John Sturgeon, Alaska Patriot, timber, supreme court, land access, hovercraft, Photo by Dave HarbourJohn Sturgeon (NGP Photo), Alaska patriot, seeks justice from the Supreme Court of the United States.

CANADA!

See Additional Alaska Headlamp Coverage Of Some Items Below

Of course, the price of oil and gas directly affects our energy constituencies in Alaska and Western Canada.  Here, our anonymous mid Atlantic energy consultant comments on yesterday's WSJ story 

Anchorage Daily Planet/News Miner, by Max Buxton.  

Misc. Comment: A friend of the Legislature tells us this morning that, "We think the governor has released his oil tax credit cut plan quietly and privately…but, in any case it won't get read across until tomorrow when the legislature is in session."

John Sturgeon, US Supreme Court, Hovercraft, Alaska access, timber, natural resources, ANILCA, Photo by Dave HarbourNot neglecting our seven years of Federal Overreach commentary, we celebrate the tireless lifetime of John Sturgeon's effort to support sustainable natural resource development in Alaska, consistent with the state's compact with the federal government.  

Here is the latest in his saga to defend Alaska's access to lands within its borders.  

A moose-hunter and his hovercraft tell the Supreme Court Alaska is different.                            -dh

Today is the first of what is expected to be at the very least 90 days of legislative action focused almost singularly on improving Alaska’s financial situation.

It can be near-impossible to stay up-to-date on the many twists and turns of the Legislature — even in a normal session — but with taxes, fundamental changes to the Permanent Fund and cuts to state operations, it’ll be more important than ever.

With the Senate set to gavel in at 11 a.m. and the House set to gavel in at 1 p.m., here’s a guide to keeping up with Juneau.

Straight from the source

Short of booking a constituent ticket to Juneau to see it in person, one of the best ways to keep up with the session is to watch Gavel Alaska’s exhaustive video coverage of the session.   (Full story here….)

 

Here is commentary, by our anonymous, Mid Atlantic energy consultant friend on this WSJ article by Mark Mills: After the Carnage, Shale Will Rise Again

 

BIO: Mark P. Mills is CEO of the Digital Power Group, an energy-tech consultancy and capital advisory.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a Faculty Fellow at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University.  He is as well a member of the Advisory Board of the Notre Dame Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values.  He was formerly the co-founder and chief tech strategist for Digital Power Capital, a boutique venture fund, where co-founded and served as Chairman and CTO of ICx Technologies helping take it public in a 2007 IPO (later purchased by FLIR), and in addition served on numerous Boards, including as Chairman (and an interim CEO) of a lithium battery start-up.

He writes the Energy Intelligence column for Forbes and is co-author of the book, “The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy”

Note that the last book, ”The Bottomless Well” includes the notion “Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy” as its title. It is a maddening book, because one can read without ever knowing the logic that Mills was following. That is because the assumptions were included in the Foreword to the book (whoever reads the Foreword?).

In any event, Mills is very much an outside-the-box thinker, and usually very good at it. Few people will agree with everything he writes. However, he will make the reader think, and many people can be persuaded to agree with much of his analysis.

So it is with this piece. He is on a roll, in our mind, with his thoughts until the last two paragraphs. He gives a positive message for the domestic oil production business. We will leave it to you to read his suggestion, and decide whether Washington is really ready to take a courageous, forward-thinking, long-term approach to Energy Policy for the first time in history. And we wonder why we really need the government to get involved, in any event.

Probably the best thought we took from the article is the realization that as the shale properties strive to reduce the cost of crude oil production (well under way, to use a slight pun), the OPEC countries will slide toward the other end of the scale of marginal cost. This is not because the direct costs for the are so high, but because their economies are resolutely dependent upon a price in excess of $80/barrel to function as intended. It is this change of position that will set OPEC on its path to either changing their economies or cutting production significantly.

Bottom Line: We concur with the notion that crude oil will likely find its new “balancing point” in the $38-$48 range. The next struggle to watch  is how OPEC adapts to this price range. BTW, much of the recent discussion has involved  Iranian oil being released on to the market. The Iranians suffer as much as any OPEC country at this new level. Their oil fields are old, they need lots of work, and they have higher than average decline rates for Middle East fields. In addition, Iran has to import a significant amount of its refined products.

 

Calgary Herald: