-October weather outlooks trended cooler and ended the day 8.2 cents higher at $2.329 per mmBTU...the November gas contract price then added another 2.3 cents on Friday to end the week at $2.352 per mmBTU, still 5.2 cents or 2.2% lower than where it ended the prior week..
the natural gas storage report for the week ending September 27th from the EIA indicated that the quantity of natural gas held in storage in the US increased by 112 billion cubic feet to 3,317 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which meant our gas supplies were 465 billion cubic feet, or 16.3% more than the 2,852 billion cubic feet that were in storage on September 27th of last year, while still 18 billion cubic feet, or a half percent below the five-year average of 3,335 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been in storage as of the 27th of September in recent years....this week's 112 billion cubic feet injection into US natural gas storage was a bit more than the forecast for an 109 billion cubic feet injection by analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts, while it was well above the average 82 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been added to gas storage during the fourth week of September over the past 5 years, the 27th such average or above average storage build in the last 29 weeks...the 2,139 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been added to storage over the 27 weeks of this year's injection season is the second most for the same period in the modern record, eclipsed only by the record 2204 billion cubic feet of natural gas that were injected into storage over the same 26 weeks of the 2014 natural gas injection season, a coolish summer when there were no injections below 76 billion cubic feet….
as it turns out, that 112 billion cubic feet increase in natural gas storage was the largest on record for the month of September, and the second highest Fall injection in the modern records for this storage report, a level which we can get a sense of with the following graphic of the weekly natural gas inventory change..
the above graphic is a screenshot of an interactive graphic included on the EIA's weekly natural gas storage dashboard, and as the heading indicates, it shows the weekly change, in billions of cubic feet, of natural gas in storage in the lower 48 states...the blue dots represent the weekly changes of natural gas in storage for each week this year up to the current report, and the dark diamonds represent the 5 year average change of natural gas in storage for each of the weeks of the year, while the shaded grey background to those markers represent the range of changes for each week of the year over that 5 year span...thus, for this week, which i have highlighted on this interactive graph by moving my cursor below this week's dots, you can see the 112 billion cubic feet addition for this year, the 82 billion cubic feet average for the same week over the prior 5 years, and the prior range of between 47 billion cubic feet and 110 billion cubic feet of natural gas that was added to storage over the prior 5 years, with that latter large injection being the one for the same period in 2014...
notice that the blue dots representing this year's weekly injections are often above the prior 5 year range, as represented by the grey shading, and that the blue dot for the current week's injection is clearly higher than any prior injection recorded in the 2nd half of the year above...as it turns out, the recent historical records show this week's 112 billion cubic foot injection was the highest ever for September, and the second highest for the season, eclipsed only by the 113 billion cubic feet injection for the week ending October 7th, 2011....the historical record also shows that this year's injection of 2,139 billion cubic feet is in sharp contrast to the injections of 2018, when just 1,512 billion cubic feet of natural gas were added to storage between the last week of March and the last week of September, leading to the lowest November gas stores in 16 years, and subsequently to concerns about possible mid-winter shortages...
The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA
US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending September 27th showed that because of a big pullback in our oil refining, we were left with surplus oil to add to storage for the third week in a row...our imports of crude oil fell by an average of 87,000 barrels per day to an average of 6,291,000 barrels per day, after falling by an average of 672,000 barrels per day during the prior week, while our exports of crude oil fell by an average of 116,000 barrels per day to an average of 2,867,000 barrels per day during the week, which meant that our effective trade in oil worked out to a net import average of 3,424,000 barrels of per day during the week ending September 27th, 29,000 more barrels per day than the net of our imports minus exports during the prior week...over the same period, the production of crude oil from US wells was reported to be 100,000 barrels per day lower at a 12,400,000 barrels per day, so our daily supply of oil from the net of our trade in oil and from well production totaled an average of 15,824,000 barrels per day during this reporting week..
meanwhile, US oil refineries were reportedly processing 16,017,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending September 27th, 496,000 fewer barrels per day than the amount of oil they used during the prior week, while over the same period the EIA reported that a net average of 443,000 barrels of oil per day were being added to the supplies of oil stored in the US....hence, this week's crude oil figures from the EIA appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports and from oilfield production was 636,000 barrels per day less than what was reportedly added to storage plus what our oil refineries reported they used during the week....to account for that disparity between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA inserted a (+636,000) barrel per day figure onto line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet to make the reported data for the daily supply of oil and the consumption of it balance out, essentially a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as "unaccounted for crude oil"....with that much oil unaccounted for once again this week, it calls into question all the other oil metrics that the EIA has reported and that we have just transcribed (for more on how this weekly oil data is gathered, and the possible reasons for that "unaccounted for" oil, see this EIA explainer)....
further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicated that the 4 week average of our oil imports rose to an average of 6,611,000 barrels per day last week, now 15.7% less than the 7,984,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week period last year....the 443,000 barrel per day increase in our total crude inventories was all added to our commercially available stocks of crude oil, while the amount of oil stored in our Strategic Petroleum Reserve remained unchanged......this week's crude oil production was reported to be 100,000 barrels per day lower at a record 12,400,000 barrels per day because the rounded estimate of the output from wells in the lower 48 states was 100,000 barrels per day lower at 11,900,000 barrels per day, while a 8,000 barrels per day increase to 480,000 barrels per day in Alaska's oil production ha no impact on the final rounded national production total...last year's US crude oil production for the week ending September 21st was rounded to 11,100,000 barrels per day, so this reporting week's rounded oil production figure was 11.7% above that of a year ago, and 47.1% more than the interim low of 8,428,000 barrels per day that US oil production fell to during the last week of June of 2016...
meanwhile, US oil refineries were operating at 86.4% of their capacity in using 16,017,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending September 27th, down from 89.8% of capacity the prior week, & well below the normal refinery utilization rate for mid-September, partially due to tropical storm Imelda's track through southeastern Texas...as a result, the 16,017,000 barrels per day of oil that were refined this week was 3.5% less than the 16,591,000 barrels of crude per day that were being processed during the week ending September 28th, 2018, when US refineries were operating at 90.4% of capacity....
with the decrease in the amount of oil being refined, gasoline output from our refineries was also lower, decreasing by 159,000 barrels per day to 10,081,000 barrels per day during the week ending September 27th, after our refineries' gasoline output had increased by 789,000 barrels per day the prior week...but even with that decrease in gasoline output, this week's gasoline production was 1.3% higher than the 9,950,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily over the same week of last year....at the same time, our refineries' production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) fell by 187,000 barrels per day to 4,813,000 barrels per day, after our distillates output had decreased by 341,000 barrels per day over the prior 2 weeks....with those decreases, our distillates production was 4.3% below the 5,029,000 barrels of distillates per day that were being produced during the week ending September 28th, 2018....
with the decrease in our gasoline production, our supply of gasoline in storage at the end of the week decreased for the 10th time in 16 weeks and for the 24th time in thirty-one weeks, falling by 228,000 barrels to 229,976,000 barrels during the week to September 27th, after our gasoline supplies had increased by 519,000 barrels over the prior week....the decrease in our gasoline supplies came even as the amount of gasoline supplied to US markets decreased by 209,000 barrels per day to 9,137,000 barrels per day, as our exports of gasoline rose by 115,000 barrels per day to 920,000 barrels per day, while our imports of gasoline rose by 43,000 barrels per day to 843,000 barrels per day....after this week's decrease, our gasoline supplies were 2.2% lower than last September 28th's inventory level of 235,221,000 barrels, while slipping back to roughly 3% above the five year average of our gasoline supplies for this time of the year...
with the decrease in our distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels fell for the 17th time in the past 29 weeks, decreasing by 2,418,000 barrels to 131,267,000 barrels during the week ending September 27th, after our distillates supplies had decreased by 2,978,000 barrels over the prior week...the decrease in our distillates supplies was less extreme this week because our exports of distillates fell by 374,000 barrels per day to 1,249,000 barrels per day, while our imports of distillates fell by 44,000 barrels per day to 50,000 barrels per day, while the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of our domestic demand, increased by 63,000 barrels per day to 3,960,000 barrels per day....after this week's inventory decrease, our distillate supplies were 3.6% less than the 136,131,000 barrels of distillates that we had stored on September 28th, 2018, and fell to around 8% below the five year average of distillates stocks for this time of the year...
finally, with the slowdown in our refining of oil, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage rose for the fifth time in sixteen weeks and for the twentieth time in 37 weeks, increasing by 3,104,000 barrels, from 419,538,000 barrels on September 20th to 422,642,000 barrels on September 27th...that increase still left our crude oil inventories near the five-year average of crude oil supplies for this time of year, but more than 25% higher than the prior 5 year (2009 - 2013) average of crude oil stocks after the fourth week of September, with the disparity between those comparisons arising because it wasn't until early 2015 that our oil inventories first rose above 400 million barrels...since our crude oil inventories had generally been rising over the past year up until the most recent sixteen weeks, after generally falling until then through most of the prior year and a half, our oil supplies as of September 27th were still 4.6% above the 403,964,000 barrels of oil we had stored on September 28th of 2018, but at the same time were 9.1% below the 464,963,000 barrels of oil that we had in storage on September 29th of 2017, and 9.9% below the 469,108,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage on September 30th of 2016...
This Week's Rig Count
the US rig count fell for the 7th week in a row and for the 29th time in 33 weeks over the week ending October 4th, and is now down by more than 21% since the beginning of this year....Baker Hughes reported that the total count of rotary rigs running in the US fell by 5 rigs to nearly a 30 month low of 855 rigs this past week, which was also down by 197 rigs from the 1057 rigs that were in use as of the October 5th report of 2018, and well less than half of the shale era high of 1929 drilling rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014, the week before OPEC began their attempt to flood the global oil market...
the count of rigs drilling for oil decreased by 3 rigs to 710 rigs this week, which was a 29 month low for oil rigs and 151 fewer oil rigs than were running a year ago, and quite a bit below the recent high of 1609 rigs that were drilling for oil on October 10th, 2014...at the same time, the number of drilling rigs targeting natural gas bearing formations fell by 2 rigs to 144 natural gas rigs, a 32 month low for gas rig drilling activity and down by 45 rigs from the 189 natural gas rigs that were drilling a year ago, and way down from the modern era high of 1,606 rigs targeting natural gas that were deployed on September 7th, 2008...in addition, a vertical rig classified as miscellaneous continued to drill on the big island of Hawaii this week, down by one from the "miscellaneous" rig count of a year ago, when 2 miscellaneous rigs were deployed..
Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling activity was unchanged with 22 Gulf rigs still running this week, with all of those drilling offshore from Louisiana... however, with a jump in the Gulf in same week of last year, this week's count now matches the Gulf of Mexico rig count of a year ago, when 21 rigs were drilling in Louisiana waters and one was drilling offshore from Texas...in addition to the Gulf, two rigs continue to drill offshore from the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, one targeting oil at 5,000 to 10,000 feet and the other targeting natural gas at a depth of more than 15,000 feet, which matches the offshore Alaska count of a year ago...hence, the national total of 24 offshore rigs the same number of rigs that were deployed offshore a year ago...
the count of active horizontal drilling rigs was down by 3 rigs to 749 horizontal rigs this week, which was the least horizontal rigs deployed since May 12th, 2017 and hence is a 28 month low for horizontal drilling...that was also 170 fewer horizontal rigs than the 919 horizontal rigs that were in use in the US on October 5th of last year, and also well down from the record of 1372 horizontal rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014...likewise, the directional rig count was also down by 3 to 54 directional rigs this week, and those were down by 12 from the 66 directional rigs that were operating during the same week of last year...on the other hand, the vertical rig count increased by 1 to 52 vertical rigs this week, but those were down by 15 from the 67 vertical rigs that were in use on October 5th of 2018...
the details on this week's changes in drilling activity by state and by major shale basin are included in our screenshot below of that part of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes that shows those changes...the first table below shows weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major oil & gas producing states, and the table below that shows the weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major US geological oil and gas basins...in both tables, the first column shows the active rig count as of October 4th, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week's count (September 27th) and this week's (October 4th) count, the third column shows last week's September 27th active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Friday and the number running before the equivalent weekend of a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting week a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 5th of October, 2018... :
as you can see, the 4 rig increase in New Mexico partially offset this week's rig decrease in other states...to determine where in New Mexico those rigs might have been added, we have to first check the Permian rig count in Texas, which we find in the Rigs by State - Current and Historical excel file from Baker Hughes, and which shows that 3 rigs were pulled out of Texas Oil District 8, or the core Permian Delaware, while drilling in both Texas Oil District 8A and Texas Oil District 7C, the northern and southern Permian Midland, was unchanged...hence, for the Permian rig count to show a one rig increase, all 4 of the rigs added in New Mexico had to have been start-ups in the western Permian Delaware...meanwhile, in the Eagle Ford of South Texas, 6 oil seeking rigs were shut down, while 4 natural gas rigs were added, leaving the Eagle Ford deployment at 50 oil rigs and 10 targeting natural gas...on the other hand, the 2 rigs that were shut down in Oklahoma's Cana Woodford included one oil rig and one targeting gas, while another Oklahoma rig was shut down outside of the major basins tracked by Baker Hughes...meanwhile, North Dakota only shows a 1 rig increase despite the 2 rigs added in the Williston basin because a second Williston basin rig was started up in Montana, the first time Montana has had two rigs deployed since January...note that to offset the 4 natural gas rigs that were added in the Eagle Ford, 2 natural gas rigs were pulled out of West Virginia's Marcellus, one natural gas rig was pulled out of Oklahoma's Cana Woodford, one natural gas rig was pulled out of northern Louisiana's Haynesville while an oil rig was added in Shelby county Texas on the western side of the Haynesville at the same time, and 2 natural gas rigs were removed from basins not tracked separately by Baker Hughes...lastly, we should also note that other than the changes in the major producing states shown above, Mississippi also saw a rig shut down this week and now has two rigs remaining active; the rig count in that state has fluctuated back and forth between 1 and 6 rigs over just the past couple months, so who knows what's going on down there....
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Ohio firefighters kept in the dark on drilling and fracking chemicals - Companies injected trade secret chemicals into more than 1,400 wells in the state from 2013 to 2018, a report says. Ohio firefighters and emergency responders are being kept in the dark about potentially hazardous chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Oil and gas companies are using a “trade secret” exemption to avoid disclosing the full mix of chemicals used at drilling and well sites in the state. Critics say the secrecy threatens public safety by preventing first responders from preparing for incidents involving chemical fires, spills or releases. “We need a better system to ensure the safety of our first responders and residents in areas affected by oil and gas drilling,” said Miranda Leppla, vice president of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council. The problem was highlighted in a recent report by the Partnership for Policy Integrity, an energy policy advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Ohio law requires drillers to report which chemicals they use in fracking, but some information can be kept secret from the public. Ohio’s laws and regulations call for companies to report drilling chemicals to the Ohio Department of Natural Gas within 60 days after a well is completed. Chemicals used for fracking must be reported to the department or to a multistate chemical disclosure registry known as FracFocus. However, both requirements let companies claim trade secrets for the ingredients of various chemicals, so the general public can’t get that information. The Department of Natural Gas generally can’t disclose it either, so first responders can’t get the information before an emergency situation comes up. Companies claimed trade secret protection for at least one chemical used at more than 1,400 Ohio oil and gas wells from 2013 to 2018, according to the September 2019 report from the Partnership for Policy Integrity. The report draws on data, mapping and analysis from the FracTracker Alliance, which has an Ohio office in Shaker Heights. Many of those chemicals could be toxic, said report author Dusty Horwitt. He based that conclusion on a review of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency records dealing with new chemicals proposed for drilling and fracking between 2003 and 2014.
EPA: An Ohio family suffers as enforcement stalls - Second in a series. Click here for the first part.— Jill Hunkler's home is a couple of miles from four oil and gas well pads that the Obama-era EPA cited in December 2016 for allegedly spewing organ-damaging air pollution. But nearly three years later — after Gulfport Energy Corp. asked EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson for help — serious Clean Air Act violations at those wells and a dozen other Gulfport sites remain unresolved. EPA's ongoing inaction has potentially saved Gulfport millions of dollars yet left the residents of Barnesville at risk, former regulators and public health experts say. With the allegations against Gulfport in limbo, Hunkler became wary about staying with her daughter in their two-bedroom cottage along the shaded banks of Slope Creek. "If we got here and they were doing stuff on these close pads, we would leave," the 44-year-old single mother said, sitting on her front porch one August morning. Birds sang and bees buzzed over the faint hum of oil and gas production equipment in the distance. "Because if we didn't, we'd wake up," she said. "Like our throats would be burning and sinus and headaches — so we had symptoms definitely from the operations from Gulfport." Jean Backs and Patrick Hunker, Jill Hunkler's aunt and uncle, both worked for Ohio's natural resources agency and share her concerns about the lax oversight of the oil and gas development in the Buckeye State. Together, they are now battling powerful corporations that are both polluting and economically sustaining this southeastern Ohio village of just over 4,000 people. But EPA, they argue, has sided with the oil and gas industry.
Ohio slips in efficiency ranking as lawmakers gut state standards - Ohio’s ranking on ACEEE’s State Energy Efficiency Scorecard has more or less tracked changes in state policy. An energy efficiency advocacy group has further downgraded Ohio in its state rankings, thanks to a new law rolling back the state’s clean energy standards. Other experts are warning that ratepayers will soon feel the impacts more directly. Ohio was in 33rd place among states and the District of Columbia in the latest rankings released on Oct. 1 by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, or ACEEE. The organization’s rankings consider 33 measures across six policy areas, including state clean energy standards and building codes. House Bill 6, a law better known for adding charges to ratepayers’ bills to subsidize nuclear and coal power, played a significant role in Ohio’s ranking this year. “Certainly, HB 6 is one of the more damaging pieces of legislation we saw this year,” said Weston Berg, lead author for the report. ACEEE’s best practices call for states “having a stable, long-term energy efficiency resource standard,” he said. In contrast, HB 6 first lowers the existing standard from 22% to 17.5% energy efficiency savings. Then once that level is met, utilities won’t have authority to charge for efficiency programs that will provide a net financial benefit for ratepayers. HB 6 also expanded commercial and industrial opt-outs, reducing the total amount of energy efficiency called for under the law. Ohio did get credit for what it accomplished on the energy efficiency front in 2018, before HB 6 was passed. Recent improvements to Ohio’s building code for new construction were also viewed as a positive sign in the analysis. However, “barring any sort of change from whatever happens with the referendum, without really any programs in place, Ohio will continue to plummet in the scorecard,” Berg said. This year’s results reflect a trend in which Ohio’s ranking has risen or fallen as state policies have changed. The state’s top ranking of 18th place came in 2013, five years into the implementation of the original energy efficiency standard enacted in 2008. Since then, the standards have been in a state of uncertainty and flux, leading to them being temporarily frozen, weakened and eventually gutted.
Pa. Regulation Viewed As Among The Most Constructive For Energy Utilities - Regulatory Research Associates, a group within S&P Global Market Intelligence, ranks the regulatory climate in Pennsylvania as among the most constructive in the nation from an investor perspective, ranking the state at Above Average/2, the team's second-most investor-friendly ranking. While a change in the composition of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is near at hand, RRA does not expect there to be a significant policy shift as a result. Commissioner Norman J. Kennard is serving beyond the end of a term that expired in April and may do so through the end of September, absent the confirmation of a successor. The last open meeting in which he is expected to participate is Sept. 19. Gov. Tom Wolf has nominated Ralph Yanora to succeed Kennard. Yanora is the CEO and founder of Pennsylvania Water Specialties Company, a subsidiary of Yanora Enterprises. The firm provides consulting and management services for gas and water distribution companies. Senate action on the nomination is expected in the near future. In a recent review of the political and regulatory climate in the state, RRA noted that most recent rate cases have been resolved by settlements that were silent with respect to rate of return and other traditional rate case parameters. However, in the only fully litigated rate case decided since 2012, an October 2018 decision for UGI Utilities' electric operations, the PUC authorized the company an ROE that was considerably above the average ROE authorized energy utilities nationwide that year. As most base rate cases are resolved by black box settlements that do not specify the underlying ROE, the commission has established the ROE to be used for the adjustment clauses in the context of its quarterly earnings reviews. The ROEs approved through this process in recent quarters have exceeded nationwide averages when established. Even though the PUC staff has supported much lower ROEs and authorized ROEs nationwide have been declining on average, the PUC majority has stressed the need to maintain authorized ROEs at a level that will attract capital and has approved increases in the returns used under this mechanism several times in recent periods.
USGS Estimates 214 trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas in Appalachian Basin Formations -- The Marcellus Shale and Point Pleasant-Utica Shale formations of the Appalachian Basin contain an estimated mean of 214 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable continuous resources of natural gas, according to new USGS assessments.“Watching our estimates for the Marcellus rise from 2 trillion to 84 trillion to 97 trillion in under 20 years demonstrates the effects American ingenuity and new technology can have,” said USGS Director Jim Reilly. “Knowing where these resources are located and how much exists is crucial to ensuring our nation’s energy independence.” The Marcellus, Point Pleasant and Utica are extensive formations that cover parts of Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. This is a significant increase from the previous USGS assessments of both formations. In 2011, the USGS estimated a mean of 84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, and in 2012 the USGS estimated about 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Utica Shale. Significant amounts of natural gas have been produced from the Marcellus and Utica Shales since the previous USGS assessments. USGS assessments are for remaining resources and exclude known and produced oil and gas.The natural gas in these formations is classified as continuous, because it is spread throughout the assessed rock layers instead of being concentrated in discrete accumulations. Production techniques like directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing are required to produce these resources. These assessments are for undiscovered, technically recoverable resources. Undiscovered resources are those that have been estimated to exist based on geology and other data, but have not yet been proven to exist by drilling or other means. Technically recoverable resources, meanwhile, are those that can be produced using today’s standard industry practices and technology. This is different from reserves, which are those quantities of oil and gas that are currently profitable to produce.
Shale gas off-ramp: Pa.’s fracking boom produces a glut of ethane that’s helping fuel plastics production overseas - At the top of a hillside on his 200-acre cattle farm in Greene County, southwestern Pennsylvania, George Watson peered over a well pad on his property. He counted out nine well-heads — each the terminus of a borehole that reaches a mile underground, then turns horizontally for several more miles, following a carbon-rich seam below the green hills here. On hilltops all around there are wellpads, equipment, and clearings that reveal a vast array of drilling infrastructure. “I’m making some money off these wells, not gonna lie to you about that,” Watson said. And he’s had some bad — he’s fought over royalties and dead cattle he blames on toxic spills, and over land subsidence and soil erosion he blames on drilling operations. Like others in this gas-heavy part of the state, Watson is at the head of a global supply chain. It begins on his farm and ends up as plastics and chemicals half a world away, as the plastics industry increasingly relies on dirt-cheap American shale gas to feed its chemical plants and the globe’s growing hunger for plastics. The nine wells on Watson’s property are producing over a billion cubic feet of gas a month, according to state records. Most of the gas coming out of Marcellus shale wells like these in Pennsylvania is methane — which is sent to fuel power plants, heat homes and power industrial equipment. But there are other gases coming out of these wells, including ethane, a common raw ingredient in petrochemicals and plastics. A few miles north, Shell is building a $6 billion chemical plant to convert some of the region’s ethane into plastic. But so much ethane is coming out of the ground in Pennsylvania, and other drilling hot spots around the country, that chemical plants in the U.S. can’t use it all. So companies are shipping American ethane all over the world, fueling a global boom in plastics that is expected to accelerate in the decades to come. A glut of ethane and other “natural gas liquids” — called that because they are sold in a compressed, liquified form — like propane (the tank in your backyard gas grill) or butane (Zippo lighters) are flooding American markets and have to go abroad, said Steve McGinn, an editor of chemicals for the trade publisher ICIS. “These barrels (of ethane) have to find a home,” McGinn said. “If we weren’t exporting ethane right now, they’d be giving it away for free.”
