US oil prices see-sawed higher over the past week as oil traders reacted to developing stories out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but pulled back from well over $90 on Friday to settle just 1.2% higher at $88.75 a barrel in reaction to a Bloomberg report that U.S. and its European allies were pressuring Israel to delay its ground offensive into Gaza....natural gas prices, on the other hand, fell every day this week and ended 9.0% lower at $2.899 per mmBTU, pressured by weak weather related demand, record production, and a bearish storage report....
The EIA's natural gas storage report for the week ending October 13th indicated that the amount of working natural gas held in underground storage in the US increased by 97 billion cubic feet to 3,626 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our natural gas supplies 300 billion cubic feet, or 9.0% above the 3,326 billion cubic feet that were in storage on October 13th of last year, and 175 billion cubic feet, or 5.1% more than the five-year average of 3,451 billion cubic feet of natural gas that were in working storage as of the 13th of October over the most recent five years…the 97 billion cubic foot injection into US natural gas working storage for the cited week was much more than the 80 billion cubic feet addition to supplies that was expected by industry analysts surveyed by Reuters, and also more than the average 85 billion cubic feet addition to natural gas storage that has been typical for the same Autumn week over the past 5 years, but less than the 113 billion cubic feet that were added to natural gas storage during the corresponding week of 2022,…
The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA
US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending October 13th indicated that after a big jump in our oil exports and a decrease in our oil imports, we had to pull oil out of our stored commercial crude supplies for the eleventh time in fourteen weeks, and for the 22nd time in the past 43 weeks, despite a big jump in weekly oil supplies that the EIA could not account for....Our imports of crude oil fell by an average of 387,000 barrels per day to average 5,942,000 barrels per day, after rising by an average of 115,000 barrels per day the prior week, while our exports of crude oil rose by 2,234,000 barrels per day to average 5,301,000 barrels per day, which combined meant that the net of our trade in oil worked out to a net import average of 641,000 barrels of oil per day during the week ending October 13th, 2,621,000 fewer barrels per day than the net of our imports minus our exports during the prior week. Over the same period, production of crude from US wells remained at its all time high of 13,200,000 barrels per day, and hence our daily supply of oil from the net of our international trade in oil and from domestic well production appears to have averaged a total of 13,841,000 barrels per day during the October 13th reporting week…
Meanwhile, US oil refineries reported they were processing an average of 15,396,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending October 13th, an average of 192,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil that our refineries were processing during the prior week, while over the same period the EIA’s surveys indicated that an average of 642,000 barrels of oil per day were being pulled out of the supplies of oil stored in the US. So, based on that reported & estimated data, the crude oil figures provided by the EIA for the week ending October 13th appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports and from oilfield production was 914,000 barrels per day less than what was added to storage plus our oil refineries reported they used during the week. To account for that difference between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just inserted a [ +914,000 ] barrel per day figure onto line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet in order to make the reported data for the daily supply of oil and for the consumption of it balance out, a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil”, thus suggesting there was an error in the week’s oil supply & demand figures that we have just transcribed.... Moreover, since last week’s “unaccounted for crude oil” figure was at [+ 194,000 ] barrels per day, that means there was a 719,000 barrel per day difference between this week's oil balance sheet error and the EIA's crude oil balance sheet error from a week ago, and hence the changes to supply and demand from that week to this one that are indicated by this week's report are off by that much, and therefore useless...however, since most oil traders react to these weekly EIA reports as if they were accurate, and since these weekly figures therefore often drive oil pricing, and hence decisions to drill or complete oil wells, we’ll continue to report this data just as it's published, and just as it's watched & believed to be reasonably reliable by most everyone in the industry...(for more on how this weekly oil data is gathered, and the possible reasons for that “unaccounted for” oil, see this EIA explainer)….(NB: there is also a more recent twitter thread from an EIA administrator addressing these errors, and what they had hoped to do about it)
This week's 642,000 barrel per day decrease in our overall crude oil inventories all came out of our commercially available stocks of crude oil, while the amount of oil in our Strategic Petroleum Reserve was unchanged. Further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicate that the 4 week average of our oil imports fell to 6,428,000 barrels per day last week, which was still 5.5% more than the 6,092,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week period last year. This week’s crude oil production was reported to be unchanged at an all time high of 13,200,000 barrels per day because the EIA's rounded estimate of the output from wells in the lower 48 states was unchanged at 12,800,000 barrels per day, while Alaska’s oil production was 1,000 barrels per day lower at 417,000 barrels per day but still added the same 400,000 barrels per day to the EIA's rounded national total as it did last week...US crude oil production had reached a pre-pandemic high of 13,100,000 barrels per day during the week ending March 13th 2020, so this week’s reported oil production figure is now 0.8% above that of our pre-pandemic production peak, and 36.1% above the pandemic low of 9,700,000 barrels per day that US oil production had fallen to during the third week of February of 2021.
US oil refineries were operating at 86.1% of their capacity while processing those 15,396,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending October 13th, up from their 85.7% utilization rate of last week, a refinery utilization that is typical during the Fall, when refineries are undergoing seasonal maintenance during a changeover to produce winter blends of fuel.. The 15,396,000 barrels per day of oil that were refined this week were1.0% less than the 15,550,000 barrels of crude that were being processed daily during week ending October 14th of 2022, and 0.3% less than the 15,436,000 barrels that were being refined during the prepandemic week ending October 11th, 2019, when our refinery utilization rate was at 83.1%, a two year low at that time..
With the increase in the amount of oil being refined this week, the gasoline output from our refineries was also higher, increasing by 77,000 barrels per day to 9,761,000 barrels per day during the week ending October 13th, after our refineries' gasoline output had increased by 858,000 barrels per day during the prior week. This week’s gasoline production was 4.4% more than the 9,381,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily over the same week of last year, but still 2.4% less than the gasoline production of 9,998,000 barrels per day during the prepandemic week ending October 11th, 2019. On the other hand, our refineries’ production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) decreased by 33,000 barrels per day to 4,694,000 barrels per day, after our distillates output had decreased by 38,000 barrels per day during the prior week. With that decrease, our distillates output was 6.5% less than the 5,023,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending October 14th of 2022, but 0.1% more than the 4,688,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending October 11th, 2019..
Even with this week's increase in our gasoline production, our supplies of gasoline in storage at the end of the week fell for the 24th time in thirty-four weeks, decreasing by 2,370,000 barrels to 223,301,000 barrels during the week ending October 13th, after our gasoline inventories had decreased by 1,313,000 barrels during the prior week. Our gasoline supplies fell by more this week because the amount of gasoline supplied to US users rose by 362,000 barrels per day to 8,943,000 barrels per day, while our imports of gasoline rose by 117,000 barrels per day to 706,000 barrels per day and our exports of gasoline fell by 97,000 barrels per day to 1,081,000 barrels per day,....Even after twenty-four gasoline inventory decreases over the past thirty-four weeks, our gasoline supplies were 6.7% above than last October 14th's gasoline inventories of 209,368,000 barrels, and slightly above the five year average of our gasoline supplies for this time of the year…
With this week's decrease in our our distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels fell for the eighteenth time in thirty-two weeks, decreasing by 3,185,000 barrels to 113,773,000 barrels over the week ending October 13th, after our distillates supplies had decreased by 1,837,000 barrels during the prior week. Our distillates supplies fell by more this week because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of our domestic demand, rose by 746,000 barrels per day to an 18 month high of 4,416,000 barrels per day, and even though our exports of distillates fell by 630,000 barrels per day to a 20 month low of 810,000 barrels per day, while our imports of distillates fell by 43,000 barrels per day to 77,000 barrels per day....But with 40 inventory increases over the past seventy-four weeks, our distillates supplies at the end of the week were still 7.1% above the 106,063,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on October 14th of 2022, but were also about 12% below the five year average of our distillates inventories for this time of the year...
Finally, with our oil imports lower and our oil exports higher, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage fell for the 18th time in twenty-six weeks and for the 27th time in the past year, decreasing by 4,491,000 barrels over the week, from 424,239,000 barrels on October 6th to 419,748,000 barrels on October 13th, after our commercial crude supplies had increased by 10,176,000 barrels over the prior week. With this week's decrease, our commercial crude oil inventories were about 5% below the most recent five-year average of commercial oil supplies for this time of year, but were still about 26% above the average of our available crude oil stocks as of the first weekend of October over the 5 years at the beginning of the past decade, with the big difference between those comparisons arising because it wasn’t until early 2015 that our oil inventories had first topped 400 million barrels. After our commercial crude oil inventories had jumped to record highs during the Covid lockdowns of the Spring of 2020, then jumped again after February 2021's winter storm Uri froze off US Gulf Coast refining, but then fell in the wake of the Ukraine war, only to jump again following the Christmas 2022 refinery freeze offs, our commercial crude supplies as of this October 13th were 4.0% less than the 437,357,000 barrels of oil in commercial storage on October 14th of 2022, were 1.6% less than the 426,544,000 barrels of oil that we still had in storage on October 15th of 2021, and were 14.0% less than the 488,107,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage on October 16th of 2020, after early pandemic precautions had left a lot of oil unused…
Week's Rig Count
in lieu of our usual detailed rig count coverage, we are again just including below a screenshot of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes...in the table below, the first column shows the active rig count as of October 20th, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week’s count (October 13th) and this week’s (October 20th) count, the third column shows last week’s October 13th active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Friday and the number running on the Friday before the same 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 21st of October, 2022...
DUC well report for September
The past week saw the release of the EIA's Drilling Productivity Report for October, which included the EIA's September data on drilled but uncompleted (DUC) oil and gas wells in the 7 most productive shale regions (click tab 3)....that data showed a decrease in uncompleted wells nationally for the 36th time out of the past 39 months, as both drilling of new wells and completions of drilled wells fell in September and remained well below the average pre-pandemic levels...for the 7 sedimentary regions covered by this report, the total count of DUC wells decreased by 54 wells, falling from a revised 4,735 DUC wells in August to 4,681 DUC wells in September, which was also 8.3% fewer DUCs than the 5,102 wells that had been drilled but remained uncompleted as of the end of September of a year ago...this month's DUC decrease occurred as 865 wells were drilled in the seven regions that this report covers (representing 87% of all U.S. onshore drilling operations) during September, down by 29 from the 894 wells that were drilled in August, while 919 wells were completed and brought into production by fracking them, down from the 942 well completions seen in August, and down by 109 from the 1028 completions seen in September of last year....at the September completion rate, the 4,681 drilled but uncompleted wells remaining at the end of the month represents a 5.1 month backlog of wells that have been drilled but are not yet fracked, unchanged from the DUC well backlog of a month ago, while up from the 7 1/2 year low of 4.6 months in January, on a completion rate that is now more than 20% below 2019's pre-pandemic average...
the drilled but uncompleted well count in the Appalachian region, which includes the Utica shale, decreased by 9 wells, from 755 DUCs at the end of August to 746 DUCs at the end of September, as 77 new wells were drilled into the Marcellus and Utica shales during the month, while 86 of the already drilled wells in the region were fracked...
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Furious residents lambaste agency for falsifying letters of support: ‘This is not OK’ - - Lies can cause damage in almost any situation, but falsehoods by one dirty energy company have ignited a firestorm in Ohio.The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) allegedly received dozens of pieces of mail from supposed Ohio residents in support of expanding fracking in parts of the state.However, many of those residents whose names were on the letters shockingly said they had never written a single one nor expressed support for fracking.The letters were originally sent from the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), a nonprofit partly funded by dirty energy industry interests, according to the watchdog Energy and Policy Institute.The CEA submitted more than 1,000 letters to the OGLMC, with the general sentiment that permitting “energy development” would increase investment in state parks..It takes between 1.5 million and 9.7 million gallons of water to frack a single well, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, and wastewater can leach out and contaminate groundwater and land.Fracking also contributes to air pollution via flaring, venting, and accidental release of planet-warming methane gas.Many residents who allegedly sent letters to the commissions shared that they didn’t even know what fracking was nor supported exploration into the land beneath Ohio’s state parks.“Fracking destroys the water table, the land, it destroys everything,” said Charles Leftwich, a Cleveland resident whose name appeared on one of the letters. “It doesn’t need to be taking place anywhere near a state park, that’s why it’s a state park.”“This is not OK,” said Brittany Keep, mother of a 9-year-old girl who allegedly submitted a letter to the commission. “She definitely did not submit that draft.”Opponents of fracking in Ohio are demanding that the fraudulent letters be taken off the record in deciding if the commission should look into fracking in the state.Many opponents also expressed that falsifying support letters undermines the legal system of public comments.This isn’t the first time the CEA has come under fire. In 2014, the organization submitted 2,500 public comments to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin supporting a rate hike for electricity.However, several alleged signees said they were misrepresented and opposed the rate hike. In 2016, the company submitted 347 supporting letters in favor of the Nexus Gas Transmission pipeline.Fourteen individuals came forward claiming that they never signed a letter nor gave anyone permission to use their names.Opponents of fracking are outraged by the findings and the effort to undermine the public comment process.“The public commenting process is critical to decisions that will determine the fate of our Ohio state parks, wildlife areas, and other public lands. Where does the buck stop in ensuring that Ohioans whose names are on these comments actually submitted them?” commented Cathy Cowan Becker, a Save Ohio Parks steering committee member.Other individuals are asking for a legal inquiry into the CEA and its processes. Molly Jo Stanley, the Southeast Ohio Regional Director for the Ohio Environmental Council, called on the OGLMC to investigate all public comments to determine their authenticity. “This is yet another attempt by fossil fuel interests to undermine our democratic processes for their own financial gain,” Stanley said. “Ohioans deserve to know that the public record of comments accurately reflects what the people of Ohio want for their public lands.”
