May 23, 2013

Lead Stories

Dallas Morning News

May 22, 2013

CENSUS: SUBURBS, OIL AND GAS FUEL TEXAS POPULATION GROWTH

Texas towns, including McKinney and Frisco, accounted for eight of the 15 fastest-growing “large cities” in the U.S. in the latest batch of population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The state added more than 425,000 people between July 1, 2011, and July 1, 2012, an increase of 1.7 percent, pushing the population to more than 26 million, the Census Bureau reported. Since the 2010 census, the state’s population has risen by 913,642, or 3.6 percent. The latest numbers follow what has become the Texas model, with strong growth around “the Texas Triangle” — the routes of Interstates 35, 45 and 10 linking the state’s major metropolitan areas.

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Houston Chronicle

May 22, 2013

GRID RELIABILITY BILL HEADS TO SENATE IN TIME FOR SUMMER HEAT

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation that would shield electric utilities from environmental fines and lawsuits if they keep power flowing in emergencies. The measure, which passed by voice vote, now heads to the Senate just as mercury begins rising for the summer and, sponsors hope, in time to get the legislation to President Barack Obama’s desk.

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Power Engineering

May 22, 2013

RENEWABLE ENERGY CAPACITY UP 16% IN TEXAS FROM 2011

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) recently announced renewable energy capacity last year was up 16 percent in the state from 2011, and generators participating in the state’s renewable energy program reported a 7 percent increase of overall renewable electric generation over the same time period. ERCOT, which announced the increase to the Public Utility Commission of Texas last week in the 2012 Annual Report on the Renewable Energy Credit Trading Program, reported the state has 13,108 MW of total renewable power capacity, not including generation in service prior to September 1999. That number is up from 11,288 in 2011 and 10,069 MW in 2009.

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NPR

May 22, 2013

LAWMAKERS APPROVE FUNDING FOR TEXAS WATER PLAN, SETTING UP STATEWIDE VOTE

After days of postponement, arm twisting and behind the scenes negotiation, measures to advance funding for Texas’ State Water Plan were approved in the State Legislature Wednesday. Lawmakers have been talking about taking money from state’s rainy day fund to improve water infrastructure since at least 2011, when a historic drought gripped the state. Today, members of the House and Senate found the votes to keep that plan alive. The House voted 130-16 to call for a constitutional amendment to create two accounts from which to loan money for water projects.

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Oil & Gas Stories

KXII

May 22, 2013

TCEQ INVESTIGATE MATERIALS EMITTED FROM COOKE COUNTY FIRE

The TCEQ is investigating what could be in the air after a massive Cooke county fire produced smoke that could be seen for miles. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigators were at the site of an oil tank battery fire south of Gainesville taking air samples, to determine if last night's blaze released chemicals that are hazardous to nearby residents. Cooke county fire officials said the fire, sparked by a lightning strike, burned itself out early Wednesday morning and residents can resume outdoor activities.

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OilPrice.com

May 22, 2013

KOCH BROTHERS SELL POLLUTING WASTE FROM TAR SANDS REFINERY AS CHEAP FUEL

Citizens of Detroit are concerned by a three-story pile of petroleum coke that covers an entire city block, which continues to grow in size each day along the bank of the Detroit River. The coke, an unwanted by-product of refining Canada’s tar sands, is produced by a refinery owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has only been refining tar sands oil since November. The pile in Detroit is not the only one! As more tar sands enters US markets to be refined on US soil, the number of similar coke piles begin to build up. Canada has its own 79.8 million tonne stockpile formed from the initial refining phase that extracts the oil from the bitumen in preparation to be transported south to US refineries.

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Mother Jones

May 22, 2013

GRASSROOTS GREENS CHALLENGE ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND ON FRACKING

A coalition of grassroots environmental groups—plus a few professors and celebrities—issued a public message to the Environmental Defense Fund on Wednesday: You don't speak for us on fracking. The coalition of 67 groups released an open letter to EDF President Fred Krupp criticizing his organization for signing on as a "strategic partner" in the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD), a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that bills itself as an "unprecedented, collaborative effort of environmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, energy companies and other stakeholders committed to safe, environmentally responsible shale resource development."

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Ft. Worth Star Telegram

May 22, 2013

COMPLAINT ACCUSES EXXON MOBIL OF ANTI-GAY BIAS

One after another, major U.S. corporations have updated anti-discrimination policies to protect gay, lesbian and transgender workers, drawing plaudits from gay-rights groups. There's one prominent exception: Exxon Mobil Corp. In the latest rankings of such corporate policies by the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group, many of Exxon's Fortune 500 counterparts got scores of 80 or higher on a scale of 100. Irving-based Exxon, the nation's largest oil and gas company, became the first firm to get a score below zero.

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Motley Fool

May 22, 2013

THE FUTURE OF NATURAL GAS FRACKING HAS ARRIVED

Being the largest provider of hydraulic fracturing services in the world means that Halliburton's (NYSE: HAL ) actions resonate throughout the energy industry. For those who are worried about the effect of natural gas fracking on the environment, this is a great thing. With its "Frac of the Future" initiative, Halliburton will begin supplying its customers with some of the most environmentally friendly equipment the business has ever seen. Whether its the Q10 pumps, which can operate on either liquefied or compressed natural gas in lieu of gasoline or diesel, or the solar powered SandCastle PS-2500 sand storage and delivery system, Halliburton has efficiency and the environment on its mind. A Noble Energy (NYSE: NBL ) vice president even publicly praised the operations and its ability to minimize the company's "footprint both physically and with emissions".

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Telegraph

May 22, 2013

SHALE GAS 'COULD BE A NEW NORTH SEA FOR BRITAIN’

The Institute of Directors claimed the fledgling industry could create 74,000 jobs, more than double its previous estimate of the industry’s potential. The business group said the industry, which involves the controversial process of fracking, could also help to support manufacturers and reduce gas imports. The IoD report works on the assumption Britain has 309 trillion cubic feet of gas – equivalent to 100 years’ worth of demand – using estimates provided by leading exploration companies including Cuadrilla, IGas and Dart Energy.

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Marketwatch

May 22, 2013

FRACKING CLEAN-UP NOW A $30 BILLION BUSINESS

Disposing of millions of tons of waste after hydraulic fracturing is a business now worth $20 billion to $30 billion a year, an executive from Wunderlich Securities estimated this week, according to this story in the New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune. Oil and gas companies invest an estimated $200 billion a year in fracking, as the process is more commonly known, Michael Hoffman, the Wunderlich executive, is quoted as saying. Fracking uses a high-pressure mixture of water, sand, and chemicals to blast apart layers of oil and gas-bearing rocks, such as shale, to release hydrocarbons trapped within them. Over the past decade, the technology has evolved quickly and now accounts for much of the new oil production in North America.

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Houston Chronicle

May 22, 2013

OHIO INJECTION WELL OPERATOR FIGHTS STATE ACTION

A northeast Ohio injection well operator whose owner faces federal charges of violating the Clean Water Act is seeking permission to resume operations. D&L Energy, of Youngstown, will ask the Ohio Oil & Gas Commission on Wednesday to overturn a state order issued earlier this year. A commission decision could take months. The order revoked D&L’s existing injection permits, denied some pending ones and suspended disposal of salt water brine, including from oil and gas drilling.

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BusinessWeek

May 22, 2013

FRACKING ROLE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND SPLITS GREEN GROUPS

A coalition of 67 grassroots groups criticized the Environmental Defense Fund for its ties to natural gas drillers in setting voluntary standards for hydraulic fracturing, a process opposed by many green advocates. The activist groups, many in communities where natural gas production is booming or in New York where it could start soon, said EDF is offering “greenwashing” for companies such as Chevron Corp. (CVX) by joining them on a set of standards for fracking.

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Examiner.com

May 22, 2013

FEARING AMERICAN ENERGY ADVANTAGE, EUROPE STRUGGLES WITH FRACKING ISSUE

A May 22, 2013 article in Next Big Future reports that the European Union has become concerned that it is being left behind in exploiting natural gas. The United States, thanks largely to new drilling technologies like hydraulic fracking, has enjoyed a boom in natural gas production, resulting in a massive decrease in the cost of energy. In the meantime many countries in the EU have banned or have severely restricted fracking, resulting in high energy costs and a heavy dependence on imported energy. Some Europeans fear the departure of industry to other countries, such as the United States, where energy costs are less. Lower energy costs also mean lower feed stock costs for chemical industries.

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Atlantic Wire

May 22, 2013

REEVE: THE KOCH BROTHERS' FORAY INTO MEDIA HAS ALREADY BEEN A SUCCESS

Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are quite entrepreneurial in their attempts to influence public policy in their favor. They don't just donate to a few like-minded politicians: They have long funded libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute. They helped fund the Tea Party movement. In the 2012 election, they funded groups like Americans for Prosperity to air campaign ads attacking Barack Obama during the last presidential campaign. While their reported interest in buying the Tribune Company's eight newspapers, which includes the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, has stirred up fears from journalists and activists in those cities that the Koch brothers would extend their influence into media, their limited involvement with the media has already yielded success. David Koch is on the board of New York PBS station WNET -- and his status as a mega-donor -- led the station to air a rebuttal to a program that used his apartment building as a symbol for the gap between rich and poor, and to refuse to air a documentary about the Kochs' role in the 2010 governor's race in Wisconsin, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer reports. In the end, it didn't matter for WNET. Koch quit the board and decided against a major donation.

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Bloomberg

May 22, 2013

OIL SEARCH SEEN TEMPTING ASIA’S TOP ENERGY DEAL: REAL M&A

The fastest revenue growth in the oil industry is putting Papua New Guinea’s Oil Search Ltd. (OSH) in line for another record -- Asia’s largest energy takeover. The company’s liquefied natural gas venture with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) -- called PNG LNG -- starts shipments to Asia next year. The project will help Port Moresby-based Oil Search increase revenue by 234 percent through 2015, outpacing every other oil and gas explorer with a market value of more than $10 billion, analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg show. While it’s pushed Oil Search’s shares to a record in Sydney, the stock still isn’t reflecting the potential for the project’s likely expansion, said Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

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CNBC

May 21, 2013

WHAT STRONG DOLLAR? US BOOM PROVIDES OIL HEDGE

The energy boom in the world's largest economy is providing a shock absorber for major U.S. oil companies, helping to hedge a strong dollar as the increase in domestic production buffers them from from currency volatility that can pinch earnings. The relationship between oil prices and the greenback–which on Monday hovered close to near a two-year high against a basket of its counterparts–is complex, yet analysts say a rising dollar is generally a modest negative for oil producing companies. Crude is priced in dollars, and a strong U.S. currency puts downward pressure on crude, which helps contain commodity inflation pressures that eventually get passed down to consumers.

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Houston Chronicle

May 22, 2013

KEYSTONE XL’S SOUTHERN LEG NEARS COMPLETION

The southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline is more than 75 percent complete and construction is proceeding on schedule, a spokesman for pipeline owner TransCanada said. “We have some pump stations to build, but we’ve made great strides on the pipeline itself,” said David Dodson, a spokesman for the Canadian pipeline giant. TransCanada in April pushed back its estimated completion date for the northern segment of the Keystone XL project, which is planned to eventually connect oil sands fields in Canada with the U.S. Gulf Coast. The delay was a result of slow federal approvals, the company said.

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Utilities Stories

Electric Light and Power

May 22, 2013

ERCOT: RENEWABLE ENERGY CAPACITY UP 16 PERCENT IN TEXAS

Texas, a place traditionally evocative of nodding oil pumpjacks and crisscrossing natural gas and oil pipelines, is on its way to becoming a powerhouse of renewable energy, according to the state's power grid operator. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said renewable energy capacity in 2012 was up 16 percent in Texas from 2011. Power generators in the state's renewable power program reported a 7 percent increase in overall renewable energy generation over the same time period. According to ERCOT, the state has 13,108 MW of total renewable power capacity, not including generation in service prior to September 1999. That number is up from 11,288 in 2011 and 10,069 MW in 2009.

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Alternatives & Renewables Stories

Bloomberg

May 22, 2013

EU PANEL PENALTIES TO HURT SOLAR FIRMS FROM CHINA TO U.K

The European Union is poised to penalize imports of Chinese solar products, a move that would increase Europe’s cost for most photovoltaic panels an estimated 45 percent overnight. While officials from the U.S., China and the EU have engaged in preliminary talks to settle a dispute over trade in solar-energy products, according to people familiar with the situation, the EU yesterday said it will stick to its June 6 deadline to decide whether to impose import duties. The EU proposal for tariffs would hurt manufacturers such as China’s Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) and raise costs to build power plants in Europe, the world’s largest market for solar products and one largely supplied by Chinese manufacturers.

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Houston Chronicle

May 22, 2013

SOLAR PLANE COMPLETES 2ND LEG OF TRIP IN TEXAS

A solar-powered plane has landed in Texas, completing the second leg of a trip across the United States. The Solar Impulse is making the first attempt by a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel to fly across the U.S. The plane landed early Thursday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport after taking off Wednesday from Phoenix. The plane flew its first leg from California in early May. From Dallas, it will fly to Lambert-St. Louis airport, Dulles airport near Washington and New York’s John F. Kennedy airport.

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Regulatory Stories

Washington Post

May 22, 2013

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND SCOLDED BY OTHER GREEN ORGANIZATIONS ON ‘FRACKING’

In an unusually public dispute, about 70 environmental groups Wednesday scolded one of their larger brethren, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), for joining with a group of energy companies that support hydraulic fracturing. The group of mostly small, local environmental organizations, joined by actors Mark Ruffalo and Debra Winger, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accused the EDF of “greenwashing” the practices of oil companies that engage in “fracking” of shale rock to extract oil and natural gas.

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Texas Tribune

May 22, 2013

BILL ALLOWING HOTTER WASTE IN TEXAS PASSES HOUSE

Legislation that would allow hotter radioactive waste in a West Texas dump passed the House on Wednesday. The bill, Senate Bill 347, makes it possible for most states to send more concentrated, or hotter, waste into the Andrews County facility starting in 2015. Because the bill was amended in the House, the Senate needs to sign off on it again, though the upper chamber already approved the most contentious element in a different bill — Senate Bill 791.

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Washington Times

May 22, 2013

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SUPPORTS FRACKING AND NATURAL GAS EXPORTS

Last Thursday, the US Department of the Interior released a draft proposal that would “establish common-sense safety standards for hydraulic fracturing on public and Indian lands.” Last Friday, the US Department of Energy (DOE) approved a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in Freeport, Texas. Despite opposition from environmental groups, the Obama administration apparently supports the expansion of the natural gas industry and the controversial technology of hydraulic fracturing. These events are welcome common sense from an administration that is typically deep in green ideology.

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Bloomberg

May 22, 2013

SCIENCE CAN’T PIN POWERFUL TORNADOES ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Powerful tornadoes like the one that leveled parts of an Oklahoma City suburb have varied widely in number in the past three years, for reasons that can’t be blamed on climate change, a federal researcher said. “The climate has changed but not by a ridiculous amount,” said Harold Brooks, research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. Science has gotten better since the 1950s at predicting where and when a storm will strike. More research will be needed to determine how a vast event such as global warming affects a relatively small-scale one like the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration said earlier this month.

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May 22, 2013

Lead Stories

Washington Post

May 22, 2013

HOUSE DEMOCRATS’ REPORT SAYS POWER GRID IS VULNERABLE TO CYBER ATTACKS

A House Democrat this week released a report that could help resurrect bipartisan legislation he sponsored three years ago to protect the nation’s power grid from cyber attacks and other threats. The analysis, spearheaded by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and released Tuesday, says a lack of compliance with voluntary security standards has made the electric grid ”highly vulnerable to attacks from Iran and North Korea” and additional dangers such as geomagnetic storms from solar activity.

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Bloomberg

May 21, 2013

CANADIAN PACIFIC SPILLS MOST OIL IN THREE MONTHS IN SASKATCHEWAN

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP) rail cars spilled 545 barrels of crude oil near Jansen, Saskatchewan, in the company’s third and largest oil spill in as many months. Five rail cars derailed and two leaked, with one car emptying its entire contents, Ralph Bock, manager of hazardous materials at the province’s Environment Ministry, said in phone interview from near the accident site. The company spilled a combined 757 barrels in March and April in two accidents in Ontario and Minnesota, Ed Greenberg, a company spokesman in Minneapolis, said in an e-mail.

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Politico

May 20, 2013

NOAA STILL PLANNING TO FURLOUGH STORM FORECASTERS

Congress isn’t rushing to stave off looming furloughs for federal weather forecasters, even after they issued tornado warnings credited with saving countless lives in Oklahoma. Some lawmakers are open to looking at sequestration’s effects on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, home to the National Weather Service and its 3,500 forecasters. But they said it’s too soon to know whether Congress has an appetite for making a sequester fix for the forecasters, similar to the ones lawmakers approved for air-traffic controllers and meat inspectors.

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Houston Chronicle

May 21, 2013

USING SOLAR POWER TO PUMP OIL

In a remote stretch of the Omani desert, row after row of long, curved mirrors collect the sun’s energy. Similar facilities have been gathering sunlight in the Southern California desert for years, using the focused light to generate electricity. In Oman, however, the facility generates steam. Pipes shunt the steam underground, where it coaxes heavy oil from the rocks. The new solar steam plant is the first of its kind in the Middle East. It was built by GlassPoint Solar, a Fremont company that uses renewable power to squeeze oil from the ground.

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Oil & Gas Stories

WWL

May 20, 2013

HAYNESVILLE SHALE NATURAL GAS A 'GAME CHANGER' FOR NEW ORLEANS REGION

Billions of dollars in capital investment and thousands of jobs are now in the pipeline for the region between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It's a direct result of what's happening on the opposite end of the state in northwest Louisiana where the most lucrative crop rotations now rotate around a natural gas well.This is the Haynesville Shale, one of the richest gas discoveries in the world. "Right now it's producing gas. That's being sold across this country. It's a very good well," said Tommy Craig pointing to the wells on his family land in Desoto Parish.

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NPR

May 21, 2013

FRACTURES IN THE ANTI-FRACKING MOVEMENT

Discord over how to best protect the environment from impacts of natural gas drilling has led to a coalition of grassroots environmental groups shunning the Environmental Defense Fund. The groups plan to hold a conference call on Wednesday to “send a message…disapproving of [EDF's] willingness to be coopted by industry interests on the issue of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas.” EDF recently drew the ire of fractivists when it announced its participation in The Center for Sustainable Shale Gas Development, a collaboration with energy companies and philanthropical organizations to develop performance standards related to protecting air and water quality. EDF is the only national environmental group to join the coalition, which also includes PennFuture, Group Against Smog and Pollution, and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.

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Houston Chronicle

May 21, 2013

OIL PIPELINES TO DRIVE CANADIAN ECONOMY LIKE 1880S RAILROADS

Oil pipelines, under attack from environmentalists, are essential to Canada’s economic growth just as railroads were in the 1880s, Enbridge Inc. (ENB) Chief Executive Officer Al Monaco said. “Pipelines are very similar to railroads,” Monaco said at the Bloomberg Canada Economic Summit in Toronto yesterday. “When you really get down to it, Canada is an export-driven resource economy. This is our foundation.” Pipelines already carry 15 percent of Canadian exports in the form of crude, mostly to U.S. markets. Plans by Enbridge and TransCanada Corp. (TRP) to spend more than a combined C$50 billion to expand networks to the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, are opposed by environmental groups such as ForestEthics.

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Fox News

May 21, 2013

REFINERY STATUS: COMPRESSOR AT CITGO LEMONT REFINERY SHUT IN FOR REPAIRS

The following table lists planned and unplanned production outages at U.S. refineries as reported by Dow Jones Newswires. The information is compiled from both official and unofficial refining sources and does not purport to be a comprehensive list. Citgo Petroleum Corp. said May 20 that a compressor at its Lemont, Ill. refinery has been shut for planned repairs. Phillips 66 (PSX) said May 20 that it had completed restarting its Sweeny refinery in Old Ocean, TX.

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New York Times

May 17, 2013

NOCERA: ENERGY EXPORTS ARE GOOD!

What first caught my eye was the op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal. Published in late February, it was written by Andrew N. Liveris, the chairman and chief executive of the Dow Chemical Company. Liveris, an Australian, has become quite the Washington player in recent years. Among other things, he heads President Obama’s efforts to revive manufacturing. The op-ed was about one of my favorite subjects: the abundance of natural gas reserves discovered in the United States since the “fracking” revolution began. This newly found gas, Liveris wrote, offered “a historic opportunity to strengthen the economy, increase national competitiveness and create jobs.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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Pittsburgh Business Journal

May 20, 2013

FRACKING WASTEWATER STILL IN THE MARKET FOR A SOLUTION

Every time a new frackwater treatment technology comes to town, I wonder: isn't this market saturated? Isn't all the wastewater recycling an indication that producers have found their preferred solutions? And every time the companies pushing those technologies sound an emphatic no to both. And even to the recycling part. Today's no comes from Jim Wood, CEO of ThermoEnergy Corp. in Massachussets, which is trying to hook contracts in the Marcellus Shale and talking with operators in Canonsburg.

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Seeking Alpha

May 21, 2013

NATURAL GAS SHALE DRILLING - MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING OR PROFITS ABOUND?

Economic principles tell us much about the effects of supply and demand on prices of goods and services. Simple economics shows us that if the supply of a particular good or service remains constant while demand for that good increases, the price for the good will also increase. Likewise, if demand falls, so does price. But what is the end result when demand and supply rise in tandem? That answer is not so simple. It depends on which is rising faster and by how much. If they rise at exactly the same rate, prices should remain constant. However, there is one particular sector that currently stands to benefit from the simultaneous rising supply and rising demand of natural gas. Companies involved in natural gas gathering, pipeline supply, and transport will benefit from the increasing supply of natural gas in the short term and will continue to benefit in the long run as demand grows.

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Denver Business Journal

May 21, 2013

HALLIBURTON BRINGS NEXT GENERATION OF FRACKING EQUIPMENT TO COLORADO

Cutting-edge technology for hydraulic fracturing, developed by Halliburton Co., will be deployed in Colorado's booming Niobrara oil fields in coming months. That new tech includes a solar-powered "SandCastle." “This is probably the most high-tech office in the United States, with the next generation technology for the frack of the future,” Jim Brown, Halliburton’s Denver-based president of western hemisphere operations, said Monday at the grand-opening celebration of the Houston-based company’s $42 million, 75-acre campus in Fort Lupton.