How Fossil Fuel Companies Are Killing Plastic Recycling – -- So many things we buy come packaged in plastic containers or wrappers that are meant to be used once, thrown away and forgotten ― but they don’t break down and can linger in the environment long after we’re gone. It’s tempting to think that we can recycle this problem away, that if we’re more diligent about placing discarded bottles and bags into the curbside bin, we’ll somehow make up for all the trash overflowing landfills, choking waterways and killing marine life. For decades, big petrochemical companies responsible for extracting and processing the fossil fuels that make plastics have egged on consumers, reassuring them that recycling was the answer to our trash crisis. Just last month, Royal Dutch Shell executive Hilary Mercer told The New York Times that the production of new plastics was not the problem contributing to millions of tons of plastic waste piling up in landfills and drifting in oceans. Instead, she suggested, the problem is one of improper waste disposal. Better recycling, she implied, is the solution. But plastic recycling is in trouble. Too much of the indestructible material exists in the world, more than our current recycling networks can handle. And the very same companies that say recycling is the answer are about to unleash a tidal wave of fresh plastics that will drown recyclers struggling to stay afloat. “We’ve been trained [to think] that we can purchase endlessly and recycle everything,” said Genevieve Abedon, a policy associate who represents the Clean Seas Lobbying Coalition. “There is no way that recycling can keep up.” Big oil, natural gas and chemical companies have poured an estimated $200 billion into more than 300 petrochemical expansion projects across America from 2010 to 2018, according to the American Chemistry Council. Fossil fuel giants ExxonMobil and Shell, as well as plastic makers like SABIC and Formosa Plastics, are building and expanding at least five ethane cracker plants in Appalachia and along the Gulf of Mexico. The facilities will turn ethane, a byproduct of natural gas fracking, into polyethylene pellets, which can be made into a variety of products, including milk jugs, shampoo bottles, food packaging and the air pillows that protect your Amazon orders.
Mariner East 2's Troubles Underscore Need For New Industry Approaches Toward Northeastern Population -- Less than an hour from the busy streets of Philadelphia in Southeastern Pennsylvania lies Chester County, PA. Long known as relatively rural and wealthy, Chester County also is home to an immense amount of major oil and gas pipelines, with major transmission lines connecting from the South to the North through Chester County. Last week, the District Attorney for Chester County announced that his office was preparing to file a civil public nuisance lawsuit against natural gas pipeline developer Sunoco LP over continued problems associated with the construction of the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. Mariner East 2 travels from the Marcellus Shale gas fields near Pittsburgh to the Marcus Hook refinery south of Philadelphia on the Delaware River. The press release from the office of D.A. Thomas Hogan cited to alleged problems along the construction path, including exposed underground pipes and leaks, or “inadvertent returns,” of drilling fluid, as the basis for the action. The announcement of a civil lawsuit follows a prior announcement by the District Attorney last December that his office had begun a grand jury investigation into the pipeline and its owners and operators. To date, the only criminal charges that have been filed by his office have been against two men who allegedly used their status as state constables to work as security guards along the pipeline. The status of the grand jury investigation remains unclear. Still, last week’s action by the prosecutor’s office is the latest in a series of moves by officials in Chester County against Sunoco and its owner, Energy Transfer Partners of Dallas. As much as any other project in the Marcellus region, the ongoing saga of Mariner East 2 exposes the potential and pitfalls of the shale gas revolution.
Bankrupt Philly refinery’s request to pay secret executive bonuses raises objections - Philadelphia Energy Solutions, which paid $4.6 million in bonuses to executives following a devastating June fire that led to its closure and bankruptcy, wants to pay out a new round of retention awards. But this time it wants to keep the recipients and the bonuses a secret. PES Holdings LLC asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Delaware to approve a key employee retention plan, though it wants to keep details of the awards confidential to reduce the “negative impact on employee morale” and also the chances that competitors could use the information to recruit and poach personnel. The company, whose 335,000-barrel-per-day South Philadelphia facility was the largest refining complex on the East Coast before it closed, filed the request Friday with Bankruptcy Court. PES laid off most of the company’s 1,100 employees while it works through the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process and looks for a buyer.“It’s infuriating,” said Ryan O’Callaghan, a spokesman for Steelworkers Local 10-1, which represents refinery workers. “It’s more of the same thievery from PES management. The refinery could be running now. Executives should not profit from their own failures.” O’Callaghan said the Steelworkers received a 60-day layoff notice on Tuesday for 17 of the remaining 83 unionized workers who remained at the refinery as “caretakers” after most of the workforce was let go on Aug. 25. He said the workers are assigned to work on the alkylation unit that was destroyed in the fire; clean-up of residual toxic hydrofluoric acid used in alkylation unit is nearly completed.
Trio of suits filed involving Columbia Gas, Welded Construction —Three lawsuits were filed in federal court involving Columbia Gas and Welded Construction and a motion to remand was filed in one of them. The three cases were filed in Wetzel Circuit Court in May before being removed to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia in September. Schmid Pipeline entered into a construction subcontract with Welded Construction wherein Schmid would provide labor, material and equipment in connection with the construction of the Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline project owned by Columbia Gas, according to the first case in the group. Schmid has not been paid for its work to this day, according to the suit. Welded Construction filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 22, 2018, and Schmid filed a motion for relief with the bankruptcy court and the bankruptcy court granted Schmid's motion in April. Schmid is seeking judgment in the amount of $2,361,914 plus pre- and post-judgment interest. Third parties in the lawsuit include Earth Pipeline Services, HERC Services, CADD Enterprises, Sunbelt Tractor & Equipment Company, Ziegler Sunbelt Equipment Marketing, T&C Rentals, Newman Tractor and Ankura Consulting Group. The second lawsuit involves Ziegler Inc. suing Welded Construction and Columbia Gas Transmission. That lawsuit alleges that the defendants hired Ziegler to provide rental equipment and machinery for pipeline maintenance. Ziegler claims it provided the equipment between July 2018 and September 2018 and invoiced the defendants in the amount of $262,968.76. The defendants failed to submit the total amount due, according to the suit. The third lawsuit was filed by Worldwide Machinery, alleging that it also supplied equipment to the defendants through Oct. 31, 2018, in a total amount of $55,028.58.
Pipeline construction boom will boost property tax collections - Last year’s natural gas pipeline construction boom was the key factor in a $1.376 billion jump in the assessed value of property owned by public utility companies in West Virginia, according to a report Monday to the state Board of Public Works. If that assessment is approved by the board in December without revisions, it would mean a surge of more than $30 million in property tax collection for counties and municipalities, state Property Tax Division Director Jeff Amburgy said in the report to the board. “This increase is mainly attributable to a large increase in taxable capital investment being made in the pipeline industry,” he stated. “Many pipeline companies continue to invest in additional assets associated with compression and transportation of natural gas.” Amburgy didn’t get to present his report to the board during a surreal 2 minute, 20 second-long meeting chaired by Gov. Jim Justice. For each agenda item Monday, Justice called for a motion to approve, a second, and a passage vote in immediate succession — without ever calling for discussion of the motion. None of the members of the board — made up of the governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney general, agriculture commissioner and state superintendent of schools or their designees — challenged Justice. In fact, Amburgy had stood to give his presentation to the board, as he does each autumn, only to have Justice immediately call for a vote on the motion.
#NoASH: Fracking and Radium-226 (video) - April Pierson-Keating: I would add information about the radium-226 in the shale. This radionuclide is released by the salts that are released by the chemicals injected.Radium is a daughter element of uranium, along with lead and radon gas. These are all highly toxic to living things. What’s worst about radium-226 is it is water-soluble, has a half-life of 1600 years, and causes breast, bone, and blood cancers. Radium-226 is inherent in shale, and in shale gas and the liquids that are released after drilling as “flowback water.”Millions of gallons of this toxic radium-laden water have made their way onto our roads in water trucks that are not marked as hazardous because of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, aka the “Halliburton Loophole.” This loophole, authored by Dick Cheney when he was VP, after coming to that office from being CEO of Halliburton (gas drilling company), makes all liquids produced by gas drilling exempt from regulations such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and more. This means these liquids are regarded, even by our Office of Emergency Management, as “not technically hazardous.”This is a horrendous situation in which we find ourselves. Many third-party truckers will go off on a back road and dump this highly toxic water into small streams; sometimes it makes its way to injection wells where it then migrates into drinking water through the fissures created by the high pressure needed to inject these fluids underground. It has been found in Pittsburgh’s water, and ours.In fact, radium-226 may be one of the most common elements now found because of the unregulated fracking that’s been going on for over a decade. This is one of the greatest threats to our water, and the reason why it is so important to know and understand this fact, and to stop fracking. Another reason the plastics hub (the Appalachian Storage Hub/petrochemical complex) is a terrible idea (besides the toxification of our water, air, and soil for profit) is that the two biggest processors of recycled plastic, India and China, no longer take our plastic. We will soon be buried in it. Every piece of plastic ever produced since the 1950s is still with us, found in ocean creatures that move up the food chain to humans, and even kill thousands of sea creatures every year because they are mistaken for food.
'Raging Granny' locked to equipment at Mountain Valley Pipeline construction site - A "raging granny" has locked herself to equipment at a Mountain Valley Pipeline construction site in Montgomery County. According to Appalachians Against Pipelines, the self-identified "raging granny," 75-year-old Duff Benjamin, is attached to equipment under a banner reading "PIPELINES BLOW" on Cove Hollow Road near the tree sits outside Elliston. The activist group says Benjamin has shut down construction at the site. Below is a statement from Benjamin, sent out by the protest group: "The problem with pipelines is they always leak. What they leak are toxins into the land, then water and air. The other problem with pipelines is that they frequently explode, and when they do, it's the equivalent of a dirty bomb going off into poor Black and Latino neighborhoods- communities that pipelines are purposely routed through and near (never through wealthy white neighborhoods!). Because I see human kind as one huge family, and I am a member, I cannot sit back and watch this happen silently. I must voice my thoughts and feelings. I say NO! STOP IT!"
Old oil spill hazard leaks into 2019 - The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) discovered gasoline-contaminated soil in the Town of New Paltz and issued a Notice of Violation to review the soil. The gasoline-contaminated soil is located behind the Department of Public Works (DPW) garage and is said to be related to a 1998 spill at the same location. “In 1998, the Town and Village jointly owned Gas and Diesel tanks that were behind the Village DPW,” said Town of New Paltz Buildings and Ground Supervisor, Chris Marx. “At some point one or both gas tanks started to leak and all three tanks were removed and the site was remediated and an all-clear was given to both the Town and Village.” In 2017, the Town and Village-owned separate underground heating oil tanks on that same site when the DEC found that there was an oil leak coming from the Village’s tank. The Village had its tank dug up and the ground beneath was cleaned and tested for further contaminants. The Town also had its tank dug up, despite it being in good condition, and installed above-ground tanks instead. “During remediation, gasoline-contaminated soils were detected and the DEC exercised their right to investigate the 1998 spill further,” said Town Supervisor Neil Bettez. The gasoline found in the soil by the DEC was ruled to be from the 1998 gasoline leak because the 2017 leak consisted of only heating oil. The DEC decided to file a new spill report for 2019 instead of reopening the report from 1998, as it had been considered remediated at the time.
Pipeline bans blamed for surge in gas tankers - — The energy policies of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration have come under criticism from both pro-development advocates and climate activists following an increase in shipping compressed natural gas by truck amid the state's refusal to allow the construction of industrial pipelines. Public highways are now being used as "virtual pipelines," with tractor-trailers taking CNG — compressed natural gas — from Pennsylvania production facilities to upstate transfer stations. A fatal Sept. 23 crash involving the rollover of a CNG tanker on Interstate 88 in Broome County raised new questions about the shipping method. Approximately 80 homes in a neighborhood near the crash site had to be evacuated when gas leaked from large container on the rig, and state emergency services workers spent several hours 'flaring off," or venting, the gas. Officials said the driver of the rig, Jeffrey Lind, 52, of Susquehanna County, Pa., was killed in the accident, caused when he attempted to avoid a deer that ran in front of the vehicle. In March, five homes near I-88 in Schoharie County after another CNG truck crashed on the highway. "There is a direct correlation between the fact that we have so many of these trucks on the road and the flawed energy policy in Albany," said state Sen. Fred Akshar, R-Broome County, a supporter of the pipeline projects that have been stopped by the Cuomo administration. However, climate activists argue the increased reliance on trucks to get gas to energy customers illustrates the need to wean the state from its reliance on fossil fuels altogether. They say they have warned the Cuomo administration of the dangers of moving compressed gas on the highways, and refer to the rigs as "bomb trucks" that pose a serious risk to public safety.
Could it happen here?: Gas explosion in Merrimack Valley hangs over new pipeline efforts - Across Massachusetts people rely on natural gas to heat their homes and businesses, provide their electricity, cook meals every day, and for their hot water supply. Most of the time, natural gas, which is delivered to residents via local distribution lines, is relatively safe. But in rare cases, such as the Merrimack Valley explosions, which occurred more than a year ago and resulted in about $1 billion in damages, 25 injuries, an evacuation of 30,000 residents across three towns, and the death of 18-year old Lawrence teen Leonel Rondon, natural gas can cause widespread devastation. Western Massachusetts also has its fair share of gas leaks in communities across the area, which are worrying to local residents who fear that another gas explosion, like what took place a year ago in the Merrimack Valley, could possibly happen here. Meanwhile, there’s a set of proposed Tennessee Gas and other utility company pipeline projects that would impact seven different communities in the Pioneer Valley — Longmeadow, West Springfield, Agawam, Springfield, Northampton, Easthampton, and Holyoke. Local environmental activists are opposing the project, but some elected officials see the projects as beneficial maintenance for existing natural gas pipelines. The explosions in Merrimack Valley resulted in 80 fires with electricity going down, communications infrastructure failing, and smoke reducing visibility. In the months after the disaster, 44 miles of gas distribution pipelines and more than 5,000 service lines were replaced. According to a Nov. 15, 2018, report by the National Transportation Safety Board, human errors made during a nearby gas pipe replacement resulted in the gas system quickly collapsing after a control system designed to repressurize the gas system failed.
'It Has Been Hell': Lawrence Gas Leaks Bring Back Trauma For Residents, Business Owners - As Columbia Gas workers drilled through the asphalt Sunday afternoon, the inside of Kyara Boutique was deathly quiet. Miguel Chavira has owned the clothing store in the heart of South Lawrence for more than 20 years, but after a gas leak on Friday, he says he’s seriously considering leaving town. “Since the explosions last year, nobody wants to come to South Lawrence anymore,” Chavira said. “We are losing business both ways — by being closed, and because nobody wants to come around here anymore.” After a gas leak was reported in Lawrence early Friday morning, Chavira kept his shop closed for Friday and most of the weekend. “Hell. It has been hell,” Chavira said. According to National Grid, 150 homes and businesses were affected, and more than 1,300 customers in the area were without power until Saturday night. Though they eventually stated the leak was an isolated incident, Columbia Gas officials issued a warning to residents Friday morning to evacuate their homes and two schools — a warning that brought back the trauma of last year’s gas explosions for many local residents. “There is PTSD in this neighborhood,” said John Farrington, who grew up in Lawrence and has run his family’s business, Carleen’s Coffee Shoppe, for 21 years. “You get some of the older folks sitting around having coffee, and someone comes in and you get a smell of a diesel engine, or gasoline or something, and they panic. They want me to check my oven, they think there’s a gas leak, and you can see the sheer panic in their eyes.”
Pipeline rules adopted years after deadly explosion, spills (AP) — U.S. transportation officials on Tuesday adopted long-delayed measures that are meant to prevent pipeline spills and deadly gas explosions but don’t address recommended steps to lessen accidents once they occur. The new rules from the Department of Transportation apply to more than 500,000 miles of pipelines that carry natural gas, oil and other hazardous materials throughout the U.S. In the works for almost a decade, the rules came in response to a massive gas explosion in San Bruno, California, that killed eight people in 2010, and large oil spills into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 and the Yellowstone River in Montana in 2011 and 2015. The rules require companies to more closely inspect underground pipelines, including in rural areas and after catastrophic weather events. They also require better record-keeping so companies can monitor lines in some cases installed decades ago. Left unaddressed were longstanding recommendations by safety officials to install valves that automatically shut down pipelines following accidents. Also absent were requirements for more advanced systems to detect pipeline ruptures.U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, chairman of the House transportation committee, said Tuesday’s rules were a step in the right direction. But the Oregon Democrat added that he was frustrated over “critical safety gaps” that remain in areas including leak detection technology and shut-off valves, which were mandated under pipeline safety legislation signed into law in 2011. Industry groups and safety advocates backed the adopted changes.
PUC consultants oppose approval of Granite Bridge pipeline - - Hired consultants from the state’s Public Utilities Commission are not recommending approval of the Granite Bridge gas pipeline, saying Liberty Utilities had not done enough analysis to demonstrate it was the best option for meeting future energy needs. The testimony from PUC consultants John Antonuk, John Adger and Dr. James Letzelter, of the Liberty Consulting Group, was filed earlier this month. It was joined by other written testimony from the New Hampshire Office of the Consumer Advocate, Pipe Line Awareness Network for the Northeast and the Conservation Law Foundation, all testifying against the project. The deadline for interveners to submit testimony to the PUC was Sept. 13. The only groups speaking in support were Liberty Utilities and the union representing its gas workers, who stated the project was the most economical way to meet New Hampshire’s future energy needs. Granite Bridge is a proposed 16-inch, 27-mile liquefied natural gas pipeline from Manchester to Exeter to be constructed by Liberty Utilities. As part of the project, Liberty wants to build a 150- to 170-foot high, 200-foot diameter LNG storage tank, capable of storing 2 billion cubic feet of LNG in an abandoned quarry in West Epping. The entire project’s cost is $414 million, according to Liberty’s estimates. The Granite Bridge application is under review by the PUC after it was first submitted in December 2017. Liberty Utilities officials anticipated PUC review to take a year, followed by another year-long review before the state Site Evaluation Committee before construction can begin pending SEC approval. According to a submission filed Sept. 13 by the contracted PUC consultants, Liberty Utilities would have to experience “sustained growth” of its customer base in New Hampshire for an LNG storage tank, proposed to be constructed in Epping, to produce “positive economic benefits” at its current estimated cost of $260 million. They said the consequences customers would face in the event of a potential drop in demand or cost escalations do not justify the construction of the LNG tank.
U.S. group forms to defend natural gas against anti-fossil fuel measures - (Reuters) - A group backed by anonymous donors launched a campaign on Monday to promote the benefits of cheap, abundant natural gas against what it called “radical” proposals like the Green New Deal that would phase out use of the fossil fuel. The Empowerment Alliance, or TEA, will fund advertising and research to advocate the use of natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal, in the runup to the U.S. presidential election in November of 2020, Terry Holt, a spokesman for the group, said on Monday. Most of Republican President Donald Trump’s challengers for the White House are pursuing aggressive policies to fight climate change. The nonprofit group would not disclose its donors, saying they prefer to remain anonymous because of fears they will be harassed by environmental activists. The group also declined to comment on its budget. TEA’s launch comes as environmentalists and some Democratic presidential candidates have called for urgent measures to reduce the nation’s reliance on natural gas, and move more quickly to renewable resources like solar and wind power. Several U.S. cities and states are also looking into ways of curbing natural gas consumption.
The Downward Slide Of Natural Gas Prices Continues As The New Week Begins --Natural gas prices made another leg lower in today's session, with the November contract (now prompt month) having fallen now more than 40 cents off its intra-day peak a couple of weeks ago, closing at $2.33 today, more than 7 cents off Friday's close. Prices tried to hold their own early this morning, down only a couple of cents, but with our analysis showing a weak overall picture, we were able to alert clients to the risk of more downside, taking on a "slightly bearish" stance in our morning update. Prices wound up declining another five cents over the balance of the day. Why the continued weakness? A few things stand out. One is that the big rally was never about supply / demand balances having tightened up, so the only thing the move to 2.70 really accomplished in the big picture was to actually loosen balances, with the evidence coming in the last couple of EIA reports. Two, we saw a move higher in production over the weekend, reaching a new all-time high, just under a staggering 94 bcf / day per our dataset. Finally, we are seeing a shift in the weather pattern toward below normal demand, as, despite some variability, the overall warmer than normal base state continues to hold in key areas of the nation for natural gas purposes, which is now becoming a bearish signal, as warmth will now mean more of a reduction in HDDs than any gain in CDDs as normal temperatures continue to decline. Total forecast Gas-Weighted Degree Days (GWDDs): Are we near a point where, as the saying goes, low prices will begin to cure low prices? Of course, as we move forward, Mother Nature will increasingly have more of a say in all of this, so we will be watching the pattern signals very closely, in tandem with the natural gas fundamentals scene.
November Natural Gas Futures Choppy After EIA Reports 112 Bcf Storage Build - The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 112 Bcf injection into storage inventories for the week ending Sept. 27, coming in on the high side of estimates and prompting some quick price shifts in and out of positive territory.The reported build compared with expectations ranging from 95 Bcf to a 118 Bcf build, and it was far above both last year’s 91 Bcf injection and the five-year average build for the week of 83 Bcf.Nymex futures traders struggled with how to price the November contract in the minutes after the EIA report was released. Early Thursday, the prompt month was up several cents as mid-October weather outlooks trended cooler. Shortly ahead of the 10:30 a.m. ET release, however, the November contract was trading fractionally lower at around $2.24.November then slipped to $2.229, down 1.8 cents, as the print hit the screen. By 11 a.m., the prompt month was back in positive territory, trading at $2.263, up 1.6 cents.“Obviously, it’s very bearish versus history, but in reality, the market probably anticipated to see a larger figure. Therefore, not so terrifying, after all,” BlueGold Research analyst Adrian Bakker said.BlueGold, which had projected a 110 Bcf injection, told analysts on energy chat room Enelyst that prices appeared to be bouncing off the support level near $2.210. A break above $2.300 would open the way toward $2.324 and then $2.363, “but getting to $2.300 should not be easy.”On the down side, another close support level was at $2.190, which represents a 76.4% Fibonacci level, an indicator of possible support and resistance levels, from an Aug. 5 low to Sept. 17 high. “I think it’s a pretty important level,” Bakker said.Broken down by region, the Midwest reported the largest week/week injection of 39 Bcf, while the East added 32 Bcf, according to EIA. South Central inventories rose by 31 Bcf, including 13 Bcf into salt facilities and 19 Bcf into nonsalts.Total working gas in storage as of Sept. 27 was 3,317 Bcf, 465 Bcf higher than last year and just 18 Bcf below the five-year average, EIA said.
National Park Service signs off on permit for a Columbia Gas pipeline - — The National Park Service (NPS) has signed off a permit after they completed a review on the proposed Columbia gas pipeline. According to a release, the park service signed a “finding of no significant impact for a right-of-way permit” request from Columbia Gas Transmission LLC. The permit would authorize Columbia Gas to run 553 feet of natural gas transmission pipeline under the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Historical Park. NPS findings were made based on the environmental assessment by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions. The permit was signed on Monday, September 23, by the acting National Capital Area Director. The proposed pipeline is part of Columbia Gas’s Eastern Panhandle Expansion Project, an approximately 3.37-mile natural gas transmission pipeline that runs through fulton county, Pennsylvania, Washington County, Maryland, and Morgan County, West Virginia. No other aspects of the overall proposal, except the portion of the pipe crossing under Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, are under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. In response to NPS signing off on the permit, Anne Havemann, General Counsel, CCAN, stated: “Columbia Gas has taken risk after risk with this pipeline, starting with its proposal to run it through unstable terrain under the Potomac River — the source of drinking water for 6 million people. Not to mention the risk of investing in fracked-gas infrastructure at a time when the science and public opinion are clear that we need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels in order to stave off the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Columbia would be taking a further risk if it begins to build this pipeline without access to all the land along the route. “We urge Columbia to listen to Maryland residents and elected officials and give up on this dangerous pipeline. At the same time, we will continue to pursue all legal avenues to stop the project.”
SUPREME COURT: 4 pipeline fights to watch this term -- Monday, September 30, 2019 -- The Supreme Court could decide to wade into the natural gas pipeline wars this term. As the court begins its 2019 session, energy experts are watching whether the justices will weigh in on federal permitting, eminent domain and state sovereignty issues around pipeline construction. So far, the justices have opportunities to consider the Forest Service's authority to permit the Atlantic Coast pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail and to decide whether developers of the Mountain Valley project can lawfully seize private property before paying. Solicitor General Noel Francisco has urged the justices to hear the Atlantic Coast dispute, which significantly boosts the case's odds of review. "Natural gas and oil pipeline infrastructure is not getting less controversial and the Supreme Court may find it appropriate to issue a ruling that definitively settles the matter," ClearView Energy Partners LLC wrote in a recent analysis. A third possible case involving state lands takings for the PennEast pipeline may also be brought before the Supreme Court. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is still mulling a request to reconsider its decision to block developers' access to New Jersey-owned acreage.Experts also expect that challenges over gas exports from pipelines could soon make their way to the nation's highest bench. Those exports are problematic, challengers say, because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's authority to delegate eminent domain power to pipeline builders is limited to projects in service of interstate commerce.Each potential Supreme Court slugfest carries varying degrees of significance for the build-out of energy infrastructure nationwide, court watchers say.Supreme Court petitioners face difficult odds: The justices review only about 1% of cases that come before the court. Acceptance of a case requires the vote of four justices, who prioritize issues of national importance and opportunities to resolve disagreements among federal appeals courts. The justices are expected to decide no later than next week whether they will review the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipeline cases. Here are the pipeline battles to watch over the course of the Supreme Court's next term.
Trespass near a pipeline, go to prison for 6 years? It could happen in Wisconsin. A bill that would make trespassing around oil and gas pipelines a felony, with up to six years in prison and $10,000 in fines, is working its way through the Wisconsin legislature. One of the bill’s cosponsors, State Representative Jason Fields, a Democrat from Milwaukee, said the bill is aimed at preventing damage to private property, though laws penalizing trespassing and damaging oil and gas infrastructure are already on the books. Invoking Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Greta Thunberg during a hearing on the bill late last week, Fields said that he supported peaceful protests, but “intentionally destroying property is never justifiable.” “I don’t like the Ku Klux Klan,” he said, “but I do not have the right or the option to go and destroy their property.” The bill is part of a wave of proposals across the country that raise penalties on protesters. At least eight other states have passed similar legislation, and few more have introduced such measures, according to the International Center for Not for-Profit Law, a group which has been tracking legislation criminalizing protest around the country. Many of the bills bear a striking resemblance to model legislation drafted by the American Legislation Exchange Council, a conservative think tank bankrolled by fossil fuel companies.
Husky Given Green Light To Rebuild Superior Refinery –- Husky Energy says it has received approval for its $400 million plans to rebuild the Superior oil refinery and plans to begin construction immediately. The explosion and series of fires in April of last year injured 36 people, caused a temporary evacuation and damaged the refinery’s equipment and storage tanks. Husky, which does business as Superior Refining Co., in Wisconsin, applied for a permit with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources earlier this year, which issued a letter of approval on Friday.As part of the rebuild, the refinery's fluid catalytic cracking unit reactor will be replaced and all downstream equipment that was damaged will be rebuilt. In addition, asphalt tanks damaged in the explosion will either be repaired or replaced. Husky will also install several new permanent pipelines that will run to the Enbridge terminal and Plains Midstream, which deal with transport and storage of petroleum products and natural gas liquids.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency denies key permit for Enbridge - The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency on Friday denied a key water permit to Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 oil pipeline, requiring the Canadian oil company to satisfy several additional requirements before it can reapply for the permit.The agency issued a “denial without prejudice” for the proposed 340-mile long pipeline’s 401 certification, a permit awarded by a state’s regulators if the project’s impact on water falls within the state’s standards. Federal agencies cannot issue a federal permit or license without a state approving the 401 certification.In a news release Friday, the agency said it needs more information in three areas: “oil spill response modeling in the Lake Superior Watershed, a pre- and post-construction monitoring plan for aquatic resources, and a revised proposal for mitigating more than 400 acres of forested wetlands that will be impacted during construction.”“The MPCA informed the company that additional information is needed to determine if the Line 3 project would comply with state water quality standards,” the MPCA said. “The MPCA’s denial without prejudice does not prevent Enbridge from reapplying for 401 Certification in the future with the additional information required” The MPCA’s decision comes just days before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Oct. 1 will take up environmental impact statement for the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline replacement project and consider what additional hearings might be needed to revise the statement.The Minnesota Court of Appeals in June ruled the environmental review of the proposed pipeline project was “inadequate” because it did not consider the effects of an oil spill in Lake Superior’s watershed. But the court said many other points disputed in the final environmental impact statement, including the pipeline’s impact on tribal resources, met required standards.
Minnesota regulators restart Line 3 pipeline review process (AP) — State utility regulators on Tuesday unfroze the approval process for Enbridge Energy's plan to replace its aging Line 3 crude oil pipeline across northern Minnesota, directing a state agency to fix the deficiencies identified by a court in the project's environmental review.The Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously during a hearing that lasted just 12 minutes to ask the state Commerce Department to conduct a further analysis of the potential effects of oil spills in the Lake Superior watershed and report back within 60 days.The decision represented the first forward motion on the project in months while legal challenges by environmental and tribal groups played out in court. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld most of the environmental review in June except for the inadequacies regarding Lake Superior. The Minnesota Supreme Court declined last month to hear challenges by the opponents to the environmental review on other grounds. But further appeals from opponents are possible.Line 3, which was built in the 1960s and is increasingly subject to corrosion and cracking, runs from Alberta to Enbridge's terminal in Superior, Wisconsin, near Lake Superior. Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge wants to replace the pipeline because it can run at only about half its original capacity.Environmental and tribal groups have been fighting the project, saying it would aggravate climate change and risk spills in pristine waters where Native Americans harvest wild rice.Enbridge has completed the new segments in Canada and Wisconsin, but has had to hold up construction of the $2.9 billion segment in North Dakota and Minnesota until it clears the final hurdles in Minnesota.
$8.5 billion natural gas liquefaction facility coming to Plaquemines Parish (WAFB) - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has now authorized the building of the Venture Global Plaquemines LNG Facility, Governor John Bel Edwards announced Monday, Sept. 30. The governor’s office says Venture Global plans to invest $8.5 billion to build a natural gas liquefaction facility and LNG export terminal along the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish. The plant will be the second LNG facility in Louisiana. Click here for more information about the project, which is expected to be completed sometime in late 2023. FERC has also approved the affiliated Gator Express natural gas pipeline system, which will bring natural gas from existing pipelines to the new facility in Plaquemines Parish. “Venture Global has become an important participant in Louisiana’s growing LNG market. With multi-billion-dollar investments on both the eastern and western edges of coastal Louisiana, Venture Global is well-poised for success as the natural gas industry continues to expand here. The LNG industry is an ongoing success story for the Louisiana economy, generating tremendous investments and providing quality, permanent jobs for our skilled Louisiana workforce,” said Edwards. The governor’s office says the new facility will create 250 new direct jobs with an average annual salary of $70,000, plus benefits. Louisiana Economic Development (LED) says the project should result in another 728 indirect jobs, for a total of nearly 1,000 new jobs for the parish/region. The project is also anticipated to create about 2,200 construction jobs.
West Delta LNG Readies Deepwater Export Facility Offshore Louisiana - West Delta LNG LLC, an affiliate of Houston-based LNG 21, has applied for federal authorizations to build, own and operate a fixed-platform deepwater port in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) offshore Louisiana and onshore facilities to export liquefied natural gas (LNG). According to a Federal Register notification published Thursday by the Maritime Administration (MARAD) and the U.S. Coast Guard, the deepwater port and marine components would include an LNG production and storage unit, a loading platform/marine berth unit and support facilities. Onshore components would include the proposed Venice Pretreatment Plan in Plaquemines Parish, LA, within the grounds of the existing Venice Gas Complex.The LNG production and storage unit would contain a gas arrival platform where liquefaction-ready gas would be supplied by the Venice Pretreatment Plant and a proposed 30-inch diameter subsea pipeline that would terminate at the platform.The production platform would include three LNG production platforms capable of accommodating a total of six liquefaction trains, each with a nameplate capacity of .833 million metric tons/year (mmty) with the potential of up to 1.02 mmty each, providing total optimal capacity of 6.1mmty of LNG, according to the company. Aluminum storage tanks at the facility would be capable of holding 300,000 cubic meters of gas for off-loading to LNG carriers.The Venice Pretreatment Plan would receive natural gas from GOM midstream pipelines and interstate pipeline feed gas from pipelines already interconnected with the Venice Gas Complex, according to the filing. The gas would be pre-treated and compressed onshore and sent to the offshore deepwater port.In the nominal case, the pretreatment plant would process about 750 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscf/d) for the proposed deepwater port, which in turn would produce 5 mmty of LNG for export. In the optimized case, the project would process about 900 MMscf/d of feed natural gas to produce about 6.1 mmty of LNG -- about 306 billion standard cubic feet/year. At the western end of the state, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff on Friday issued a draft supplemental environmental impact statement (DSEIS) for a production capacity amendment for the Magnolia LNG project in nearby Calcasieu Parish [CP19-19]. Magnolia has proposed increasing production capacity of the previously authorized project to 8.8 mmty from 8 mmty. The increased production capacity would be achieved by optimizing the project’s final design.
Permian Gas Pipeline Starts Up - The new Gulf Coast Express Pipeline (GCX) has begun full commercial service, delivering natural gas from the Permian Basin to the Texas Gulf Coast, a Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) spokesperson confirmed to Rigzone Wednesday.According to a written statement Tuesday afternoon from KMI, GCX – fully subscribed under long-term contracts – carries gas from the Waha area in West Texas to Agua Dulce near Corpus Christi. The pipeline, which boasts approximately 2 billion cubic feet per day of capacity, will help to relieve Permian gas takeaway constraints and reduce flaring, noted KMI, whose Kinder Morgan Texas Pipeline subsidiary operates and owns a 34-percent interest in GCX.Other GCX owners include Altus Midstream, DCP Midstream and an affiliate of Targa Resources. KMI’s website states that committed GCX shippers include DCP and Targa as well as Apache Corp., Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary XTO Energy. When KMI and its partners took their final investment decision on GCX in late 2017, they had anticipated an in-service date for next month.Mody also noted that more than 3,000 contractors working more than 6 million contractor hours contributed to GCX’s construction with no major safety incident.“With natural gas supplies projected to rise over the next 20 years from supply basins such as the Permian, our strong network of pipelines provides the ability to connect this supply to the growing markets along the Gulf Coast,” said Mody. By the end of 2020, KMI expects to place into service another gas pipeline linking West Texas to the Gulf Coast: the Permian Highway Pipeline.
Hill Country Landowners Get Ready For Another Pipeline Fight - Charles Chaney Jr. is a month away from retirement, and Utopia is the name of the scenic Hill Country town where his family has lived for generations. He had planned to build a house on land he owns there near his brother and sister.Now, he’s not so sure. About a month ago, he received a letter from Enterprise Products Partners, telling him it plans to run a 30-inch crude oil pipeline through the land and requesting access to conduct a survey. Chaney is one of many landowners along the pipeline's planned route from Midland to a point southeast of San Antonio. Like Kinder Morgan’s Permian Highway natural gas pipeline, the project has sparked opposition from residents who think the Hill Country is not a good place for a pipeline. They worry about water quality and oppose the company’s use of eminent domain to take private property. “We are all calmly going about our task to be stewards of the land, and out of the blue these letters started showing up,” said Merry Langlinais, president of the Bandera Canyonlands Alliance. “You can imagine that people were taken aback.” Langlinais says she has not seen a detailed plan for the route of the pipeline, and her group is piecing together a map based on letters Enterprise has sent to property owners.“We know that it's going to cross the Sabinal River several times," she said, "and before it can even get to our Canyonlands, it has to cross over the recharge zone for the Edwards Aquifer."The Rivard Report was the first nontrade news outlet to break news of the pipeline. It also published a copy of a presentation containing a map of the project it says comes from Enterprise.In an email to KUT, Enterprise’s vice president of public relations, Rick Rainey, called information in the Rivard Report “premature” and said the company is “looking at a number of different routes.”“It is highly unlikely that the route of the proposed pipeline would go through the recharge zone of the aquifer,” wrote Rainey, who declined KUT’s request for an interview.Bandera County Judge Richard Evans said Monday the company delivered the same copy of the presentation to his office.“The PowerPoint is very poor, as far as being able to tell where county lines are, but I can tell it’s at the very west end of our County,” he said.
For The Permian Basin, Getting Energy To Market Is The Difference Between Boom And Bust --There are few factors more influential on the Texas economy, and even on the way government works, than the price of a barrel of oil. A change of a few dollars either way in the price of West Texas Intermediate Crude has a massive effect on the state’s financial health. But how long will the oil boom last, and at what cost? Mose Buchele, energy and environment reporter for KUT-Austin, says people across the state feel the impact of the energy-driven economic boom – both positive and negative. “One of the main ways that people are experiencing this outside of West Texas is pipeline construction … sometimes very controversial projects,” Buchele says. “Right here near Austin, we have the Permian Highway Pipeline that’s going to be natural gas – a lot of local opposition in some places to that – crude oil pipelines coming in, heading out to the Gulf Coast and then on the Gulf Coast, big shipping investments in petrochemicals.” Buchele says that by some estimates there is enough natural gas in West Texas to power every home in the state. But because there is no infrastructure to transport it, the gas ends up being flared and ultimately contaminates the environment.“There’s a new pipeline that’s just opened up in Corpus Christi,” Buchele says. “This other Permian Highway Pipeline would take that natural gas and bring it to market. The argument in favor is that you’d get away from that waste.” But some groups of citizens living near pipelines oppose the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure because of climate and environmental concerns, Buchele says. Though some in Texas have suggested that economic boom conditions in Texas could be permanent, Buchele says industry experts are bracing for a possible bust, at the hands of Wall Street.“This whole thing has been funded by a lot of investment,” Buchele says. “But the people who made those Investments are not seeing the kinds of returns that they might like to see so far. There’s tons of oil coming out of the ground … but if that dries up, and it’s already starting to … then you might start seeing some real trouble.” A lot of the investments were made when the price of a barrel of crude oil was $100, but now that the price is down to about $50, a number of small companies are expected to declare bankruptcy, Buchele says.
Permian Oil and Gas to Support 93,000 Jobs in 2020 - The Permian Basin oil and gas sector is forecasted to support 5,578 more jobs next year.The Permian Basin oil and gas industry will support 93,201 jobs in 2020, according to the latest forecast from the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO).This is 5,578 more jobs than the sector supported in the first half of 2019 and 12,209 more jobs than the sector supported last year, TIPRO revealed.“Based on TIPRO’s analysis, including production, pricing and employment trends, we forecast an increase of 5,500 net new oil and natural gas jobs in the Permian between 2019 – 2020,” TIPRO President Ed Longanecker told Rigzone.“Permian production and employment are expected to rise in the coming year as additional pipeline capacity comes online,” he added. The TIPRO head also warned, however, that employment growth will be dependent on several factors and could be negatively impacted by the escalating trade war with China and growing uncertainty in the market among investors and producers.
UT and Lone Star College partner to train energy employees - The Houston region is home to over 5,000 energy related firms, according to information from Governor Greg Abbott’s office, and the state of Texas is home to the largest petrochemical cluster in the world that employs approximately 100,000 workers. The oil, gas, and petrochemical industry is what literally fuels the Texas, and Houston area economies. So it only makes sense that the local higher education facilities would partner with these industries. It was this mindset that helped create the collaboration between Lone Star College and the University of Texas at Austin Engineering Executive Education, Petroleum Extension, made official on Sept. 26. University of Texas at Austin is one of four colleges in the state with petroleum refining and chemical products education program. “Lone Star College is the preeminent workforce training institution in the greater Houston area,” said Stephen C. Head, LSC chancellor in a release. “We look forward to working with UT-PETEX in this new endeavor to help companies maintain a trained workforce.” For over 10 years UT-PETEX, a unit of The Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, leased space on the LSC North Harris campus. But until recently that was the extent of the relationship. For a while UT-PETEX moved to a new location and the leasing relationship stopped. But they’ve found their way back and the new collaboration was formed. “We got connected to University of Texas PETEX again through the International Association of Drilling Contractors,” Head said. “They wanted us to collaborate on putting together programs at various levels for oil and gas field workers, and included a multitude of different occupational areas.”
Texas wakes up to series of earthquakes - From the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to the edge of the Panhandle, the Lone Star State woke up to a series of three earthquakes. The U.S. Geological Survey reported a 4.0-magnitude earthquake hit in a rural area about 12 miles north of Snyder in Scurry County just after 2 a.m. Tuesday. A 3.2-magnitude earthquake was recorded about 6.5 miles southwest of the Fort Worth suburb of Mansfield just before 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. USGS officials reported that a 2.5-magnitude earthquake was recorded about 13 miles north of Snyder just before 6:30 a.m. Tuesday. There were no immediate reports of damage but the 4.0-magnitude earthquake near Snyder tied with a Monday afternoon earthquake in the same area as the strongest earthquake in Texas so far this year, data from the Austin-based TexNet Seismic Monitoring Program shows. Environmentalists blame the tremors on saltwater disposal wells, which inject wastewater generated in the hydraulic fracturing process and other oil and natural gas activities deep underground. Past scientific studies from Southern Methodist University and the U.S. Geological Survery have confirmed that some of the earthquakes were man made, but oil & gas industry experts dispute those findings. Sharon Wilson, a Dallas-based organizer with environmental group Earthworks, said in a tweet that stronger earthquakes can crack walls and foundations. "No telling what it will do the bore pipe on all the wells out there," Wilson said.
Methane sensors put on planes, trucks in oil production zone — Methane sensors will be put on planes, trucks and atop towers in the West Texas and southeastern New Mexico desert in a new effort to gauge the extent of greenhouse gas emissions from surging oil and natural gas production, advocates with the Environmental Defense Fund announced Wednesday. The yearlong project in the Permian Basin petroleum production region involves researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Wyoming, and low-flying planes from a Colorado-based atmospheric research company. The new methods will be used because traditional estimates of methane emissions have not kept up with the rapid expansion petroleum exploration in the area spanning roughly 85,000 square miles (220,000 square miles), said Environmental Defense Fund Regulatory Affairs Director Jon Goldstein. The Permian Basin is by many measures the country’s most active basin for oil and gas development, he said. “What we don’t have is a tremendous amount of information about is what that means in terms of emissions and waste,” Goldstein said. Data from the study organized by the Defense Fund will be made public while research is still in progress. Results will include a map of emissions across the region. Organizers expect scientific work to be submitted for peer review. The goal is to produce useful measurements for the oil and gas industry as it strives to reduce waste as well as for regulators and observers who are concerned about climate pollutants, Goldstein said. Methane, the main component of natural gas, frequently leaks or is intentionally released during drilling operations. It traps far more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, doing 25 times the damage over the long term despite surviving for less time, according to the EPA.
2 women indicted for federal counts in pipeline (AP) — Two women accused of damaging valves and setting fire to construction equipment along an oil pipeline that crosses Iowa and three other states have been indicted on federal charges in the case, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.A grand jury on Sept. 19 indicted Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, both of Des Moines, on nine counts each, U.S. Attorney for Iowa Marc Krickbaum said in a news release. The two face federal charges of conspiracy to damage an energy facility, four counts of use of fire in the commission of a felony, and four counts of malicious use of fire.The women are accused of damaging the valves and setting fire to earth-moving equipment at different times from 2016 into 2017. That includes machinery found extensively damaged by fire in August 2016 located at three oil pipeline construction sites in central Iowa near Newton, Reasnor and Oskaloosa. If convicted, Reznicek and Montoya each face decades in prison. The women released a statement in 2017 claiming they had burned construction machinery, cut through pipe valves with a torch and set fires with gasoline, rags and tires along the Dakota Access pipeline route. The $3.8 billion pipeline crosses North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. Krickbaum said Montoya was recently arrested in Arizona and is being detained pending court proceedings to determine her appearance in Iowa. Reznicek appeared Tuesday in a Des Moines federal court and was conditionally released pending trial, which is currently scheduled for Dec. 2. It was not clear whether the women yet have attorneys. Publicly-listed phone numbers for the women could not be found Tuesday.
2 Women Charged With Conspiracy, Arson Over 2017 Dakota Pipeline Protests - Federal authorities on Wednesday charged two women who set fire to machinery and attempted to pierce portions of the Dakota Access Pipeline with torches with counts of conspiracy and arson. Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek worked in November of 2016 to damage the controversial pipeline, hosting a news conference in July of 2017 in front of the Iowa Utilities Board describing their actions. The charges come more than two years after that press conference, and the women could face decades in prison if convicted.Authorities also charged a South Dakota man this month with a felony conspiracy to commit criminal mischief for participating in a September 2016 #NoDAPL protest, claiming that DNA from a cigarette butt collected at the scene links him to the action. Native protesters have faced particularly harsh charges and convictions in the aftermath of the pipeline protests. As reported by The New York Times: "Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken," Ms. Montoya said at the news conference in July 2017. "We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation's water supply."
Whistle-blower Reveals Flawed Construction at North Dakota Gas Plants Where Massive Spill Was Downplayed | DeSmog - Two North Dakota gas processing plants in the heart of the Bakken oil fields have shown signs of an eroded safety culture and startling construction problems, according to Paul Lehto, a 54-year-old former gas plant operator who has come out as a whistle-blower. He described worrisome conditions at the Lonesome Creek plant, in Alexander, and the Garden Creek plant, in Watford City, where DeSmog recently revealed one of the largest oil and gas industry spills in U.S. history had occurred. Both plants process natural gas brought via pipeline from Bakken wells and are run by the Oklahoma-based oil and gas service company, ONEOK Partners.“The safety culture is embarrassing,” said Lehto, who has described to DeSmog the discovery of dozens of loose bolts along critical sections of piping, and other improperly set equipment, deficiencies he attributes to the frenzied rush of the oil boom that has dominated the state’s landscape and economy. “North Dakota is basically a Petrostate,” said Lehto, who worked at the two plants between 2015 and 2016. “There is regulatory capture, and sure that happens in other areas, but nowhere is it more extreme than in North Dakota.”“The reason I am coming forward is that while I didn’t think ONEOK was doing their job, I still trusted the state to regulate and do its job,” said Lehto. “But in reading what the state’s response was to the condensate spill, I have lost all confidence that the state is acting as a legitimate regulator.”Furthermore, a trove of documents received by DeSmog from the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) under a public records request has revealed that despite state regulators listing the Garden Creek spill as just 10 gallons from 2015 to 2019, an intense multi-year cleanup operation was underway to remove the spilled natural gas condensate from the grounds of the plant. According to a cleanup document, the ground well beneath the plant became saturated with condensate, so much so that even 18 feet down, a “pure gasoline-like odor” was detected.Also, groundwater at one monitoring well registered the carcinogen benzene at levels nearly 2,000 times that required by the state health department.
California fines Chevron $2.7 million for surface oil spills at Cymric field in Kern County - California on Wednesday fined Chevron more than $2.7 million for allowing an oil spill at the Cymric Oil Field in Kern County that lasted 113 days and covered almost an acre of a dry streambed. Four “surface expression” spills – water, steam and oil forced to the surface — occurred in the field between May and July, Acting Oil and Gas Supervisor Jason R. Marshall found. The spills caused “a significant threat of harm to human health and the environment," Marshall said in his order levying the penalties. The penalties include $900,000 for failure to prevent a surface expression and $1,832,991 for "failure to comply with transport requirements for oil and to conduct operations in accord with good oilfield practice." Officials said the Chevron penalty is the second-largest issued under the Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resource’s recently created Office of Enforcement. In January, DOGGR issued a $5.076 million fine against HVI Cat Canyon, Inc. for violations related to its operation of the Richfield Oil Field in Orange County. In the Chevron spills, Marshall noted that the company allowed oil from the four spills to run downhill. "Division staff observed [Chevron] on multiple occasions using pumps, bins, and a vacuum truck to capture oil from the unlined channel and transport it for processing" in violation of regulations that prohibit transporting oil and water containing oil through open unlined channels and ditches. Chevron said it is reviewing the order from DOGGR. It is allowed to appeal the fines, but has not said if it will do so.
Trump Admin: There's No 'Climate Crisis,' So Drill Baby Drill --The Trump administration has asserted that "there is not a climate crisis" as justification for expanding drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. E&E first reported Monday that the Bureau of Land Management's Environmental Impact Statement for expanded drilling in Alaska, released last month, contains stark denier language tucked into the vast appendix, where BLM staff attorney Brook Brisson responds to public criticisms of the proposal. Brisson asserts in response to a comment asking BLM to acknowledge that drilling "is inconsistent with maintaining a livable planet" that "societies prospered" in previous warm periods in Earth's history.In July, Politico published an extensive report detailing the exhaustive and political edits to and deletions of scientific work in the statement.The Politico report explains the pristine wilderness at the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee:For decades, the refuge has been the subject of a very public tug of war between pro-drilling forces and conservation advocates determined to protect an ecosystem crucial to polar bears, herds of migratory caribou, and native communities that rely on the wildlife for subsistence hunting. The Trump tax law, for the first time since the refuge was established in 1980, handed the advantage decisively to the drillers. For a deeper dive: E&E $, The Hill
Oil lawyer says ‘inexperienced’ Trump team could jeopardize its own agenda - The Trump administration has done a lot for oil and natural gas firms. But behind closed doors, they worry that the Trump team's inexperience may ultimately end up jeopardizing its efforts to wipe climate rules off the books. Industry lawyer Mark Barron, at a a private meeting of oil and gas executives in Colorado Springs, openly worried that the courts might ultimately throw out key parts of the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda under challenge by environmental groups. “The current [Interior Secretary, David Bernhardt] is a competent technocrat but the other folks who are in the office are inexperienced government folks,” Barron said, referring to political appointees at key agencies, according to a recording obtained by The Post’s Juliet Eilperin. “And so they may want to implement policy, but at some point, you need people who are familiar with Washington, who know how to draft a regulatory rule, who have experience doing it on a big level," said Barron, who heads the energy litigation arm of Baker Hostetler, at the June 24 meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. IPAA, which represents small and midsize oil and gas companies, has publicly been one of the biggest backers of the Trump administration’s rollbacks aimed at curbing methane leaks, protecting endangered species and other issues.But privately, Barron echoed an observation of many outside the oil and gas business: The administration’s rush to write regulations has left it vulnerable to courtroom challenges. “I'm going to be candid; some of those recissions were done by too few people and at too fast a pace,” Barron said.
Frac Spread Drop Could End Soon - Hydraulic fracturing operations in U.S. shale basins have been trending downward since the spring of this year, and the number of active frac spreads has dropped for the past 12 consecutive weeks, according to a Los Angeles-based firm that uses frac spread counts to assess the health of the upstream industry.Also called a “frac fleet,” a frac spread comprises the equipment that a pressure pumper – an oilfield service company – uses to perform a frac stimulation job.Pointing out the downward trend could stem from exhausted budgets and seasonality, Primary Vision, Inc. reported Tuesday that the overall pattern may level off in the coming weeks.“Seasonally we’ve seen a comeback typically in the fall before a slowdown around the holidays,” Matt Johnson, principal of Primary Vision, told Rigzone. “This may be different this year, but we’re in a serious decline here, one of the longest we’ve seen since we started tracking the Frac Spread Count in 2014.”In its latest weekly newsletter, Primary Vision points out that U.S. frac spread counts are down nearly 100 since mid-spring. Roughly two-thirds of the reported declines are in three plays:
- Permian Basin: down 30 frac spreads
- Eagle Ford Shale: down 20 frac spreads
- Williston Basin: down 15 frac spreads
“We may not see a comeback at all, but we’re predicting that it will level off before getting much worse because of planned completions,” noted Johnson.Johnson attributes the downward movement in frac spread counts in recent months to operators’ ability to do more with less. “It seems that more wells were completed with less spreads,” he said. “When the dust settles, it will be interesting to understand how utilization changed year over year.”
Oil Discoveries Hit 70-Year Low - The last three years has been the worst stretch of time in seventy years for new conventional oil discoveries.A new report from IHS Markit finds that conventional oil discoveries plunged to a seven-decade low and “a significant rebound is not expected.” Conventional exploration – as opposed to unconventional development, including shale – had already been trending down following the 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath, which overlapped with the rise of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in several U.S. shale basins.But the collapse of oil prices in 2014 really knocked conventional exploration – and thus, discoveries – on its back.After OPEC refrained from cutting production in the face of a swelling supply surplus in late 2014, prices fell sharply…and continued to fall for much of the next year and a half. WTI bottomed out in early 2016 below $30 per barrel, before a pullback in drilling and production cuts by OPEC+ led to a more durable price rebound beginning in 2017.But the multi-year downturn hit conventional exploration in multiple ways. Not only were companies slashing spending and cancelling riskier ventures, but the oil majors and investors began to view short-cycle shale drilling as inherently less risky. That was because drilling was quick – companies were able to turn projects around in a matter of weeks or months, not the years that large-scale conventional projects took, particularly those offshore in deepwater. Capital flowed en masse from conventional to unconventional development. Predictably, that led to a steep rise in U.S. shale output, while simultaneously leading to a sharp contraction in conventional discoveries. “One of the main drivers here is the shift of investment by US independents from international exploration to shale opportunities in the United States—shorter cycle-time projects—with greater flexibility to respond to changing market conditions,” “These operators can quickly turn an unconventional project off and stop or postpone drilling next month if oil prices fall.”
US shale oil boom ends as lower prices take toll (Reuters) - U.S. oil production growth is decelerating gradually in response to lower prices, which should reduce predicted over-supply in 2020 and force the global oil market back towards balance.Domestic crude production fell 276,000 barrels per day to 11.806 million bpd in July, according to data published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Monday.The month-on-month reduction was entirely attributable to the Gulf of Mexico, where output fell 332,000 bpd, because many offshore platforms were shut due to the threat from tropical storm Barry.Onshore production from the Lower 48 states, much of it from shale plays, actually increased by 63,000 bpd to a multi-decade high of 9.778 million bpd ("Petroleum supply monthly", EIA, Sept. 30).Even onshore, however, there were signs the frenzied production growth of 2017 and 2018 has run out of momentum, as shale firms throttle back in response to lower prices (https://tmsnrt.rs/2o8imVk).Onshore output was up by 1.149 million bpd in July compared with the same month a year earlier, but growth has slowed progressively from 1.900 million bpd in August 2018.Of the major oil-producing states, Texas has reported the sharpest and most consistent slowdown, with more gradual decelerations in New Mexico and North Dakota.The second U.S. shale oil boom (2017-2018) is ending for much the same reasons as the first (2012-2014): high prices encouraged over-production and global oil consumption growth cooled. Experience suggests changes in oil prices filter through to drilling with an average delay of around 4 months and to output with a total lag of around 12 months.Production in July, therefore, reflected the relatively high prices that prevailed before oil prices started to slump in October 2018.Since then, as prices have tumbled, the number of rigs drilling for oil has fallen by 175 or 20%, according to oilfield services company Baker Hughes.Lower prices and drilling activity should start to filter through into even slower growth in Lower 48 output towards the end of the year and into 2020. Prices will remain low to enforce a U.S. drilling and production slowdown unless and until there are stronger indications of economic growth next year.
You're Footing The Bill For Bankrupt Shale Driller - A wave of oil and gas wells abandoned by bankrupted drillers could cost the U.S. government hundreds of millions of dollars. A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) studied oil and gas wells drilled on federal lands, and found that the public could get stuck with a significant tab from companies that go out of business. Inactive wells that have not been properly plugged present environmental threats, from methane leaks to surface, air and groundwater contamination. Reclaiming a well that goes offline involves plugging it, removing structures and revegetating that landscape.On federal lands, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) collects a bond upfront that can be returned to a driller after reclamation. If the well is not properly reclaimed at the end of its life, BLM uses the bond to pay for the cleanup.But the problem is that the bond payments are often too low to cover the cost of reclamation. BLM regulations have minimum bond rates at $10,000 per lease, $25,000 for all wells in a state and $150,000 for all wells nationwide.When a company abandons a well because it cannot afford to clean it up, the well becomes “orphaned,” and tends to fall to BLM. But the agency does not have the funds to handle a wave of orphaned wells because the bonds that drillers pay are too low. “Bonds held by BLM have not provided sufficient financial assurance to prevent orphaned oil and gas wells,” the GAO report found. For instance, GAO identified 89 new orphaned wells between July 2017 and April 2019, which could cost as much as $46 million to clean up.More eye-opening was the fact that the agency identified nearly 3,000 wells that are at risk of becoming orphaned. Costs for reclaiming old wells vary widely, so much so that the GAO offered two scenarios: low-cost wells can cost $20,000 a piece, while high-costs wells can reach $145,000. For those 3,000 at-risk wells, the cleanup tab for the federal government could range from $46 million to $333 million. Roughly 84 percent of bonds are likely too low to reclaim the wells to which they are linked. “Bonds generally do not reflect reclamation costs because most bonds are set at their regulatory minimum values, and these minimums have not been adjusted since the 1950s and 1960s to account for inflation,” GAO said. It can also be decades between when a bond is paid and reclamation is actually completed. Notably, the average bond that BLM has on hand has declined over the years on a per-well basis, from $2,207 per well in 2008 to $2,122 per well in 2018.
Despite Bankruptcies, US Shale is Not Doomed - Recent bankruptcies affecting shale companies does not indicate future doom for the industry, according to Rystad Energy.While news of bankruptcies among U.S. onshore exploration and production (E&P) companies seems to be more frequent these days, Rystad Energy doesn’t believe this indicates doom for the shale industry.“In a nutshell, we do not believe the recent bankruptcies that have beset a number of shale players are indicative of an industry-wide epidemic,” said Alisa Lukash, a senior analyst on Rystad Energy’s North American Shale team.Some of those recent bankruptcies include Halcon Resources Corporation, Sanchez Energy Corporation and Alta Mesa Resources, Inc.Rystad forecasts that the top 40 U.S. shale oil producers will spend about $100 billion in the next seven years on debt installments and interest unless further debt refinancing is applied. This group of producers accounted for nearly half of U.S. shale crude production in 2018, according to Rystad, and are now faced with interest payments between $2.6 billion and $5.1 billion annually. Maturities amount to about $71 billion between 2020 and 2026.A total of $23.7 billion in cash flow from operations was generated in the first half of 2019 with spending being $28 billion on capital expenditures. Rystad sees more than $112 billion in outstanding debt for this group, with a combined enterprise value of $355.5 billion as of September 2019. “These numbers indicate a lack of financing to deal with the burden of the obligations,” said Lukash. “Given the low levels of external capital additions during the past 10 months, the probability of debt refinancing in the coming quarters seems relatively slim.”
Democrats say they will ban fracking nationwide. An empty campaign promise or are they serious? - Several contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have promised a nationwide ban on fracking. How viable is that proposal and do they really want to do it – or is it just a campaign promise they can never fulfil?Banning ‘fracking’ – the process of extracting oil and natural gas via hydraulic fracturing – is popular among environmentalists and activists who are increasingly concerned about climate change. Among the candidates who have backed a ban are the current frontrunner Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), as well as her colleagues Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Kamala Harris (D-California). Yet, the fracking boom of the past decade has transformed the US from an energy importer to an exporter, impacting the economy in a major way – and even giving Washington a certain amount of foreign policy leverage that Democrats might find difficult to abandon.The industry has touted fracking as a ‘cleaner’ alternative to coal – another bugbear of the environmentalists. In reality, the method poses “significant threats to air, water, health, public safety, climate stability, seismic stability, community cohesion, and long-term economic vitality,” according to last year’s report by the Concerned Health Professionals of New York, which concludes: There is no evidence that fracking can operate without threatening public health directly or without imperiling climate stability upon which public health depends. Among the disastrous effects on the environment of fracking are the contamination of groundwater and surrounding soils and vegetation. Some studies have even linked fracking to earthquakes, due to the high pressure used to extract the oil and gas from rock. Researchers speaking at the 2019 annual Seismological Society of America meeting said they had identified “more than 600 small earthquakes” in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas linked to activity in the wells.Then there’s the effect on air quality and climate change. Fracking could be even worse than coal for carbon emissions, according to research by Cornell University’s Robert W. Howarth. This is because of the release of methane in the process, coupled with emissions produced during transportation. Four US states – Washington, Vermont, New York and Maryland – have already prohibited fracking. But before the new 2020 presidential election race kicked off, the idea of a nationwide ban was not a hot topic.A president like Warren or Sanders could attempt to get anti-fracking legislation through Congress, but that would be a gargantuan task, especially if the Republicans still control the Senate. If they try to do it through regulations and executive orders, the next Republican administration could simply rescind them later. While executive action could ban fracking on public lands, much of the oil and gas exploration happens on privately owned land. Former president Barack Obama balanced his stricter regulations with rhetoric about the benefits of fracking, and still faced legal challenges at every turn.
Conoco's Move to Keep Canadian Synthetic Crude Under Fire -- ConocoPhillips’s shift to a cheaper substitute to dilute the thick bitumen coming from its oil-sands operations may deal a blow to companies that turn heavy oil into more-valuable lighter grades. The company currently uses synthetic crude produced in local upgraders to thin out the bitumen extracted from wells at its 150,000 barrel-a-day Surmont site. But by end of the fourth quarter, Surmont will be able to switch to using condensate -- a very light hydrocarbon produced from natural-gas wells -- as a diluent instead, according to documents submitted to the Alberta Energy Regulator. Using condensate to dilute the heavy crude so it can flow through pipelines has some advantages. While an entire barrel of synthetic crude is typically needed to dilute one barrel of raw bitumen, half a barrel of condensate is needed. Also, condensate is almost $3 a barrel cheaper, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “Work to enable our Surmont 2 central processing facility to utilize either condensate or synthetic crude oil is nearly complete,” Katherine Springall, spokeswoman for ConocoPhillips Canada, said in an email. “While we currently use a small percentage of condensate in our blend, this work, when complete, will allow us to use either diluent in order to react to changing market conditions.” A switch by the Surmont operation to 100% condensate would amount to more than 10% of the total volume of synthetic crude produced in Canada, according to Canadian Energy Regulator data. That loss of demand may depress prices of synthetic crude, hurting companies such as Suncor Energy Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. that process bitumen in refinery-sized plants called upgraders to make the lighter grades. Neither company returned emails seeking comment.
Size of oil spill still a mystery - FOUR weeks after Hurricane Dorian, Equinor still does not know how much oil was spilled from its South Riding Point facility in East Grand Bahama or the exact parameters of the land area that was affected, an official said. Equinor has engaged an independent firm to monitor the area near for potential groundwater contamination and officials maintain they are heavily focused on getting clean-up done right. On Friday, it was revealed that about 12,000 barrels of oil and water have been recovered by clean-up crews in response to the oil spill triggered by Hurricane Dorian. Before the storm, the terminal had 1.8 million barrels of crude oil stored. However at a media briefing onsite nearly a month after the disaster, Equinor Operations Manager Kevin Stuart admitted that they still do not know the full extent of the impact. The dome-shaped lids of two storage tanks – numbers six and ten – at the facility were blown off and oil was dispersed in the area as Hurricane Dorian unleashed 185mph winds and pummeled the island for about 40 hours. The event is being called “the worst disaster” ever in the company’s history. Equinor’s oil-stained administrative building is no longer able to accommodate its 54 employees, who have been relocated to the Pelican Bay Resort at Port Lucaya. “We have a situation in front of us; I call it an act of God – we have a spill – and we want to clean it up safely,” Mr Stuart said at the company’s command centre, located on board one of the mega response vessels docked at its terminal, equipped with a heli-pad and a 16-seater helicopter. He said at the time of the storm, only three tanks contained crude oil. Storage tank number 8, which was not compromised, contained 410,178.91 barrels of oil. Of the two damaged storage tanks, number six contained 729,681.08 barrels and number ten contained 730,707.01 barrels. “Right now, we cannot speak to volumes that was spilled because we just do not know. Two tanks damaged by tornadic activity, we cannot safely assess them to get volumes.
Equinor deploys over 300 workers to clean Bahamas oil spill (Reuters) - Norway’s Equinor is still assessing the devastation and level of pollution at its oil terminal in the Bahamas, one month after a massive hurricane swept through the region, the company told Reuters on Friday. “We have collected over 28,000 barrels of oil products around the tanks, on the main road and areas around the terminal. Over 300 personnel on site working on the recovery work,” Equinor spokesman Eskil Eriksen said in an email. Dozens of people have been confirmed dead and hundreds are still missing after Hurricane Dorian pummeled the Caribbean, destroying buildings and facilities across the Bahamas, although Equinor’s employees were all safe. At the firm’s South Riding Point terminal, where 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent were stored at the time, the roofs were ripped off several tanks and some of the contents spread over a wide area. “Due to damages on the tanks we have not been able to get safe access to do accurate measurements of (the) total oil spill. We will continue to work to get safe access to do accurate measurements,” he added.
Oil Pirates- The Gulf Of Mexico's Billion Dollar Problem - Pirate activity in the Gulf of Mexico is on the rise and so is oil theft from platforms operating in the area, Fox News reports, with losses for Pemex as high as $1 billion annually. Oil theft is not uncommon in Mexico, with most of it linked to local cartels using the services of crooked Pemex employees. Yet most of this theft takes place on land: over just two months in 2018, criminals drilled almost 2,300 illegal taps into Pemex pipelines in Mexico.Although oil and diesel stealing has been going on for decades, there has been an increase in criminal activity reported in the last four years, said Johan Obdola, the founder of the International Organization for Security and Intelligence, a Canada-based nonprofit.“It is estimated that the stealing in Mexico is up to 1.18 million barrels a day, bringing millions to criminal organizations, and making it very difficult to control,” Obdola also told Fox News.According to Pemex’s own estimates, the losses from fuel theft over the past three years have reached $7.5 billion (147 billion Mexican pesos). A lot of the theft is conducted by gangs who are quick to resort to violence as they fight among themselves for greater access to state fuels and also engage in extortion of oil workers.According to Mexico’s President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, authorities are also involved in widespread fuel theft, which he last year vowed to tackle without compromise.So far, the tackling has involved deploying military personnel at key oil and fuel infrastructure locations. Offshore, Lopez Obrador has said the Navy would conduct continuous surveillance of Pemex platforms, which are the targets of choice of the pirates. According to some Mexican officials, the Pena-Nieto energy sector reform is to blame for the rise in oil theft. Opening up the local oil and gas industry to private players has increased the number of targets for pirates offshore and this includes not just the oil itself but also equipment and raw materials.
Mexico's Pemex seeks control of U.S. oil firm's billion-barrel find (Reuters) - When U.S. oil firm Talos Energy (TALO.N) found nearly a billion barrels off Mexico’s southern Gulf coast two years ago, it marked the first discovery by a foreign firm since the oil industry was nationalized eight decades earlier. Now Mexico’s state-run oil firm Pemex wants to take over the lucrative project, according to two former Mexican energy officials and two company executives with knowledge of internal Pemex discussions. The Pemex push to run drilling in the oilfield comes amid the ongoing drive by leftist President Andres Lopez Obrador to return more control of Mexico’s energy sector to its state oil firm. His predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, ended Pemex’s monopoly and started auctioning off oilfields to private companies in 2015. Talos was the first to find oil, in a shallow-water field it named Zama after the Maya word for dawn. Wresting control of the project from the company now would strike a symbolic blow to Mexico’s biggest economic policy change in decades and could further chill investment by the world’s top energy firms, oil executives and industry experts told Reuters. Pemex has a potential claim to control over Zama because it has drilling rights to an adjacent field. The oil deposit likely extends into Pemex territory – although the firm has yet to prove that by drilling. The two companies began talks last year about a merged project and will later negotiate how to split revenues and who gets operational control. If the talks deadlock, Lopez Obrador’s Energy Ministry would settle disputes and appoint one company to oversee drilling. “If Pemex does end up operating it, that would not send a good signal to private investors,” said one executive from an oil major with several offshore projects in Mexico.
