“Tariffs will cause more problems than they solve.”
– The National Association of Manufacturers

The TER Buzz:

In Depth: Republican Party of Texas Platform Targets Smart Meters, Carbon Taxes, Ethanol and Flooding

June 19, 2018
 
“‘Climate Change’ is a political agenda promoted to control every aspect of our lives. We support the defunding of ‘climate justice’ initiatives and abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency and repeal of the Endangered Species Act [Federal/State]”
 
The Republican Party of Texas released its new platform statement over the weekend, following its state convention in San Antonio, taking a stand against smart meters, ethanol legislation, carbon taxes and excessive use of eminent domain laws…

Texas Is King Of Helium — For Now

Recoverable helium can be hard to find, tough to ship and expensive to process, but new tech and new uses are bringing the byproduct of natural gas exploration into a new market frontier in which profit — and common use — is beginning to soar.

June 15, 2018

 

Some Texas companies are working to supply a different kind of natural gas that’s increasingly in demand — helium.

With new technology supporting the transportation of helium from wellhead to processing plant, shortages of past years now look to be greatly reduced.

Past problems in the markets have included the inability to recover helium at natural gas well sites because the gas required quick processing and few wells were near processing centers, resulting in occasional shortages; a shortage last year resulted from the closing of two production plants in Qatar because of political squabbles, effectively shutting down 25% of the worldwide commercial helium supply.

The Qatar plants are back open, but demand is growing as the gas comes under increasing industrial use, like the cooling of semiconductors for use in cell phones and computers…

Net Crude Oil And Petroleum Imports Drop To Historic Low

By Alex Mills

 

Net crude oil and petroleum imports declined in 2017 to a record low, and the federal government expects net imports to decline even further this year.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported this week that total U.S. crude oil and petroleum product net imports will fall from an annual average of 3.7 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2017 to an average of 2.5 million b/d in 2018 and to 1.6 million b/d in 2019, which would be the lowest level of net oil imports since 1959.

Net imports peaked in 2005 at 12.5 million b/d and have decline 70 percent or 8.8 million b/d by 2017…

Crude Oil Prices Decline

By Alex Mills

 

Crude oil futures hit a speed bump last week amid rumors that some crude oil producing countries were going to increase their production soon.

Prices on the international exchange for Brent crude futures declined from its high of $80 per barrel to $75.

In the U.S., futures prices for 30-day delivery on NYMEX declined to $64.75 from $70 a week ago.

Of course, all of this impacted refined products, most notably gasoline…