Ohio oil and gas industry accident data boost worries about drilling under state parks --Public records show Ohio regulators log hundreds of incidents each year dealing with chemical releases related to the oil and gas industry. Such events raise critics’ concerns about plans to drill for oil and gas under state-owned parks and wildlife areas. While most problems happen at rigs and wellheads, which will be outside the parks, critics say airborne releases of methane or other chemicals would not be limited to property boundaries. And they fear that runoff could reach groundwater or surface water sources for state parks and nearby areas. Jenny Morgan, a volunteer with the group Save Ohio Parks, said she asked the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for public records after Rob Brundrett, president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, said in a radio appearance last month that environmental problems and safety-related events “are certainly isolated events” when considered in light of the amount of industrial activity over the past 13 years. Morgan said the ODNR documents provide a very different perspective. She also noted an event earlier this week, where a gas leak at a Guernsey County well pad triggered a mandatory evacuation within a half-mile radius. The sheriff lifted the order Monday night, but cautioned residents to seek medical attention if they had headaches, dizziness or trouble breathing.The ODNR spreadsheets sent to Morgan last week show approximately 1,530 incidents from the start of 2018 through Sept. 10 of this year.Agency personnel classified three events as “major” or “severe,” meaning they presented relatively high degrees of public safety or environmental impacts. They took up to a day or longer to control and required involvement by multiple agencies.A “major” event on July 11 required the evacuation of more than 450 people in Columbiana County due to a well pad gas leak, for example. Another two dozen incidents rose to the level of “moderate” events. ODNR’s spreadsheets say those events involved “considerable” public safety or environmental impacts. Problems took up to 12 hours to control, often with involvement from multiple agencies. Chemical releases exceeded various regulatory reporting thresholds. Roughly 790 events during the nearly six-year period fit into ODNR’s “minor” category. The spreadsheets indicate those situations were stabilized in less than four hours with minimal public safety or environmental impact. On Sept. 4, for example, a landowner accidentally struck a line with a brush hog, causing a gas leak. On Aug. 29, crude oil from a small flowline leak in Carroll County reached a dry ditch. On April 24, a Guernsey County site had a combustor fire while a truck was loading up at a well pad. A Jan. 7 “loss of well control” led to small amounts of brine on the soil and drainage area for a Noble County site. Many of the remaining 600 or so events on the spreadsheets reflected referrals from other agencies, cases where ODNR gave technical assistance and matters outside the scope of ODNR’s oil and gas management work.Events within ODNR’s jurisdiction dealt with oil and gas or brine and other fluids from both conventional and fracked horizontal wells.“We’re just astounded at the fact that you could have this number of accidents and say that the oil and gas industry is safe,” said Melinda Zemper, another Save Ohio Parks member. The group is planning a rally at the Ohio Statehouse on Friday, Oct. 27, at noon.
Activists Rally Over Pending Fracking on Ohio's State Lands - Cleveland Scene -- A governor-appointed commission could begin approving fracking leases on Ohio's state lands as early as next month. Jenny Morgan a volunteer for the group Save Ohio Parks who will be rallying experts and environmental activists in Columbus Oct. 27, said fracking and related infrastructure are linked to increased childhood cancers, fertility and hormone disruption and a host of other negative health effects. "Gas and oil drilling, hydrofracking is anything but (safe)," Morgan contended. "The waste stream is radioactive waste that has to be re-injected, has to be carted away by trucks. It's light pollution, it's noise pollution, it's air pollution." Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 507 into law this year, which mandates the state approve permits for oil and gas leasing on state-owned land. The fracking industry and other supporters of the legislation argued expanding fracking to state lands will benefit communities economically and keep energy costs affordable. Morgan pointed to polls in recent years showing most residents are either strongly opposed, somewhat opposed, or unsure about fracking as a means of energy production in their state. "We're going to make our voices heard," Morgan asserted. "Even though they have told us that our voices don't matter and shown us that our voices don't matter, we're still going to stand up and insist that this not happen." According to the Yale School of the Environment, health effects increasingly linked to living near fracking include cancer, low birth weight, disruptions to the endocrine system, nose bleeds, headaches, and nausea.
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner: Save Ohio parks - Randi Pokladnik - When HB 133 passed back in 2011, Ohio’s Republican legislators made it known that public lands were not protected from fracking. “The most significant aspect of HB 133 is the creation of the Oil and Gas Leasing Commission, which will oversee and coordinate the leasing of land owned or controlled by a state agency, state university or college for the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas.” After the passage of this bill, Ohio’s citizens expressed their anger over the opening of our lands to this extractive process. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources worked hand in hand with the industry trying to convince the public that fracking was safe. At one point, Ohio citizens protesting fracking state lands were referred to as“environmental activist opponents” and “skilled propagandists.” In 2014, then Gov. Kasich reversed his position and the issue seemed to be a moot point. But, during the lame duck session of December 2022, HB 507, dubbed the “stuffed chicken bill,” passed along party lines. The bill not only declared that fracked gas was green energy but also resurrected the issue of fracking state lands. This bill was passed and signed into law without any public comment period.Now Ohio’s citizens wait while the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission, an industry biased group appointed by Gov. DeWine, decides to approve or not approve the nominations to frack thousands of acres of state lands, including the entirety of Salt Fork State Park, Wolf Run State Park and Zepernick Wildlife Area.Make no mistake, those so-called “skilled propagandists,” aka concerned Ohio citizens, have done their very best to educate the commission. The commission members often seem totally unaware of anything related to fracking, as well as their responsibilities as commission members; including their ability to deny nominations. Citizens have sent countless comments, many citing peer-reviewed studies like the Physicians For Social Responsibility Release 8th Compendium of Scientific, Medical, Media Findings On Risks, Harms Of Fracking And Oil & Gas Infrastructure, that describe the health effects, environmental issues, and safety issues that come with fracking and its infrastructure. Citizens are doing the research that should be done by the commission. During commission meetings, citizens are only spectators who can watch and listen but not ask any questions of the commission. According to the statue, the names of the companies nominating state land for fracking leases shall be kept secret. Citizens deserve to know why and how the commission decides to approve or not approve submissions. Democracy in Ohio is practically nonexistent.. Southeastern Ohio will soon be part of the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) where methane gas obtained from fracking would produce hydrogen using heat, steam, and pressure. Proponents refer to it as clean hydrogen because they plan on capturing the carbon dioxide generated using unproven carbon capture technology. This is not clean energy. A study published in Energy and Science Engineering said, “The carbon footprint to create blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than using either natural gas or coal directly for heat, or about 60% greater than using diesel oil for heat.” Once again, Ohio’s Appalachian communities are becoming a mineral colony for the fossil fuel industry. Those $925 million federal dollars being appropriated for the hub could be used to support energy efficiency, real clean energy, and local jobs. Hub supporters say that the projects will create 3,000 full-time jobs, but the citizens of the fracked counties of Appalachia Ohio know jobs promised are not jobs realized. Fracking did not bring economic prosperity to local communities. “Hydrogen is another bait and switch from an administration that continues to break its promises to aggressively tackle climate change and help communities achieve a just, equitable transition to renewable energy,” said Soni Grant of the Center for Biological Diversity. The Appalachian hub, ARCH2, has as one of its partners EQT Energy, the nation’s largest gas producer. The reason our region was chosen for this hub becomes obvious: Utica and Marcellus Shale gas.
Leasing Activity Picks Up in Noble & Guernsey Counties in Ohio - - According to an article in Ohio Country Journal, interest and activity in eastern Ohio’s oil and gas leasing has been growing in some new areas. Those areas include, says Clif Little, Ohio State University Extension educator in Guernsey County, portions of Guernsey and Noble counties where there hadn’t been interest in the past. Little specializes in, among other things, oil and gas leases. He’s the author of “Important aspects of an oil and gas lease” (copy below), chock full of good tips for landowners either leasing for the first time or looking to re-lease.
Residents return home after gas leak causes evacuation in Greene County – Multiple people were evacuated from homes in a Fairborn neighborhood Tuesday afternoon after a gas leak, according to Fairborn Fire Department Battalion Chief Adam Howard. Tuesday morning, a utility crew was out working in the Brookstone neighborhood off Trebein Road, near Hobson Freedom Park, when they accidentally drilled a hole into a natural gas line, Howard said. Natural gas was immediately released into the atmosphere at high concentrations from its underground line, causing a prompt response of firefighters and police, Howard said. When crews arrived on the scene, firefighters went door-to-door asking permission to enter homes and test for gas levels. CenterPoint Energy also responded to the scene quickly and worked to shut off the gas. 13 homes were evacuated during this time due to them being in the estimated hot zone. Fire crews established the hot zone where there was the greatest threat for the potential danger of natural gas exposure. Howard said crews on scene had to work with multiple wind changes, which caused the hot zone to be larger than usual. . Local school dismissals were delayed as they couldn’t have children walking through the neighborhood while crews were still trying to contain the leak. CenterPoint isolated the gas leak and the scene was cleared by 3:26 p.m. Before leaving, firefighters went door-to-door to homes in the hot zone to make sure no gas was accumulating in confined areas. Howard said if gas got into confined areas, like homes, and found an ignition source, like a water heater, then an explosion could have occurred. Greene County EMA assisted evacuees and bussed them out of the area, as firefighters were unsure how long it would take to get the leak under control.
Natural gas line ruptures close roads, prompt evacuations - The Times Leader — Cadiz Fire Department, Hopedale Fire and EMS Department and Cadiz police responded to a major gas line rupture around noon Wednesday. The break occurred near the intersection of Cunningham Avenue, Deersville Avenue and West Warren Street. The three roads remained closed during the repairs. Harrison County Emergency Management Director Eric Wilson said that a contractor working on the roads in the area breached a gas line. He said that Columbia Gas started working to repair the gas line right away. He said that no one was injured. Wilson also said that the fire departments used gas monitors to check the safety of homes and determined that no residents needed to evacuate. Columbia Gas originally estimated that repairs would take approximately three hours but faced delays. After talking to Columbia Gas Wednesday afternoon, Wilson said that repairs would be completed by 8 or 9 p.m. Wednesday and the roads would remain closed until then. Wilson said that the natural gas is odorized and has a “rotten egg smell.” “It’s odorized to let people know that it’s in the air. Residents should call 911 immediately if they smell it in their homes,” he said. Wilson said symptoms such as headache, nausea and vomiting can be a sign of inhaling natural gas. He said residents should seek medical attention immediately if they experience any of these symptoms.
EIA Oct DPR: Big Drop in Shale Gas Production in M-U & Haynesville -- The latest monthly U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) for October, issued yesterday (below), shows EIA believes shale gas production across the seven major plays tracked in the monthly DPR for November will *decrease* production from the prior month of October — by a huge quantity. This is the fourth month in a row EIA predicts shale gas production will decrease for the combined seven plays. EIA says combined natgas production will slide by 451 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) — nearly half a billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). The Marcellus/Utica, called “Appalachia” in the report, is predicted to decrease by a massive 194 MMcf/d in November compared with October, the biggest decrease in gas production for any of the seven plays.