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New Orleans Times Picayune

May 21, 2013

SHALE FRACKING PROVES $30 BILLION-A-YEAR BOON TO WASTE DISPOSAL INDUSTRY

The explosive expansion of drilling of natural gas and oil wells in shale deposits in the United States and Canada using a directional drilling method dubbed “fracking” may have spawned a $30 billion per year expansion of the waste disposal business, waste and investment industry executives were told Monday. Oil and gas fracking represents a $200 billion-a-year capital investment, and the companies doing the drilling are spending between $20 billion and $30 billion on waste disposal, said Michael Hoffman, managing director at Wunderlich Securities, during a seminar on waste management investment on the first day of the WasteExpo 2013 Conference and Exposition in New Orleans.

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KRMG

May 22, 2013

OKLAHOMA ENERGY COMPANY DONATING $1-MILLION FOR OKC TORNADO RELIEF

The Chesapeake Energy Corporation intends to donate $1-million to the American Red Cross to benefit rescue and recovery efforts after the devastating tornado Monday in Moore, Oklahoma. The oil and gas company says it's also organizing hundreds of employee volunteers to help in the relief effort. Chesapeake board chairman Archie Dunham says the company is providing ``all possible assistance' using Chesapeake's equipment, machinery and resources.

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Upstream Online

May 22, 2013

COMPANIES PITCH IN FOR OKC RELIEF EFFORTS

Companies close to Oklahoma City’s oil patch on Tuesday announced donations of over $6 million to relief efforts for a deadly tornado that barreled through the southern part of the city Monday afternoon. The twister leveled entire neighborhoods in Moore and the southern part of Oklahoma city and killing at least two dozen people, with additional injuries reported. Few energy companies reported operational impacts, with the exception of a force majeure declaration at the Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline.

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Utilities Stories

Austin American Statesman

May 21, 2013

COUNCIL BACKPEDALS ON AUSTIN ENERGY BOARD

The City Council won’t place Austin Energy under the supervision of an independent board any time soon, reversing course on a decision that had appeared all but made as recently as February. At the council’s Tuesday work session, Mayor Lee Leffingwell said he was pulling his support for a board because, in crafting its responsibilities, council members had effectively neutered the board and “muddled (the proposal) up into an almost unrecognizable mess.” The council might vote Thursday to give an existing volunteer advisory board a somewhat more significant role, but council members tentatively agreed Tuesday to drop the board idea and simply create a council subcommittee to give Austin Energy matters more attention, including whether to place Austin Energy under a board sometime in the future.

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Fort Mill Times

May 21, 2013

AES BRINGS PATENTED STORAGE OPERATING SYSTEM (SOS™) TO MARKET

AES today announced its market-dynamic, technology-aware control platform for the commercial operation of energy storage. This patented operating system, called sOS™, is a fast-response architecture that applies patented performance algorithms to automate the operation of AES-delivered battery-based energy storage arrays, optimizing performance and efficiency for customers, and extending the life of the battery. “Utility customers are looking for energy storage arrays that deliver maximum performance and efficiency, and sOS™ brings that performance without locking buyers into a specific storage technology,” said Chris Shelton, President of AES Energy Storage. “The development of sOS™ leveraged the decades of experience that AES has in serving power markets around the world and our unique understanding of the energy storage market – an understanding that comes from investing, owning and operating over $100 million worth of storage assets.”

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Intelligent Utility

May 21, 2013

LET'S DEMOCRATIZE DEMAND RESPONSE - POWER FROM THE PEOPLE!

Demand Response (DR) in the Texas restructured market seems to be on verge of becoming the next big thing. Unfortunately, it has been on the verge of being the next big thing for quite a while. The mounting evidence, however, seems to support the democratization of DR by enabling technologies that address the greatest source of power reserves in the state: Peak Residential Demand. Unlike regulated markets with their top-down, command-and-control structures and captive rate payer base, the Texas deregulated market presents new challenges and opportunities that require new ways of solving the DR problem; new views of how DR works in a market with customer churn and financial payback of one year or better. It is a market in which the consumer can buy any smart thermostat available and still expect to be served by a Retail Electric Provider (REP) who provides the option of DR services.

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Houston Chronicle

May 21, 2013

COAL’S RECORD SLUMP POISED TO END ON OUTPUT CUTS

European coal’s longest slump in at least eight years is poised to end as imports from the U.S. fall and further declines trigger production cuts at mines in Russia and Poland. Next-year prices have extended four quarters of losses to trade near $90 a metric ton, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s a “crucial” level below which some producers can’t continue to operate, said Paolo Coghe, an analyst at Societe Generale SA. Kompania Weglowa SA, Europe’s largest coal producer, is cutting output by 8 percent this year, Chief Executive Officer Joanna Strzelec-Lobodzinska said May 13 in Katowice, Poland.

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Dallas Morning News

May 21, 2013

SENATE PASSES BILL TO REFUND $630M OF ELECTRIC-BILL FEES

The Senate on Tuesday finally passed and returned to the House a dedicated-taxes bill that would advance Sen. Tommy Williams’ plan to refund $630 million of electricity-bill fees collected to help poor people but never used for that purpose. The System Benefit Fund was created by Texas’ 1999 electricity-deregulation law. It has become a political football, as lawmakers for the past decade have hoarded much of the money, to help them spend more on other programs. It’s also a key point of contention as House and Senate leaders seek to finalize their deal on the two-year state budget and related money bills.

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Alternatives & Renewables Stories

Wall St. Journal

May 21, 2013

WHITE: TO SPARK BUYERS FOR ELECTRIC CARS, DROP THE PRICE TO NEARLY $0

This car deal sounds too good to be true: Drive a car, almost free. To entice drivers to try electric-powered cars, auto makers are lowering the price of entry to the zero-emission lifestyle. A new round of discount leases on mainstream-brand plug-in cars such as the Nissan 7201.TO -0.16% Leaf or Fiat F.MI 0.00% 500e, combined with federal, state and local electric-vehicle incentives, could make a battery-electric car an extraordinarily economical way to get around for drivers. There are two big caveats: Drivers need to live in states offering tax incentives and can't drive very far in a single day.

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New York Times

May 21, 2013

ROMANIA CHANGES COURSE ON RENEWABLE ENERGY

With more wind turbines already built than any of its neighbors, Romania has gained a reputation as a prime location for green energy investors. Yet proposals now to cut subsidies for clean energy producers have deeply alarmed foreign companies drawn to its market. In recent years, the country has been host to a boom in renewable projects. Wind farm generating capacity in particular soared to 1,794 megawatts last year, from just 13.1 megawatts in 2009. Under legislation enacted in 2008 and implemented in 2011, energy distributors have been required in the past two years to purchase “green certificates” for every megawatt hour of power that they sold.

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New York Times

May 20, 2013

TRASH BURNING, WITH A CLEAN-ENERGY TWIST

The Hague — After this newspaper has been read, it may be used to line a birdcage, recycled, burned, stuffed into a landfill or converted into something even more powerful than the press: electricity. “There is a cleaner way of dealing with things that people cast away,” said Andy Harris, vice president of Waste to Energy Canada, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. “We shouldn’t see it as waste, we should see it as a source of energy.” Nowhere more so than in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Still challenged by a legacy of environmental neglect inherited from the former Soviet Union, those that have joined the European Union now must conform to strict waste directives issued by the European Commission. Poland, like others in the region, has had to amend national laws to keep within environmentally friendly European guidelines.

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New York Times

May 20, 2013

A PLAN TO BRING SUN-POWERED IRRIGATION TO POOR FARMERS

One of the finest applications of solar photovoltaic panels is in powering drip irrigation systems for farmers in hot, sunny, poor parts of the world. You don’t even need to store the electricity. The pumping is mainly needed when the sun is shining. To gauge the remarkable benefits of such systems, start with this peer-reviewed study of solar irrigation projects in Africa’s dry zone led by Jennifer Burney of the University of California, San Diego, and Stanford: “Solar-powered drip irrigation enhances food security in the Sudano–Sahel.” One of the challenges, as with many solar systems, is cost.

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Bloomberg

May 21, 2013

TESLA REPAYING LOAN FOR ‘LOSERS’ GIVES OBAMA GREEN WIN

Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA), labeled a “loser” by Mitt Romney during the U.S. election, is giving President Barack Obama’s green-energy strategy its biggest win after almost two years of failures pounced upon by Republicans. The maker of the electric Model S car as early as today will become the first recipient of a U.S. Energy Department vehicle loan to pay off its debt. The Palo Alto, California-based company will do so nine years ahead of schedule, with taxpayers making at least $12 million on the $465 million lent. Tesla’s payoff may quell critics who said Obama shouldn’t have acted like a venture capitalist in picking green-energy companies to receive government loans and grants. Republican lawmakers have held up the bad bets made on plug-in carmaker Fisker Automotive Inc., its battery supplier A123 Systems Inc. (AONEQ) and solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC as examples of rewarding untested companies for political reasons.

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Regulatory Stories

Chicago Tribune

May 21, 2013

BILL TO REGULATE FRACKING IN ILLINOIS SAILS THROUGH COMMITTEE

A bill to regulate horizontal hydraulic fracturing in Illinois sailed through a House committee Tuesday morning in a unanimous vote amid chants of "shame" from a massive opposition group of activists and residents who packed the hearing. It now heads to the full House. The hearing was highlighted by testimony by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Josh Fox, director of two anti-fracking films. Fox asked committee members how many had visited such oil and gas drilling sites. When none raised their hands, he handed out 10 copies of his film "Gasland" and asked them to watch it before passing regulations.

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The Hill

May 21, 2013

LAWMAKERS PRESS INTERIOR TO SLOW DOWN ON FRACKING RULES

The bipartisan leadership of the House Natural Resources Committee wants the Interior Department to slow down development of revised rules unveiled last week to regulate oil and gas “fracking” on public lands. The request to quadruple the public comment period from 30 days to 120 days underscores dissatisfaction with the proposal on the left and right, although not for the same reasons. “We jointly believe that this [30-day] timeframe is unacceptable and not nearly long enough to allow the public to formulate in-depth and constructive comments on this 171 page, complicated rule,” Reps. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote in a new letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

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Huffington Post

May 21, 2013

SIEGEL: 5 FATAL FLAWS IN PRESIDENT OBAMA'S NEW FRACKING REGULATIONS

They're popping up all over America's public lands, bringing toxic chemicals and dangerous pollution to beautiful wild areas and nearby farms and communities. Fracking rigs have spread like poisonous mushrooms across land managed by the federal government, which leases millions of acres a year to oil and gas companies. Most Americans don't know that 90 percent of wells drilled on our public lands are now fracked. There is, however, growing awareness of the dangers of fracking. This process, also known as hydraulic fracturing, involves blasting millions of gallons of water, mixed with industrial chemicals (including carcinogens), into the earth to fracture rock formations.

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North American Wind Power

May 20, 2013

WIND COALITION: KEEP ALIVE CHAPTER 313 FOR TEXAS ENERGY

Wind industry advocates are urging Texas legislators to support rural economic development and energy generation by opposing amendments that would reduce incentives for wind energy when they vote this week to renew the Texas Economic Development Act (H.B.3390). Also known as Chapter 313 because of its placement in the Texas Tax Code, the act is one of the most important economic development tools ever devised by the Texas legislature, says the Wind Coalition, a regional partners of the American Wind Energy Association.

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Politico

May 21, 2013

ALASKA PUSHES D.C. ON ANWR DRILLING

Alaskan officials are hoping to prod the federal government into measuring the amount of oil and gas beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and are offering state money as part of their plan to push the project forward. “Alaska is willing to help complete the work the federal government seems unwilling to do,” Gov. Sean Parnell said via webcast from a Chamber of Commerce event Monday announcing the initiative. In a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Parnell said he would seek up to $50 million in state funding for seismic testing and proposed a winter-based exploration plan to mitigate environmental impact. The hope is that the plan will not only spur Interior to act but will help the country figure out the best course for ANWR, he said.

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Politico

May 20, 2013

GREEN GROUPS: WHERE DOES OFA STAND ON KEYSTONE?

Climate activists already pessimistic about the Obama administration’s upcoming decision on the Keystone XL pipeline are seizing on another reason for worry: The president’s grass-roots political organization is refusing their pleas to take a stance against the project. Organizing for Action has been winning cheers from environmentalists for calling out climate change skeptics in Congress. But they say activists who support OFA also want the group to press President Barack Obama to oppose the pipeline, which they call a major threat to the Earth’s climate. “If you’re going to be a grass roots, you have to actually listen to the grass roots,” said Daniel Kessler, spokesman for 350.org, a group that has organized mass sit-ins in front of the White House to protest the pipeline.

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New York Times

May 20, 2013

REVKIN: WHO’S ESCAPING CLIMATE CHANGE ‘MIRE AND MUCK’?

On This American Life this weekend, Ira Glass tried to jog the climate conversation out of the “mire and muck” with an hourlong discussion of impacts and options related to human-driven global warming. Below you can offer examples of people or institutions you see avoiding the pitfalls and paralysis surrounding this “super wicked” issue. The three-part show is now broken into podcasts: Part one is a report by Julia Kumari Drapkin on the climate communication efforts of Colorado’s State Climatologist, Nolan Doesken.

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Dallas Morning News

May 21, 2013

RADIOACTIVE WASTE DUMP IN WEST TEXAS

West Texas lawmakers revived on Tuesday afternoon a bill that would allow non-compact states to store low-level radioactive waste in a West Texas facility. The original bill was killed on a point of order on Monday evening by Rep. Lon Burnam, who has been fighting the expansion of the facility run by Waste Control Systems for a dozen years. On Tuesday, bill supporters tacked the measure, SB 791, onto a bill dealing with the operations of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Disposal Compact Commission and then passed the bill with a vote of 131-12.

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May 21, 2013

Lead Stories

NPR

May 20, 2013

SHADES OF TEXAS LAW SEEN IN PROPOSED FEDERAL FRACKING GUIDLINES

As Americans watch the U.S. Bureau of Land Management develop rules to manage fracking on federal land, the Texans among them would be forgiven for wondering “what does have to do with us?” After all, due to the state’s unique history, there are virtually no federal lands in Texas. Well, the rules may have more to do with Texas than you may think. Particularly in their reliance on the online database FracFocus.org to disclose what chemicals drillers are pumping into the ground. As we reported last month, FracFocus was criticized in a report from Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law Program. It found that the database doesn’t do a good job of disclosing information and can make it more difficult for companies to comply with state regulations.

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Green Tech Media

May 20, 2013

WIND AND THE MYTH OF WIDESPREAD NEGATIVE PRICING

The increasing penetration of wind energy on U.S. grids is affecting electricity markets in a big way. First, the good news. “Nobody disputes the fact that adding more wind energy to the grid displaces more expensive sources of generation,” explained American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Transmission Policy Manager Michael Goggin. “That has two impacts. One, it reduces the total use of fuel and therefore the total fuel cost. It also drives the market price for electricity down, which is creating billions of dollars in savings for consumers." Now, the other concern.

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Texas Tribune

May 21, 2013

TEXAS POWER GRID POISED TO BE PUT TO THE TEST AGAIN

Temperatures in parts of Texas have started hitting the upper 90s, and they’re likely to stay above normal this summer, according to a forecast by federal climatologists. That means another difficult summer for the Texas power grid. In a recent report, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation projected that the Texas grid will have the lowest percentage of power reserves this summer of any region of the country. “Sustained extreme weather could be a threat to supply adequacy this summer,” the report stated.

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San Antonio Express News

May 20, 2013

REFINERY PLANNED IN LA SALLE COUNTY

A North Texas company said Monday it plans to build a 10,000-barrel-a-day refinery in La Salle County in the booming Eagle Ford Shale. Dave Martinelli, CEO of Worldwide Energy Consortium Inc. of Irving, which will build the plant, said it will refine oil from the shale and sell its fuels in the area. He said the company has plans to build “several” more plants in the region. He expects the La Salle County plant to begin operating late next year. He said the company has started the initial engineering and permitting phase.

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Oil & Gas Stories

New York Times

May 20, 2013

CHESAPEAKE ENERGY NAMES SUCCESSOR TO EX-CHIEF

Chesapeake Energy, the nation’s second-largest producer of natural gas, announced on Monday that a senior Anadarko Petroleum executive would become its chief executive next month. Robert Douglas Lawler, Anadarko’s senior vice president for international and deepwater operations, will succeed Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake’s co-founder, who was forced to step down after a shareholder uprising led by Carl C. Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management.

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New York Times

May 20, 2013

CHINA TRIES TO IMPROVE IMAGE IN A CHANGING MYANMAR

MADAY ISLAND, Myanmar — The pipelines are finished. The oil storage tanks gleam in the tropical sun. The deep-sea port set in jade-colored waters awaits the first ships bearing crude from the Middle East. China’s ambition of transporting energy through the Indian Ocean and across the mountains of Myanmar seems close to fulfillment. Natural gas is scheduled to start flowing in July from wells deep in the Bay of Bengal through a 500-mile pipeline. Oil will run in a parallel pipe at the end of the year. But for China, the cost of the pipelines has been far greater than the several billion dollars that the China National Petroleum Corporation, China’s energy giant, has spent on construction.

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New York Times

May 20, 2013

A BLACK MOUND OF CANADIAN OIL WASTE IS RISING OVER DETROIT

WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River. Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom. And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it. The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.

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Wall St. Journal

May 20, 2013

RUSSIAN DIESEL PRESSURES EUROPEAN REFINERS

A slowing economy in Russia is channelling a flood of Russian diesel fuel to Europe in a shift that could lead to a new round of closings of oil refineries. Europe's refineries, which turn crude oil into products such as gasoline and diesel, are already under pressure. The weakness of the continent's economy is cutting into demand for their output, dragging down prices and reducing profit. Since 2008, at least 16 refineries in the region have shut crude-processing capacity or said they plan to do so. Now, profits from diesel—a mainstay for refiners—are being squeezed by the influx of Russian fuel.

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Reuters

May 20, 2013

THE FIGHT FOR NORTH DAKOTA'S FRACKING-WATER MARKET

In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting." It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taking. Yet as the state's Bakken shale fields have grown, so has the fight over who has the right to tap into the multimillion-dollar market to supply water to the energy sector.

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Reuters

May 20, 2013

EU ENERGY CHIEF SAYS EU TO LOOK AT FRACKING THIS YEAR

Environmental concerns over the practice of hydraulic fracturing to tap shale gas will be on the European Union's agenda this year, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told a German newspaper. "It is absolutely right to seek to protect areas where there is drinking and ground water, like at Lake Constance. At an EU level the topic of fracking and environmental protection will be looked at more closely this year," Die Welt quoted Oettinger as saying in an article published in its online edition on Monday.

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The Street

May 20, 2013

BLANKENHOM: WHEN THE OIL BOOM TURNS TO BUST

The present recovery is fueled by, well, fuel. Fracking has uncovered huge pools of oil in Texas, Ohio and North Dakota, creating an economic boom in those places that has trickled down to the rest of the country. A Texan may have no more incentive than an Arab to give you a better price on his oil, but he does spread the wealth around, as I saw on a recent trip to Kingsville for my daughter's graduation.

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New York Times

May 20, 2013

NYHT: WHY IS RUSSIA STILL ARMING SYRIA?

The slim hope generated two weeks ago when the United States and Russia announced plans for an international conference aimed at ending Syria’s increasingly virulent civil war is fast fading — and Russia is a big reason. Instead of using its leverage as Syria’s enabler and defender to move President Bashar al-Assad toward a negotiated solution, Russia recently sent him advanced antiship cruise missiles, and there is fresh talk now of advanced A-300 air defense weapons. The Russians have also augmented their naval presence in the region.

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San Antonio Express News

May 20, 2013

BNSF, U.S. SILICA OPEN FRACKING SAND FACILITY

Chalk up another sizable investment in Bexar County — this one nearly $50 million — to the Eagle Ford Shale play. Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway Co. and Frederick, Md.-based U.S. Silica Holdings Inc. on Monday ceremoniously opened a Von Ormy facility that will store and distribute sand used in the hydraulic fracturing process in the South Texas energy fields. BNSF invested $40 million for the land and a rail loop of almost two miles at the 280-acre site off Fischer Road in the Freeport Business Centre, near Interstate 35 and Loop 410 in Southwest Bexar County.

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Bloomberg

May 21, 2013

POLAND SHALE BOOM FALTERS AS STATE TARGETS HIGHER TAXES

Poland’s shale gas boom is threatened even before it gets started after some wells failed and the government sought to increase taxes on profits. Of 39 wells planned for 2013, just two were drilled by May, Environment Ministry data show. The government plans to require that explorers take a state-run company as a production partner. It has also proposed raising taxes to almost 80 percent of profit, according to Ernst & Young estimates. The measures, announced in October, haven’t become law.

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Utilities Stories

Wall St. Journal

May 20, 2013

CLEAN-COAL EFFORT STYMIES SOUTHERN CO.

Southern Co. replaced the head of its Mississippi utility on Monday amid growing concern about the cost of a "clean coal" power plant whose estimated price tag has ballooned to $4.3 billion. The Atlanta-based utility company on Monday installed G. Edison Holland, its general counsel, as chief executive of Mississippi Power Co. following the sudden retirement of Ed Day, who had headed the Southern Co. unit since 2010.

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Alternatives & Renewables Stories

Wall St. Journal

May 20, 2013

JA SOLAR LOSS NARROWS AS REVENUE INCREASES

JA Solar Holdings Co.'s JASO +70.37% first-quarter loss narrowed as revenue increased for the first time after several quarters of declines. The Chinese solar-products maker had seen falling revenue for six straight quarters as weakened demand and a glut of global supply had sent wafer and module prices tumbling. But the company broke the streak in the first quarter, as it also reported higher shipments Monday. JA Solar reported a loss of 204.3 million yuan ($32.9 million), compared with a year-earlier loss of 250.9 million yuan. Revenue rose 4.7% to $1.68 billion.

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New York Times

May 20, 2013

U.S. AND EUROPE PREPARE TO SETTLE CHINESE SOLAR PANEL CASES

The Obama administration and the European Union have each decided to negotiate settlements with China in the world’s largest antidumping and antisubsidy trade cases involving China’s roughly $30 billion a year in solar panel shipments to the West, officials and trade advisers in Beijing, Brussels and Washington said. The plan that is starting to take shape would essentially carve up the global solar panel market into a series of regional markets. It would sharply raise the price of solar panels exported from China, the world’s dominant producer, by requiring Chinese companies to charge more while limiting the total number of solar panels they could ship.