Mexico: López Obrador makes a big bet on oil | Financial Times -- Every couple of minutes, a large truck splattered with mud rumbles through the gate to what was once an expanse of mangroves. After recent rains, a lake has formed where the lush vegetation once flourished. Further on, more than 20 yellow diggers are hard at work scooping up sludge, which lorries dump in a nearby field. For Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who wants to turn this swamp into his signature infrastructure project — an $8bn oil refinery — the location in his southeastern home state of Tabasco could not be better. The town is called Paraíso, or paradise. The president sees it as the promised land for Pemex, the struggling national oil company; for Tabasco, whose economy shrank 11 per cent in the first quarter; and for people like Concepción Álvarez, who has parked his cart selling juices and snacks outside the gates to the site. “This is going to change things. It’s going to create jobs,” he says. The planned refinery, beside the Dos Bocas port, is much more than just a prestige project. It is a powerful symbol of the new economy Mr López Obrador wants to build: state-directed, centrally-driven, reliant on national production and free of foreign influence. Pemex is the centrepiece of Mr López Obrador’s aspiration to overturn what he sees as more than three decades of “neoliberal” economic policy. One of his first moves after taking office was to order the oil company to add the motto “For the recovery of sovereignty” to its Mexican-eagle logo. A Pemex refinery in Cadereyta. One former senior government official says the oil company is 'the cornerstone of [López Obrador's] presidency and his economic policy' © Reuters “Pemex means so much to López Obrador . . . because he is from an oil state and came of age in the 1960s, when Pemex was very powerful,” says one former senior government official. “It’s the cornerstone of his presidency and his economic policy.”
Pemex PMI Turnover is AMLO's Effort to Clean Unit --- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that the replacement of 10 executives at the Petroleos Mexicanos arm that sets and monitors prices was an effort to end decades-long questionable practices. “There was an instruction to clean Pemex International,” AMLO, as the leftist president is known, said at his morning news conference on Thursday. “Some people had been there for almost 30 years. It was converted into a limited partnership.” AMLO said that the people who were in charge of PMI had been buying and selling a million barrels of oil a day and distanced themselves from government supervision using as excuses their own technical expertise. He repeated the frequent promise that his government isn’t going to tolerate corruption. Pemex in a shakeup on Friday announced that it had replaced the head of PMI and the head of crude trading, among other new appointments. The moves followed a clash between the former PMI management and Pemex’s new leadership team headed by Chief Executive Officer Octavio Romero over new formulas created to price oil sales to refiners in the U.S. and elsewhere, according to people familiar with the matter. Romero, a longtime Lopez Obrador ally, had called for an external review because he had questions about the marketing of Mexico’s crude, while the head of trading opposed his decision to launch an external review of the formula.
Cuadrilla: More fracking this year in Lancashire unlikely after earthquake - Fracking is unlikely to restart at Cuadrilla’s controversial site in Lancashire this year, the company admitted today over a month since an earthquake ripped through the site, bringing an end to drilling. Instead the firm said it would ensure Preston New Road will not be brought to a standstill as it tests how much gas flows from the well. It will help assess how much gas is under ground. “We believe that this will further demonstrate the huge commercial opportunity here,” said Francis Egan, the chief executive of Cuadrilla. The flow testing comes after the company found it could extract gas from a separate well at the site in February this year. The well was already fracked in early August, causing several earthquakes, including a record 2.9 magnitude tremor which locals reported had damaged their nearby properties. Cuadrilla has said it will pay for repairs. Current regulations require frackers to temporarily stop if they measure an earthquake above 0.5 on the Richter scale. But after the 2.9 magnitude quake, the Oil and Gas Authority stepped in, forcing Cuadrilla to stop indefinitely. The company said it was still working with the regulator to figure out what happened and what can be learnt from the tremor. “A timeframe has not been agreed with the OGA for this work to be completed and further hydraulic fracturing will not take place at Preston New Road before current planning permission for fracturing expires at the end of November,” it said.
Exxon Sells Norwegian Assets for $4.5B - After much speculation, ExxonMobil Corp. has signed an agreement to sell its non-operated upstream assets in Norway to Var Energi AS for $4.5 billion, the oil and gas powerhouse announced Thursday afternoon.Rigzone first reported on a potential sale in late June, when Exxon was “testing market interest” for the assets. A couple of weeks ago, Exxon declined to comment on a sell of its Norwegian assets.The deal is part of Exxon’s previously announced plan to divest $15 billion in non-strategic assets by 2021. The transaction includes ownership interests in more than 20 producing fields operated mostly by Equinor ASA with a combined production of approximately 150,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day in 2019."This transaction is a major milestone in the short history of Var Energi and a proof of our commitment to further develop the [Norwegian Continental Shelf]," Var Energi chief executive Kristin Kragseth said in an email sent to Rigzone. "In delivering on our ambitious growth plans, Var Energi will not only be a major force on the shelf, we are also creating major opportunities for Norwegian suppliers in the years to come, securing employment in man parts of the country." Exxon said the majority of its employees impacted by the sale will transfer to positions at Vår Energi.
How U.S. fossil fuels are tied to Ukraine and impeachment - Ukraine, now at the center of a rapidly accelerating impeachment inquiry against President Trump, has been central to the president's efforts to increase U.S. exports of fossil fuels. The Eastern European nation sits at the crossroads of Europe and Russia. Today, roughly a third of Russian gas consumed in Europe passes through Ukraine. That has made the country uniquely susceptible to Russian meddling. Moscow has twice cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in the past 15 years and stopped selling directly to the country after the onset of the civil war there in 2014. The prospect of a third shutoff looms at the end of the year, when the current transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine is set to expire.The impeachment inquiry against Trump could strain the relationship between the United States and Ukraine. House Democrats are seeking information on how the president and his administration may have pressured Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. The White House may have delayed military aid to Ukraine as part of a campaign to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open an investigation into an energy company that employed the former vice president's son.And while Ukraine has benefited financially and strategically from U.S. support for its energy independence from Russia, that policy is usually centered around the country's desire to maintain American support for its military, President Trump has seized upon the conflict in Ukraine as a central argument for bolstering the sales of American fossil fuels abroad, arguing that U.S. allies need reliable energy suppliers to ward off adversaries and grow their economies. Administration officials have coordinated sales of Pennsylvania anthracite, a particularly carbon-intensive form of coal, to help offset a decline in Ukrainian coal production associated with the conflict there (Climatewire, Aug. 1, 2017).Administration officials have vehemently objected to plans to build Nord Stream 2, an undersea natural gas pipeline linking Russian directly to Germany, and thus cutting out Ukraine. Rick Perry, the U.S. Energy secretary, has voiced support for congressional efforts to sanction companies participating with the project (Greenwire, May 21).And Trump has aggressively marketed U.S. liquefied natural gas exports as an alternative to Russian gas. "Ukraine already tells us they need millions and millions of metric tons right now," Trump told a gathering at the Department of Energy in 2017, when he announced his desire to see the United States dominate global energy markets. "We want to sell it to them and everyone else all over the globe" (E&E News PM, June 29, 2017).
Russian energy minister ridicules Rick Perry's idea of US 'freedom gas' - Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak accused the U.S. of weaponizing liquefied natural gas (LNG) — gas which is super-cooled to liquid form — in an attempt to derail Moscow’s economic ties to Western Europe.Speaking at an energy conference in the Russian capital on Wednesday, Novak said that when it comes to exporting LNG to Europe, Washington did not appear to be prepared to allow for the development of market competition.He also criticized the U.S. for considering sanctions on companies and individuals involved in building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project linking Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea.“They use gas as a weapon and they do it on the other side of the Atlantic,” Novak said, referring to the world’s largest economy.The U.S. Department of Energy was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC Wednesday morning. Novak’s comments come as construction continues apace on Nord Stream 2 — a contentious undersea gas pipeline that will allow Russia to bypass Ukraine when delivering gas exports to Europe. The project, which Novak said was 82% complete, is intended to provide Europe with a sustainable gas supply while providing Russia with more direct access to the European gas market. The pipeline is scheduled to become operational in early 2020.
U.S. sanctions on COSCO hit LNG tankers in Russia's Arctic (Reuters) - U.S. sanctions on two units of Chinese shipper COSCO hit the liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker industry on Monday as U.S.-listed Teekay LNG (TGP.N) said its shipping joint venture in Russia had been “blocked” because of its ties to COSCO. The United States imposed sanctions on COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian) Co and subsidiary COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian) Seaman & Ship Management Co for allegedly carrying Iranian crude oil. Teekay LNG said on Monday that its 50-50 Yamal LNG Joint Venture had been deemed a “blocked person” under the sanctions because its partner China LNG Shipping (Holding) (CLNG) is 50% owned by COSCO Dalian. “As a result of CLNG’s 50% interest, the Yamal LNG Joint Venture also currently qualifies as a ‘Blocked Person’ under OFAC rules,” Teekay said, referring to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). “Teekay Group has not traded and will not trade with Iran and will not act in contravention of any trading sanctions,” Teekay said. The venture owns Arc7-class LNG tankers capable of navigating through Arctic ice, making them key to transporting LNG from Novatek’s (NVTK.MM) Yamal LNG plant in northern Russia. The LNG plant, surrounded by thick ice during the winter, is unique in operating in such harsh conditions. The Arc7 tankers take LNG westward to Europe in winter and eastward to Asia in summer when ice along the Northern Sea Route dissipates sufficiently to allow passage. Its Yamal LNG project “has all the necessary capabilities to ensure the delivery of produced LNG to buyers within the agreed by contracts schedules,” Novatek said in a statement.
Russia's Largest Oil Company Ditches Dollar In New Oil Deals -Russia’s largest oil company Rosneft has set the euro as the default currency for all new exports of crude oil and refined products, as the state-controlled giant looks to switch as many sales as possible from U.S. dollars to euros in order to avoid further U.S. sanctions against it.As of September, Rosneft is seeking euros as the default option of payment for its crude oil and products, Reuters reported on Thursday, quoting tender documents the Russian firm has published.“Rosneft has recently adjusted all the new contracts for export supplies to euros,” a trader at a company that regularly procures oil from Rosneft told Reuters, adding that buyers have already been notified of the change.Rosneft is the biggest oil exporter from Russia, selling around 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, according to Reuters estimates. In the latest tender for a spot sale of 100,000 tons of Urals blend loading from the port of Primorsk at the end of October, Rosneft specifies that the default currency in the payment should be in euros, according to the tender document cited by Reuters. The United States has not ruled out imposing sanctions on Rosneft over its involvement in trading oil from Venezuela. Rosneft has been reselling the oil from the Latin American country to buyers in China and India and thus helping buyers hesitant to approach Venezuela and its state oil firm PDVSA because of the U.S. sanctions on Caracas, and, at the same time, helping Venezuela to continue selling its oil despite stricter U.S. sanctions.
Russia’s Oil Reserves Now Worth $1.2 Trillion - The total value of Russia's oil reserves is estimated at $1.2 trillion, nearly doubling the valuation over the course of a single year, Moscow's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment reported Friday. According to the ministry’s data, the market value of the oil reserves increased by 88 percent over the past year, largely due to newly discovered reserves as well as the higher valuations for the existing reserve supply. Russia's oil reserves valuation increased by $385 billion to $1.07 trillion. Regarding newly discovered oil reserves in volume terms, the increase was not so impressive. An increase of 8.7 percent was recorded, from 9.04 billion to 9.83 billion tons, according to RBC. It caused a 73% year-on-year surge in monetary value. The value of oil reserves reached some 71.7 percent of Russia’s GDP in 2018.Oil accounted for 72 percent of Russia's gross domestic product last year. The oil production cost remains about $15.5 per barrel, in line with previous estimates of $8-20 per barrel. The value of gas reserves increased by about a quarter, from $177 billion to $221 billion. In volume terms, it increased by 3.6 percent, to 15 trillion cubic meters. The value of Russia’s iron ore was estimated at $18 billion, gold was valued at $9.6 billion, and diamonds were estimated to be worth $8.5 billion. Copper and coal reserves in value terms have slightly decreased since 2017.
Putin condemns Saudi oil attacks but defends Iran - Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the attacks on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure last month but defended Iran, saying there is no proof the country had a role in, or was responsible for, the strikes. “We condemn such acts no matter who is behind (them). It is a destructive event that had a toll on the whole global energy market,” Putin told an audience at a NBC-moderated panel, according to a translation. “But we’re against shirking the blame upon Iran, because there is no real proof behind that and yesterday we spoke about that with President (Hassan) Rouhani. His position is that Iran would not assume any responsibility and is in no way related to that act,” he added. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks that initially halved the Saudi kingdom’s oil production. But Saudi Arabia and the U.S. suggested that Houthi-allied Iran had a role in, or was responsible for, the attacks on Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities. Iran has denied the accusations it was involved, calling them “meaningless” and “pointless.” Asked if he accepted Iran’s denial of involvement, even though U.S. intelligence services had pointed the finger of blame at the country, Putin said these intelligence services “served the foreign policy of the U.S., but they have not come up with any evidence.” “Let’s not be guided by emotions but by facts,” he added.
Thousands of Ships Fitted With ‘Cheat Devices’ To Divert Poisonous Pollution Into Sea -Global shipping companies have spent billions rigging vessels with “cheat devices” that circumvent new environmental legislation by dumping pollution into the sea instead of the air, The Independent can reveal.More than $12bn (£9.7bn) has been spent on the devices, known as open-loop scrubbers, which extract sulphur from the exhaust fumes of ships that run on heavy fuel oil.This means the vessels meet standards demanded by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that kick in on 1 January.However, the sulphur emitted by the ships is simply re-routed from the exhaust and expelled into the water around the ships, which not only greatly increases the volume of pollutants being pumped into the sea, but also increases carbon dioxide emissions.The change could have a devastating effect on wildlife in British waters and around the world, experts have warned.A total of 3,756 ships, both in operation and under order, have already had scrubbers installed according to DNV GL, the world’s largest ship classification company. Only 23 of these vessels have had closed-loop scrubbers installed, a version of the device that does not discharge into the sea and stores the extracted sulphur in tanks before discharging it at a safe disposal facility in a port.
Oil spills reach more than 100 regions of Brazils coast -Brazil’s main environmental agency Ibama said Thursday that it has detected 105 crude oil spills from an undetermined source polluting the waters of the country’s northeast coast this month. The spill spans over 1,500 kilometers of Brazil's northeast coast, affecting wildlife and polluting some of the postcard beaches in one of the nation's top touristic destinations, such as Praia do Futuro, in the state of Ceara, and Maragogi, in Alagoas state. Local media showed pictures of sea turtles coated in black tar by the slick.Some marine turtles were contaminated by the oil. They were rescued alive in the state of Rio Grande do Norte and sent to rehabilitation centers. Other animals were found dead, Ibama said, without disclosing species or numbers.Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, also known as Petrobras, said in a statement that even though it was not involved in the spill it was contributing to the clean-up efforts, with some 100 Petrobras employees helping clean the beaches. The company is also investigating the cause and origin of the oil spill. After concluding the investigation the company said in a statement that after completing a molecular analysis of the oil it was found that the crude spilled was not produced nor sold by the company. It also said that the spills spread across eight states come from a single source but were not produced in the South American nation.“So far there is no evidence of contamination of fish and crustaceans,” the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources institute said. Brazil’s environmental body urged beachgoers and fishermen to avoid the material. It said the situation is stable in the waters of the most affected state, Rio Grande do Norte. Investigators are now concentrating on the Amazon state of Maranhao, close to the border with French Guiana. Anna Carolina Lobo, a coordinator of the marine program of the WWF conservation group in Brazil, said it is alarming that Brazilian authorities don’t know the origin of the oil spills. “The surveillance in our waters, no matter if this was an intentional or an unintentional spill, is too fragile for a country this big,” Ms. Lobo said.
Source of Vast Oil Spill Covering Brazil's Northeast Coast Unknown --Brazil's main environmental agency said on Thursday the source of a sprawling oil spill along the northeast coast remains unknown, but that the crude oil was not produced in the country. The spill stretches over 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) of Brazil's northeast coast, affecting 46 cities and around one hundred of the country's nicest beaches since being first detected on Sept. 2. Brazilian television has shown slicks at sea and oil puddles along shores, as well as turtles covered in black tar. Other marine life has also been found dead.The Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, Ibama, said state oil company Petrobras analyzed the spill and determined it came from a single source.However, it said, a molecular analysis of the crude showed that it was not produced in Brazil, the world's 9th largest crude producer at 3.43 million barrels a day. Petrobras reported that "the oil found is not produced by Brazil. Ibama requested support from Petrobras to work on beach cleaning. In the coming days, the company will make available a contingent of about 100 people," the environmental institute announced in a statement.
Mysterious oil spill contaminates beaches across swathe of Brazilian coast - An oil spill has contaminated beaches and coastline across eight Brazilian states, the country’s environment agency said on Friday, although authorities are still stumped as to its origin. Environmental agency Ibama said that beaches along a 3,000-kilometer (1,860-mile) coastline of Brazil’s Northeast region had been hit by the spill. It said some oil-coated birds and sea turtles had been washed up and were being treated. The area is a popular tourism destination for locals and foreigners, with a large number of Spanish and Portuguese visitors frequenting resorts spread along the coast. Although there is extensive oil exploration activity offshore Brazil, authorities have ruled out that as the source of the spill. State-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA <PETR4.SA> said it had performed laboratory analysis of the oil and determined, by observing its molecules, that “the organic compounds of the material found are not compatible with that of the oils produced and marketed by the company.”
Oil leak confirmed from Pacific Energy pipe - (Cook Islands) A leak from the Pacific Energy pipeline has been established as the source of a big oil spill in Avatiu harbour. Hundreds of members of the public expressed concern at the powerful stench of what smelled like diesel, yesterday. Ports Authority general manager Nooroa Tou said the spill was a hazard, and they had positioned oil spill booms to confine the leakage. The Ports crew also used skimmer equipment machinery to suck up the leaking residue into drums. Shipments of gasoline, automotive diesel oil and oil from ships are moved via a pipeline from Avatiu harbour to Pacific Energy. The company’s country manager Mark Vaikai said, they were pressure-testing the 2km pipeline in an attempt to discover where the leak had started. The type of oil spillage could not be identified; more testing was required before this could be determined. Samples had been taken from the site and were currently undergoing testing in the company’s laboratory. Vaikai assured the public positive efforts had taken place and Pacific were in discussion with Ports, and had the support of TOA. “It’s a multi effort.” He said the spill in the harbour was nothing of the nature that would cause a fire. People are encouraged to stay away from the area.
Oil spill near Kharg Island contained - The Iranian Offshore Oil Company said the leak in the 24-inch oil pipeline from Abouzar Oilfield to Kharg Island, in the Persian Gulf, has been fixed and the spilled oil in the region has been cleaned up. According to reports, the leakage occurred on September 13, about 4 kilometers off the coast of Kharg Island, the Oil Ministry news agency Shana reported. Members from the HSE department of IOOC were dispatched to find the leak location and took measures to fix it. After plugging the leakage, the oil spill was cleaned by spraying oil spill eater, which is the world’s most environmentally safe and cost effective bioremediation product, for the mitigation of hazardous waste, spills and contamination. However, after a few days the oil spill reached the coast of Kharg Island and was also soon cleaned up. IOOC is in charge of developing oil reservoirs in the Persian Gulf, including Abouzar, Forouzan, Hendijan, Bahregansar, Reshadat, Soroush, Norouz, Salman and Doroud fields. It is in charge of collecting associated petroleum gases on Kharg Island and in the Bahregan oil region in the Persian Gulf.
India saw 'absolutely no disruption' in oil from Saudi Arabia (video) Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas, says India has “very diversified” crude oil sources and is not dependent on any specific country
Erdogan- Impossible For Turkey To Stop Its Iranian Oil & Gas Imports --Returning from the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told reporters Friday that it remains "impossible" for Turkey to halt its oil and gas purchases from Iran in conformity to US sanctions. He affirmed commitment to continuing to buy oil and gas from Iran despite US threats, with no plans to halt or even reduce imports in the future. He said further he was "not afraid" of possible US sanctions over continued dealings with Tehran, Reuters reported. This as the Trump administration has gone after Chinese shipping companies this week over alleged sanctions busting activity related to Iranian oil imports to China and other east Asian ports.No doubt Erdogan has to be taking note of the lengths to which Washington is prepared to go, which included rattling the global shipping industry this week by sanctioning Chinese firms China Concord Petroleum Co., Kunlun Shipping Co., Pegasus 88 Ltd., and COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian) Seaman & Ship Management Co, in its long-haul campaign to see Iranian oil exports go to "zero".Turkey has long been exclusively reliant on imports to meet the growing energy needs of its 80 million citizens. Turkish media sources note that even the country's electrical grid is heavily tied to natural gas imports, as "almost 40 percent of its electricity is produced in gas-fired plants."
A 12,000-Mile Trip May Be Null Due to Iran Oil Sanctions - More than two months and 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) ago, the tanker Da Yuan Hu left Singapore and headed to Mexico to pick up a shipment of crude oil. On Thursday, with less than two weeks to go until it reaches its destination, its long quest could be in jeopardy. The ship, along with dozens of others, is now ensnared in the standoff between the U.S. and Iran. The White House announced penalties against the vessel’s owner, China’s COSCO Shipping Tankers (Dalian) Co., in connection with violating sanctions by shipping Iranian crude. Indian Oil Corp. is considering alternatives to the Da Yuan Hu, according to people familiar with the situation who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. The announcements by the U.S. Treasury and State departments left shipbrokers and charterers scrambling to cancel bookings with sanctioned companies and letting provisional charters lapse. Uncertainty still remains on whether cargoes that have already been loaded onto the vessels of sanctioned firms would be allowed to deliver, or whether they would have to transfer their loads to unsanctioned tankers. The Da Yuan Hu was supposed to transport oil from Mexico’s Dos Bocas to India’s eastern coast of Paradip, the people said. While the company is looking for a replacement, its plans may still change, one of the people said. An Indian Oil spokesman declined to comment. Supertanker Yuan Qiu Hu, earlier chartered by Atlantic Trading & Marketing Inc., a subsidiary of Total U.S., was headed to Galveston to pick up oil for delivery to South Korea. The vessel has since slowed to under 2 knots, from more than 9 yesterday as it puttered off the eastern coast of the U.S.
August non-OPEC unplanned oil production outages fell to lowest level since at least 2011 -- Unplanned oil production outages among countries outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell to 64,000 barrels per day (b/d) in August, the lowest level since the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) began tracking global production outages in 2011. Unplanned outages in major non-OPEC oil producers such as the United States, Russia, and Canada have abated, leaving Sudan and South Sudan as the only remaining non-OPEC producers with unplanned outages in August. The decline in non-OPEC unplanned outages may have contributed to the resilience of the global oil market following the disruption of almost 5.7 million b/d of Saudi Arabian crude oil production on September 14, 2019. EIA tracks both OPEC and non-OPEC production outages. In its estimates of outages, EIA differentiates among declines in production resulting from unplanned production outages, permanent losses of production capacity, and voluntary production cutbacks. EIA’s estimates of unplanned production outages are calculated as the difference between estimated effective production capacity (the level of supply that could be available within one year) and estimated production. EIA publishes historical unplanned production outage estimates in EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).The duration of any supply outage mainly depends on the cause of the disruption. When an outage is related to weather, natural disasters, labor strikes, technical failures, or accidents, the disruption generally ends within weeks, such as is often the case in non-OPEC countries. Disruptions tied to political disputes or conflicts—such as in Sudan and South Sudan—often last for years.
Oil Price Projected to Hit $185 in 2050 - Brent crude oil is projected to hit a value of $185 per barrel in 2050, in 2018 dollars, in the high oil price case of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest International Energy Outlook report. The report also offers a low oil price case, which places oil at $45 per barrel, in 2018 dollars, in 2050 and a reference case, which has oil at $100 per barrel, in 2018 dollars, in 2050. The reference case reflects current trends and relationships among supply, demand and prices in the future and includes some anticipated changes over time, the report highlights. The high and low oil price cases address the uncertainty associated with world energy prices, the report notes. “In the high oil price case, energy demand increases because non-OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) economies grow more quickly than in the reference case, despite tighter petroleum supply conditions,” the report states. “Although energy consumption rises, higher oil prices limit the growth in liquid fuels and consumers conserve or switch to alternative fuels whenever possible,” the report adds. The report notes that in the low oil price case, lower economic activity, “especially in countries that are not a part of the OECD”, discourages energy consumption. “Simultaneously but independently, greater resource availability and lower extraction costs encourage additional petroleum supplies, despite the reduced economic growth. The resulting lower oil prices encourage liquid fuels consumption and discourage energy conservation and fuel switching,” the report adds.
Oil will hit levels 'we haven't see in our lifetimes' if Iran isn't stopped, Saudi Crown Prince says - Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has warned of astronomical oil prices in the event that tensions escalate in the Persian Gulf, two weeks after his country was hit by a drone and cruise missile attack that Riyadh and Washington have blamed on Iran. “If the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran, we will see further escalations that will threaten world interests,” the crown prince said in an interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes” over the weekend. “Oil supplies will be disrupted and oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.” The predawn attack on Sept. 14 hit two of state oil giant Saudi Aramco’s largest facilities, forcing the country to temporarily shut down roughly 50% of its output, or more than 5% of the world’s daily crude production. The following Monday, international benchmark Brent crude rose as much as 19.5% to $71.95 per barrel at the open — the biggest jump on record — before paring gains. The Middle East “represents about 30% of the world’s energy supplies, about 20% of global trade passages, about 4% of the world GDP,” the crown prince, who is next in line for the Saudi throne and considered the kingdom’s de facto ruler, told CBS. “Imagine all of these three things stop. This means a total collapse of the global economy, and not just Saudi Arabia or the Middle East countries.” Energy industry experts have cited figures between $100 and $150 per barrel for the price of oil if the adversaries — OPEC’s highest and third-highest oil producers, respectively — went to war. Aramco quickly promised it would restore its oil output to normal by the end of September, and has already brought roughly 50% of that back online, company executives said. Two weeks later, Brent was trading at $61.48 Monday morning London time. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, at war with the Saudis since the kingdom launched a bloody offensive on its southern neighbor in 2015, claimed responsibility for the attack. But officials in the U.S., U.K. and Saudi Arabia say the rebels would not have been capable of launching an attack of such scale and precision and assert the Iranians were behind it, something Tehran has vehemently denied.Washington and Riyadh also blame Iran for a series of mysterious sabotage attacks on several foreign oil tankers in the Gulf near the vital Strait of Hormuz, the narrow conduit through which 30% of the world’s seaborne oil passes. Iran denies those allegations as well. The attacks began taking place shortly after President Donald Trump’s administration ended waivers for countries importing Iranian oil, amplifying the effect of crippling sanctions it’s imposed on Iran since late 2018 after the U.S. withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal. Animosity between Washington and Tehran has skyrocketed since then.
Aramco Crude Production Restored To Pre-Attack Levels, Official Says --Despite the worst attack on its infrastructure in the oil giant's 80-year-plus history, Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco has succeeded in making all of its shipments in the month of September, says Ibrahim Al-Buainain, the CEO of Aramco's trading arm. Moreover, the oil giant has also managed to restore its oil-production capacity to pre-attack levels, meeting an accelerated two-week timeline announced by the firm earlier this month.Saudi oil output was cut in half by an attack on Aramco facilities, an attack that was allegedly orchestrated by Saudi Arabia's arch-rival Iran (though Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels initially took credit for it).In the wake of the attack, oil prices soared, as the kingdom warned that the equivalent of 5.5% of global production had been temporarily taken offline. Initially, Aramco warned that the damage could take months to repair. However, the Saudis adjusted that prediction just days after the attacks as repairs reportedly progressed much more quickly than Aramco had initially anticipated, according to a senior executive.And oil prices have erased all of the spike gains...
Trump’s Latest Trade War Move Sends Oil Tanking - Oil prices fell again on Monday on waning hopes of a breakthrough in the U.S.-China trade war.Late last week, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was considering more extreme measures aimed at China, including putting limits on American investments in China, de-listing some Chinese companies from American stock exchanges, as well as putting caps on the value of Chinese companies that managed index funds can hold in the U.S.No decision has been made, but Bloomberg reported that President Trump gave the go-ahead to his advisers to explore some potential moves. Some China “hawks” have described the plans as a possible “financial decoupling” of the U.S. and Chinese economies.In response to that press report, the Trump administration issued only a partial and qualified denial, according to Bloomberg. “The administration is not contemplating blocking Chinese companies from listing shares on U.S. stock exchanges at this time,” Treasury spokeswoman Monica Crowley said to Bloomberg, without addressing some of the other ideas allegedly put forward.But Trump’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro seemed to hint at the fact that the administration was considering precisely those moves, while simultaneously calling the reports “fake news.”“There’s some significant issues related to Chinese stocks listed on public exchanges,” he said on CNBC. “There’s some interesting and significant transparency issues with Chinese stocks, but that’s all I’m going to say, I’m not going to talk about what’s going on behind closed doors.” The precise policy under consideration is not the main point. Rather, turning to restrictions on investment flows and other punitive measures would amount to yet another escalation in the trade war. It would severely undercut whatever slim goodwill has been built in recent weeks between the two countries, and it would make a breakthrough in trade talks infinitely harder.
Oil drops 3.3% on Chinese data, Saudi output recovery - Oil fell on Monday as China’s economic outlook remained weak amid an ongoing trade war with the United States and market fears of supply shortfalls and conflicts in the Middle East after the Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Arabia faded. Brent crude futures were down $1.16, or 1.9%, at $60.75 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell $1.84, or 3.3%, to settle at $54.07. Both benchmarks were on track for little price changes in September after volatile month where prices spike nearly 20% after the attacks halved Saudi Arabia’s output, but have pared nearly all those gains as output has been quickly restored. For the quarter, however, global benchmark Brent was set for a 8.6% loss, while WTI was down about 6.1%, as concerns that the trade war between the United States and China has plunged global economic growth to its lowest levels in a decade weighed on oil demand growth. China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) was slightly improved this month, increasing from 49.5 in August to 49.8 in September, but remained below the 50-point mark that separates expansion from contraction on a monthly basis, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. China, the world’s largest crude importer, warned of instability in international markets from any “decoupling” of China and the United States, after sources said U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was considering delisting Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges. “The U.S. and China are still far from any type of agreement. The concern is oil demand is not going to be there,” said Kyle Cooper, an oil analyst at IAF Advisors. Saudi Aramco last week restored full capacity to the level before the attacks on its oil facilities, Ibrahim Al-Buainain, chief executive officer of its trading arm, said on Monday at a conference in the United Arab Emirates. The world’s top oil exporter Saudi Arabia has restored capacity to 11.3 million barrels per day (bpd) after the attack knocked out 5.7 million bpd of the kingdom’s output, sources told Reuters last week, though Saudi Aramco has yet to confirm its operations have been restored fully.
False Optimism In Oil Won't Last - Oil prices fell on Monday on diminished hopes of a breakthrough in the U.S.-China trade war. Prices then stabilized in early trading on Tuesday, on news that U.S. oil production fell in July (much of which could be attributed to temporary hurricane-related outages). Saudi Aramco said that it is producing more than 9.9 mb/d, largely restoring production to levels seen prior to the Abqaiq attack. The company is still working on restoring damaged spare capacity. Saudi Arabia said that Aramco would pay $75 billion in annual dividends, an effort made to attract more investors ahead of the company’s IPO. The government also said that it would overhaul royalty payments and cut corporate tax. Fitch cut Saudi Aramco’s credit rating due to geopolitical risks from A+ to A, with a stable outlook. “The downgrade reflects rising geopolitical and military tensions in the Gulf region, Fitch’s revised assessment of the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia’s economic infrastructure and continued deterioration in Saudi Arabia’s fiscal and external balance sheets,” Fitch said in a release. BP CEO Bob Dudley is expected to retire next year, ending his tenure at the British oil company that began in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster nearly a decade ago. A growing number of U.S. oil companies are looking to list on the London Stock Exchange after falling out of favor with investors in New York and Toronto, according to the FT, which cited a few small-cap African-focused E&Ps that chose London rather than North America for a public listing. “There are investors in London with appetite for smaller cap African E&Ps,” Cary Bounds, Vaalco chief executive, told the FT. “Analysts in North America have an educated understanding of shale play but they struggle with us. London analysts understand how to value our business.” Royal Dutch Shell provided a quarterly update ahead of its official third quarter earnings release at the end of October. Shell said its upstream production fell by 2.7 percent compared to a year earlier, while its LNG liquefaction rose by at least 10 percent. It also expects $250 to $350 million in write-offs due to unsuccessful exploration drilling.
Oil prices recover on lower output from US, Russia, OPEC - Oil prices rebounded on Tuesday on reports that output from the world’s largest oil producers fell during the third quarter, although a resumption in Saudi supply and demand concerns kept a lid on gains. Brent crude futures rose 61 cents to $59.86 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 48 cents at $54.55 a barrel. Front-month prices for both contracts posted their largest quarterly falls this year on Monday, hurt by a slowdown in global economic growth amid the U.S.-China trade war. “Although oil has been given every opportunity to jump well above $70 per barrel due to geopolitical events, the fact that it did not is telling,” Tamas Varga of oil brokerage PVM said. “It suggests that the market is not concerned about eventual supply shortages but worried about global recession and possibly about supply surplus next year,” he added. Oil prices are likely to remain steady, with Brent averaging $65.19 a barrel and WTI $57.96 in 2019, as flagging demand outweighs supply shocks, a Reuters survey showed. Output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries fell to the lowest in eight years in September at 28.9 million bpd, down 750,000 bpd from August’s revised figure and the lowest monthly total since 2011, a Reuters survey found. Output at the world’s two largest producers, the United States and Russia, also fell in July and September respectively. Russia’s output declined to 11.24 million bpd in Sept. 1-29, down from 11.29 million bpd in the previous month, sources said, although it is still above the quotas set in an output deal between Russia and OPEC. U.S. crude oil output fell 276,000 bpd in July to 11.81 million bpd as federal offshore Gulf of Mexico production slid, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration monthly report released on Monday. U.S. production peaked at 12.12 million bpd in April.
Oil Prices Rebound After Ugly Day On Big Surprise Crude Draw - Oil prices tumbled back below pre-Saudi-attack levels today, near 2-month lows, as a global growth scare was sparked by disappointing PMIs around the world spooking the global energy demand bounceback narrative. WTI almost tested $52 handle intraday.“Demand fears are overriding supply fears,” Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group Inc., said by telephone. API:
- Crude -5.92mm (+2.25mm exp)
- Cushing +373k
- Gasoline +2.133mm
- Distillates -1.741mm
After the previous week's surprise crude build, traders expected another notable rise in stocks, but were surprised when API reported a large 5.92mm draw. Ahead of the print, WTI was trading well below the pre-Saudi attack levels... WTI hovered around $53.70 into the API print and kneejerked back above $54 after the surprise draw...
Oil prices rise after surprise fall in U.S. crude stocks (Reuters) - Oil rebounded from several days of falling prices after industry data showed a surprise drop in U.S. crude inventories and offset weak economic readings in the United States that have depressed global stock markets. Brent crude rose 47 cents, or 0.8%, to $59.36 a barrel by 0657 GMT, claiming back some of the ground lost over the past three sessions. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $54.29 a barrel, up 67 cents or 1.3%. Front-month WTI prices settled down for a sixth straight session on Tuesday, their longest losing streak this year, after U.S. manufacturing activity dived to a 10-year low as U.S.-China trade tensions weighed on exports. "Brent and WTI have erased those (Tuesday) losses in early trade," Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst at OANDA in Singapore said, although the trading volume was low because of regional holidays. "We would expect the rallies to quickly run out of steam as we approach $61.00 and $55.00 a barrel," he said. Oil pared some losses in post-settlement trade on Tuesday after American Petroleum Institute (API) data showed U.S. crude stocks fell last week by 5.9 million barrels, against expectations for an increase of 1.6 million barrels. The Energy Information Administration's weekly oil inventories report is due at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) on Wednesday. Oil prices are now below levels from before the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi oil facilities as the world's largest oil exporter has restored its full oil production and capacity. " Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said he would be willing to meet the oil minister of regional rival Saudi Arabia while in Moscow, but that the Saudis have a problem with meeting, according to the official IRNA news agency. "The energy market must be non-political in order to prevent unilateral and illegal interference," Zanganeh said upon arrival in Moscow for a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum.
WTI Tumbles After Bigger Than Expected Crude Build - Oil prices have erased the immediate gains following last night's surprise crude draw reported by API as global growth scares accelerate and weigh on energy demand forecasts.“Demand fears are overriding supply fears,” Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group Inc., said by telephone. DOE:
- Crude +3.104mm (+2.25mm exp)
- Cushing -201k
- Gasoline -228k (+600k exp)
- Distillates -2.418mm
After last week's huge surprise builds in Crude stocks (and at Cushing), last night's API-reported big draw goes against analyst expectations of another build, but the analysts were right as DOE printed a 3.1mm barrel build. This is the 3rd weekly build in a row... “There’s a possibility that exports were super-sized” and after the Saudi Aramco attacks, “some customers were worried about their flows and wanted a more reliable flow, which would make the export number higher,” says Bob Yawger, director of the futures division of Mizuho Securities USA As the oil rig count continues to collapse, traders are watching avidly for signs that US Crude Production is topping out
Oil Sinks Deeper Into Red as Stockpiles, Demand Concerns Grow - Oil prices fell for a seventh-straight session on Wednesday, succumbing to the double whammy of a bigger-than-expected build in crude inventories and a slump in Wall Street stocks. WTI futures settled down 98 cents, or 1.3%, at $52.64 per barrel. Global benchmark Brent settled down $1.20, or 2%, at $57.64. Crude prices have fallen without a pause since their last settlement higher on Sept. 23, losing about 11% in the seven-day stretch. Wednesday's slide came as concerns about the U.S. economy triggered another sharp selloff on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 off 1.7%, falling below 2,900. The ADP reported this morning that September private payrolls came in below expectations at 135,000. That followed Tuesday’s equity losses after the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing PMI came in at a 10-year low. That raises questions about future demand for oil in the U.S. at a time when global economies are already struggling. Meanwhile, U.S. oil inventories showed a gain of 3.1 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts were expecting a rise of about 1.57 million barrels of crude for the week ended Sept. 27, according to forecasts compiled by Investing.com. “At the outset, a headline build that’s double expectations is certainly bearish, considering that the API even called for a drawdown of nearly 6 million barrels,” Investing.com analyst Barani Krishnan said. “And imports are still averaging below 7 million bpd, so we should logically have less oil in circulation, all things being equal.” “The mitigating factor might be that refinery runs remain grossly under the 95% level that we’ve become used to,” Krishnan added. “It could be the lingering impact of the recent floods in Texas and the disruption brought to refineries there.” The EIA said gasoline inventories for the week fell by about 230,000 barrels, confounding forecasts for a build of about 450,000 barrels. Distillate stockpiles dropped by about 2.4 million barrels. Analysts had been looking for a decline of about 1.8 million barrels.
Oil extends losses as economic data, growing inventories drag - Oil futures extended losses on Thursday as weak economic data weighed on the outlook for fuel demand which was made worse by a larger than expected rise in U.S. crude inventories. “Crude oil prices fell as rising inventories added to the weakening economic backdrop,” said ANZ Bank in a note on Thursday. Brent crude oil futures fell 17 cents, or 0.3%, to $57.52 a barrel by 0052 GMT, after tumbling 2% in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 9 cents, or 0.2%, to $52.55 a barrel, after sinking by 1.8% on Wednesday. “What’s impossible to ignore is the economic realities being signaled in the latest run of doom and gloom financial market data which offers few if any reason for oil investors to be optimistic over the outlook for global demand,” World equity benchmarks hit their lowest levels in a month on Wednesday as signs of a slowdown in U.S. economic growth and weak earnings in Europe fanned fears that the U.S.-China trade war could push the global economy into a recession. “While the near-term triggers may continue to relate to oil demand, next week U.S.-China trade talks remain the unknown variable which could lend a modicum of support,” U.S. crude inventories rose 3.1 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, far exceeding analyst expectations for an increase of 1.6 million barrels. WTI futures are on track for eight straight sessions of declines, their longest losing streak since November 2018. Brent futures are now below levels seen before the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi Arabia oil facilities that briefly halved more than half the kingdom’s output.
Oil ends little changed after touching near two-month lows (Reuters) - U.S. crude futures were slightly lower on Thursday, drawing some support from the stock market after earlier touching nearly two-month lows on weak economic data. U.S. crude settled at $52.45 a barrel, down 19 cents. Global benchmark Brent crude settled up 2 cents at $57.71 a barrel. During the session, both benchmarks tumbled to the lowest level seen since early August, plunging as weak U.S. economic figures were released. U.S. services sector growth slowed to its most anaemic pace in three years last month, and job growth in the largest slice of the American economy was the weakest in half a decade, a survey of purchasing managers showed. Even as U.S. crude pared losses late in the day, crude futures have found lower lows in each of the last eight sessions, said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York. "From both a supply and demand situation it seems to be a problem: storage is the supply side, economic data is the demand side and they're both on the wrong side of the letter," Yawger said. Across the Atlantic, economic data has also put pressure on crude. Euro zone business growth stalled in September, a survey on Thursday showed. Lending oil some support were hopes that the United States and China might make progress in resolving their trade dispute and figures showing output in the United States - which has been the fastest source of supply growth - fell in July. "Next week U.S.-China trade talks remain the unknown variable which could lend a modicum of support," said Stephen Innes, market strategist at AxiTrader. The talks are set to resume on Oct. 10. This year, Brent has risen about 7%, supported by supply cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, plus involuntary outages such as a drop in Iranian and Venezuelan exports due to U.S. sanctions. Nonetheless, concern about the worsening economic outlook has overshadowed support from the supply side and the prospect of further output disruption in the Middle East appears of limited concern to investors. Brent spiked to $72 a barrel on Sept. 16 following attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil installations that shut more than half of the country's output. But both oil benchmarks are now below their pre-attack levels after the Saudi authorities resumed output.
Oil Markets: Everything Is About Weak Demand - Oil prices dropped sharply during trading on Thursday but recovered on hopes of more aggressive action from the Federal Reserve. The U.S. jobs report on Friday revealed more weakness, but it wasn’t as poor as feared. Geopolitical risk has receded from the top of minds of oil traders. Everything is about weak demand now. Largely due to the Abqaiq attack, OPEC’s oil production fell sharply in September. It was the single-largest disruption in history when it occurred, although its short duration meant that the outage fell short of the PDVSA strike in 2002 in terms of total volumes lost. Still, oil prices languish as demand continues to weaken. “Oil-demand growth is hitting the skids as macroeconomic, trade, and political risk drivers continue to intensify, from Brexit to impeachment through Persian Gulf conflict risk and the U.S.-China trade war,” Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, told Bloomberg. Iraqi security forces have tried to violently suppress widespread protests in the country, and there is little sign of a resolution. Oil production has not been affected yet. The U.S. strategic petroleum reserve is thought to be a massive trove of oil that can be readily deployed. For instance, in a hypothetical outage in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. should be expected to withdraw 3.5 mb/d of oil from the SPR. But the reserve might not be able to pull that off. Changes in pipeline flows, and huge increases in upstream production mean that only about 1.5 mb/d can be drawn down at a time, according to Platts. Climate Action 100+, a group of investors overseeing $35 trillion, says that of the most polluting companies in the world, only about 9 percent have aligned their operations with the Paris Climate Agreement. The investor group has already pressured oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell and BP to take more aggressive action. Exxon and Shell both issued profit warnings this week ahead of their third quarter reports later this month. Exxon said its earnings would be around 50 percent lower than the same quarter last year, largely due to lower oil prices. Ecuador said that it would leave OPEC in January due to fiscal problems.
Oil edges higher but on track for big weekly loss - Oil futures edged higher on Friday but were on track for a large weekly loss on fears that slower global economic growth will hurt fuel demand, while Saudi Arabia said it has fully restored oil output after recent attacks. Brent crude oil futures rose 8 cents, or 0.1%, to $57.79 a barrel by 0138 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 12 cents, or 0.2%, to $52.57 a barrel. For the week, Brent futures were down 6.7%, marking its largest weekly loss since December, while WTI was down 6%, its biggest decline since July. Weak U.S. services sector and jobs growth data on Thursday added to worries about global oil demand and exacerbated fears that a protracted U.S.-China trade war could push the global economy into a recession. “Concerns about global oil demand are rising, and next week’s U.S.-China trade talks, the significant X factor, will be particularly important, given the sharp drop in the oil price over the last week,” said Stephen Innes, Asia Pacific market strategist at AxiTrader. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman also said on Thursday the world’s top crude oil exporter has fully restored oil output after attacks on its facilities last month that knocked out more than 5% of global oil supply. “The mood wasn’t helped by news that Saudi Arabia has managed a speedy recovery from the recent attacks,” ANZ Bank said in a note on Friday. However, recent data showing a slowdown in U.S. shale output and drilling activity could lend some support.
US oil prices snap 8-day losing streak, fall over 5% for the week - Oil futures settled higher Friday, with U.S. benchmark crude breaking an eight-day string of losses, but still posted its biggest weekly loss since mid-July, after a run of weak economic data underlined concerns over global demand. Oil prices staged a rebound Friday, said Lukman Otunuga, senior research analyst at FXTM. “This has nothing to do with a change of sentiment towards the commodity.” West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery CLX19, +0.38% rose 36 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $52.81 a barrel, with the U.S. benchmark logging a 5.5% weekly loss. That was the biggest weekly net and percentage loss since the week ended July 19, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The global benchmark, December Brent crude BRNZ19, +0.10%, rose 66 cents, or 1.1%, to $58.37 a barrel—for a 4.4% weekly decline. Over in the U.S., weekly data on active domestic oil rigs was supportive for prices. Baker Hughes BHGE, -0.97% on Friday reported that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil fell by three to 710 this week. That followed declines in each of the last six weeks.Still, “given how global growth concerns and rising U.S. oil inventories are bringing demand-side dynamics back into the picture, oil is positioned to extend losses,” said Otunuga.Attacks on Saudi oil production facilities on September 14 briefly provided a supply side shock before recent weak economic data revived fears about global oil demand. “A flare up in U.S.-China trade tensions is likely to fan concerns over the global economy, ultimately igniting fears around falling demand for crude, [and] while geopolitical tensions may spark negative supply side shocks, this will ultimately be countered by demand-side themes,” said Otunuga. The U.S. and China are due to resume talks on their two year old trade dispute next week. Oil prices ended up after the U.S. Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 136,000 new jobs in September, slightly less than forecast, and the pace of job growth fell to the slowest in four months, but the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, the lowest rate since December 1969. Back on Nymex, November gasoline RBX19, +0.17% rose 1.1% to $1.5734 a gallon, with the contract registering weekly decline of 2.1%, while November heating HOX19, +0.18% rose 1% to $1.8945 a gallon—ending down 2.1% for the week. November natural-gas futures NGX19, -0.13% climbed 1% to $2.352 per million British thermal units, with prices down 2.2% for the week.
Exclusive: In Saudi Arabia, criticism of Crown Prince grows after attack (Reuters) - Some members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family and business elite have expressed frustration with the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the largest-ever attack on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure last month.It has sparked concern among several prominent branches of the ruling Al Saud family, which numbers around 10,000 members, about the crown prince’s ability to defend and lead the world’s largest oil exporter, according to a senior foreign diplomat and five sources with ties to the royals and business elite. All spoke on condition of anonymity. The attack has also fanned discontent among some in elite circles who believe the crown prince, known in the West by the initials MbS, has sought too tight a grip on power, the sources said. Some of these people said the event has also fueled criticism among those who believe he has pursued an overly aggressive stance towards Iran. “There is a lot of resentment” about the crown prince’s leadership, said one of the sources, a member of the Saudi elite with royal connections. “How were they not able to detect the attack?” This person added that some people in elite circles are saying they have “no confidence” in the crown prince, an assertion echoed by the four other sources and the senior diplomat. The crown prince nonetheless has staunch supporters. A Saudi source within circles loyal to the crown prince said: “The latest events won’t affect him personally as a potential ruler because he is trying to stop the Iranian expansion in the region. This is a patriotic issue, and so he won’t be in danger, at least as long as the father lives.”
Iran's oil minister dismisses tensions over Aramco attack; says Saudi energy minister is a 'friend' -- Geopolitical tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia might be the biggest issue facing the Middle East right now but Iran’s oil minister has insisted he has a good rapport with his Saudi Arabian counterpart.“Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman (Saudi Arabia’s new energy minister) has been a friend for over 22 years,” Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh told an energy conference in Moscow on Wednesday.Although Iran and Saudi Arabia are both members of OPEC, they are known to disagree over OPEC policy — Saudi Arabia has led cuts to OPEC production but Iran, under U.S. sanctions on its oil industry, did not want to cut output. It is currently exempt from the output cuts agreed by OPEC and a group of non-OPEC producers.Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia has long been tensed because of the rival religious powers’ power struggle (often by proxy) in the region.“Despite this long-term up and down political relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia we have been friends and I hope to be friends in future, we have no difficulty with him,” he said, adding that the difficulty in Saudi-Iranian relations was not created from the Iranian side. “We believe that all the Muslim countries, all the neighbor countries, should have a peaceful environment between themselves … Our enemy is another country out of this area,” he said, making a thinly veiled swipe at the U.S.
Saudi Arabia accepts cease fire in Yemen - "Saudi Arabia has agreed to a limited cease-fire in several areas of Yemen including the capital Sana’a, which is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, as part of broader efforts to end a four-year conflict that has threatened to escalate into regional war.A Yemeni government official and a diplomat said attempts were underway to expand the truce. Saudi officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.Last week, the Houthis announced a unilateral halt to the hundreds of drone and missile attacks that have targeted OPEC’s largest producer in recent years.The apparent breakthroughs follow a devastating attack on major Saudi oil facilities that briefly halved the country’s output and rattled global markets this month. Yemen’s Houthis said they carried out the attack using a swarm of unmanned aircraft, but the U.S. has said Iran was responsible." yahoo, Bloomberg, etc.-------------- This doesn't fit the US government BS narrative in which it was IRAN who attacked at Abqaiq and Khareus. Pompeo scoffed the other day at the idea that the Yemeni rebels could have done the deed, but here we have the obvious truth.Saudi Arabia would not have negotiated a cease fire with the Yemeni rebels if it had not been the Yemenis who attacked them. They know that if there is not a cease fire there will be more attacks against their petroleum infrastructure and possibly their desal plants without which they cannot survive. Remember this the next time Pompeo tells you anything. He evidently forgot the word "honor" in the West Point motto.
Fitch downgrades Saudi Arabia's credit rating stressing a 'risk of further attacks' — Saudi Arabia’s strong credit rating has been taken down a notch by a major ratings agency thanks to geopolitical risks and concerns over the safety of its economic infrastructure. Fitch has downgraded the kingdom’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating from A+ to A, the New York-based agency announced Monday. Its outlook remains stable. “The downgrade reflects rising geopolitical and military tensions in the Gulf region, Fitch’s revised assessment of the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia’s economic infrastructure and continued deterioration in Saudi Arabia’s fiscal and external balance sheets,” Fitch said in a release. The downgrade comes roughly two weeks after the heart of the kingdom’s oil infrastructure was hit by a drone and cruise missile attack that Riyadh and Washington have blamed on Iran. Riyadh was quick to rebuke the agency’s move. “The Ministry of Finance is disappointed that Fitch took a swift decision to downgrade the Kingdom,” read a statement issued by Saudi Arabia’s finance ministry within a few hours of Fitch’s announcement. “Rather, the event highlights Saudi Arabia’s outstanding capacity to effectively deal with adversities, commitment to maintaining stability in the global oil markets, and the Kingdom’s status as an important international ally,” it said. “As such, the downgrade of the rating comes across as somewhat speculative without direct reference to the swift, decisive and effective response to the event,” the ministry added.
The Military Officials Who Knew Saudi Arabia Would Fail - While it’s seems axiomatic that most Americans suffer from historical amnesia, that’s not necessarily true for the U.S. military. And as America and Iran were sprinting towards a military confrontation last week, a recently retired senior U.S. military officer expounded on what he called “the bumbling, incompetent and feckless stupidity of it all.” The target of the officer’s ire was not Donald Trump (whom he admires) or Mike Pompeo (who he doesn’t), but Saudi Arabia’s March 2015 decision to go to war against the Iranian-allied Houthi tribal movement in Yemen —“which is,” he argues, “how all of this nonsense got started in the first place.” He explained: “We didn’t see the [Saudi] invasion [of Yemen] coming and we were shocked when it happened. But we were pretty blunt. We told them, ‘you can’t win and you’ll bankrupt your country. It’ll be a quagmire.’ And we were right.” This officer’s “we-told-ya-so” narrative, as it turns out, is accurate. Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen to destroy the Houthi rebellion (and reinstate the government of Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi) not only surprised the Obama administration, it was met with nearly open disdain by the U.S. military. Key senior officers of the U.S. Special Operations Command viewed the Houthis as a robust counter to al-Qaeda’s strength in Yemen and even argued that America take steps to support them. “The Houthis were only nominally Iran’s surrogates,” a military officer told me at the time, “but they were also our quiet partners against al-Qaeda.” Yet back in 2015, because of the Saudi invasion (with support from nine other Arab states), the possibility that the Pentagon could count on Houthi backing was not only off the table, senior Pentagon officials predicted that the tribe would strengthen its ties with their Shia co-religionists in Iran—something that, prior to the Saudi invasion, it hadn’t wanted to do. That’s why key segments of the U.S. military thought the Saudi invasion was a mistake.
Yemen- Houthis claim capture of thousands of troops in Saudi raid - Yemen's Houthi movement has said it carried out an attack near the border with the southwestern Saudi region of Najran and captured "thousands" of enemy troops including several Saudi army officers but there was no immediate confirmation from the authorities in Saudi Arabia. A spokesman for the Yemen-based rebels said in a statement on Saturday that three "enemy military brigades had fallen" in the attack, which he said was launched 72 hours earlier in the vicinity of Najran and was supported by the group's drone, missile and air defence units. Houthi-run Almasirah TV quoted the spokesman as saying they captured "thousands" of enemy troops, including many officers and soldiers of the Saudi army, as well as "hundreds of armoured vehicles". The Houthi military spokesperson said the operation reveals to Saudi Arabia that the Yemeni fighters are capable of further penetrating into Saudi territories "in case it continues its aggression against Yemen". Reporting from Sanaa, Al Jazeera's Mohammed al-Attab said the Houthis claimed to have carried out "sniper shooting and other tactics in order to further tighten their grip on the three military brigades" claimed to have been captured. "The Houthi military spokesperson revealed that those who have been captured will be put in undisclosed areas in order to protect them from Saudi airstrikes," he said. "They are assuring the families of the prisoners of war that they will be kept in a secret place in order to keep them safe from any harm." The Houthis, who control the northern part of Yemen, have recently stepped up their drone and missile attacks across the southern border of Saudi Arabia. The rebels claimed responsibility for a September 14 assault on two facilities run by Saudi's state oil company, Aramco. The attack slashed Saudi Arabia's crude oil output by half, accounting for about five percent of the world supply. However, the United States, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany and the UK said Iran was behind the attacks, ratcheting up already heightened tensions in the region.
Houthis claim to have killed 500 Saudi soldiers in major attack - Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have killed 500 Saudi soldiers, captured a further 2,000 and seized a convoy of Saudi military vehicles.The extraordinary claims at a press conference on Sunday, involving still photographs and inconclusive videos of captured soldiers, many not in uniform, could not be corroborated, and there was no independent confirmation from Saudi Arabia.The Houthis, showing pictures of upturned Saudi vehicles and immobilised convoys, claimed the attacks had occurred over the past three days in the southern Najran region of Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, and would continue with greater intensity.“Operation Victory from God is the largest military one since the brutal aggression began. The enemy suffered heavy losses … and wide swathes of territory were liberated in only a few days,” said the Houthi spokesman, Mohammed Abdul Salam.He also claimed hundreds of Saudi soldiers lay dead or injured on the battlefield, and Riyadh had little option but to consider how to withdraw. He said the Houthis would end their attacks if the Saudis took reciprocal measures.The attacks, if verified, would be a remarkable show of force inside Saudi Arabia and mark another embarrassment for the kingdom, after its US-made Patriot missile defence system failed to protect two Saudi Aramco oil sites from an attack by drones and cruise missiles earlier this month. On Saturday, the Houthis claimed they had captured three Saudi brigades – a major proportion of the kingdom’s army. The group also says it was responsible for the oil attacks, but this has been disputed by western and European governments.
Footage appears to show Canadian-made armoured vehicle captured by Yemen rebels in fighting with Saudis - Yemen’s Houthi rebels have released video footage of the aftermath of a battle with Saudi forces which appears to show a captured Canadian-made light armoured vehicle. The footage was released Sunday in what the rebels say started as an ambush inside Saudi Arabia but then turned into a major cross-border battle. The footage of the battle was shown on Houthi-run Al Masirah TV and Al Jazeera. The rebels claimed that the attack killed or wounded 500 Saudi soldiers. Saudi Arabia has not acknowledged the fighting and the Houthi claims have not been independently verified. The footage shows the captured light armoured vehicle, another destroyed light armoured vehicle as well as armoured trucks provided to the Saudis by the U.S. company Oshkosh. The footage also showed Saudi troops who were taken prisoner. Over the years, Saudi Arabia has purchased light armoured vehicles from Canada’s General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada in London, Ont. In 2014, the then Conservative government announced a deal worth an estimated $15 billion to sell Saudi Arabia more than 700 light armoured vehicles. That controversial deal was later approved by the Liberal government. A Saudi-led coalition, which has been provided with arms and intelligence from the U.S. and other western nations, intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Houthis overthrew the government. Saudi Arabia has faced severe criticism for its role in the ongoing war in Yemen, with allegations it has conducted unlawful airstrikes on civilians.
Yemen's Houthi rebels release Saudi attack video - Yemen's Houthi rebels on Sunday broadcast footage they said was of a major attack on Saudi Arabia in August that killed or wounded 500 soldiers with thousands of others surrendering. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, described an ambush on the Saudi forces that then developed into an "all-out" cross-border offensive that trapped the troops inside Saudi Arabia."More than 200 were killed in dozens of [missile and drone] strikes while trying to escape or surrender," Saree said.The fighting took place in the southern region of Najran with video images aired showing armoured vehicles hit by blasts and surrendering soldiers.Saudi Arabia has not yet responded to the Houthi claim. Al Jazeera was not independently able to verify the footage or claims broadcast on Houthi-run Al Masirah TV.Saree said the offensive 72 hours earlier had defeated three "enemy military brigades", leading to the capture of "thousands" of troops, including Saudi army officers and soldiers, and hundreds of armoured vehicles.He said the prisoners "will be treated according to the ethics and the customs on the basis of a deal to exchange the POWs with the aggressors."The video showed armoured vehicles, some ablaze, with stencilled Saudi markings, along with large piles of weapons and ammunition the rebels say they seized. The images also appeared to show bodies and men in Saudi military uniforms. Several identified themselves as Saudis.
Houthis announce release of hundreds of prisoners - Houthi rebels have announced the unconditional release of 350 prisoners, including three Saudi Arabians, days after the Yemeni group claimed to have captured thousands of Saudi troops following an incursion into Saudi Arabia, according to Houthi-run Al Masirah TV. A statement by the Houthi National Committee for Prisoners' Affairs (NCPA) carried by Al Masirah TV said the individuals were on the list of persons drawn up as part of the prisoner exchange deal agreed in Stockholm in December.The United Nations-brokered prisoner swap, one of the three pillars of the breakthrough deal, involving some 7,000 detainees on each side had stalled as the two sides - the Houthisand the Yemeni government - struggled to agree on its implementation."Our initiative proves our credibility in implementing the Sweden agreement and we call on the other party to take a comparable step," said Abdul Qader al-Murtada, head of the NCPA, in the statement carried by the Houthi-run broadcaster."We decided to release 350 prisoners because nothing from Sweden agreement have been achieved. The release is going take place today," the NCPA statement read.Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitated the release, put the number of those freed at 290.The detainees were taken in Houthi raids since 2014, when the rebels overran the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north.The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths - who supervised the Stockholm agreement - welcomed the offer to unilaterally release a number of detainees, saying he hoped it would lead to further progress on an agreed prisoner exchange deal. The Houthis said the release of the prisoners was a gesture of goodwill to the Saudi-UAE-led coalition, which has carried out the bombing in support of the internationally recognised government of Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi since 2015.
Three Saudi Brigades Annihilated in Devastating Houthi Offensive in Saudi Arabia — Many may have hitherto been led to believe that the Houthis were a ragtag armed force lacking in sophistication. Many, seeing the drone and missile attacks on Saudi oil plants, may have declared it to be a false-flag attack carried out by Riyadh to boost Aramco’s market value; either that or it was an operation carried out by Iran or even Israel. On Saturday September 28, the Houthis put paid to such speculation by confirming what many, like myself, have been writing for months; that is, that the asymmetrical tactics of the Houthis, combined with the conventional capabilities of the Yemeni army, are capable of bringing the Saudi kingdom of Mohammed Bin Salman to its knees. The Yemeni army’s missile forces are able to carry out highly complex attacks, no doubt as a result of reconnaissance provided by the local Shia population within the Kingdom that is against the House of Saud’s dictatorship. These Houthi sympathisers within Saudi Arabia helped in target identification, carried out reconnaissance within the plants, found the most vulnerable and impactful points, and passed this intelligence on to the Houthis and Yemeni army. These Yemeni forces employed locally produced means to severely degrade Saudi Arabia’s crude-oil-extraction and processing plants. The deadly strikes halved oil production and threatened to continue with other targets if the Saudi-conducted genocide in Yemen did not stop. On Saturday 29 the Houthis and the Yemeni army conducted an incredible conventional attack lasting three days that began from within Yemen’s borders. The operation would have involved months of intelligence gathering and operational planning. It was a far more complex attack than that conducted against Aramco’s oil facilities. Initial reports indicate that the forces of the Saudi-led coalition were lured into vulnerable positions and then, through a pincer movement conducted quickly within Saudi territory, the Houthis surrounded the town of Najran and its outskirts and got the better of three Saudi brigades numbering in the thousands and including dozens of senior officers as well as numerous combat vehicles. This event is a game changer, leaving the US, Mike Pompeo and the Israelis and Saudis unable to lay the blame on Iran as all this took place a long way from Iran. The large-scale operation was preceded by Yemeni rocket artillery targeting Jizan airport, with 10 missiles paralyzing any movements to and from the airport, including denying the possibility of air support for the encircled troops. The Houthis also hit the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh in a key operation that targeted Apache helicopters, forcing them to leave the area. Nearby military bases were also targeted so as to cut off any reinforcements and disrupt the chain of command. This led to the Saudi forces fleeing in disorganization. Images shown by the Houthis show a road in the middle of a valley on the outskirts of Najran with dozens of Saudi armored vehicles trying to flee while being attacked from both sides by Houthi RPGs together with heavy and light weapons. Visual confirmation of the debacle can be seen in the number of casualties as well as in the number of prisoners taken. Images show lines of Saudi prisoners walking under Yemeni guard towards prison camps. This is something extraordinary to behold: the Saudi army, the third largest purchaser of weapons in the world, getting comprehensively walloped by one of the poorest countries in the world. The numbers say it all: the Houthis were able to control more than 350 kilometers of Saudi territory. Given that the Saudi military budget is almost 90 billion dollars a year, this achievement is made all the more extraordinary.
MBS must shelve his vicious war in Yemen -Never underestimate the power of blowback. Right now, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of the House of Saud, is staring at it, an ominous abyss opened by the Houthis in Yemen. This past weekend, Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Brigadier Yahya al-Sari clinicallydescribed how Ansarallah, also known as the Houthi rebel movement, aided by what Yemenis describe as “popular committees,” captured three Saudi brigades of 2,400 – ragged – soldiers, plus Yemeni and Sudanese mercenaries as well as several hundred battle vehicles. At least 500 Saudi soldiers were killed, Ansarallah said. (A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition denied the claim). This was part of the significantly named Operation Nasrallah in Najran province, Saudi Arabia. The Houthis, who did learn a lot, tactically and strategically, from Hezbollah, duly praised mujahideen and ‘popular committees’ involved in Operation Nasrallah.Col. Pat Lang, in his blog, offers a particularly useful observation on the captured Saudi vehicles. Some belonged to the Saudi National Guard (SANG): “I suppose these troops were from the modernized SANG that the US has worked hard to train and equip for fifty years or more. The easy surrender of these Bedouins is very bad news for the Saudi monarchy.” Najran, the site of the successful raid, is a Shi’ite majority province. But unlike the Eastern province, concentrating the bulk of the Saudi oil industry, where the Shi’ites are Twelvers – believers in twelve divinely ordained leaders, awaiting the reappearance of the last of those twelve imams as the promised Mahdi – in Najran the majority are Ismailis. Until recently, they had been relatively accommodating to the rabidly anti-Shi’ite House of Saud.Not anymore. As I reported before, increasingly daring Houthi operations inside Saudi Arabia can only be successful with solid, on-the-ground intelligence. As for the captured, ragged Saudi soldiers, Mohamed Al-Bukhaiti, who is part of Ansarallah’s political wing, confirms they are mostly takfiris – true believers who think they see among their fellow Muslims legions of apostates, deserving of the death penalty – and jihadis. The capital Sana’a was taken over by the Houthi movement, and not only the Houthi tribe.This is essential to understand the fact that most of north Yemen has by now adhered to the Houthi movement – which also happens to double as the government of north Yemen. It’s not far-fetched to project that the Houthi movement may end up uniting the overwhelming majority of Yemen against the House of Saud.Al-Emad was keen to point out that among the dizzyingly complex Yemeni tribal mosaic, the only unifying factor is the fight against a foreign invader – and in this case serial bomber, responsible since 2015 for provoking the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world according to the UN.
Fire engulfs new Saudi high-speed rail station in Jeddah - Online videos showed what appeared to be major structural damage. The station is the centerpiece of a new multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project. A massive fire on Sunday ripped through a new high-speed train station leaving at least five people injured in Saudi Arabia's coastal city of Jeddah. Videos posted on social media showed black plumes of smoke billowing out of the Haramain train station and helicopters flying over the scene. Online videos showed nearly a dozen people on the roof of the structure. The fire department is currently fighting the blaze with air support, and has brought many sections of the blaze under control. Those injured have been taken to hospital, according to the official Twitter account of the Mecca region. It stated that 16 medical teams were working at the scene and had treated another four injured at the site. There was no immediate known cause of the fire. The €6.7 billion ($7.3 billion) Haramain Railway was inaugurated last September to connect the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina with the Red Sea city of Jeddah with electric trains traveling up to 300 kilometers per hour (186 miles per hour). Read more: Saudi Arabia offers foreign tourists visas for first time Officials described the 450-kilometer (280-mile) line as one of the most important transportation expansion projects in the kingdom's rail network and the biggest electric speed train project in the Middle East.