14 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Oct 9 – 15 | Marcellus Drilling News --New shale permits issued for Oct 9 – 15 in the Marcellus/Utica gyrated once again, dropping to about half from the previous week. There were 14 new permits issued last week, versus 23 the week before. Last week’s permit tally included 12 new permits in Pennsylvania, no new permits in Ohio, and 2 new permits in West Virginia. EQT was the top permittee for the week, drawing 6 permits in Greene County, PA. PA General Energy was second with 4 permits in Lycoming County.CLEAN ENERGY E&P | ENERGY COMPANIES | EQT CORP | GREENE COUNTY (PA) | JKLM ENERGY | LYCOMING COUNTY | MARSHALL COUNTY |PENNSYLVANIA GENERAL ENERGY | TIOGA COUNTY (PA)
Research by Public Health Experts Shows ‘Damning’ Evidence on the Harms of Fracking - Hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas is linked to an array of health harms, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma and birth defects, according to the latest compilation of studies on the impact of fracking on human health. The ninth edition of a “compendium” of scientific, medical, government and media reports on the industry’s health effects, released Thursday, contains references to almost 2,500 papers that add to evidence that fracking has an array of negative impacts on human health, the authors say. The number of studies collected is now more than six times what it was when the first compendium was published in 2014, but the conclusions are the same, said Dr. Sandra Steingraber, the lead author, and a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, which jointly published the 637-page document. Many of the studies were based in Pennsylvania, which produces more natural gas from fracking than any other U.S. state except Texas, and has a relatively high population of about 12 million people, giving researchers more opportunity to determine the effects of fracking on public health than in more sparsely populated fracking states such as Wyoming. “The new studies corroborate and support the older studies and we can see the same patterns in state after state where fracking is practiced,” Steingraber said. “The fact that there is lots of new data that support the older data means that the case against fracking is ever more damning.” In noting that a wealth of new data has confirmed earlier studies, Steingraber said that while researchers have known since 2017 that children living near fracking sites in Colorado have higher rates of leukemia than their peers who don’t live in those locations, new studies in Pennsylvania are now showing the same thing, she said. The Yale School of Public Health found in a study published in 2022 that Pennsylvania children who grew up within a mile of a natural gas well are twice as likely as other children to develop the most common form of juvenile leukemia. The study, included in the new compendium, also found that children born to pregnant women who lived near fracking wells were nearly three times as likely as other newborns to be diagnosed with leukemia. In August 2023, research by the University of Pittsburgh, also part of the new compendium, showed that children living within a mile of a natural gas production well were seven times as likely to suffer from lymphoma, a rare kind of childhood cancer, than those who had no such wells within five miles of their homes. Overall, the studies in the new compilation found evidence that people who live near unconventional oil and gas production and distribution sites, such as well pads and compressor stations, are exposed to toxic airborne pollutants such as benzene and formaldehyde, diesel exhaust, fine particles and nitrous oxides, leading to respiratory and skin problems, nervous system complaints, and heart issues at higher rates than in other sectors of the population. More than 200 of the studies found that groundwater in the United States is being contaminated by some 2 billion gallons of water a day forced underground at high pressure during fracking, or injected into some 187,000 disposal wells that take highly toxic fracking waste. Surface waters, too, have been contaminated by spills and intentional discharges of toxic wastewater from fracking, also known as produced water, increasing downstream radioactivity and polluting waters with heavy metals, endocrine disruptors and toxic disinfection byproducts, the compilation said. Of about 1,000 chemicals used in fracking, some 100 are estimated to be endocrine disruptors of human reproductive and developmental systems, and at least 48 are potentially carcinogenic, it said. Whether residents are exposed to soil, water or air contamination from the fracking industry, the result is a “public health crisis” given that some 17.6 million Americans live within a mile of at least one active oil and gas well, the compendium said.
Inside West Virginia’s Chernobyl: How a radioactive facility has become a party spot in Marion County - It’s around 4 p.m. one fine summer afternoon on a West Virginia hilltop when Dr. Yuri Gorby, a former Department of Energy scientist, gets the first clicks on his Geiger counter. He is wearing a full-body plastic protective suit, and using the device to survey a span of odd brownish dirt near the dilapidated main building of Fairmont Brine Processing, a fracking waste treatment plant that ceased operations in 2017.“These are the highest readings I’ve ever seen!” he shouts. “You want to come over here!”I follow Ohio organizer Jill Hunkler past a graffiti-covered security shack and a vaguely Satanic-looking circle of busted up furniture to find the 62-year-old scientist wearing a look of deep concern. The clicking — hauntingly familiar from Hollywood depictions of Chernobyl and post-Apocalyptic scenarios — continues to quicken as Gorby walks toward the flame-scarred husk of the frack waste processing building. Bending over the odd brownish dirt, the clicks become furious beeps, like a smoke alarm gone haywire, before merging into a high-pitched wail, a sound reminiscent of an emergency room patient flatlining. Gorby freezes. A microbiologist who worked for years at a federal radiological lab in Washington state, he understands very well the meaning of the nerve-rattling screech.“The unit is maxed out,” he says.His Geiger counter, known as the Ludlum 3000 Digital Survey Meter, is reading around 7,000 counts per minute, or just under 2 millirems per hour. Working at those levels for one week (never mind the 70- or 80-hour weeks common in the oil and gas industry) could take a worker over yearly safety limits set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.The radioactive dirt is far from the day’s only disturbing discovery. The moat of scuzzy water surrounding the processing building also reads radioactive. So, too, the mud that coats the floor of a second building, littered with empty beer cans that testify to the site’s popularity as a party spot, presumably for local teenagers. “Kids are screwing there,” a former oilfield worker would later tell me, pointing to a soiled mattress, with the authority of an Appalachian who grew up partying at shuttered industrial sites. Indeed, condoms litter the facility grounds.Opposite the treatment building, a pond of radioactive water is contained by a grimy white liner stained orange from the metals in the brine. Near it, in the unloading area, we find a crumpled bathing suit. “My god,” says Hunkler, “did they go swimming!?” And on the other side of the unloading area, rows of gigantic red, blue and green containers known as frack tanks send the Geiger counter into another string of beeps. Next to the tanks are a set of open dumpsters filled with bags of trash, metal scraps and wet heaps of yellowish-white goop that resembles oatmeal. “I hope you didn’t touch that?” says Gorby of the goop. “It’s highly radioactive.”That dirt and water samples from Fairmont Brine Processing reveal “deeply concerning” levels of radioactive materials — radium, thorium, polonium, bismuth and various isotopes of radioactive lead — would be news to the vast majority of people in Fairmount, West Virginia, the largest town in Marion County. When it rains, runoff from the site flows down the hill and toward Fairmont’s 18,000 residents. The homes are not only visible from the abandoned plant, they are so close you can hear their lawn mowers and the barking of their dogs. These people have no idea they are living beside a fracking waste treatment plant so radioactive that a levelheaded Homeland Security official, adhering to counterterrorism protocols, would order the place wrapped in tape and direct the nearest radiological SWAT team to round up the bad actors responsible for the mess. Nor do the towns further to the north know that the runoff threatens to contaminate the Monongahela River, which flows into Pennsylvania and provides drinking water for Pittsburgh.
MVP construction continues -- as do protests - More than 4,200 construction workers, spread out along the 303-mile path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, are laboring to finish the project by year’s end. Perhaps the biggest challenge in meeting that deadline are the hundreds of water bodies that have yet to be crossed by the largest natural gas pipeline ever to be built in Virginia. Crossing rivers, streams and wetlands — either by diverting the water flow long enough to dig a trench through them for the buried pipe, or by boring a tunnel beneath them — has proven to be a time-consuming task. Since work resumed in midsummer, 92 crossings had been completed through Oct. 1, according to Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox. About 330 remain, she said. “It seems like MVP still has a long way to go,” said Peter Anderson of Appalachian Voices, one of more than a dozen environmental and community groups that have fought the pipeline in court. “We think it is unlikely that the company will be able to complete the project by the end of this year — not just based on the construction reports, but also because of the complexity of some of the major river crossings,” Anderson said. Anderson mentioned crossings of the Elk, Gauley and Greenbrier rivers in West Virginia and work in the Jefferson National Forest, which was stalled by legal challenges in 2018. The pipeline must also pass through the Roanoke River at the Montgomery-Roanoke county line. In filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Mountain Valley has outlined plans to drill a 316-foot long horizontal tunnel, through which the pipe will run at least 6 feet beneath the river’s bottom. Construction crews will dig two pits, one nearly 31 feet deep and the other about 22 feet, on either side of the river to accomplish the boring. The job could take up to 90 days, according to documents filed with FERC in 2020. Mountain Valley has agreed to notify the Western Virginia Water Authority, which operates the Spring Hollow reservoir about 1.2 miles downstream from the site in Lafayette, when it plans to begin work. No such notification has been made as of last week, water authority spokeswoman Sarah Baumgardner said. Cox declined to provide details on specific work locations, citing “safety and security” reasons. In the past, the joint venture of five energy companies building the pipeline has paused construction during the winter months, in the years when it was not already stalled by litigation that has long delayed the $6.6 billion project. This fall and winter, work will continue when it is safe to do so. “With the pending winter months, weather forecasts and advisories will be taken into account when scheduling the remaining project work,” Cox wrote in an email. State environmental regulators have cited Mountain Valley more than 300 times with violating erosion and sediment control regulations since 2018, allowing harmful sediment to be washed from the pipeline’s 125-foot wide right of way.
Mountain Valley Pipeline-requested injunction against opponent declined by judge — A Montgomery County judge declined to issue an injunction Friday against a woman described by Mountain Valley Pipeline lawyers as a leading opponent of the highly divisive project. Emily Satterwhite of Blacksburg is helping to organize a “mass action weekend” starting Friday in which protesters are encouraged to block construction of the natural gas pipeline, the company said in court papers. Satterwhite — who is out of town on business this weekend — has done nothing wrong and is engaging in “core First Amendment speech” in opposing what she sees as an environmental disaster, her lawyers said. “MVP clearly doesn’t like these grass roots, I understand that,” attorney John Fishwick of Roanoke told Circuit Judge Robert Turk. “But there’s nothing wrong with asking people to join a grass roots organization.” In denying Mountain Valley’s request to enjoin Satterwhite from going onto restricted pipeline property or encouraging others to do so, Turk said there are already adequate legal remedies available to address such conduct if it happens. Since work on the pipeline began in the New River and Roanoke valleys in 2018, dozens of opponents — including Satterwhite — have been charged with misdemeanors for chaining themselves to construction equipment or blocking work in other ways. As Mountain Valley attempts to put the pipeline in operation by year’s end, the company has asked for civil injunctions against a growing number of protesters. A separate case was filed in September against more than 40 individuals and two organizations. “There’s no sign that it’s going to stop,” a company official testified Friday, listing the protests as one of the hurdles it faces.
MVP Startup Slipping into Early ‘24 as ‘Unforeseen Factors’ Delay Progress - Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) has pushed back the in-service date of its 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d natural gas conduit from late 2023 to early 2024, citing unexpected setbacks since resuming construction this summer. Project co-sponsor Equitrans Midstream Corp. in a Form-8K filing this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pointed to “unforeseen factors” that have “substantially affected the pace of construction” for the long-delayed Appalachia-to-Southeast pipeline. The operator also said the total cost of the embattled pipeline would swell to around $7.2 billion. Equitrans had previously estimated a budget of $6.6 billion.
Another delay, cost increase for Mountain Valley Pipeline - It will take longer and cost more than earlier projected to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the project’s lead partner says. After repeatedly telling investors and the public that it planned have the natural gas pipeline in service by the end of this year, Equitrans Midstream Corp. has pushed that goal back to sometime in the first three months of 2024. The disclosure — which was the latest in a series of construction delays and budget overruns for the troubled pipeline — was made late Wednesday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Building the 303-mile pipeline that passes through Southwest Virginia will cost $7.2 billion, up from a previous estimate of $6.6 billion. “Certain unforeseen factors have substantially affected the pace of construction and account for more than half of the increase in estimated project costs,” Equitrans said in the filing. The Pittsburgh-region based company has a 48% ownership in the joint venture, which is comprised of four other energy firms that include a subsidiary of the parent company of Roanoke Gas Co. “The ramp up of MVP’s contractor workforce has been slower and more challenging than expected, due to multiple crews electing not to work on the project based on the history of court-related construction stops,” the SEC document states. Construction of the buried pipeline started in 2018, but has been delayed time and again by legal challenges that raised concerns about its negative environmental impact on the rural and mountainous land through which it passes. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed construction to resume this summer, after Congress passed a law that fast-tracked completion of a pipeline that has faced fierce opposition since it was first announced nearly a decade ago. “Despite getting a greenlight from Congress, MVP can’t finish this project,” Denali Nalamalapu, communications director for the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition, said in a statement.Supporters say Mountain Valley will supply needed natural gas, drilled from Appalachian shale formations, to markets on the East Coast. The pipeline runs from northern West Virginia, through the New River and Roanoke valleys, to connect with an existing pipeline near the North Carolina line.
Mountain Valley pipeline delayed: 4 questions answered - Completion of the closely watched Mountain Valley pipeline will be delayed until next year, and its cost will exceed $7 billion, the project’s lead developer said Wednesday. The updates from Equitrans Midstream mark the latest twist in the saga of the controversial natural gas project, which received Congress’ blessing earlier this year. Mountain Valley won’t come online in 2023 as planned because of “unforeseen factors” that slowed the pace of construction and boosted costs, Equitrans said in a regulatory filing. That disclosure arrives after the Supreme Court handed developers of the Mountain Valley pipeline a critical win in July, undoing a construction freeze and allowing work on the gas project to restart. How regulators and courts tackle remaining questions about the project’s safety could still shape its timing — though legal and energy experts don’t expect opponents to be able to stop it. Earlier this month, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the lead developer of Mountain Valley announced an agreement to address safety issues. That came after an August notice from PHMSA raised concerns about the integrity of the pipe, including issues around installation and prolonged exposure of some segments to the sun’s rays. Pennsylvania-based Equitrans, which will operate Mountain Valley once it is finished, said the agreement outlines measures that are intended to reassure the public of the pipeline’s integrity. Before the agreement was issued, critics wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking for construction to stop while developers conduct an analysis on all pipes that will be installed and look for any potential damage to its protective coating. But FERC has been approving a number of developer requests, including the addition of temporary access roads and allowing the withdrawal of water from streams for construction use. FERC has sent letters to Mountain Valley developers approving the company’s requests, citing the June debt ceiling law and the agency’s June order authorizing all construction activities on the pipeline. Mary O’Driscoll, a FERC spokesperson, declined to comment on a letter to the agency that requested a pause on construction. For many residents in southwest Virginia, the return of construction is the last thing they wanted. Some told E&E News this summer that they felt betrayed by the inclusion of the Mountain Valley-related provision in the debt ceiling agreement known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. The law requires expedited approval for Mountain Valley and blocked judicial review of permits “necessary for the construction and initial operation at full capacity” of the pipeline. Once a major thorn in Mountain Valley’s side, litigation against the project has dwindled. One case focused on eminent domain — Bohon v. FERC — is still alive in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but it’s unclear how much of a threat it could present to the pipeline overall.In a request to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit this week, the Virginia landowners behind the long-shot suit asked for an emergency injunction to "halt irreparable harm" and stop the taking of land through eminent domain. The landowners requested the freeze on construction while the court takes up their legal challenge. If Mountain Valley is completed as planned, opponents said the possibility of a leak or an explosion will always linger in the minds of communities along the route. Equitrans has stressed its focus on building and running the pipeline safely. Natalie Cox, an Equitrans spokesperson, said more than 300,000 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines have been “successfully built and are operating safely” across the United States, including “in steep, mountainous and karst terrain.” “Pipelines are recognized as by far the safest means for transporting the energy necessary to power modern life,” Cox said in an email last month. As construction continues and protests occur along the project's path, here are four questions that remain about the Mountain Valley project:
Towboat owner pleads guilty in oil spill along West Virginia-Kentucky border - The owner of a towboat that sank and spilled oil into a river along the West Virginia-Kentucky border pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal pollution charge. David K. Smith, 55, of Paducah, Kentucky, entered the plea in federal court in Huntington, West Virginia, to discharge of refuse into navigable waters. Smith owned River Marine Enterprises LLC and Western River Assets LLC. His towboat, the Gate City, sank while docked in the Big Sandy River in January 2018, discharging oil and other substances. The city of Kenova, West Virginia, closed its municipal drinking water intake for three days while regulatory agencies responded to the spill, according to court records. A November 2017 Coast Guard inspection of the vessel determined it could harm public health and the environment due to the threat of an oil discharge. Officials said at the time the vessel had the potential to spill 5,000 gallons (18,927 liters). An administrative order required Smith to remove all oil and hazardous materials from the Gate City before Jan. 31, 2018, but Smith admitted he had not complied at the time of the spill, prosecutors said. Smith also said a contractor that was supposed to remove oil from the vessel before it sank could not access it safely due to site conditions. Smith faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. His companies each face fines of up to $200,000 and five years of federal probation. Smith's sentencing was set for Feb. 26, 2024.
The Biden Administration Has Begun Regulating 400,000 Miles of Gas ‘Gathering Lines.’ The Industry Isn’t Happy - After decades of industry resistance, federal safety officials are finally starting to regulate a huge part of the nation’s pipeline system. With little attention from the mainstream media, the Biden administration has begun imposing new rules on some 400,000 miles of gas pipes. Many are bigger and more dangerous lines laid since the boom in fracking. Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, said the move is way overdue. Explosions on the lines, he said, “have killed people and injured people and it’s high time these lines were regulated.” Erin Murphy, a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, called it “a significant step forward.” At issue are what the gas industry refers to as “gathering lines.” These are pipelines that carry gas directly from drilling sites. They run mostly through rural areas and tie into processing plants, which, in turn, pump the gas in big interstate lines to population areas. The failure to impose any safety standards on the lines or even to know where they are has long been a big hole in safety oversight. But that hole has grown far larger as operators have laid thousands of miles of new pipe to accommodate fracking. Those lines have been wider in diameter and operate at higher pressures than older pipelines, undermining a regulatory system reflecting earlier technology. The first part of the new rules kicked in earlier this year when the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for the first time required operators to file basic reports about these pipelines, including their total miles, ages, widths—and any leaks the firms had become aware of. Such reports must be filed now for every gathering line in the United States. The reports cover about 400,000 miles of pipe—and the first round of reports filed this year showed that the industry, even while acting only on a voluntary basis, found and fixed more than 5,000 leaks last year. More stringent rules are to take effect next year for the biggest of the gathering lines, those more than 16 inches in width or near residential buildings and more than 8.6 inches. For the first time, operators will be required to carry out regular surveys for leaks and repair them. For these bigger lines, they will also have to install above-ground markers and new anti-corrosion controls and conduct public-awareness campaigns to alert nearby residents to the lines. These rules will apply to about 20,000 existing miles of the total 400,000 gathering-line mileage.
U.S. Adding 8.6 GW of Natural Gas Power This Year Amid Record-Setting Demand - The United States expects to add 8.6 GW of natural gas-fired capacity to its power generation fleet in 2023 as demand for the fuel breaks records. So far this year, 10 natural gas-fired power plants totaling 6.8 GW have come online, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Natural gas consumption in electricity generation soared this past summer, setting monthly records of 47.3 Bcf/d in both July and August. EIA sees natural gas power sector consumption averaging 35.3 Bcf/d for full-year 2023, up 6%, or 2.1 Bcf/d, over the record levels observed in the year-earlier period.
US natgas prices fell 3% on big storage build, record output (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures fell about 3% on Thursday to a two-week low on a bigger-than-expected storage build, record output and forecasts for mild weather and less heating demand than expected through early November. Traders noted prices were down even though the amount of gas flowing to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants was near record highs. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said utilities added 97 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended Oct. 13. That was much bigger than the 80-bcf build analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with an increase of 113 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2018-2022) average increase of 85 bcf. Analysts said last week's build was likely bigger than expected due to record output and milder-than-normal weather that kept heating and cooling demand low. Front-month gas futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 9.9 cents, or 3.2%, to settle at $2.957 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their lowest close since Oct. 3. That put the contract below the $3 per mmBtu support psychological level where many traders had options, and down for a seventh day in a row for the first time since February 2021. Analysts at energy advisory EBW Analytics said some marketers may be locking in arbitrage profits by buying gas on the spot market, storing it, and selling a futures contract, which "appear(s) ripe for the taking, at least on paper." Spot prices at the Henry Hub benchmark NG-W-HH-SNL in Louisiana were trading around $2.92 for Thursday. Spot prices have weighed on futures prices for months with next-day prices closing below the futures front-month for 165 out of 200 trading days so far this year, according to data from financial firm LSEG. In other news, U.S. energy company Equitrans Midstream delayed the expected completion of its Mountain Valley gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia to the first quarter of 2024 and boosted the estimated cost of the project to $7.2 billion. Previously, the company expected to complete the 2.0-billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) pipe by the end of 2023 at an estimated cost of $6.6 billion. LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states rose to an average of 103.6 bcfd so far in October, up from 102.6 bcfd in September and a record high of 103.1 bcfd in July. With milder weather coming, LSEG forecast U.S. gas demand, including exports, would ease from 97.6 bcfd this week to 96.9 bcfd next week. Those forecasts were lower than LSEG's outlook on Wednesday. Pipeline exports to Mexico slid to an average of 6.9 bcfd so far in October, down from a monthly record high of 7.2 bcfd in September. Analysts, however, expect exports to Mexico to rise in coming months once New Fortress Energy's plant in Altamira starts pulling in U.S. gas to turn into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export. Gas flows to the seven big U.S. LNG export plants rose to 13.5 bcfd so far in October with the return of Berkshire Hathaway Energy's Cove Point export plant in Maryland, up from 12.6 bcfd in September. That compares with a record high of 14.0 bcfd in April. On a daily basis, LNG feedgas climbed to 14.7 bcfd on Tuesday, the highest since April 2023.
Kinder Morgan Forecasting 20% Natural Gas Demand Growth by 2028 Driven by LNG, Mexico Exports - Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) is advancing numerous projects across its vast Lower 48 natural gas pipelines footprint as LNG and Mexico export demand continues to rise, management said Wednesday. The midstream giant kicked off the third quarter earnings season touting robust volumes and demand across its gas network during the period. “This quarter KMI continued to benefit from strong demand for our natural gas transportation and storage services,” said CEO Kim Dang. “And the future is bright as we expect natural gas demand to grow by more than 20% through 2028, led by liquefied natural gas exports, exports to Mexico and power generation. “Our network of interconnected assets is ideally located to serve those export markets, and our 700 Bcf of operated natural gas storage...
Climate activists rally to halt new U.S. exports of natural gas - The Washington Post - Environmentalists are gearing up for their next giant climate fight: They want to force a showdown with the Biden administration over the massive expansion of U.S. natural gas exports. Less than a decade ago, U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas — LNG for short — didn’t exist. Now they are growing so rapidly that the United States last year became the world’s largest gas exporter. The trend has given Washington more influence abroad, while raising big questions about its environmental legacy. President Biden has thrown his support behind the industry to help European allies, which in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have sought more U.S. gas to break a years-long reliance on Russian energy supplies. But environmentalists fear that by investing billions of dollars in new terminals to chill and ship U.S. gas abroad, the industry is locking in more planet-warming emissions when Biden has pledged to zero out climate pollution. That has led environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and famed activist Bill McKibben, to target gas exports in an emerging campaign. More than two dozen new or expansion projects are under construction or under consideration. Opponents say that buildout far exceeds what is needed and will further burden communities of color on the Gulf Coast and other parts of the country. They want Washington to better judge the cumulative impacts of these projects before granting more permit approvals. “The real news is we’re in 2023; it’s never been hotter,” McKibben said in a video news conference Tuesday. “So why on Earth are we even talking about figuring out a way to spew yet more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? … It doesn’t make sense.” The mounting pushback illustrates the Biden administration’s challenges in balancing national security concerns with climate pledges, while also recognizing domestic political realities. Biden enraged young climate activists and others this year by approving the Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope, even as the White House argued it was legally obligated to sanction it in some form. But the greenhouse gas emissions associated with just one LNG export project, known as Calcasieu Pass 2 or CP2, would be 20 times as large as those from Willow, according to an analysis by Jeremy Symons, an environmental consultant and former climate policy adviser at the Environmental Protection Agency. “The Willow project was a carbon bomb, but the CP2 project is a megabomb when it comes to climate change,” Symons said in an interview. Shaylyn Hynes, spokeswoman for the project’s owner, Arlington-based Venture Global, said that U.S. gas exports provide other countries an alternative to dirtier fuels, including coal, which has seen a rebound in global demand in recent months. And LNG is still critical to helping Europe and to delivering energy to millions of poor people globally, Hynes added in an email.
143 coal plants and a punch in the face - (video) The young people were angry. The man in the blue suit was angry. They expressed their anger in different ways. The young people, angry because of the U.S. government’s inadequate response to the climate crisis, organized a disruptive but non-violent protest at a policy conference last week, during which they confronted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg onstage and expressed outrage at his department’s recent controversial decision to approve a massive new oil terminal offshore of Freeport, Texas. The man in the blue suit, seemingly angry because of the 21-minute disruption, followed the protesters as they left and struck one of them in the head. A brief video clip of the incident provided to HEATED shows the unidentified man forcefully grabbing and shoving Izzi C., a 24-year-old organizer with the new youth-led direct action group Climate Defiance, as they exit the stage area and enter the lobby at the one-day iMPACT MARYLAND conference. “I did not see it coming at all,” said Izzi, who asked to withhold their last name to maintain privacy. “It felt like this person had fully punched me in the face.” The act of violence did not appear intended to stop the protest, nor did it appear intended to protect others. The also did not appear to be a member of law enforcement; a Department of Transportation spokesperson told HEATED he is not an agency employee or member of Secretary Buttigieg’s security. “I was not in front of this person,” Izzi said. “It was a complete act of anger, and there was no reason for it. What shocked Izzi most about the actual violence, however, was not the fact that it occurred. (This kind of thing happens all the time during acts of civil disobedience, they said, particularly from law enforcement). Rather, it was the lack of reaction from the dozens of conference attendees who witnessed it. ”None of the attendees asked if I was alright,” Izzi said. “Nobody around me said anything. Nobody did anything.” It felt as if many of the attendees at Thursday’s seemingly climate-friendly conference believed the man in the blue suit was justified in his anger—but the young protesters were not justified in theirs. Perhaps the attendees simply didn’t understand why the protesters felt the need to disrupt their professional event. If that is the case, we can explain. The answer lies in four massive, controversial proposed crude oil export projects currently planned off the Texas coast. Should all of these projects be approved by the Biden Administration and operated at full capacity, The Guardian reports the four terminals “would expand U.S. oil exports by nearly 7 million barrels every day” and result in an astounding “24 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions once the transported oil is burned.” This is equivalent to operating 6,424 coal plants for one year—or, if divided by the average 45-year lifespan of a coal plant, 143 coal plants for 45 years. This does not bode well for future generations, as the International Energy Agency has warned that no new major fossil fuel infrastructure can be built if the world is to avoid dangerous, irreversible levels of warming.
One key step in the energy transition? No new gas lines. -Some buildings in the future could feature one notable difference from many that exist today: no connection to a gas line. That’s one of the recommendations in a sweeping report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released Tuesday on what it will take for the United States to reach its ambitious climate goals. The report suggests states and municipalities consider adopting bans on new gas lines in areas that haven’t previously been served by natural gas. 10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint Rethinking gas infrastructure is one example of the major changes experts say will be necessary to help the country realize its net-zero carbon emissions goals by 2050. Lawmakers have passed packages, such as last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021, that provide funding and a roadmap for slashing emissions. This new 600-plus-page report contains more than 80 recommendations for how to effectively implement these existing policies and support an equitable energy transition. “Our report shows the ways in which you can achieve a low-carbon economy and net zero by 2050 through dozens and dozens of things that governments, households, businesses and investors can do,” said Susan Tierney, a member of the committee that wrote the new report. “The thing that’s the most challenging is not just that it’s solvable technically, but that it is solvable in a durable way.” The case for fewer gas lines One key element in the recommendations is to plan for a future no longer dominated by fossil fuels, Tierney and other experts say. As the country moves toward electrification, it wouldn’t make sense to continue adding gas lines to serve locations that eventually may be required to electrify, said Tierney, an expert on energy policy at Analysis Group, an international economic consulting firm. “You might just require electricity in the first place and not extend gas pipelines into new areas where they are not going to be used for very long,” she said. “That is not the way business is done now, and that could lead to some pushback.” But Richard Meyer, an executive with the American Gas Association, a top industry trade group, said efforts to ban natural gas would, in part, result in higher costs for consumers.
New York State’s Natural Gas Ban Challenged by Major Business Groups and Labor Unions - A New York law enacted by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year to ban natural gas appliances and infrastructure in new buildings is facing a legal challenge by a coalition of businesses and labor unions. Hochul in May signed into law the All-Electric Building Act, included in the state’s fiscal 2024 budget. The law would require nearly all newly constructed buildings to be all-electric, beginning in 2026 for smaller structures and in 2029 for larger ones. However, business groups and labor unions want the new law tossed. Plaintiffs include Mulhern Gas Co., National Association of Home Builders, National Propane Gas Association, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1049, Plumbers Local Union No. 200 and the AFL-CIO. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court..
Cracking Cancer in East Texas - -- As oil and gas production has grown precipitously in Texas, so has the state’s petrochemical industry. Aside from petroleum, diesel and a wide array of gasoline types, oil and gas are the primary components in a range of other products, including plastics and rubber. While the environmental and health effects of drilling, fracking and refining are well reported, the effects of this correlated boom in the petrochemical industry is much less widely discussed. However, the effects for local populations as well as the planet at large are oftentimes dire. The Environmental Integrity Project is a non-profit organization with a close eye on the petrochemical industry, and has published extensively on the subject. Courtney Bernhardt is the organization’s research director and has been particularly focused on the effects of ethylene production, a precursor chemical that is the basis for a staggering array of plastics products, as well as propylene, a highly flammable gas product that is found in many prepackaged foods, on store shelves across the world. Both propylene and ethane are derived from Texas’ abundant natural gas. Ethane is produced in so-called “ethane crackers,” large industrial complexes in which natural gas is heated to create the precursor. Even a cursory visit to the coastal areas of Texas in which fossil fuels are refined and reconfigured shows the scale of this industry. Bernhardt and the Environmental Integrity Project recently published an extensive list of ethane production sites in the coastal region. More than half of the sites surveyed are listed as “high-priority violators” by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning that their output of net emissions is much higher than the legal limit. The effects on communities within the emissions zone of petrochemical plants are drastic. Ethylene oxide is in itself a cancer-causing chemical, which is emitted at high rates by the “crackers” which produce it. Ethane oxide and benzene are two additional toxins emitted in the thousands of pounds per year. “You get kind of a brew of hazardous chemicals coming off of these things,” Courtney Bernhardt says about the plants.Much of the environmental pollutants that affect the surrounding communities go back to the so-called flares, Dr. Sahu explains in an interview with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation: “Flares are devices that are used to combust waste gasses in the petrochemical industry, and waste gas means things in the process that have no value, so they have to be disposed of in a safe manner.” While some mechanism for flaring is necessary in nearly every petrochemical facility to allow for the possibility of emergencies in which volatile materials must be disposed of quickly, many plants in Texas also burn off compounds simply because they cannot be harvested profitably. While the traditional chimney-like “stacks” can be tested for pollutants, the same is not the case for the open flames by which material is flared off. “There is no stack, it’s literally just a flame, and the exhaust and the products of the flame literally go directly to the atmosphere. They therefore don’t have a location where you can put an instrument and test it.”
BP cross-state gasoline pipeline fails in Branch County... {freep.com} A 10-inch diameter gasoline pipeline running across southern Michigan failed Tuesday evening, releasing more than 8,400 gallons of gasoline .
US oil is back, and Exxon's $60 billion deal isn't the biggest signal - After three and a half years, a tripling in the S&P 500 Energy Index, and many soon-to-be-forgotten culture-war volleys, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Oct. 12 that U.S. crude oil production had hit an all-time high of 13.2 million barrels per day, entirely wiping out Covid-era losses of more than 3 million barrels per day.The news came a day after a $60 billion deal betweenExxon Mobil and independent oil producerPioneer Natural Resources. The combination of recovering production, sustained pressure from Wall Street for cost containment and high stock dividends, and consolidation like the Exxon-Pioneer hookup is not a coincidence. The energy sector's big stock move in 2021 and 2022 was mostly a recovery from a disastrous decade for Big Oil, when tens of billions of cash flow were lost on unprofitable fracking wells, and of a consolidation that was good for company profits, dividends and shareholder returns. The foundation of the 2010s oil business was cracking when Covid broke it, said Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Ecofin in Kansas City, Mo. Monthly production topped out at 13 million barrels per day in November 2019 and hit 9.9 million by February 2021. "Capital discipline in the U.S. industry hasn't gone away, and oil is at $85 to $90 a barrel," he said. So, what brought Big Oil back, and what's next? Here are seven important factors that played into U.S. oil's recent history and will influence its future.
With More Business Built on Carbon Capture, SLB CEO Says Natural Gas Key to Energy Transition - The global energy sector is benefiting today from long-cycle developments, SLB CEO Olivier Le Peuch said Friday, lifted by more carbon capture expansions, offshore exploration and the realization that “natural gas is a critical source for the energy transition.” During a third quarter conference call, Le Peuch offered his insight into results for the world’s No. 1 oilfield services company, which he said “is continuing to seize this multiyear growth cycle.” Overall market fundamentals “remain very, very compelling for our core business,” he said. “Performance is being driven by the diversity of our portfolio,” including new technologies and integration. “Looking ahead, we believe the market fundamentals remain very compelling for our business…
Fed energy survey reflects expectations for half-year – Energy producers surveyed recently in Oklahoma and across the region reported a decline in activity in the last quarter but expectations for some pickup over the next six months. That’s according to the most recent energy industry survey conducted by the Kansas City branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The bank serves the Fed’s 10th District, which includes Oklahoma and all or portions of Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico. Among other things, industry leaders in the district said that oil prices needed to be at $64 per barrel on average at least for drilling to be profitable and at $90 per barrel for the region to see any substantial increase in drilling. Natural gas prices need to be at $3.45 per million Btu (British thermal units) on average for drilling to be profitable and at $4.36 per million Btu for drilling to increase substantially. Firms reported what they expected oil and natural gas prices to be six months, one year, two years and five years from now. The averages expected prices for benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude were $91, $88, $88 and $83 per barrel, respectively. The average expected Henry Hub natural gas prices were $3.06, $3.34, $3.97 and $4.83 per million Btu, respectively. Those surveyed also were asked what they expect the U.S. rig count to be in six months relative to current levels. Nearly half, 48%, responded that they expect the number of rigs to be slightly higher; 45% expect it to be about the same; and 3% each expect it to be either significantly higher or slightly lower. “It is becoming ever more difficult and expensive to drill and operate. The best spots (geologically) for the best wells will become rarer to find,” one respondent wrote. “Gas demand is staying flat or increasing while ability and willingness to drill for gas is declining,” another said. “District drilling and business activity declined further in Q3, but revenues grew after declining for three consecutive quarters, and employment continued to increase at a moderate pace,” Kansas City Fed Branch Vice President Chad Wilkersonsaid. “Firms’ sentiment for future activity improved in light of increased commodity prices.” The survey monitors oil and gas-related firms located in the 10th District, with results based on total firm activity. In addition to projections for oil and gas prices and drilling activity, survey results reveal changes in several indicators of energy activity, including capital spending and employment. All results are diffusion indexes – the percentage of firms indicating increases minus the percentage of firms indicating decreases. Year-over-year index results were mixed, the Fed said. Drilling/business activity declined moderately while revenues, profits and supplier delivery times decreased at a lesser pace than last quarter. Access to credit turned negative. Wages and benefits indexes grew further even as both employment indexes cooled.
FERC Approves TC’s GTN Xpress and Two Natural Gas Pipeline Expansions - FERC on Thursday granted final approval for TC Energy Corp.’s Gas Transmission Northwest Xpress (GTN Xpress) project. The project is designed to add 150,000 Dth/d of transport capacity through upgrades to compressor stations in Athol, ID, Starbuck, WA, and Kent, OR, along the existing Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) system. GTN Xpress is fully subscribed under precedent agreements with Cascade Natural Gas Corp., Intermountain Gas Co. and Tourmaline Oil Marketing Corp. The larger GTN system supplies gas from Western Canada and the Rocky Mountains to utilities, power generators, and residential and commercial..
Feds OK natural gas pipeline expansion in Pacific Northwest over environmentalist protests (AP) — Federal regulators on Thursday approved the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest over the protest of environmental groups and top officials in West Coast states, who said it goes against the region’s plans to address climate change and could pose a wildfire risk. The project, known as GTN Xpress, aims to expand the capacity of the Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline, which runs through Idaho, Washington and Oregon, by about 150 million cubic feet (4.2 million cubic meters) of natural gas per day. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave it the green light in a vote on Thursday. TC Energy plans to modify three compressor stations along the pipeline — in Kootenai County, Idaho; Walla Walla County, Washington; and Sherman County, Oregon. Compressor stations help maintain the pressure and flow of gas over long distances in a pipeline. Environmental groups criticized the decision. In a statement, Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for environmental nonprofit Columbia Riverkeeper, said it represented a “rubber stamp of unnecessary fracked gas in the Northwest” and accused the energy agency of failing to listen to U.S. senators, governors, state attorneys general, tribes and members of the public. Leonard said potential spills and explosions on the pipeline, which was built in the 1960s, would not only harm the environment but also present a heightened wildfire risk in the arid regions it passes through. “An explosion of that level in eastern Washington or eastern Oregon would be catastrophic,” she said. Leonard said Columbia Riverkeeper will appeal the federal regulators’ decision and submit a petition for a rehearing. The pipeline belongs to TC Energy of Calgary, Canada — the same company behind the now-abandoned Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. The company said the project is necessary to meet consumer demand and welcomed the decision in an emailed statement. Environmentalists and officials opposed to the project have expressed concern about TC Energy’s safety record. Its Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline exploded in Strasburg, Virginia, in July and its existing Keystone pipeline spilled nearly 600,000 gallons of bitumen oil in Kansas last December. The 1,377-mile (2,216-kilometer) pipeline runs from the Canadian border through a corner of Idaho and into Washington state and Oregon, connecting with a pipeline going into California.
‘Every square inch is covered in life’: the ageing oil rigs that became marine oases -- On a recent August afternoon, Ann Scarborough Bull motored out two miles from the coast of Santa Barbara onboard a research vessel called the Danny C. The marine biologist and her colleagues had an unusual destination in their sights: a disused oil platform that loomed ahead like a forgotten skyscraper reaching up from the horizon. The team wasn’t interested in the platform itself, but what lurked beneath. When they reached the ageing structure, named Holly, they lowered a car-sized remote- controlled vehicle under the waves. There, they saw hundreds of thousands of juvenile rockfish finding shelter amid the hulking metal structure, alongside waving white anemones, clusters of mussels, and silver jack mackerel. The seasoned marine biologists have been observing this remarkable spectacle for years. Holly, which was put out of use in 2015, is one of 27 oil rigs built off the coast of California decades ago that have become hotbeds of biological activity. While not natural structures, their platforms have been embedded into the muddy seabed long enough to become part of the ocean environment, providing a home for creatures like mussels and barnacles, which in turn attract larger fish and sea lions that find safety and food there. After two and a half decades of studying the rigs, Bull says it’s clear to her: “These places are extremely productive, both for commercial and recreational fisheries and for invertebrates.” Now, as California and the US shift away from offshore drilling and toward greener energy, a debate is mounting over their future. On one side are those who argue disused rigs are an environmental blight and should be removed entirely. On the other side are people, many of them scientists, who say we should embrace these accidental oases and that removing the structures is morally wrong. In other parts of the world, oil rigs have successfully become artificial reefs, in a policy known as rigs to reefs. For Milton Love, a scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was on the boat with Bull, it’s a matter of ethics. . “It kind of crept up on me at some point that removing these things is immoral.” The fish don’t know they are complicit in a fossil fuel infrastructure that is causing a climate crisis – they just see a hard structure and invertebrates attached to it, and a place to hide. Bull agrees. “If you take away habitat, then there’s no going back,”she says. “You would never allow the willful destruction of a kelp bed, or of a rocky reef, even though rigs have similar biodiversity.”
Alaska development agency sues federal government over canceled oil leases - Alaska’s industrial development agency on Wednesday sued the Biden administration in an attempt to revive its Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas leases.The lawsuit filed by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority alleges that the Department of the Interior violated federal laws and its own regulations when it canceled refuge leases last month.Interior’s actions were politically motivated and illegally deprived AIDEA and the state of the economic benefits that would come from drilling in the refuge’s coastal plain, an area that is known to contain oil, the lawsuit argues.“Cancellation of the lease agreements eliminates AIDEA’s property rights in exploring and developing these leases and prevents all of the expected benefits that would have come from developing an oil and gas program on these lands, seriously harming AIDEA,” said the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.AIDEA was the main bidder in the ANWR lease sale held in January 2021 as one of the Trump administration’s last actions. One small oil company and one Anchorage real estate company submitted the only two other bids.Ultimately, the authority wound up with seven leases in the refuge coastal plain and was the last entity holding leases there. The other two participants canceled their bids last year and were refunded.The debate over oil drilling in the Arctic refuge has raged for decades. Supporters of drilling, including most Alaska political leaders, have argued that the area would provide valuable oil supplies. Opponents say oil development would irreparably damage the environment, including the Porcupine caribou herd, a huge herd that crowds into the narrow coastal plain each year to give birth to its young.The 2021 lease sale, mandated through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 signed by then-President Donald Trump, was the first competitive auction of exploration rights there. The sale failed to draw any bids from major oil companies.President Joe Biden, in an Inauguration Day order, temporarily barred any exploration work on the ANWR leases. That was followed by action in June 2021 by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland that suspended the leases and launched a new study of environmental impacts from oil development in the refuge coastal plain.
Canada’s $26 Billion Investment In Trans Mountain Pipeline May Not Pay Off -The Trans Mountain Expansion Project promised in the 2010s to help Canada’s oil sands producers get their crude to the Asian markets from the Pacific Coast. After years of delays and enormous cost overruns, the expanded oil pipeline currently owned by the federal government of Canada is about to enter into service early next year.The government has never intended to keep its ownership in the project that carries crude from Alberta’s oil sands to British Columbia on the Pacific Coast and which will triple the capacity of the original pipeline to 890,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 300,000 bpd.Canada has started talks with indigenous groups interested in buying ownership of the expanded project. But pipeline operators and institutional investors are not too keen to buy the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, analysts tell Reuters, because of the high costs of financing for companies and because many investment funds prefer not to sink money into fossil fuel projects these days.An ongoing dispute over the proposed shipping tolls of the pipeline amid the huge construction cost overruns is also muddying the waters for potential buyers.All these hurdles suggest that the federal government of Canada may never fully recover the more than a dozen billion U.S. dollars of costs to have the project up and running.At the start of the project, fierce opposition in British Columbia forced Kinder Morgan to reconsider its commitment to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline. So the Government of Canada reached an agreement with Kinder Morgan back in 2018 to buy the Trans Mountain Expansion Project and related pipeline and terminal assets. That cost the federal government $3.3 billion (C$4.5 billion) at the time. Since then, the costs for the expansion of the pipeline have quadrupled to nearly $22.6 billion (C$30.9 billion) and could continue to increase.At the end of September, Trans Mountain received a ruling from the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) that approved its proposed deviation to pipeline routing within the previously agreed to the right-of-way on Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc (SSN) lands near Pipsell (Jacko Lake), BC. The approved change of route in the section means that the pipeline could be fully completed and in service in early 2024. The project remains in the $22.6 billion (C$30.9 billion) “range,” and only 16 kilometers of pipeline are left to lay, Trans Mountain CEO Dawn Farrell told Calgary Herald’s Chris Varcoe last week.Indigenous-led group Project Reconciliation and Chinook Pathways, a partnership between Pembina Pipeline and Western Indigenous Pipeline Group (WIPG), are interested in bidding to own the whole or part of Trans Mountain.But other potential buyers, which years ago may have been interested in getting their hands on such a large energy infrastructure project, may stay away. High financing costs with the high interest rates and the reluctance of many institutional investors to be associated with fossil fuels is limiting the pool of possible new owners of Trans Mountain.
Vancouver Island communities seek oil tanker ban during rough seas - Communities along Vancouver Island’s south coast want to a ban imposed on tanker ships during adverse weather conditions when spill response teams are unable to operate due to rough seas. Local councils in Metchosin and Sooke are getting behind a lobby asking B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman to push Transport Canada for the ban. They will also request provincial assistance for spill response equipment, protective gear, shoreline response strategies, and community evacuation plans. Sooke Councillor Tony St-Pierre said the action won’t stop tanker traffic, only stop it from travelling when not possible to mitigate disasters. He added the response to Heyman could prevent downloading on communities and make sure they have the necessary equipment in case of a spill. The move comes even as some councillors express doubts it would have the desired effect. Al Beddows pointed out that Sooke has vigorously fought over the years to limit tanker traffic. In 2014, a non-binding referendum was held where about 70 per cent of voters opposed the expansion of oil tanker traffic through coastal B.C. waters. “I don’t like the idea of those tankers coming up and down the coast, but the (Trans Mountain) pipeline is almost done. It’s not going to change things. We are going to get those 400 tankers a year,” he said. “If we write a letter I’d like to think it would have some influence, but I have a feeling it will have absolutely no influence.” The Trans Mountain Expansion project runs from Edmonton to Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Marine Terminal and the Chevron refinery in Burnaby. The project involves twinning an existing oil pipeline built in 1953 and is expected to result in a significant increase in oil tanker traffic in Vancouver and Victoria waters, servicing destinations like California, China, and other foreign buyers. To enhance spill response capabilities, KOTUG Canada and Trans Mountain will manage a fleet of tugboats stationed at the new oil response base at Beecher Bay, near East Sooke. The base is part of a broader $150-million expansion by the Western Canada Marine Response Centre, which extends to Sidney, Port Alberni, Nanaimo, and Ucluelet, in preparation for the increased spill response demands associated with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
Ksi Lisims LNG Signs Up as Customer for TC’s Prince Rupert Pipe System - TC Energy Corp. has landed Ksi Lisims LNG as a potential customer for a dormant but still approved pipeline across northern British Columbia (BC), the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) system. Led by the Nisga’a Nation and a group of Canada’s largest natural gas producers, Ksi Lisims also has filed for environmental approval to develop the 12 MMty facility on Canada’s west coast. The information about PRGT was disclosed in a filing to the BC Environmental Assessment Office. PRGT’s design calls for 450 miles of 48-inch diameter pipeline to transport natural gas from the Montney Shale. The line as designed would initially deliver 2 Bcf/d and be expandable to 3.6 Bcf/d. The agreement, according to the Ksi Lisims filing, would allow work to be conducted on PRGT
U.S. Grants Amended License as Shell, Trinidad and Tobago Pursue Venezuelan Natural Gas Deal - The island nation of Trinidad and Tobago is aiming to take a “significant step forward” in gathering Venezuelan natural gas to support domestic demand and LNG exports after the United States granted an amended license, according to Energy Minister Stuart Young. In a press conference late Tuesday, Young said he expects to complete negotiations with Venezuela to buy natural gas from the offshore Dragon field after the U.S. Treasury Department agreed to allow development partners to make payments in both hard currency and humanitarian contributions. Young said the ministry plans to continue meetings with Shell plc, Trinidad’s state-owned National Gas Co. and the government of Venezuela to “get into the granular level of detail” for pricing Dragon field gas.
Gazprom’s Plans for Reviving Russian Natural Gas Production Challenged by Financing, Competition - Future prospects for Russia’s largest natural gas producer, Gazprom PJSC, are challenging as it works to outpace both foreign sanctions and domestic competition from independent firms. Unhappy over the Kremlin granting an LNG export license to Russia’s second largest natural gas producer, PAO Novatek, Gazprom told Russian regulator’s the Murmansk liquified natural gas project would reduce domestic gas supplies crucial for power and industry needs. Despite these objections, the Murmansk export permit was approved and is expected to become effective in November. “With LNG exports providing a significant source of income to Russia, the less risky bet is to...
Russia's Gazprom launches small-scale liquefaction plant - Russian gas giant Gazprom has recently launched a small-scale liquefaction plant in the Amur region of Russia’s Far East. The liquefaction plant, implemented by Gazprom’s unit Gazprom Helium Service, is located in the Svobodnensky district in the Amur region. Back in 2021, Gazprom Helium Service and Russian Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (RFEADC) signed a cooperation agreement for the creation of this liquefaction complex. According to a Gazprom statement issued last month, this is the region’s first such facility. The newly built complex is the key facility in the pilot project for off-grid gas supplies in the Amur region, it said. The capacity of the complex is 1.5 tons of LNG per hour, or 12,600 tons per year. Gazprom said the product output will be built up as the consumers become ready to receive liquefied natural gas. The main LNG consumer will be a gas boiler house which is currently under construction in the Amurselmash urban district of Belogorsk, the second largest city of the Amur region. Once ready, the new boiler house will replace the existing fuel oil one which currently provides heat and hot water to 37 apartment buildings, two kindergartens, a school, and a community center, Gazprom said. LNG-powered freight trucks will bring the fuel to Belogorsk in special cryogenic tanks. As of today, the construction of the receiving, storage, and regasification system is nearing completion in the vicinity of the gas boiler house, Gazprom said . The system will serve to store LNG at constant temperature, convert it to gaseous form, and then supply it to the boiler house, it said. Capacity boost
QatarEnergy Signs Another 27-Year LNG Supply Deal for Europe - QatarEnergy said Wednesday it has agreed to supply Shell plc with 3.5 million tons (Mt) of LNG from its massive North Field expansion project for nearly three decades. LNG The liquefied natural gas would come from the 32 Mt/year North Field East (NFE) project and the 16 Mt/year North Field South (NFS) project. Shell was awarded equity stakes in both NFE and NFS last year. The super-chilled fuel supplied under the deal would be delivered to the Gate LNG import terminal in the Netherlands starting in 2026 for a term of 27 years.
QatarEnergy inks huge LNG supply deal with Shell - State-owned QatarEnergy and UK-based Shell signed two long-term LNG sale and purchase deals for the supply of up to 3.5 million tons per annum of LNG from Qatar to the Netherlands. Qatar’s energy minister and chief executive of QatarEnergy, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, and Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell, signed the SPAs during a ceremony in Doha, according to a statement by QatarEnergy issued on Wednesday. Under the SPAs, LNG will be delivered to the Dutch Gate LNG terminal located in the port of Rotterdam starting in 2026 for a term of 27 years. LNG giant Shell has capacity rights at the Gate terminal owned by Gasunie and Vopak. Moreover, the LNG volumes will be sourced from the two joint ventures between QatarEnergy and Shell that hold interests in Qatar’s North Field East (NFE) and North field South (NFS) expansion projects. SShell’s partnership in the North Field LNG expansion projects is made up of a 6.25 percent share in the 32 mtpa NFE project and a 9.375 percent share in the 16 mtpa NFS project.Together, NFE and NFS form the wider North Field expansion project to increase LNG production from the North Field, adding 48 mtpa to Qatar’s export capacity and bringing it to 126 mtpa.Last week, QatarEnergy also signed two deals with TotalEnergies for up to 3.5 million tons per annum and a period of 27 years. These supplies are intended for the Fos Cavaou LNG receiving terminal in southern France.
Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG workers call off strike - Workers at Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG plants in Western Australia have agreed to suspend industrial action planned for Thursday and will now vote on new agreements on pay and conditions.The Offshore Alliance, which includes the Maritime Union of Australia and Australian Workers’ Union, said in a social media post on Wednesday that its members on the Chevron facilities voted 94 percent in support of an in-principle agreement to suspend protected industrial action.Previously, unions representing workers at the 15.5 mtpa Gorgon and the 8.9 mtpa Wheatstone LNG export terminals and the Wheatstone offshore platform in Western Australia decided on September 22 to suspend strikes.Chevron accepted recommendations made by Australia’s FWC and the parties have been working to complete the drafting of the enterprise agreements since then.However, the Offshore Alliance said earlier this this month that Chevron has “reneged on the commitment they gave to the Fair Work Commission to incorporate FWC’s recommendations into the Chevron EBA’s for the Wheatstone and Gorgon facilities.”Chevron’s workers decided to resume strikes on October 19 and the Offshore Alliance provided a notice to Chevron Australia on October 9.The parties, with the assistance of commissioner Bernie Riordan, have been working since the last week to resolve the remaining issues in order to progress drafting of the proposed enterprise agreements.On October 14, workers voted again to resume the strikes on October 19.The Offshore Alliance said on Wednesday that its members on the Chevron facilities are now reviewing the proposed EBA’s which “lock in key employment conditions and union standards.”“Members are now reviewing the draft enterprise agreements and are awaiting Chevron commencing the access period so that members can review and vote on the three proposed agreements to cover the Chevron and Wheatstone facilities,” the alliance said.
China's LNG imports drop in September - China’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports dropped in September after rising for seven months in a row, according to customs data. Data from the General Administration of Customs shows that the country received about 5.69 million tonnes in August, a drop of 2.8 percent when compared to the same month last year. LNG imports in September also dropped compared to 6.30 million tonnes in August, when they rose 34.1 percent year-on-year. China imported 51.13 million tonnes of LNG during January-September, up by 10.1 percent compared to the same period last year, the data shows. However, Chinese LNG imports fell last year due to due to very high spot LNG prices and Covid lockdowns, which affected economic activity. LNG imports dropped compared to the January-September period in 2021 when China imported 58.48 million tonnes of LNG. Including pipeline gas, China’s gas imports rose by 8.2 percent year-on-year to 87.76 million tonnes in the January-September period this year. The country’s pipeline gas imports rose by 4.9 percent in September to 4.46 million tonnes, the data shows. Japan was the world’s top liquefied natural gas importer in 2022, overtaking China, but both of the countries took fewer volumes when compared to the year before. However, China has overtaken Japan in the first half of this year. Japan’s Ministry of Finance has not yet released its data for LNG imports in September. The country’s LNG imports dropped by 9.6 percent year-on-year in August to about 5.67 million tonnes. During the January-August period, Japan imported some 43.38 million tonnes, down by about 2.18 million tonnes compared to China’s 45.51 million tonnes in the same period.
Up to $1.2 billion insurance cover for marine oil spills 16 October - Maritime NZ has published guidelines about a major increase required in insurance cover or other financial security for marine oil spills from offshore installations. Amendments to the Marine Protection Rules Part 102 now require owners of offshore installations to have insurance or another form of financial security from a third party of up to $1.2 billion. This is an increase from approximately $28 million. Maritime NZ Director, Keith Manch, said the insurance or other form of financial security is in addition to the unlimited liability imposed by the Maritime Transport Act for spill response costs and compensation for pollution damage to property. The certificate of insurance provides assurance that the money that would be needed is available to meet the costs of clean up and compensation for damage to property in case of an oil spill. Marine Protection Rules Parts 131 and 102 regulate offshore installations. They require an oil spill contingency plan and insurance or another form of financial security to cover the costs of clean up and damage to property.
Poll: Majority of Israelis Blame Government for Hamas Attack - A new poll found that the vast majority of Israelis say the Hamas attack on southern Israel was caused by a failure in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a smaller majority want Netanyahu to resign once the conflict is over.In the poll released by the Dialog Center, 86% of the people asked, including 79% of supporters of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said the surprise attack from Gaza was a failure of the country’s leadership.The poll also found that 56% of respondents want Netanyahu to resign at the end of the conflict, and 52% also want to see the resignation of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.The Hamas attack on October 7 has raised questions about how the Israeli government could not be aware that such a large operation was about to be launched from Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007 and is under heavy surveillance. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) on Wednesday confirmed reports that said Egypt warned Israel before the attack that something big was coming. Netanyahu has also come under criticism for his strategy of propping up Hamas to divide Gaza from Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. “Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” Netanyahu said at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).”
Israel Says No Humanitarian Aid Into Gaza Until Captives Released - An Israeli minister said Thursday that Israel would not allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza unless Hamas releases Israelis it has taken into the enclave.“Humanitarian aid to Gaza?” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz wrote on X. “No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home.”The comments came as human rights groups are pleading to allow aid into Gaza to prevent the enclave’s hospitals from turning into morgues amid a relentless, indiscriminate bombing campaign. Gaza’s sole powerplant has been turned off due to a lack of fuel, and hospitals only have a few more days worth of fuel to power generators.“As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk. Kidney dialysis stops, and X-rays can’t be taken. Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross.Doctors Without Borders also issued a statement on Thursday calling for humanitarian aid into Gaza. “Millions of men, women and children are facing a collective punishment in the form of total siege, indiscriminate bombing, and the pending threat of a ground battle. Safe spaces must be established, humanitarian supplies must be allowed into Gaza,” the statement said. On Thursday, Egypt received a shipment of humanitarian aid for Gaza from Jordan, but it’s not clear if it will make it into the besieged enclave. Israeli TV has reported that Israel threatened to bomb aid trucks that enter Gaza from Egypt.
Israeli President Says There Are No Innocent Civilians in Gaza - Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Friday that civilians in Gaza bear responsibility for the Hamas attack on southern Israel as Israeli bombs are killing scores of people in the besieged enclave. “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Herzog said, referring to Gaza, which is not recognized as an independent nation. “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.” Herzog claimed that civilians in Gaza “could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.” Proponents of the collective punishment of Gaza often claim the civilians living in the enclave elected Hamas. But the last time Gazans participated in elections was in 2006, and many of the enclave’s current citizens were not at voting age or even alive at the time, as about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are children. Hamas’ party won the 2006 elections, but a government was not formed based on the results. After the elections, fighting broke out between Hamas and the rival Fatah party, which was encouraged and backed by the George W. Bush administration. The fighting led to Hamas taking power as the de facto governing body in Gaza in 2007. The Hamas takeover was used to justify the Israeli blockade on Gaza that started in 2007 and is still in effect today, giving Israel the power to impose a “complete siege” on the enclave in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. Since the Hamas attack was launched, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 2,450 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The number includes 724 children and 458 women.
Israel Bombs Syria's Aleppo Airport for Second Time Within 3 Days - Israeli airstrikes hit Syria’s Aleppo airport for the second time within three days, again knocking it out of service amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. “At about 11:35 pm on Saturday, October 14, 2023, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Lattakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport, which led to material damage to the airport putting it out of service,” a military sourcetold Syria’s SANA news agency.“This new act of aggression affirms the criminal approach of the Israeli occupation entity, which is clearly embodied today in its continued crimes against the Palestinian people and the massacres it commits against innocent civilians, including women and children,” the source added. On Thursday, Israeli airstrikes targeted both the Aleppo airport and the Damascus airport, putting them out of service. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the Aleppo airport was struck again on Saturday, just a few hours after it resumed service. The Saturday airstrikes mark at least the 27th time Israel has bombed Syria this year. Sources told SOHR that Israel’s purpose of targeting Syria’s airports amid its Gaza onslaught was as a warning to prevent Iranian military flights into the country. The sources added that “the two targeted airports had not witnessed any arrival of the military shipments of the Iranian militias and that the Israeli targets came only to put the two airports out of service.” Israel frames its bombing campaign as airstrikes against Iran and Hezbollah’s presence in the country, but the attacks frequently kill Syrians and damage civilian infrastructure.
Israeli Military Says It's 'in Formation' to Strike Gaza City - An Israeli military spokesman said Sunday that Israeli troops are “in formation” to strike Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip as Israel is expected to launch a ground incursion into the besieged enclave.“Gaza City is where the focus and the hub of Hamas activities are, that is where most of the commanders are, most of their infrastructure and their ability to continue to operate,” said Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, according to NPR.The New York Times reported on Saturday that Israel’s plan is to invade and capture Gaza City and attempt to wipe out Hamas’ leadership. The operation is expected to involve tens of thousands of troops and will be Israel’s largest ground incursion since at least 2006 when it invaded Lebanon.Besides sending in the infantry, the incursion will include tanks, commandos, and mine sappers. The force will receive support from Israeli warplanes, attack helicopters, and artillery fired from land and sea. The US is strongly backing Israel as it’s preparing to invade Gaza and launching relentless airstrikes on the enclave.The invasion force will face stiff resistance from Hamas militants and other groups that will join the fighting. The Israeli incursion of Gaza is expected to lead to months of brutal urban warfare in one of the most densely populated places in the world. Israel’s long-term plans and whether it would eventually withdraw from Gaza City if it’s successfully captured are unclear.Ahead of the expected ground invasion of Gaza, Israel calls for northern Gaza to be evacuated, an area that’s home to 1.1 million people. Israel said the residents should move to southern Gaza, a huge movement of people that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said is likely “impossible.” According to Middle East Eye, at least 70 people were killed by an Israeli airstrike while attempting to flee to the south.
Iran Says It Won't Enter War With Israel Unless Israel Attacks First - Amid concerns about Israel’s onslaught in Gaza escalating into a regional war, the Iranian mission to the UN said Sunday that it would only enter the fighting if Israel attacked Iran.“Iran’s armed forces will not engage, provided that the Israeli apartheid does not dare to attack Iran, its interests, and nationals. The resistance front can defend itself,” Iran’s UN mission in New York told Reuters.Also on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned Israel that a ground invasion of Gaza could spark a regional war with “resistance” factions, referring to Hezbollah and Shia militias that operate in Iraq and Syria.“If the measures aimed at immediately stopping the Israeli attacks that are killing children in the Gaza Strip end in a deadlock, it is highly probable that many other fronts will be opened. This option is not ruled out and this is becoming increasingly more probable,” Amir-Abdollahian told Al Jazeera.“If the Zionist entity decides to enter Gaza, the resistance leaders will turn it into a graveyard of the occupation soldiers,” he added. On Saturday, Amir-Abdollahian met with Hamas officials in Lebanon and Qatar and also stopped in Iraq and Syria. Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged some fire on the Israel-Lebanon border, and there have been some casualties, but there’s no sign yet that Hezbollah has decided to launch a major attack. Amir-Abdollahian warned on Saturday that he’s learned of “the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place” and said that “any step the resistance will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.”
Top Iranian envoy warns ‘preemptive action’ against Israel expected soon - Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Monday warned that preemptive action against Israel could be expected “in the coming hours,” due to its bombing of Gaza, according to Iranian state TV. Amirabdollahian said that Israel — which is waging an air campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas with a ground invasion expected soon — won’t be allowed to take such actions in the Gaza Strip without repercussions. “Leaders of the resistance will not allow [Israel] to take any action in Gaza … All options are open and we cannot be indifferent to the war crimes committed against the people of Gaza,” Amirabdollahian told state TV, as translated by Reuters. “The resistance front is capable of waging a long-term war with [Israel] … in the coming hours, we can expect a preemptive action by the resistance front,” he added. “If the crimes in Gaza do not stop immediately, new fronts will be opened.” Israel since Oct. 7 has been at war with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. The conflict has claimed more than 4,000 lives and counting on both sides after Hamas’s deadly surprise assault on Israel by land, air and sea. The conflict has unsettled the region, with U.S. officials concerned that the Iran-backed Hezbollah might choose to open a second front in the fight. Hezbollah and Israel last fought a monthlong war in 2006. “We want to send a pretty strong message. We do not want this to broaden, and the idea is for Iran to get that message loud and clear,” new Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown said last week. Iran, which also backs Hamas, has denied any involvement in the planning of that attack, but the country’s leaders have seemed to revel in Israel’s intelligence failure in not suspecting Hamas’s plans. Earlier Monday, Amirabdollahian posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that “time is running out for political solutions” to the war.
Iran Calls For Middle East States to Start Economic Escalation Via Oil Embargo On Israel - Iran is calling for an oil embargo on Israel over the latest deadly air strikes on the Gaza Strip amid growing tensions in the Middle East just as U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Israel.Iran wants “an immediate and complete embargo on the Zionist regime by Islamic countries, an oil embargo against the regime,” according to a statement from the foreign ministry on Telegram quoted by Bloomberg. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has also called for Muslim countries to expel their respective Israeli ambassadors if they have diplomatic relations with Israel. Amirabdollahian warned, “If the war crimes do not stop and the ongoing genocide by the apartheid Zionist regime in Gaza continues, the situation in the region will spiral out of control”.Amirabdollahian met with his Kuwaiti counterpart on the sidelines of an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)’s Executive Committee in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.The emergency meeting is taking place hours after a missile strike on a hospital in Gaza killed about 500 people, with Israel’s army and Hamas blaming each other for the attack, which sent oil prices jumping by more than 2% early on Wednesday.Meanwhile, U.S. President Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday to discuss the conflict. Following the bombing of the hospital, a meeting of Arab leaders and Biden in Jordan was canceled. Biden claimed that, from what he has seen, the explosion at the hospital was not carried out by Israel but by “the other team”.Israel is a small oil importer, but the further escalation of the Hamas-Israel war into the wider Middle East is not being ruled out, and analysts are increasingly concerned about supply from the world’s most important oil-exporting region.With Saudi Arabia also taking a pro-Palestine stance in its recent conversations with the U.S., the possibility for a quick end of the fighting is fading away while the possibility of greater regional involvement appears to be rising if oil prices are any indication.
Report: Israel's Gaza Ground Invasion Delayed Due to Fears of Hezbollah Attack - --The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that Israel has yet to launch a ground invasion of Gaza over fears that Hezbollah could launch a major attack from the north.An Israeli ground incursion appeared imminent on Friday and Saturday after Israel told 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate north Gaza, but now it’s unclear when the invasion will start. The New York Times previously reported that the invasion was delayed due to weather conditions.Sources told The Jerusalem Post that Israel was worried Hezbollah could be waiting until the bulk of the Israeli military is committed to the ground invasion in the south to open a second front in the north.Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire on the Israel-Lebanon border, and there have been casualties, but the Post report said Hezbollah’s attacks have been at a “fairly low threshold.”The report comes as Iran is warning that the “resistance” in the region, referring to Hezbollah and Shia militias operating in Iraq and Syria, might take action if Israel’s bombardment of Gaza doesn’t stop.“The resistance front is capable of waging a long-term war with [Israel] … in the coming hours, we can expect a preemptive action by the resistance front,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Monday. “If the crimes in Gaza do not stop immediately, new fronts will be opened.”The US has deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Eastern Mediterranean in the name of deterring regional actors from entering the war. The implication is that if Hezbollah does launch a major attack on Israel, the US might directly intervene, which means a major regional war.
Egypt Says Israel Is Not Cooperating on Delivering Humanitarian Aid to Gaza - Egyptian officials said Monday that Israel is not cooperating on allowing the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza as the enclave is being pushed to the brink due to relentless Israeli airstrikes and a total siege.According to Al Jazeera, Cairo said the Rafah border crossing that connects Egypt and Gaza has been rendered nearly inoperable due to continuous Israeli airstrikes in the area. The border crossing was closed last week as Israeli bombs fell nearby, giving Palestinians in Gaza nowhere to flee.Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry also said that Israel was not allowing citizens of other countries to exit Gaza. “Until now, the Israeli government has not taken a position on opening the Rafah crossing from the Gaza side to allow the entrance of assistance and exit of citizens of third countries,” Shoukry said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed on Sunday that the Rafah border crossing would reopen for aid soon, but the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that no deal had been reached. “There is currently no cease-fire and humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the expulsion of foreigners,” Netanyahu’s office said. Blinken was back in Israel on Monday and, according to Axios, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that allowing aid into Gaza was vital to maintaining international support for Israel’s bombardment and expected ground invasion.Israeli officials have previously said no humanitarian aid can enter Gaza until Hamas releases the captives it brought into the enclave. “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home,” said Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz.Since Katz’s comments, Israel has said it turned on water for one community in south Gaza, but Hamas and other authorities inside the enclave have denied any water is flowing. Gazans are resorting to drinking salty and sewage-contaminated water.As of Monday night in Gaza, at least 2,808 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including 853 children and 936 women. Over 10,000 people have been wounded in the bombardment.
Gaza crisis threatens to spill over border into Egypt | Financial Times - An Israeli military spokesman on Tuesday offered some advice to Palestinians seeking to flee his country’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip: “get out” through the “open” border with Egypt.The problem is that the Rafah crossing in the south of the Palestinian enclave was closed, with news outlets reporting that it had been damaged after an Israeli air strike nearby.The office of military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht later issued a clarification while the Israel Defense Forces said there had been “no official call by Israel for residents of the Gaza Strip to exit into Egypt”.But his comments underscored how the conflict ignited by Saturday’s deadly Hamas incursion into Israel — the worst attack on the Jewish state since it was founded — quickly threatens to spill over its borders. In particular it highlights Cairo’s long-running concern that Israel wants to push its troubles dealing with Hamas-controlled Gaza on to Egypt. “Israel, as the occupying force, has responsibilities towards Gaza under international law. It cannot give these up” and shift the problem on to Egypt, said Ahmed Kamel al-Beheiry, an analyst at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “seeking to broaden the crisis and put pressure not just on the Gazans but on neighbouring countries too”, he added.Netanyahu has advised Gazans to “leave”, even though Egypt is the only logical place they can go to, given that they cannot flee into Israel. Egypt has worked with Israel to keep the more than 2mn Gazans packed inside their teeming coastal enclave. Cairo controls Rafah, the main crossing for any Palestinian seeking to enter the outside world. Egypt and Israel co-ordinate extensively over border security and there is trust between their security agencies. Cairo is also acutely aware of the sympathy that many of Egypt’s 100mn population have towards the Palestinian desire for statehood. On Sunday, a day after the mass Hamas incursion in which at least 900 Israelis were killed, an Egyptian policeman killed two Israeli tourists in the city of Alexandria. The first Arab state to normalise relations with Israel in 1980, Egypt has since played an important mediation role in wars between Israel and Hamas by working to secure ceasefires. The complicating factor this time is that more than 100 Israeli hostages are in the hands of Hamas and its allies. The militant group has threatened to execute a hostage every time Israel bombs a residential area without advance warning. “Pressure from within Israel on Netanyahu to negotiate might impact when the mediation starts.”
Oil Falls on Reports US Pressuring Israel to Delay Assault -- West Texas Intermediate futures reversed lower in afternoon trading Friday in reaction to a Bloomberg report suggesting U.S. and European allies are pressuring Israel to delay a ground offensive into Gaza to win time for negotiations aimed at releasing more than 200 hostages. The Palestinian militant group Hamas released two American hostages on Friday, according to multiple reports. The move could open the door for more hostages to be released from captivity in Gaza in the coming days, with U.S. and European officials now urging Israel to delay its ground offensive. Oil prices swung between large gains and losses this week as investors monitored Mideast tensions for signs of potential spillover into a larger regional conflict. . So far, oil production in the region remains unaffected but there is the risk that Iran could get involved on behalf of its subsidiary, Hamas, that sends prices sharply higher. Goldman Sachs estimates Iranian oil production could be 400,000 bpd lower next year as a result of recent developments, which would lift the Brent oil price forecast for the second half of 2024 by $5 to $105 bbl. The United States issued new sanctions this week on people and companies based in Iran, China, and Venezuela, for enabling Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs, the Treasury Department said. The sanctions targeted those who have supported the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the defense ministry in the production and proliferation of the missiles and drones, Treasury said in a statement Wednesday. In financial markets, a combination of strong macroeconomic data and recent comments from Federal Reserve officials suggesting the U.S. central bank is done with hiking interest rates pushed bond yields higher this week, while pressuring the U.S. dollar index. The working assumption is that the rise in longer-term yields could potentially substitute for another rate increase that slows the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stressed this week the economy has held up much better than anyone expected despite the Fed's aggressive monetary tightening campaign. "It could be the case that the interest rates haven't been high enough for long enough. We certainly got a resilient economy on our hands," noted Powell during a speech at the New York Economic Club on Thursday. Similar sentiment was echoed in comments by Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic and Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Patrick Harker, who asserted that it's time to hold interest rates steady and allow the economy to absorb past hikes. "Bunch of our policy tightness still has not gone through the whole economy. The outlook for the economy is likely that we are not going to see a recession, but we will be gradually slowing down with inflation coming down to its 2% target over time," said Bostic to CNBC. This week's macroeconomic data offered more evidence of a resilient U.S. economy amid the backdrop of strong consumer demand and a tight labor market. High-frequency unemployment claims dropped to a nine-month low 198,000 in the most recent week, with the large states of Texas, New York, and California, driving the decline in first-time jobless applications. Meanwhile, September retail sales jumped 0.7% after an upwardly revised 0.8% gain in August, marking the sixth consecutive month of growth in aggregate consumer spending. NYMEX WTI futures for November delivery expired $0.62 lower at $88.75 bbl, with the next-month December contract settling the session with a $0.67 bbl discount against the expired contract. International crude benchmark Brent on ICE slipped $0.22 to $92.16 bbl. NYMEX November ULSD futures declined $0.0164 to $3.1566 gallon, while front-month RBOB futures added $0.0119 to $2.3736 gallon.
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