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Regulatory Stories

Texas Tribune

May 20, 2013

LIZARD PROTECTION BILL CAUGHT IN OIL POLITICS

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs and major oil and gas interests are fighting hard to stop reforms of the species protection program that was used in the oil-rich Permian Basin to keep the feds from listing a lizard as endangered, several top Republicans say. State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, all say Combs and the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) have been lobbying heavily to water down the legislation, which is now designed to impact future species that warrant federal protection.

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Wall St. Journal

May 20, 2013

EU WIDENS PROBE INTO ENERGY PRICING

European Union authorities have widened their probe into potential energy-price manipulation in recent days, sending requests for pricing information to commodity-trading firms including Glencore Xstrata GLEN.LN -1.12% PLC, Vitol Group and Gunvor Group Ltd., say people familiar with the requests. The companies, all based in Switzerland, received written questionnaires with general questions about how fuel pricing works, these people said. A spokesman for the EU declined to comment.

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Houston Chronicle

May 20, 2013

HOUSE WANTS RR HOPEFULS TO QUIT TO RUN FOR OFFICE

The Texas House has approved a requirement that state railroad commissioners resign their posts to run for another office. After lengthy debate, lawmakers voted 91-50 Monday to attach the rule to an omnibus bill reauthorizing the Texas Ethics Commission. The amendment still has to clear the Senate. It was sponsored by Republican Rep. Dennis Bonnen of Angleton, who also sponsored the full ethics commission review bill.

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Wall St. Journal

May 20, 2013

JAPAN SET TO INVEST IN AFRICAN RESOURCES

Japan is pledging $2 billion for energy and mineral projects in Africa, capping a conference with government resource officials from across the continent as it seeks to catch up with years of Chinese investment. Japan needs to secure long-term reliable sources of natural materials. It is also eager to provide its technologies to build roads, railways and utilities, offering a competitive alternative to the Chinese state-owned companies that have helped China become Africa's dominant investor. The Japanese government funding will be used for direct loans, underwriting of debt offerings and equity stakes in projects covering crude oil, natural gas, coal and minerals over the next five years.

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K2TV

May 20, 2013

WYOMING REACTS TO PROPOSED FRACKING RULE

A proposed new hydraulic fracturing rule from the Obama administration is drawing the ire of lawmakers, industry professionals, and even environmental groups across Wyoming. The rule, announced Thursday by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, would require oil and gas companies drilling on public land to disclose the chemicals they use in the sometimes controversial drilling practice. While Wyoming was complemented on its efforts to regulate fracking by the Department of the Interior, the proposal is fairly similar to rules already in place in the Cowboy State. While the draft proposal from the Bureau of Land Management would require the disclosure of fracking fluids, drilling companies could ask to be exempt from the rule by claiming that the chemicals they use are trade secrets. The BLM, however, would be able to ask for specifics on any chemicals that were seeking trade secret exemption.

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Christian Science Monitor

May 20, 2013

DOES THE US NEED FEDERAL FRACKING REGULATIONS?

The U.S. Energy Department last week said it gave conditional authority for a facility in Texas to eventually export liquefied natural gas. New drilling technologies mean the United States could become a natural gas export leader, though opponents of LNG say that's likely to lead to more hydraulic fracturing. Last week, the government published more than 100 pages of documents that spell out what it sees as the way forward for hydraulic fracturing. The Interior Department said it took a "common sense" approach to the debate, though both sides of the argument have expressed concern. So far only one company in the United States, Cheniere Energy, has the licenses necessary to ship natural gas to the global market. The terminal at Sabine Pass was built originally for imports, but with the shale natural gas boom, that situation turned around a few years ago. The U.S. Energy Department now said it gave its preliminary approval for the export of LNG from a terminal at Quintana Island, Texas.

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Marketwatch

May 20, 2013

PROPOSED FEDERAL FRACKING RULES WEAKER THAN IN PREVIOUS DRAFT

Draft rules on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are weaker than in a previous draft and signal the Obama administration’s “accommodative” approach to unconventional oil and gas exploration and production, analysts at the Eurasia Group said in a note Monday. The new draft published last week by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management kept the requirement that operators disclose which chemicals they use in fracking, but it relaxed it somewhat. Operators would self-report their activities on industry-established FracFocus.org website only after wells have been fracked, with exemptions for the protection of “trade secrets,” rather than disclosing activity ahead of time.

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Daily Caller

May 20, 2013

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR USES OKLA. TORNADO FOR ANTI-GOP RANT OVER GLOBAL WARMING

While many Americans were tuned into news coverage of the massive damage from tornadoes ravaging the state of Oklahoma, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor to rail against his Republican colleagues for denying the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators and justified his remarks by alluding to states that seek federal assistance in the wake of natural disasters.

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Dallas Morning News

May 20, 2013

SNAG ON ELECTRICITY FEE REBATES COULD HANG UP BUDGET

Amid otherwise smooth sailing, top budget negotiators have hit a snag: They disagree over whether rebates of an electricity-bill fee are part of a session-ending deal over the budget and tax cuts. Late Friday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said part of the way in which Senate leaders accommodated House demands for $200 million more for public schools was to order the rest of the budget be cut by $100 million and to shave $100 million off the price of his pet idea to rebate $731 million of unspent money collected for low-income ratepayers’ discounts on electric bills. “That’s a very important component of the $1 billion plus tax relief package that’s contemplated by this” budget agreement, he told reporters.

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May 20, 2013

Lead Stories

NPR

May 20, 2013

UNDER NEW APPROVAL, MORE NATURAL GAS WILL BE SENT ABROAD FROM TEXAS

As a drilling boom continues in Texas and other states, the U.S. finds itself with so much natural gas that some companies now want to export domestic fuels abroad. Today, the federal Department of Energy (DOE) announced approval of a second facility, the Freeport LNG Terminal on Quintana Island, to export natural gas in liquid form to countries not party to free trade agreements with the U.S. That would mean that gas-hungry markets like Japan could start buying natural gas from Texas ports at much higher rates than domestic consumers.

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New York Times

May 18, 2013

AS TOWNS SAY NO, SIGNS OF RISING RESISTANCE TO SMART METERS

BRADY, Tex. — In October, the City Council of this Central Texas town voted unanimously to purchase advanced electric meters, known as smart meters, for the city-owned electric utility. But some residents resisted, and the smart meter vote played a large role in last weekend’s recall of the city’s mayor and the electoral defeat of two council members. Voters here passed a referendum last weekend to enshrine in the City Charter the right of residents to refuse the installation of smart meters on their property. Sheila Hemphill, an organizer of the effort, called the victory her “San Jacinto.” The reaction in Brady could signal a shift in the debate over smart meters, which collect detailed data on electricity use and transmit it to the utility using radio frequencies. A raft of bills were introduced during the legislative session that would allow individuals to keep their old meters, but all have faltered. Local resistance to smart meters, however, appears to be rising.

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Houston Chronicle

May 19, 2013

TEXAS HOUSE OKS UTILITY-BACKED BILL AFFECTING RATE CASES

Electric transmission companies scored a legislative victory Friday with state House passage of a bill prohibiting regulators from considering certain income in assessing the utilities’ rate hike requests. At issue is money that transmitters collect from customers in advance to cover federal taxes on company profits. Tax law allows them to keep that cash if losses in a parent company’s other businesses, or in other states, offset the profits they earn in Texas. The state Public Utility Commission, which sets rates for the transmission monopolies, has considered that money in calculating how much the companies can charge.

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Global Public Square

May 19, 2013

COULD FRACKING IN CHINA BE A CLIMATE GAME CHANGER?

We have been thinking about an idea in the opinion pages of the New York Times to tackle one of the great challenges of our times: cutting carbon emissions to slow down climate change. It would result in the single largest reduction of CO2 emissions globally of any feasible idea out there. But there are a couple of hitches. Let's explain. Here's the idea: it's time to help China master fracking safely. By now it's clear that fracking (the process of extracting shale gas) has dramatically lowered America's CO2 emissions. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration,

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Oil & Gas Stories

Scientific American

May 17, 2013

FRACKING CAN BE DONE SAFELY, BUT WILL IT BE?

Out of sight (and smell), natural gas slowly bubbled up into Norma Fiorentino’s private water well near the town of Dimock in northeastern Pennsylvania—in the heart of the new fracking boom in the U.S. Then, on New Year's Day 2009, when a mechanical pump flicked on and provided the spark, Fiorentino's backyard exploded. She and many others blame the blast on fracking—the colloquial name for the natural gas drilling process that combines horizontal drilling and the fracturing of shale deep underground with high-pressure water to create a path for gas to flow back up the well. The fracking revolution has freed up previously inaccessible natural gas in shale formations like the Marcellus, which underlies states from New York down to West Virginia and has been heavily tapped in Pennsylvania. On May 16 the U.S.

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Chicago Tribune

May 17, 2013

MOST HOMEOWNER'S INSURANCE POLICIES WOULD NOT COVER DAMAGE FROM FRACKING

Q: I've not seen fracking addressed in your column but I understand that doesn't mean you haven't! Most homeowners do not know their home insurance does not cover fracking, even if they have earthquake coverage, because it would be "man-made" earthquake/earth movement. Can you please comment on how homeowners can protect themselves? A: Thanks for your comment. Homeowners' insurance policies have been made "easier" to read in the last dozen or so years, but the terms and issues involved can still be complicated. Most homeowners know that if their home burns down, they can expect that their insurance company will cover them in one way or another. As with most issues that have to do with insurance, there are always limitations.

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Science Magazine

May 18, 2013

IMPACT OF SHALE GAS DEVELOPMENT ON REGIONAL WATER QUALITY

The most common problem with well construction is a faulty seal that is emplaced to prevent gas migration into shallow groundwater. The incidence rate of seal problems in unconventional gas wells is relatively low (1 to 3%), but there is a substantial controversy whether the methane detected in private groundwater wells in the area where drilling for unconventional gas is ongoing was caused by well drilling or natural processes. It is difficult to resolve this issue because many areas have long had sources of methane unrelated to hydraulic fracturing, and pre-drilling baseline data are often unavailable. Water management for unconventional shale gas extraction is one of the key issues that will dominate environmental debate surrounding the gas industry. Reuse of produced water for hydraulic fracturing is currently addressing the concerns regarding the vast quantities of contaminants that are brought to the surface.

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Reuters

May 16, 2013

GROUP FINDS SIGNS OF ANOTHER GAS FIELD OFF ISRAELI COAST

A U.S.-Israeli group drilling in the eastern Mediterranean has discovered positive signs of another natural gas field off Israel's coast, potentially boosting the country's reserves as it drafts its export policy. Texas-based Noble Energy and its Israeli partners, Avner Oil Exploration and Delek Drilling, said on Thursday they found "significant signs" of gas at an exploratory well at the Karish prospect, about 75 km (46 miles) from the coastal port of Haifa. Karish could hold 2 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, Delek Drilling said, citing a preliminary estimate, making it much smaller than the two massive Tamar and Leviathan fields recently discovered in Israeli waters.

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Dallas Business Journal

May 17, 2013

ALLEGIANCE CAPITAL PREPPING FOR FRACKING BOOM IN SOUTH KOREA

Allegiance Capital Corp. is preparing for the next fracking boom, this time in South Korea. David Mahmood, founder and chairman of Allegiance Capital Corp., told me today the company has a representative in that country with legal authority to represent Allegiance in mergers and acquisition transactions. “He can go show the major national oil companies in Korea that he legally represents Allegiance Capital and will bring buyers to us,” Mahmood said.

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Telegraph

May 18, 2013

AL-QAEDA'S SYRIAN WING TAKES OVER THE OILFIELDS ONCE BELONGING TO ASSAD

Al-Qaeda's Syrian wing is helping to finance its activities by selling the product of oilfields that once helped to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Up to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east that are now in rebel hands - in particular Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda off-shoot which is the strongest faction in this part of the country. Now the violently anti-Western jihadist group, which has been steadily extending its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local entrepreneurs, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade petrol and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.

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Houston Chronicle

May 19, 2013

COAST GUARD TO TAKE TESTIMONY ON SHELL’S ARCTIC GROUNDING

The Coast Guard will kick off hearings Monday on how a Shell rig used for Arctic Ocean exploratory drilling ended up aground off a remote Alaska island. The Kulluk was under tow and bound from the Aleutian Islands’ Dutch Harbor to a Seattle shipyard when it ran into rough Gulf of Alaska water. It broke from its towing vessel, and after four days of futile attempted hookups, ran aground New Year’s Eve in shallow water off Sitkalidak Island, near Kodiak Island. Damage to the ship led to Shell’s decision not to drill in Arctic waters in 2013.

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Dallas Morning News

May 18, 2013

2 ENERGY TRANSFER ENTITIES SURGE INTO TOP 10 DALLAS PUBLIC COMPANIES BY REVENUE

As a young boy, Kelcy Warren tagged along with his father to the oilfields of East Texas. In high school and college, he worked summers in those same fields. It was hot, dirty and dangerous. When he went to college to study civil engineering, his intent after graduating was to never spend another moment in an oil patch. “I won’t lie to you. I hated it,” Warren said. “I wanted to do anything except what my father had.” But things didn’t turn out quite as he expected. Today Warren, 57, sits atop one of the largest pipeline companies in the United States as chief executive of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP.

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Houston Chronicle

May 18, 2013

ENBRIDGE ENERGY CLEANS UP 2,500-BARREL CRUDE LEAK AT CUSHING TERMINAL

Enbridge Energy Partners is cleaning up a leak of about 2,500 barrels of crude oil Saturday at its Cushing terminal in Oklahoma. Oil leaked from a trunk line connected to a tank on the property, then flowed outside of a berm into a containment pond, according to a National Response Center filing. The cause of the leak is unknown and the report showed the line would be sealed, dug up and replaced. Workers at the Cushing south terminal noticed the leak about 2 p.m. local time, Larry Springer, an Enbridge spokesman, said in a phone interview today. The failed line and the connected tank have been isolated.

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Business Insider

May 19, 2013

THE KOCH BROTHERS HAVE BURIED AN AREA THE SIZE OF A CITY BLOCK UNDER 30 FEET OF OIL SANDS WASTE

Canada's oil sand mines will eventually produce up to 2 trillion barrels of oil and what that could mean for the environment has been debated for years. What's often overlooked though is a coke byproduct that results from refining the tar-like bitumen of the oil sands into oil. Coke is a low-quality type of coal and the Marathon Petroleum plant in Detroit has made overlooking its role in the oil sands debate impossible to ignore. The refinery was built on the Detroit River more than 70 years ago but began refining Canadian oil sand deliveries just last November. The coke waste started accumulating then. The New York Times writes that now the mound of coke towers three stories above the street, covers an entire city block, and is owned by Koch Carbon controlled by David and Charles Koch.

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Denver Post

May 19, 2013

MILLER: TREAT AND REUSE OIL AND GAS WASTEWATER? YES

I don't drink nearly as much water as an African elephant, though I probably take a few more showers. What does that tell you about my annual water use? Not much, probably, because there's no context for comparison. In the same way, understanding context is critical when we talk about water use in Colorado, particularly in relation to oil and gas drilling. Water is scarce in Colorado, and we need to reduce water demands in every sector. Oil and gas companies are fond of saying that the amount of water they use for drilling and hydraulic fracturing in Colorado is just a small percentage compared to the amount of water used in agriculture. But that's not the whole story. Unlike water used on farms and in homes and businesses, water used for fracking is almost entirely consumed the first time it is used.

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LawyersAndSettlements.com

May 18, 2013

“WE CAN LIGHT OUR WATER ON FIRE,” SAYS FRACKING VICTIM

Carroll County, OH: Joe and Dawn live in a part of Ohio that has seen a boom in the gas, oil and shale industry. And with it has come a fracking problem, to the point where they can light on fire water from their well. Because of fracking, their once artisan spring water is contaminated with methane gas. The oil and gas industry was already here when Joe and Dawn bought their 4-acre property 18 months ago, but so was their clean water. “We bought the property knowing we had fresh well water, supposedly fed by artisan springs,” Joe says. “Our whole property is surrounded by gas wells, storage tanks, a pipe line, the works.” Of course, Joe and Dawn knew the structures were here and they knew there was some gas activity before buying, but not to this extent. “If we look out our front door, there is a storage tank facility to the right, in the woods,” says Joe, “and straight across the street from us there is a well with a working pump in the middle of a field. There is also a transmission shed at the front of our property. But within the past year, this booming industry now has helicopters overhead, gas trucks up and down our street and there is hydraulic fracking everywhere.”

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Bloomberg

May 19, 2013

CAMPAIGN TO BUY LOS ANGELES TIMES HOPES TO CROWDFUND $660 MILLION

Want to buy the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and six other daily newspapers? No, I don’t mean at the newsstand. The Other 98%, a nonprofit organization, has setup a crowdfunding campaign to buy Tribune Co.’s newspaper business. The initiative is meant to prevent the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch or some other billionaire from buying it. The campaign is looking to raise $660 million in the next 31 days so it can outbid the Kochs – the high-powered, libertarian brothers known for hosting $50,000-a-plate fundraising events for Republican candidates, according to the pitch on Indiegogo, a crowdfunding site. The group promoting the campaign was founded in 2010 with the mission “to kick corporate lobbyists out of DC,” according to its website.

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Houston Chronicle

May 17, 2013

TEXAS JOINS OTHER GULF STATES IN SUING BP FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE DUE TO 2010 OIL SPILL

Texas on Friday joined other Gulf Coast states suing BP for environmental damage caused by the 2010 oil spill. Texas’ suit seeks natural resources damages, economic damages and civil penalties. Louisiana and Alabama sued initially, while Florida and Mississippi sued last month around the three-year anniversary of the disaster. Texas officials said in a statement their filing “follows years of work with Texas’ sister Gulf states and the federal government, as well as BP, to resolve damages associated with harm caused to the Gulf.”

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Houston Chronicle

May 17, 2013

JUDGE DELAYS TRIAL FOR EX-BP ENGINEER CHARGED IN GULF OIL SPILL CASE

A federal judge Friday delayed for nearly six months the trial of a former BP engineer charged with obstruction of justice stemming from his actions after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duval said in a court filing that Kurt Mix’ trial, which had been set for June 10, will now begin Dec. 2. The delay was requested by Mix’s lawyer, who said the defense needs more time to prepare. The government did not oppose a delay.

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Alternatives & Renewables Stories

Dallas Morning News

May 18, 2013

FLOWER MOUND MAN’S FIGHT OVER SOLAR PANELS PROMPTS REVIEW OF REGULATIONS

Flower Mound resident Jay Squyres is passionate about going green. He’s a proud owner of one of the first Tesla electric vehicles in the Dallas area. The car has “NO OPEC” emblazoned on the license plate. But his strong — some might say extreme — commitment to solar energy has put him at odds with his homeowners association. It’s also prompted some officials to consider whether new regulations are needed to govern solar panels in residential areas.

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Slate

May 18, 2013

WASHINGTON IS OUTDOING CALIFORNIA AND TEXAS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY

California and Texas might be leading the nation’s rollout of solar and wind power, respectively, but Washington, where hydroelectric dams provide over 60 percent of the state’s energy, was the country’s biggest user of renewable power in 2011, according to new statistics released last week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Hydro continued to be the overwhelmingly dominant source of renewable power consumed nationwide, accounting for 67 percent of the total, followed by wind with 25 percent, geothermal with 4.5 percent, and solar with 3.5 percent. The new EIA data is the latest official snapshot of how states nationwide make use of renewable power, from industrial-scale generation to rooftop solar panels, and reveals an incredible gulf between leaders like Washington, California, and Oregon, and states like Rhode Island and Mississippi that use hardly any.

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Houston Chronicle

May 17, 2013

RENEWABLE POWER GENERATION GREW 7 PERCENT IN TEXAS LAST YEAR

Electric generation from renewable sources increased 7 percent in 2012 in Texas, according to the latest figures from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The council, which operates the power grid for most of the state, reported that energy from renewable fuel sources reached 33.9 million megawatt-hours, up 7 percent from 2011. The vast majority of that — more than 32.5 million megawatt-hours — came from wind power.

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Dallas Business Journal

May 17, 2013

SOLAR SHINES AS FASTEST GROWING ENERGY SOURCE FOR ERCOT

Solar power generation grew by 265 percent from 2011 to 2012 the Electric Reliability Council of Texas reported yesterday. But wind power makes up the majority of the state’s renewable electricity supply -- 95 percent -- with 32.5 million megawatt hours of generation, according to ERCOT. Overall, renewable energy grew by 7 percent during that span, according to ERCOT.

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Regulatory Stories

Washington Post

May 16, 2013

ERNEST MONIZ CONFIRMED AS ENERGY SECRETARY

n a unanimous vote, the Senate has confirmed physicist Ernest Moniz as secretary of energy. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor replaces Steven Chu. The vote was 97 to 0 and comes on same day that committees cleared a key judicial nominee, as well as Obama’s candidates to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and Labor Department. The Senate Energy Committee approved Moniz’s nomination on April 18, but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) held up a full Senate vote in protest of budget cuts for a nuclear processing facility in his home state.

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UPI

May 17, 2013

BRITAIN: MORE THAN 300 LICENSES GRANTED SINCE FRACKING BAN WAS LIFTED

Britain said this week it has issued more than 300 licenses for onshore oil and natural gas exploration since a ban on shale gas hydraulic fracturing was lifted. British Energy Minister Michael Fallon, speaking in the House of Commons Wednesday before a newly formed parliamentary group on unconventional oil and gas, said the government has been busily promoting shale development since a moratorium on "fracking" was removed in December.

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BNA

May 17, 2013

REVISED PROPOSAL ON FRACKING EMPHASIZES FLEXIBILITY, COORDINATION WITH STATE RULES

The Interior Department released a revised proposed rule May 16 to govern hydraulic fracturing as a part of oil and natural gas drilling on federal and Indian lands. The new proposal emphasizes integration with existing state and tribal standards, increases flexibility for oil and gas developers in testing a wellbore for integrity, and clarifies chemical disclosure requirements. Where state or tribal regulations meet or exceed federal standards, compliance could be achieved by meeting the state or tribal regulations. Interior's Bureau of Land Management would work with the state or tribal officials “to craft variances that would allow technologies, processes or standards required or allowed by the State or tribe to be accepted as compliance with the rule,” according to the proposed rule.

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Guardian

May 16, 2013

UK SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR EU IMPORT OF CANADIAN TAR SANDS OIL

Britain has given its clearest signal yet that it wants to allow European countries to import carbon-intensive tar sands oil from Canada. Leaked papers seen by the Guardian show that in EU negotiations on laws intended to encourage the use of low-carbon transport fuels, the UK has rejected language that would class tar sands oil as more polluting than conventional crude or other fuels. The European commission has proposed labelling the oil as "highly polluting" under its fuel quality directive, a move that would deter countries importing it. Studies suggest that oil from tar sands produces more than one-fifth more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude.

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Christian Science Monitor

May 18, 2013

NEW FRACKING REGULATIONS UPSET JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY

New draft regulations on a controversial drilling method are drawing fire from both sides of the hydraulic fracturing debate. The technique, which involves injecting large amounts of water, sand, and chemicals into the ground to release oil and gas, has helped to spark a boom in US energy production. Environmentalists say the proposal by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) does not go far enough in overseeing "fracking" on public lands. Citing preexisting state regulations, oil and gas representatives say the federal oversight is redundant and curtails an industry that supports millions of jobs. “States have led the way in regulating hydraulic fracturing operations while protecting communities and the environment for decades," Erik Milito, director of upstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement

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New York Times

May 18, 2013

NYT: CLIMATE WARNINGS, GROWING LOUDER

The news that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the most important global warming gas, have hit 400 parts per million for the first time in millions of years increases the pressure on President Obama to deliver on his pledges to limit this country’s greenhouse gas emissions. America cannot solve a global problem by itself. But as Mr. Obama rightly observed in his inaugural address, the United States, as both major polluter and world leader, has a deep obligation to help shield the international community from rising sea levels, floods, droughts and other devastating consequences of a warming planet. In his State of the Union speech, he promised to take executive action if Congress failed to pass climate legislation.

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San Antonio Express News

May 17, 2013

REGULATORS SAY TESORO CAN BUY BP REFINERY

Tesoro Corp. is on track to become California's largest refiner, with the company saying Friday that the Federal Trade Commission cleared the way for its planned acquisition of BP PLC's refinery in Carson, Calif. The purchase price is $2.375 billion, Tesoro said. The locally based company said it plans to close the acquisition, which includes retail stores and logistics assets, during the second quarter, which ends June 30. “We are pleased the FTC has concluded its review, and we can close this transformational acquisition as planned,” Tesoro CEO Greg Goff said in a statement. “This transaction is a unique opportunity for Tesoro to combine the best aspects of two West Coast refining, marketing and logistics businesses, resulting in a more efficient world-scale integrated refining, marketing and logistics system.”

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San Antonio Express News

May 19, 2013

PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS A NECESSARY TRANSPORTATION TOOL

The financial reality for the state is that the gas tax is no longer enough. Increased vehicle mileage per gallon and rising construction costs means we are driving more miles while getting less for our gas tax dollars. Both of these trends will continue. We can increase other revenue streams to fund roads and stop diverting money out of the transportation fund to pay for other things, but without the help of the private sector it will never be enough. There is a bill before the Legislature now to ensure the continuance of public/private partnerships. SB 1730 is currently in conference committee. It would extend the state's authority to enter into public/private partnerships for specific projects and ensure that we can continue to partner with leading global companies to make transportation investments where we need them the most. There is no single solution to our traffic problem, but there is a single result if we do nothing.

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Daily Caller

May 19, 2013

OBAMA ADMIN’S NEW FRACKING RULES ATTACKED BY INDUSTRY, ENVIRONMENTALISTS

The Obama administration’s new rules governing hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are drawing criticism from environmentalists and the oil and gas industry alike. “States have led the way in regulating hydraulic fracturing operations while protecting communities and the environment for decades,” said Erik Milito, director of upstream and industry operations at the American Petroleum Institute. “While changes to the proposed rule attempt to better acknowledge the state role, [the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)] has yet to answer the question why BLM is moving forward with these requirements in the first place.”

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Washington Post

May 19, 2013

SMITH: OVERHEATED RHETORIC ON CLIMATE CHANGE DOESN’T MAKE FOR GOOD POLICIES

Climate change is an issue that needs to be discussed thoughtfully and objectively. Unfortunately, claims that distort the facts hinder the legitimate evaluation of policy options. The rhetoric has driven some policymakers toward costly regulations and policies that will harm hardworking American families and do little to decrease global carbon emissions. The Obama administration’s decision to delay, and possibly deny, the Keystone XL pipeline is a prime example. The State Department has found that the pipeline will have minimal impact on the surrounding environment and no significant effect on the climate. Recent expert testimony before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology confirms this finding. In fact, even if the pipeline is approved and is used at maximum capacity, the resulting increase in carbon dioxide emissions would be a mere 12 one-thousandths of 1 percent (0.0012 percent).

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New York Times

May 14, 2013

A CHANGE IN TEMPERATURE

Since 1896, scientists have been trying to answer a deceptively simple question: What will happen to the temperature of the earth if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles? Some recent scientific papers have made a splash by claiming that the answer might not be as bad as previously feared. This work — if it holds up — offers the tantalizing possibility that climate change might be slow and limited enough that human society could adapt to it without major trauma. Several scientists say they see reasons to doubt that these lowball estimates will in fact stand up to critical scrutiny, and a wave of papers offering counterarguments is already in the works. “The story is not over,” said Chris E. Forest, a climate expert at Pennsylvania State University.

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Politico

May 20, 2013

GREEN GROUPS: WHERE DOES OFA STAND ON KEYSTONE?

Climate activists already pessimistic about the Obama administration’s upcoming decision on the Keystone XL pipeline are seizing on another reason for worry: The president’s grass-roots political organization is refusing their pleas to take a stance against the project. Organizing for Action has been winning cheers from environmentalists for calling out climate change skeptics in Congress. But they say activists who support OFA also want the group to press President Barack Obama to oppose the pipeline, which they call a major threat to the Earth’s climate. “If you’re going to be a grass roots, you have to actually listen to the grass roots,” said Daniel Kessler, spokesman for 350.org, a group that has organized mass sit-ins in front of the White House to protest the pipeline. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/green-environment-pipeline-ofa-keystone-91597.html#ixzz2TpoDOu5j

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Bloomberg

May 19, 2013

ENRON NO LESSON TO TRADERS AS EU PROBES OIL-PRICE MANIPULATION

Enron Corp.’s 2001 collapse revealed the extent of its manipulation of spot gas prices. Twelve years later, European Union regulators may discover energy traders never learned the lessons of the scandal. BP Plc (BP/), Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Platts were visited by EU inspectors last week over allegations they “colluded in reporting distorted prices” to manipulate the published prices of oil and biofuel products, the European Commission in Brussels said after the raids.

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May 17, 2013

Lead Stories

Chicago Tribune

May 16, 2013

OHIO'S WELL DATA SHATTERS SHALE OIL HOPES

U.S. hopes for a new shale oil bonanza in Ohio, joining the prolific Bakken and Eagle Ford plays that have raised production to 20-year highs, were shattered on Thursday by the first hard evidence that the Utica formation was primarily gas-prone. Just two years ago, the Utica had the global oil industry buzzing as companies rushed to buy acreage in the Midwest state in the belief it could hold a $500-billion bounty, as Chesapeake Energy's former CEO, Aubrey McClendon, had proclaimed. Now, data from Ohio's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) showed that in 2012, the first full year of drilling, oil output amounted to only 636,000 barrels -- about enough to fill a single small crude oil tanker. On average for the full year, output came to a mere 1,742 barrels a day (bpd) versus 780,000 bpd in North Dakota, where much of Bakken lies.

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Reuters

May 16, 2013

NEW FRACKING RULES ATTEMPT TO PLACATE OPPOSING CAMPS

The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a new proposal for regulating hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, rolling back some measures from its original, abandoned draft as it sought to ease concerns the rules would be too burdensome for producers. The U.S. Interior Department scrapped a proposal from 2012 after drawing heat from green groups and the drilling industry over rules aimed at updating decades-old fracking regulations. "Our thorough review of all the comments convinced us that we could maintain a strong level of protection of health, safety, and the environment while allowing for increased flexibility and reduced regulatory duplication," Interior's Bureau of Land Management Principal Deputy Director Neil Kornze said in a statement.

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Bloomington Pantagraph

May 16, 2013

'GASLAND II": OSCAR NOMIMEE'S SEQUEL TO PREMIERE AT NORMAL THEATER

NORMAL — It’s not unusual for regular mainstream movies to get a sequel, But it is fairly rare in the world of documentary features — especially Oscar-nominated ones such as 2010’s “Gasland,” the feature-length critique of fracking, the controversial method of natural gas drilling blamed for assorted environmental ills, including groundwater and surface-water contamination. The indelible image from the film was the spectacle of a Colorado homeowner placing a lit match under a water faucet, which then ignited like an oven-burner.

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Oil & Gas Stories

New York Times

May 16, 2013

SYRIA BEGINS TO BREAK APART UNDER PRESSURE FROM WAR

The black flag of jihad flies over much of northern Syria. In the center of the country, pro-government militias and Hezbollah fighters battle those who threaten their communities. In the northeast, the Kurds have effectively carved out an autonomous zone. After more than two years of conflict, Syria is breaking up. A constellation of armed groups battling to advance their own agendas are effectively creating the outlines of separate armed fiefs. As the war expands in scope and brutality, its biggest casualty appears to be the integrity of the Syrian state.

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Bloomberg

May 17, 2013

OIL PRICE-FIXING PROBE WIDENS AS NESTE HELPS EU INQUIRY

The European oil price-fixing probe expanded as Neste Oil Oyj (NES1V), Finland’s only refiner, said it was asked to provide information regarding potential manipulation of global crude and biofuel markets. The widening investigation comes as Pannonia Ethanol, a Hungarian biofuel producer, said it lodged a complaint with the European Commission last year after data-pricing company Platts denied requests to contribute to its price-setting process. Meanwhile, Statoil ASA (STL), one of the European oil companies that has been ensnared in the investigation, said it has “zero tolerance” for breaches of rules.

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Bloomberg

May 17, 2013

FUEL OIL RALLY TO END WITH EUROPE SWAMPING ASIA

The premium traders in Asia are paying for the earliest deliveries of fuel oil is poised to slide from an eight-month high as Europe floods the region with excess supplies and Chinese refinery demand wanes. Deliveries to Singapore in June will cost an average $1.25 a metric ton more than July contracts in the second half of this month, according to the median estimate of five traders surveyed by Bloomberg this week. The difference was $4.50 on May 1, the most since September 2012, and averaged $2.36 in the first half of the month.

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Platts

May 16, 2013

MORE FUN IN VERMONT: A NATURAL GAS PIPELINE PROJECT IN THE LAND OF A FRACKING BAN

The schizophrenic battles over natural gas in Vermont — a state that was the first to have its governor sign a permanent fracking ban – just keep coming. At the heart of the latest issue is a plan by Vermont Gas, the state’s natural gas utility, to add a 41-mile extension to its existing 750 miles of natural gas pipelines in the state. The new line would extend service to Middlebury, home of Middlebury College. And that’s where Bill McKibben works. McKibben is a Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury. But more importantly, he has become the spiritual and organizational leader of several key anti-fossil fuel movements, including those to stop the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and a push to have colleges divest from their endowments the stocks of any fossil fuel companies. And now, here would come steel in the ground to his place of business, a delivery mechanism built to be long-term, not temporary.

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Reuters

May 16, 2013

KEMP: ENHANCED RECOVERY WILL ANCHOR OIL PRICES BELOW $100

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques could boost U.S. domestic oil production by 4 million barrels per day for 50 years, while storing all the emissions from 93 large coal-fired power plants, at a price of just $85 per barrel, according to an estimate published by the U.S. Department of Energy. By injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into depleted oil fields, the United States could recover an extra 67 billion barrels of oil and simultaneously trap 18 billion tonnes of manmade greenhouse gases safely underground. ("Improving domestic energy security and lowering CO2 emissions with 'next generation' CO2-enhanced oil recovery" June 2011)

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CBS News

May 16, 2013

CANADIAN PM: OIL GOING TO U.S. ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

A controversial oil pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast "absolutely needs to go ahead," Canada's prime minister said Thursday, and he warned that the oil will be transported through America one way or another. Stephen Harper addressed the Keystone XL project, a flashpoint in the debate over climate change, during a visit to New York City. The long-delayed project carrying oil from Canada's tar sands would need approval from the State Department, and Harper's remarks with the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson, in the audience were meant to apply some pressure.

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Wall St. Journal

May 16, 2013

NEW STUDY: FRACKING HASN'T POLLUTED ARKANSAS WATER

Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas hasn't contaminated drinking water wells in Arkansas, according to a new study, but researchers said the geology there may be more of a natural barrier to pollution than in other areas where shale gas drilling takes place. The most passionate critics and supporters of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, often describe the process in extremes, suggesting it is either inherently dangerous for the environment or that it poses virtually no risk at all. But Avner Vengosh, a Duke University professor of geochemistry and water quality, said making generalizations about fracking in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Colorado doesn't make scientific sense.

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Borderzine

May 16, 2013

BP EXEC TELLS HOW HE FACED THE DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL CRISIS

EL PASO — After thousands of barrels of oil began gushing from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig into the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, the company scrambled to contain and explain one of the biggest oil disasters in history. Henry De La Garza, a 1971 University of Texas at El Paso, graduate, was called on to represent BP. De La Garza, 63, returned to his alma mater on May 9, to share his experience with business and communication students. He recounted the steps taken.

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Foreign Policy

May 16, 2013

IS VENEZUELA BECOMING A FAILED STATE?

Venezuela remains mired in a political and economic crisis that shows no signs of letting up. But while street protests, soaring inflation, scarcity, and skyrocketing crime are massive headaches, the government can count on still-high oil prices to soothe the pain a bit. The question that begs asking is: How will Venezuela maintain stability if oil prices drop? A recent report by the International Energy Agency underscores the challenges the country faces in the short term. The United States has made huge progress in oil extraction thanks to fracking technology.

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Houston Chronicle

May 16, 2013

SHALE DRILLING BOOSTS OHIO GAS AND OIL OUTPUT

Officials say drilling in Ohio’s Utica shale region nearly doubled the output of oil and natural gas there since 2011. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced Thursday that the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the shale region of eastern Ohio increased the oil output by 93 percent and the natural gas output by 80 percent in that time.

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Utilities Stories

Texas Tribune

May 17, 2013

INFRASTRUCTURE CONSTRAINTS LOOM AS TEXAS GROWS

Touting Texas’ low taxes and light regulations, Gov. Rick Perry has relished trying to poach jobs from other states. In February, he described building a business in California as “next to impossible.” Last month, he warned Illinois entrepreneurs to “get out while there’s still time.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had a ready retort: “We don’t have to measure our showers like they do in Texas.” Emanuel’s jab was well aimed. Texas’ drought and water-supply problems have captured headlines and inspired frank, worried comments from Texas officials. But with the state’s rapid population growth projected to continue in future decades, other infrastructure problems also loom, including clogged roads and a strained power grid.

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BusinessWeek

May 16, 2013

ENERGY FUTURE’S WOES STUNT ONCOR’S POWER GROWTH AMBITIONS

Oncor Electric Delivery Co., Texas’ largest power utility, may not be able to take full advantage of the nation’s fastest-growing electricity market because of capital constraints lingering from its parent’s 2007 leveraged buyout. Oncor would have to cut dividend payments to Energy Future Holdings Corp. if the Texas electricity distributer wanted to fund another major project in the state where it serves more than 3 million homes and business, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Bob Shapard said. “The biggest challenge we have today is access to capital,” Shapard said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg News in Dallas. “If we wanted to go out and expand and do some things, the only source we would have for equity capital is to hold back dividends.”

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Austin American Statesman

May 14, 2013

POLITIFACT TEXAS: MAYOR LEFFINGWELL, WITH SPELMAN, SAYS NEARLY A MILLION PEOPLE ARE "COMING TO TOWN" IN NEXT 20 YEARS -- MOSTLY FALSE

Austin’s city-owned utility, Austin Energy, needs more expert oversight than the Austin City Council can provide, Mayor Lee Leffingwell suggested in an opinion article he wrote with Council Member Bill Spelman. "We’ve got 20-odd departments to watch over and — with nearly a million people coming to town in the next 20 years — incredible housing, land use, and transportation problems," the pair said in the piece placed online by the Austin American-Statesman on May 5, 2013. A million people on the way? Pack. The. Bags.

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Reuters

May 16, 2013

NORTH AMERICA HAS ENOUGH SUMMER POWER, BUT TEXAS PROBLEM POSSIBLE

North America should have enough power to meet electricity demands this summer, the region's electric reliability organization said on Thursday. But continued growth in power demand with only a small increase in power resources could cause problems in Texas, and a prolonged nuclear plant outage could keep power supplies tight in California, the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) said. NERC is a not-for-profit entity that develops and enforces power reliability standards in the United States. Its territory covers the continental United States, Canada and the northern portion of Baja California in Mexico.

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Ft. Worth Star Telegram

May 16, 2013

ONCOR ELECTRIC DELIVERY SAYS EXPANSION IS LIMITED BY PARENT COMPANY’S DEBT

Oncor Electric Delivery may not be able to take full advantage of the nation’s fastest-growing electricity market because of capital constraints lingering from its parent’s 2007 leveraged buyout. Oncor would have to cut dividend payments to Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings if the electricity distributor wanted to fund another major project in Texas, where it serves more than 3 million homes and businesses, said Bob Shapard, Oncor’s chief executive officer. “The biggest challenge we have today is access to capital,” Shapard said during an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday. “If we wanted to go out and expand and do some things, the only source we would have for equity capital is to hold back dividends.”

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Regulatory Stories

San Antonio Express News

May 16, 2013

FEDERAL FRACKING PROPOSAL DRAWS FIRE FROM ALL SIDES

The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled its latest plan to tighten standards for drilling on public lands and force companies to reveal the chemicals they use in the process after making significant concessions to the oil industry. Rewritten in response to a flood of criticism from both environmentalists and the oil industry, the new proposal left both groups unsatisfied. Conservationists said the proposal didn't go far enough to protect drinking water near drilling sites, with Earthjustice's Jessica Ennis accusing the administration of having “caved to the wealthy and powerful oil and gas industry.”

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NPR

May 16, 2013

CENTRAL TEXAS WATER FIGHT COULD HAVE STATEWIDE IMPLICATIONS

It’s easy to understand why Rick Knall would be nervous with outside businesses taking water from his neck of the woods. Knall is a property owner in Bastrop County who relies on his well. “Our well has been a godsend it has been pumping strong good clean fresh water for a number of years,” he said at a hearing of the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District last night. Like many others at the hearing, he worried that that steady supply could dry up with more straws in the ground. But the question of whether the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District would move ahead granting new permits had resonance beyond this Central Texas community.

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Bloomberg

May 16, 2013

MAJOR U.S. CITIES ARE AT RISK FOR CLIMATE-RELATED WATER SHORTAGE: REPORT

Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, and San Diego are among the cities most likely to face water scarcity as climate change increases drought potential, a study released May 15 found. Along with the potentially 40 million Americans affected in these cities, several “breadbasket region” states such as Nebraska, Illinois, and Minnesota also made the list of vulnerable areas. The report, America's Water Risk: Water Stress and Climate Variability, examined how climate could affect “vulnerability to short and long term droughts,” Upmanu Lall, director of the Columbia University Water Center, told BNA in an email.The study by Columbia University Water Center, Veolia Water, and Growing Blue highlighted the increased risk of water scarcity in cities and counties across the United States as climate change increases drought potential.

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Reuters

May 16, 2013

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. APPROVAL OF BP REFINERY SALE TO TESORO SEEN IMMINENT

Independent western U.S. refiner Tesoro Corp (TSO.N) may take ownership of BP Plc's (BP.L) 240,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Carson, California, as early as June 1, sources familiar with the transaction said on Thursday. Other sources told Reuters that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which assessed the deal to ensure that it complied with antitrust law, is prepared to approve the purchase within days. That approval could come as early as Friday, said one source with knowledge of discussions between the company and the agency. It was not known if the FTC will place conditions on the deal's approval.

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Wall St. Journal

May 16, 2013

TEXAS PUC APPROVES ETT APPLICATION TO BUILD LAREDO-TO-RIO GRANDE VALLEY TRANSMISSION LINE

The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) unanimously approved May 9 an application by Electric Transmission Texas, LLC (ETT) for a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) to build a 345-kV transmission line from the Laredo area into the Rio Grande Valley. The transmission project includes construction of approximately 156 miles of 345-kV transmission lines that will connect ETT's Lobo Substation near Laredo with substations north of Edinburg and will add two new substations along the line route. The cost of the project is estimated at approximately $318 million.

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Albany Times Union

May 16, 2013

BILL: BAN FRACKING POLLUTANTS FOR TREATMENT OR DUMPING IN STATE

Albany -- State Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk was joined Wednesday by opponents of the natural gas drilling technique known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing to announce she'll introduce a bill to ban "the treatment, discharge, disposal, transportation or storage" of hydrofracking waste products in New York state." The legislation, which is so new it currently lacks an Assembly sponsor, is meant to wall off the Empire State from what fracking opponents describe as a steady stream coming over the border from Pennsylvania, where the technique has been used for several years in the gas-bearing Marcellus Shale region.

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Business Insider

May 16, 2013

ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY, REGULATORS ARE GETTING BULLIED OVER FRACKING

More than four years after America's hydraulic fracturing boom kicked off, conflicts of interest between officials charged with regulating the controversial practice and the oil and gas industry remain widespread. Meanwhile, in-depth studies of fracking's effects on human health and the environment remain scant. Conflicts of interest and undue corporate influence among drilling regulators features prominently in "Gasland II," documentarian Josh Fox's follow-up to his high-profile 2010 film "Gasland." "Gasland II" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last month.

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UPI

May 16, 2013

BRITISH GOVERNMENT READY FOR FRACKING

There's nothing standing in the way of new drilling plans for shale gas resources in the country, British Energy Minister Michael Fallon said. The British government last year lifted a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of shale natural gas resources in light of new risk controls. Fracking operations were suspended after Cuadrilla Resources in 2011 reported minor tremors associated with natural gas operations in the country.

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Politico

May 16, 2013

EPA ADDRESSES BIAS COMPLAINTS

Amid allegations from House Republicans that it showed a bias for liberal groups, the EPA will audit its fee-waiver process for Freedom of Information Act requests, acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe said Thursday. “We’ve just seen the scandal that’s erupted over the IRS targeting conservative groups,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said to Perciasepe at Thursday’s EPA budget hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee. “What’s your response to something of a similar nature happening at the EPA?” Several committee members were riled by the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute’s recent report charging that the EPA routinely grants fee waivers for Freedom of Information Act requests to green groups while denying them to CEI and the American Tradition Institute.

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Copyright May 23, 2013, Harvey Kronberg, www.texasenergyreport.com, All rights are reserved