Map Shows "Four Times As Many Jihadist Militants" Around The World Than Before 9/11 - A recently produced map outlines that nearly two decades after 9/11 and in the wake of the so-called "war on terror" global militant jihadists are stronger than ever in terms of numbers. It's yet more confirmation that American interventionism abroad has actually done more to fuel Islamic terrorism than it has to stamp it out — Libya and Syria being foremost recent examples of Washington fueling jihad for half-baked, destabilizing regime change projects, to say nothing of Bush's Iraq war, which CIA officers themselves have admitted birthed ISIS in the first place. The map published by the DC-based Center For Strategic and International Studies lays out just how expanded the global Salafi-Jihadist terrorism threat has become over the past few years. There are nearly four times as many Salafi-Jihadist militants around the world today than before 9/11: https://t.co/0B8TleXYrf pic.twitter.com/1L378hIbdD "Despite nearly two decades of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations, there are nearly four times as many Sunni Islamic militants today as there were on September 11, 2001," the prior CSIS study found. By the numbers, they include—
- Syria: largest number of fighters at between 43,650 and 70,550 (most now in Idlib province)
- Afghanistan: between 27,000 and 64,060 and increasingly resurgent
- Pakistan: between 17,900 and 39,540
- Iraq: between 10,000 and 15,000
- Nigeria: between 3,450 and 6,900
- Somolia: between 3,095 and 7,240
Of course, it remains that many of the very think tanks highlighting the expanded jihadist threat use such numbers to argue, ironically enough, simply doing more of the same anytime there's a push from the administration to "bring the troops home".
Iran's President Asserts Wherever America Has Gone, Terrorism Has Expanded - Publicly available evidence seems to indicate there is some truth to the Iranian’s president’s words. Take, for example, a recent article in the journal Environmental Pollution, which discusses the results of a study undertaken in Nasiriyah near Tallil Air Base.Over the years, Dr Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan has conducted several investigations in Iraq to better understand the affects of pollutants and toxic chemicals on the Iraqi people from the US-led war in Iraq.According to Savabieasfahani, the levels of thorium in children born with congenital disabilities near the Talil Base were up to 28 times higher than compared to children who were born without congenital disabilities and whom lived further away from the military base.The culprit behind these defects is depleted uranium (DU). For a significant period of time, DU was so attractive to U.S. and NATO militaries due to its dense nature, which allows it to pierce even armored trucks. It was used on a large scale during the first Gulf War, and has been used quite extensively by the U.S. ever since.The American military used some 944,000 rounds of DU bullets in Iraq and Kuwait during the first Gulf war, and was estimated to use 4,000,000 pounds in the 2003 invasion.Since the Iraq war, incidences of cancer and congenital defects have increased significantly. By detecting thorium in the teeth and hair of Iraqi children born with congenital disabilities near the base in question, the causative link between DU and these defects seems to be ever more apparent. Thorium is a decay-product of depleted uranium and is otherwise radioactive.As Truthout explains:“For years following the 2003 U.S-led invasion, Iraqi doctors raised alarms about increasing numbers of babies being born with congenital disabilities in areas of heavy fighting. Other peer-reviewed studies found dramatic increases in child cancer, leukemia, miscarriages and infant mortality in cities such as Fallujah, which saw the largest battles of the war. Scientists, Iraqi physicians and international observers have long suspected depleted uranium to be the culprit. In 2014, one Iraqi doctor told Truthout reporter Dahr Jamail that depleted uranium pollution amounted to ‘genocide.’” The U.S. military has doomed the futures of countless innocent children who probably wouldn’t have even been born during Saddam Hussein’s rule. For what? And what does it take to wake up the American public to the fact that just because the U.S. is not actively bombing Iraq into oblivion at this point in time, it does not mean that we turn our minds off from the fact a grave crime has been committed? Victims of that crime will continue feeling the effects of this collective punishment for decades to come. Will these victims receive justice?
Iran sentences man to death for spying for the CIA - (Reuters) - Iranian courts have sentenced one person to death for spying for the CIA and jailed two others for 10 years for the same crime, as well as imprisoning a fourth person for 10 years for spying for Britain, the judiciary said on Tuesday. The verdicts come amid spiraling tensions between Tehran and the United States since President Donald Trump last year withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with major powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy in order to force Tehran to renegotiate the pact. It was not immediately clear if any of the cases were linked to Iran’s announcement in July that it captured 17 spies working for the CIA. “One person has been sentenced to death for spying for America’s intelligence service ... but the ruling has been appealed,” judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili was quoted as saying by the judiciary’s news website Mizan. The other two men, identified as Ali Nefriyeh and Mohammad Ali Babapour, received final 10-year sentences for spying for the CIA, and were ordered to repay $55,000 they had received, he said. Mohammad Amin-Nasab was sentenced to 10 years in prison for spying for British intelligence, Esmaili said.
Pentagon shifts Mideast command center to US in preparation for war on Iran - In an action with ominous implications, the Pentagon over the weekend shifted the operations of the command and control center for its warplanes in the Middle East from its long-time base in Qatar to a South Carolina air base more than 7,000 miles away. The transfer of the so-called US Air Force Combined Air and Space Operations Center from the Al Udeid Air Base in the Qatari desert to South Carolina’s Shaw Air Force Base was carried out on Saturday. After a 24-hour period, operations were shifted back again to Al Udeid. The Washington Post, which was invited to witness the transfer and first reported on it Sunday, cited US commanders as indicating that the transfer, which amounted to a dress rehearsal, was carried out with some “urgency” due to “constant Iranian threats of targeting US bases in the region in case of any military conflict.” The report added that issue had become more pressing following the September 14 attacks on Saudi oil installations, which temporarily cut the kingdom’s production in half and sent oil prices soaring by 20 percent. While Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, Washington, the Saudi monarchy and the major European imperialist powers have blamed Iran, while as yet providing no evidence to support their accusations. “Iran has indicated multiple times through multiple sources their intent to attack U.S. forces,” Col. Frederick Coleman, commander of the 609th Air and Space Operations Center, told the Post.
The U.S. Navy Isn't Ready to Take On Iran - Whatever lay behind the indecisive Trump administration response to the alleged Sept. 14 Iranian missile and drone strike on Saudi oil facilities, one thing is clear. The United States’ ability to project power into the Persian Gulf region via carrier strike groups, the go-to U.S. option in such situations for decades, is not what it used to be, nor what it might have been. Not long ago, a modern version of gunboat diplomacy—dispatching carriers or guided missile cruisers to the region to loiter menacingly offshore—could have decisively influenced events. In 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton reacted to provocative Chinese war games off Taiwan by sending two carriers to the Taiwan Strait, leading Beijing to back down in a humiliation cited frequently today as a reason for China’s own naval buildup. Today, however, such a deployment would no longer elicit the same response in a potential adversary. In part, the change reflects the closing of the enormous technological advantage the U.S. Navy had enjoyed for decades over any realistic rival. New classes of quiet diesel submarines and new developments in mine and torpedo technology make operations close to tense coastlines far more dangerous today than in the past. As a result, U.S. aircraft carriers are no longer immune from risk when entering waters within range of enemy forces. More serious still is the deployment of Russian and Chinese area denial systems, like the so-called carrier killer DF-21 antiship missile developed in the last decade by China. Its range of over 1,000 miles far outstrips the range of any warplane on U.S. flight decks today. Sailing a U.S. carrier strike force through the Taiwan Strait these days—in a show of support for pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, for instance—would risk catastrophe. Iran does not yet possess anything as sophisticated as China’s DF-21. However, its domestically produced Noor antiship missile (itself a reverse-engineered rip-off of an earlier Chinese cruise missile) is dangerous at over 100 miles. In 2016, the USS Mason, a destroyer ship, discovered as much when it was targeted by several Noor missiles apparently fired by Iran’s Houthi rebel allies in Yemen. The combination of these missiles and Iran’s fleet of fast and cheap patrol boats has been enough to keep the USS Lincoln out of the Persian Gulf as tensions between Iran and the United States increased this summer. President Donald Trump’s options will be limited, likely confined to surface warships and submarines capable of launching long-range cruise missiles, warplanes based in politically sensitive and unreliable Middle Eastern countries, or strategic bombers such as the B-52 and B-2s based half a world away. Naval air power, which since World War II has been the main weapon in the U.S. arsenal in such scenarios, is quite suddenly nearly irrelevant.
Iraqi PM For First Time Confirms Israel Responsible For Multiple Strikes On Iraq - For the first time Iraq's government has issued formal charges blaming Israel for a spate of attacks on Iraqi soil over the past months. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Monday the result of weeks-long investigations into multiple airstrikes and violations of Iraq's airspace show Israel's military to be the culprit. “Investigations into the targeting of some Popular Mobilization Forces positions indicate that Israel carried it out,” Abdul Mahdi told Al Jazeera. Though Tel Aviv was long suspected of prior 'mystery' airstrikes on Iran-backed paramilitary bases in July and August, with even Netanyahu strongly hinting responsibility in an Aug. 30 campaign speech, Mahdi's condemnation marks the first high level allegation from a top Iraqi official. The 'mystery' explosions that have rocked ammunition depots and bases in and around Baghdad have been stepped up through September, including incidents on Sept. 9, 19, and 22, resulting in dozens of killed and wounded; and more recently last Friday on Imam Ali base near the border with Syria.In total international reports count nine strikes on Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) — in some cases while they were allegedly operating just across the country's western border with Syria. Iraq's prime minister also raised the spectre of war amid a broader standoff between Tel Aviv's and Tehran, saying “many indicators show that no one wants war in the region except for Israel,” according to a translation by Reuters.
Iraqi protesters gunned down as demonstrations and strikes spread across Middle East - For a second day in a row, Iraqi security forces on Wednesday responded to mass protests against unemployment, poor social services and government corruption with live ammunition, rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas, reportedly leaving at least nine people killed and hundreds wounded. Both protesters and hospital employees said the real toll is far higher, as heavily armed troops were deployed alongside elite black-clad counterterrorism units and police. Witnesses reported the sustained crackle of automatic weapons fire, while black smoke hung over the city from burning tires at protesters’ barricades. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, facing the worst crisis since he formed a government a year ago, convened a meeting of his National Security Council on Wednesday. Afterwards, he issued a statement affirming “the right to protest” and “freedom of expression,” while condemning alleged acts of “vandalism” against public and private property. He also paid tribute to the security forces and blamed the violence on “infiltrators” and “aggressors who ... deliberately created casualties.” In the streets, the security forces had clearly gotten the message. They used extreme force to drive protesters from Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and prevent them from approaching the heavily fortified Green Zone, the center of the Iraqi government as well as the location of the US and other Western embassies, along with the offices of military contractors. Counterterrorism troops also used live ammunition against protesters who attempted to storm Baghdad’s international airport. The murderous repression unleashed by the Iraqi security forces dramatically swelled the demonstrations, which began with a relatively small protest Tuesday. After that demonstration was broken up with excessive force, an appeal on social media brought thousands into the streets on Tuesday night, when more violent clashes erupted. As part of the repression, the government shut down the internet nationwide on Wednesday. Nonetheless, the demonstrations grew Wednesday, spreading throughout the country. Several thousands of people marched Wednesday night outside of the local administration building in the southern oil center of Basra. The government has sent its counterterrorism troops into the southern city of Nassiriya, where the authorities reportedly “lost control” amid gun battles and the burning of government buildings. Protesters also burned the government building in the Shia holy city of Najaf. The mass upheaval has shaken the government above all because it has spread throughout the heartland of Iraq’s Shia majority, the ostensible political base of the main ruling parties. It has also broken out without the leadership of any of the political parties. Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army fought US forces in Baghdad 15 years ago and who has in the past mobilized major demonstrations, was in Iran and played no apparent role in the demonstrations.
Martial Law Unfolding in Iraq: 30 Protesters Dead, Internet Blackout, 24-Hour Curfews — Now in their third day, mass anti-government protests across Iraq have resulted in 30 dead and over 1000 wounded, amid a brutal police crackdown which has involved unprepared security forces firing live rounds on demonstrators.Several major cities are now under curfew and the government has cut internet access for much of the country. In a signal of just how dire and growing the mayhem is, Iran has now sealed key border crossings with Iraq just ahead of an annual Shia pilgrimage this month, where crucial Iran-Iraq border crossings swell with pilgrims. Iraqi television confirmed the Khosravi border crossing was closed, with more potentially to follow, per Reuters:Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said last week 3 million Iranian pilgrims were expected to visit Kerbala for the religious ritual of Arbaeen, which marks the end of a 40-day mourning period for the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.Baghdad is now under round-the-clock curfew as of Thursday, after unrest started Tuesday, reportedly driven chiefly by youth and fueled by popular anger over corruption, unemployment, and the lack of basic services. Government authorities have said extreme measures are necessary to prevent “infiltrators” from attacking police and public property. The AFP reports the latest Thursday night:Thousands of protesters clashed with riot police in Iraq’s capital and across the south on Thursday, the third day of mass rallies that have left 30 dead.“We’ll keep going until the government falls,” pledged 22-year-old Ali, an unemployed university graduate. Indeed though Baghdad officials including President Barham Salih have essentially admitted police regretfully early on used a “heavy-handed response” in a situation which unexpectedly spiraled “out of control.” Meanwhile, there is some evidence to suggest insurgents in some parts of the country used the opportunity to fire back on police. Late in the day Wednesday Reuters reported armed elements were active among the demonstrators in the south of the country, in what marked a major escalation:Curfews were imposed earlier in three southern cities while elite counter-terrorism troops opened fire on protesters trying to storm Baghdad airport and deployed to the southern city of Nassiriya after gunfights broke out between protesters and security forces, police sources said.According to figures from Iraq’s Human Rights Commission, over 1,000 have been injured and over 60 arrested, also as communications are more difficult, given about 75% of the country is without internet access, per cybersecurity monitor NetBlocks.
Iraq in flames -- Iraqi security forces opened fire on unarmed civilians for the fourth day in a row Friday as protesters poured into the streets once again in defiance of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s declaration of a round-the-clock curfew. The death toll was reported at 65 Friday night, with more expected to be killed in overnight clashes. The real number of dead is undoubtedly far higher. The number of wounded, from live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon, has been reported at over 1,500. Heavily armed soldiers, members of Iraq’s elite counterterrorism squads and riot police have been deployed in an attempt to prevent demonstrators from marching on central Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and on the Green Zone, the heavily fortified center of the Iraqi government, the US and other Western embassies and the various military contractors hired to prop up the regime. Snipers on rooftops have been deployed to pick off protesters. The government has shut down the internet across Iraq in its bid to suppress the organization of fresh protests. There have also been reports of masked death squads going to the homes of known activists and assassinating them. Thus far, these repressive measures have proved counterproductive, with every state killing fueling the popular anger against the government. Unrest has gripped the impoverished Shia neighborhoods of Sadr City, where more than a decade ago militias confronted American troops. Crowds there reportedly have set fire to government buildings as well as the offices of Shia-based parties that support the government. The protests, which have demanded jobs, improved living conditions and an end to corruption, are the largest and most widespread that have broken out in Iraq in the more than 16 years since Washington launched its war to topple the government of Saddam Hussein. Most of those confronting US-trained security forces in the streets are unemployed youth and young workers whose entire lives have been shaped by the criminal US war of aggression, the subsequent eight years of US occupation and the bitter sectarian conflicts instigated by Washington as part of its divide-and-rule strategy. The effects of the US war amounted to sociocide, i.e., the systematic destruction of an entire society. The number of Iraqis who lost their lives due to the war is estimated at well over a million. What had been among the most advanced healthcare, education and social welfare systems in the Middle East were demolished, along with the bulk of the country’s infrastructure. Within three years of withdrawing most of US troops from Iraq, the Obama administration began sending another 5,000 back in to wage the so-called war against ISIS, which reduced the predominantly Sunni cities of Anbar province and Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, to rubble. Having spent trillions of dollars and sacrificed the lives of 4,500 troops—along with tens of thousands of wounded—Washington has proved utterly incapable of establishing a stable US puppet regime in Baghdad.
Turkey plans to occupy northeast Syria with $27 billion program - In its latest stunt apparently designed to encourage refugees to believe that Turkey will provide them housing that is nicer than what most people in Turkey have, Turkey has floated the idea of a $27 billion program for taking over part of northeast Syria. Calling this a “safe zone,” Turkey says that its security concerns give it a right to occupy part of Syria. Ankara has talked up the “safe zone” for months, but only now has it floated an ambitious settlement program for 1 million Syrians with modern housing that is the largest of its sort in history. Iran’s Press TV, apparently representing the view of Iran’s government, argues that the plan means “carving out a patch of land in the Arab country for itself.” Ankara’s latest proposal is the building of 200,000 homes for more than 1 million Syrian refugees who currently reside in Turkey. Many of these refugees are from areas such as Aleppo, but Turkey doesn’t want to let them move back to areas closer to home, such as near Jarabulus or Idlib Province. Turkey wants to funnel them into an area along the northeastern border of the country where the US and the Syrian Democratic Forces are present. It’s goal is to demographically change the area from a historically Kurdish region, to one housing Turkish-supported Arab refugees in settlement-style towns, unconnected to the indigenous people and dependent on Turkey for support. The size of the project would be ambitious for even the most wealthy and powerful countries, which Turkey is not. Yet, Ankara envisions building up to 140 towns, each with 5,000 residents, in ten new “districts.” These towns, according to photos published and pushed by Turkish media and picked up in other media, such as Iran’s Press TV and Arab News, will look like the most modern towns, more luxurious than most towns in Turkey. Turkey’s government says that its aim is to “settle 2 million Syrians, with the support of the international community, by providing a peace corridor 30 kilometers deep and 480 kilometers long in the first phase.” Acting as if there are no indigenous people in northeast Syria, Turkey plans a settlement program that brushes away the property rights of existing Syrian owners, and seeks to build model villages with 1,000 residences each, including houses, barns, youth centers and two mosques each. Each village will have a sports facility and two schools, with 16 classrooms each. Each house will be 100 square meters, according to the plan published in Hurriyet. This will require 92.6 million square meters of land, according to the article. Another 140 million square meters of agricultural land are needed. Hurriyet refers to this as “the settlements,” an indication that Turkey may be seeking to model its policies after Israel’s actions in the Golan and West Bank, except expanding them on a more ambitious and rapid scale. Like Israel, Turkey believes that it must take over part of Syria to create a safe zone the way Israel views the Golan. Unlike Israel, it hopes it can move 1 million people into an area of Syria rapidly without any international repercussions and actually get international support to do so.
Jihadists 'Storm' U.S. Air Base, Bomb Military Convoy in Surprise Somalia Attacks - Jihadists in Somalia have attacked a U.S. military base in the southern Lower Shabelle region of the country on Monday, while a second attack targeted a European peace-keeping envoy in the capital of Mogadishu. In the first attack, two cars packed with explosives were driven towards the Balegdole air base before being detonated at its gates. Bursts of gunfire then followed as jihadists tried to breach the base. Al-Shabab, Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked insurgent group, said it was responsible for the attack in a statement and claimed its fighters had been successful in entering the base. "After breaching the perimeters of the heavily fortified base, the mujahideen [holy warriors] stormed the military complex, engaging the crusaders in an intense firefight," the statement said. Al-Shabab are known for often exaggerating their statements however, and a statement from the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia's office denied that entry was made. "The United States condemns the attacks today in Baledogle and Mogadishu," the statement said. "We commend the Somali security forces who repelled the attack against the Somali National Army (SNA) Base in Baledogle, Lower Shabelle region. "The security forces stopped this ultimately failed attack due to their alertness and swift response, not allowing the attackers to breach the outer defensive perimeters of the base." The Bolegole base, roughly 100 km (60 miles) west of Mogadishu, houses Somali special forces, U.S. special forces and Ugandan peace-keeping troops. In the second attack, a bomb blast targeted a peace-keeping envoy from Italy. The Italian Ministry of Defense confirmed that the convoy was hit by explosions, but stated that no injuries had been reported. Images of the attack seen by Newsweek showed that a light-armored vehicle had been sheared open from the attack and extensive damage had been caused to nearby buildings.
Anti-Sisi protesters return to Egypt’s streets in teeth of fierce repression -- In the teeth of a massive police state crackdown, Egyptian workers and youth took to the streets again Friday to demand an end to the six-year-old dictatorship of General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who seized power in a bloody 2013 coup. The protests, which followed similar demonstrations last week, were launched after Friday’s prayers and were largest in towns and cities outside of Cairo. The Egyptian capital was under a complete lockdown. Every street leading into Tahrir Square, the iconic scene of mass demonstrations during the Egyptian revolution that toppled the US-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, was blockaded by police-military checkpoints. The regime also closed down subway stations in the center of the capital to further restrict movement. Streets in central Cairo were clogged with police buses, cars and armored vehicles, while uniformed riot police and heavily armed plainclothes thugs covering their faces with balaclavas roamed the area. At Cairo’s Al-Fateh mosque, a rallying point for the mass demonstrations in 2011, dozens of police vehicles and scores of police, some carrying assault rifles, were deployed at exits as prayers let out. The Interior Ministry even issued an order to doctors at Cairo hospitals to report any patients seeking treatment for injuries suffered in demonstrations. According to Middle East Eye, police were deployed to Kasr Al Ainy, one of Cairo’s main hospitals, to patrol wards and inspect ambulances as they arrived. While there were no demonstrations in central Cairo, at least 200 people were arrested there anyway. At some checkpoints, police were demanding people’s cellphones, checking to see if there was anything on them indicating sympathy for the anti-Sisi protests. Despite this crackdown, crowds marched and chanted slogans against the regime in a number of cities, including Luxor, Qena and Sohag, as well as al Warraq, an island in the center of the Nile river on the northern outskirts of metropolitan Cairo.
Nearly 2,000 arrested as Egypt braces for anti-Sisi protests Egypt is bracing itself for a second weekend of protests on Friday, with authorities stepping up arrests and tightening security in major cities amid calls for a "million-man march" against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Egypt's Ministry of Interior warned on Thursday of "decisive" action against any attempts to "destabilise peace" as rights groups say nearly 2,000 people have been arrested since last weekend's rare protests demanding el-Sisi quit. Among those arrested was Hassan Nafaa, a political science professor at Cairo University and well-known columnist, who called for the president's departure in a Twitter post. "I have no doubt that the continuation of el-Sisi's absolute rule will lead to disaster," Nafaa said. "Egypt's interest requires his departure today before tomorrow." Rights group calls for 'immediate release' of Egyptian protesters (3:21) Nafaa's arrest on Wednesday followed the detention of Hazem Hosny, a spokesman for former army chief Sami Anan who was jailed last year for attempting to run against el-Sisi in a presidential election. Khaled Dawoud, the head of Al-Doustor Party who has been a vocal critic of the president's policies, was also arrested. Security forces have also deployed more troops to major cities, with police stopping and searching pedestrians on key thoroughfares and squares. Authorities have also blocked news websites and disrupted access to messaging platforms, according to monitoring groups. Last weekend's unprecedented display of dissent is a response to calls for action from a former Egyptian military contractor, Mohamed Ali. The part-time actor, who said he worked with the military for 15 years, accused el-Sisi and his aides of squandering public funds on vanity projects despite widespread poverty. In a series of videos posted online, he admitted to benefitting from government corruption, describing how his company, Amlak, was awarded lucrative state contracts without going through the proper bidding process. His description of opulent palaces and luxury hotels that he claimed to have built for el-Sisi - and for which he has yet to be paid - struck a nerve with many Egyptians living under harsh austerity measures imposed under a $12bn loan deal with the International Monetary Fund. The programme has led to an increase in poverty rates. Official figures show one in three Egyptians live below the poverty line.
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