ADN, North Dakota has passed Alaska to become the Eric Lidji, journalist, Petroleum News Alaska, Photo by Dave Harboursecond-leading oil-producing state in the nation, trailing only Texas. *   *   *   PNA by Eric Lidji (NGP Photo).  Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska Inc. is announcing a 50 million barrel discovery at its budding Nuna development based on exploration drilling completed this past winter. 

Alaska House of Representatives Finance Committee Cochairmen Bill Stoltz (NGP Photo–Bill Stoltz, Alaska House of Representatives, Co-Chairman, Finance Committee, Photo by Dave HarbourFar Left) Bill Thomas, Alaska House Finance Committee Co-Chairman, Photo by Dave Harbourand Bill Thomas (NGP Photo) said yesterday that, "The governor vetoed $66.6 million from the Fiscal Year 2013 statewide operations and capital investment budgets, which total $12.1 billion.  …   "This is a responsible budget but not a sustainable budget. It is essential for Alaska that we increase production flowing through the Trans Alaska Pipeline with measures like reasonable and responsible oil tax reform."

EPA Threatened with Subpoena for Documents on Obama Coal Reg. Rewrite that Could Cost Thousands of Jobs 

Energy Global.  Despite its importance, the EU is a declining market for Russia’s long-term oil and gas exports owing to the rise of Asia as the world’s largest energy consumer. Russia has therefore been developing oil and gas fields (e.g. those of Siberia and Sakhalian islands) to generate oil and gas export capacities to meet this market’s growing demand, while building export infrastructure, including terminals, LNG plants and, of course, pipelines.

Rebecca Brown’s Consumer Energy Alliance energy links for today:
The Houston Chronicle: Quantifying the Energy Revolution **Op-ed by David Holt
Consumer Energy Alliance has long recognized and advocated for the immense economic benefits that domestic energy production brings.  From Pennsylvania to Texas and up to Michigan, we’ve witnessed the tremendous impact that increased energy production – both traditional fossil fuel and renewable energy – has brought to communities.  And now, we have the studies to back that up. Last week, a series of reports confirmed just how significant energy production can have on the economy.  In South Texas, increased activity in the Eagle Ford Shale last year contributed over $25 billion in economic impact.
 
New York Times: Confronting Keystone Again (Editorial)
The next chapter in the Keystone XL pipeline saga has now begun. In January, President Obama rejected the first proposal from TransCanada, the pipeline company, on grounds that there was not enough time for a thorough environmental review of the project, which would carry crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to the Gulf Coast. TransCanada recently filed a new application with the State Department, with alternative routes designed to avoid Nebraska’s Sand Hills region, an environmentally sensitive area that is at risk from potential pipeline leaks.
 
A senior executive with Enbridge, the company seeking to send Canadian oil sands west via pipeline toward Asian markets, says the U.S. production boom and falling imports help make the case for the project. Here are a few blurbs from prepared remarks by Janet Holder, Enbridge’s executive VP for western access, to the Canadian Club of Toronto Monday: “
[N]early all of Canada’s crude oil exports, about 99 per cent, go to only one customer: the United States. US demand is dropping, in fact according to a TD Economics special report released earlier this month there has been a 30% net drop in their imports of oil and petroleum products since 2005. Their domestic supply is growing and they do have a desire to be self-sufficient. Us finding another customer won’t hurt their feelings.”
 
The White House is trying to improve its icy relationship with the oil-and-gas industry, but things are far from "hunky-dory," a top energy aide to President Obama said Monday. “The notion that we rolled out the welcome mat or have this hunky-dory relationship that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is not exactly where we’re at today,” White House energy adviser Heather Zichal said. Zichal assessed the state of the relationship — and admitted to some regrets — at a natural-gas event Monday hosted by the American Petroleum Institute, the powerful oil industry trade association. Officials should have worked harder in the early years of the administration to communicate with the industry, Zichal said.
 
Barely two months after the cost of fuel was a white-hot matter in the presidential race, the subject has receded, just as prices have declined in much of the country. AAA reported Monday that the national average price of a gallon of gas has declined for 28 straight days, 21 cents off the recent peak of $3.94. That steady decline is the longest such streak since May 2010. Should it continue another day, it would be the longest since the summer of 2009. On the surface, that’s good news for President Obama. Republicans had seized on the rising prices in earlier primaries. Newt Gingrich began to run on a campaign of reducing gas prices to $2.50 a gallon. Others tied it to his administration’s rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.