Denton Joins With Utilities and Cities To Buy Solar, Sierra Club Hopes To See Resulting Close of Gibbons Creek Coal Plant

November 15, 2018

 

The City of Denton is joining with other public utilities in two new contracts for the purchase of electricity from solar energy farms.

The success of the solar purchase project implies that the Gibbons Creek coal plant could be nearing the end of its usefulness….
 

TIPRO Announces LNG Awareness Events, Congratulates Cheniere On New Corpus Export Terminal

November 15, 2018

 

Today Cheniere Energy announced the opening of its new Corpus Christi liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal. The Corpus Christi Liquefaction facility is Cheniere’s second LNG export facility in the U.S. and the first LNG facility in the state of Texas. The following statement can be attributed to Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO):…
 

Oil prices decline, natural gas prices rise

By Alex Mills

 

November 15, 2018

 

While crude oil prices have declined 27 percent since Oct. 1, natural gas prices broke through the $4 barrier this week for the first time in four years.

On the crude oil side, worldwide demand has declined while supplies have increased.

Crude oil production in the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia reached some of their highest levels in history last month, offsetting supply losses from Iran and Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia announced that it would cut exports by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in December, and it is working with OPEC+, which is the new organization that includes some non-OPEC members such as Russia, to cut about 1 million bpd of production.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said this week OPEC production for 2018 and 2019 will be revised up by 60,000 bpd to 39.1 million bpd.

U.S. oil production also increased to 11.4 million bpd.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased for the sixth consecutive week from Sept. 21 through Oct. 26, and pushed the U.S. inventories higher than their five-year (2013-17) average. U.S. crude oil inventories are forecast to increase from 421 million barrels in 2018 to 472 million barrels in 2019, putting more downward pressure on domestic oil prices, according to EIA…
 

California Company Acquires Funding For Interim Solution to Gas Pump Credit Card Fraud

November 15, 2018

 

Texas consumers are no strangers to fraud at the gas pumps — there have been hundreds of “skimmers” found at gas pumps over the past few years, some of them in the Austin area — but there may be a short term solution rather than the credit card company-mandated wholesale replacement of credit card readers….
 

More Than One-Third of Nation’s Nuclear Plants at Risk of Early Closure or Slated for Retirement: Union of Concerned Scientists

Environmentalist nonprofit cites benefits in fighting climate change in calling for financially strapped nuclear power plants to remain open, joining increasing activist calls to back nuclear for its low carbon footprint despite longstanding concerns about nuclear’s safety.

 

November 8, 2018
 
More than one-third of the United States’ nuclear power fleet—21 of 60 facilities that provide low-carbon electricity—will be or could be shuttered in the next decade before their operating licenses expire and replaced primarily by natural gas and coal, according to an analysis released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) that assessed the economic viability of the U.S. nuclear power industry.

The plants, which are mostly smaller, single reactor plants, provide more than one-fifth of the country’s nuclear power.

According to the report, early nuclear retirements pose no threat to the nation’s electricity reliability and resilience.

The threat is the potential replacement of their low-carbon electricity with fossil fuels.

“The United States is facing a dilemma,” said Steve Clemmer, co-author and director of energy research and analysis at UCS….
 

Voters defeat three referendums on energy

By Alex Mills

 

November 8, 2018

 

The energy industry won three referendums on Tuesday that would have made energy production more expensive in Colorado, Washington and Arizona.

Environmental groups sought to make production of fossil fuels more expensive by mandating restrictions on production, taxing emissions, and requiring increased usage of renewable sources.

The referendum in Colorado, Proposition 112, failed 58 percent to 42 percent. It sought to increase the distance of new drilling locations, processing plants and gathering lines to occupied buildings from 500 feet to 2,500 feet.

Another proposal on the Colorado ballot would have allowed property owners to be compensated if their property had been devalued because of government action was defeated 53 percent to 47 percent.

Colorado, like many states, has increased its production since 2001 by 10-fold to 450,000 barrels per day making it the sixth largest oil-producing state….
 

Followup: Environmentalists, E&Ps — and Wyoming — Closely Watched the Colorado Vote, Even As Wind Power Ramps Up In Both States

November 8, 2018

 

Environmental activists, oil and gas exploration companies and politicians were joined by an unexpected ally in their concern over a proposed Colorado law that would have had enormous impacts had the law passed, reducing oil output in the booming state by more than 50% within a few years.

Voters rejected Proposition 112 Tuesday night, stopping a plan to increase by five times the number of feet oil and gas developments would be set back from schools, hospitals and homes, from 500 feet to 2,500 feet.

Oil and gas companies had lobbied officials in Colorado — where the shale boom has the oil and gas business booming — and political committees had spent $30 million to help the defeat, but all the while the neighboring state of Wyoming was watching closely, officials wondering what effect the passage of the new law might have on them.

Operators in Wyoming produced more than 75 million barrels of oil last year, far less than Colorado’s 130 million, but officials wondered: If production in its neighboring state was mostly shut down, wouldn’t that mean intensified exploration and production in Wyoming?

A number of residents of the Cowboy State travel to work in the oil fields of Colorado, where there are already an estimated 100,000 people working the rigs and support companies, and while some E&P would have undoubtedly moved to Wyoming, officials were also concerned that passage of the Colorado law would reverse the path: Oil workers traveling to Wyoming, putting pressure on the petroleum employment market….