Rex Tillerson, chief executive officer of ExxonMobil Corp., speaks during the 2015 IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston on April 21, 2015.

ExxonMobil's Rex Tillerson Compliments Canadian Regulatory System, Chastises U.S. Administration (i.e. …with good reason, as we have documented herein.   We would also observe that many U.S. and many Canadian decisions affect citizens of the other country, their economy and their very lives.  Therefore, as each others' largest trading partner, we should always be aware that our decisions encompass much more than simply "our" economy or "our" politics.  Tillerson is right.  From personal knowledge we are very familiar with NEB and FERC energy regulatory systems along with state and provincial systems.  Sometimes the US way is to be emulated and sometimes the Canadian practice is superior.  The trick is for government, like industry, to borrow best practices from one another–and treat each other like the North American family that we are.  In the case of the Keystone XL matter, our leadership clearly mistreated our brothers and sisters north of the border.  D'accord?  -dh  More below.)    Story: Deborah Yedlin, Calgary Herald; Photo: Calgary Herald/F. Carter Smith, Bloomberg.


163 Members of Congress Urge Admin. to Increase Energy Production in Outer Continental Shelf 

Canada's NWT borrowing boost may help unlock stranded oil and gas​

Today's Oil and Gas Shale Links From Energy In Depth

Lisa Murkowski, Land and Water Conservation Fund, Dave Harbour Photo

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, (NGP Photo), highlighted the importance of reauthorizing and modernizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act so that it reflects the changing needs and evolving viewpoints about conservation in the 21st century. The LWCF was enacted 50 years ago to increase recreational opportunities for Americans. Since then, it has been used to acquire more public lands even though there are insufficient means to maintain lands already owned by the federal government.

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“I strongly believe that conservation in the 21st century must include taking care of what we already have – what we chose to conserve first – instead of simply pretending that ‘more is always better,’” Murkowski said. “As we look to reauthorize LWCF, I believe that it makes sense to shift the federal focus away from land acquisition, particularly in Western states, toward maintaining and enhancing the accessibility and quality of the resources that we have. This is the best way to put our nation’s recreation system on the path of long-term viability.”

Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, pressed the administration on its use of LWCF for only a land acquisition fund rather than using the LWCF to also maintain public lands. 


  • EID-National: EID set to testify this morning before House Science Committee, releases report on dubious science behind NY HF ban (link)
     
  • EID-Marcellus: PA DEP finds methane emissions plummet as natural gas production ramps up (link)
     
  • EID-Ohio: Belmont County selected for new ethane cracker that will create thousands of great jobs (link)

NATIONAL

Thanks to Shale, a New Balance of Power in the World. NY Times. The United States is overtaking the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as the vital global swing producer that determines prices. That remarkable change has been building since 2008, as American shale fields accounted for roughly half of the world’s oil production growth while American petroleum output nearly doubled. And shale production methods have proven highly adaptable to market conditions. Not coincidentally, nearly all the advantages of the price swing are moving in Washington’s direction. Most American consumers and industries have benefited from a sharp drop in gasoline prices and other energy costs. And abroad, the economies of oil-producing adversaries like Russia and Venezuela are reeling.
 
Energy In Depth investigation takes on science behind N.Y. HF ban. Politico, sub. req’d. As its Western director prepares to testify before the House Science Committee today on hydraulic fracturing, Energy in Depth is releasing a white paper that accuses New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration of falling to “political pressure from a well-funded, well-organized network of foundations and activist groups opposed to shale development” in imposing a fracking ban in December. NOTE: View the complete report here.
 
Beware, 'local control' really amounts to drilling ban. Houston Chronicle, EID’s Steve Everley. For several years now, anti-fracking groups have lobbied for "local control" in cities and towns across the country. They claim to support "reasonable" regulations, but in reality, these groups want to ban oil and gas drilling everywhere.
 
Drilling on federal lands could get more expensive. Oil & Gas 360. Dan Naatz, senior vice president of governmental relations and political affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), pointed out the inconsistency in a recent press release. “At a time when the price of oil has dropped about 50% over the past seven months and coupled with new federal regulations for onshore producers, the Obama Administration’s proposal to increase onshore royalty rates will ultimately result in fewer American jobs, less energy production, and hurt our nation’s energy security.”
 
Can this oil baron’s company withstand another quake? Bloomberg. Steve Everley of Energy In Depth, a research group, says, “If you shut down

[wastewater] disposal, you’re effectively shutting down production.”
 
Oil, gas mining operations cited in Okla., Texas earthquakes. NewsMax. Energy in Depth said "several issues in the paper raise questions about its conclusion," and it "appears to suffer from some modeling flaws," and points out studies from the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Research Council and the Environmental Protection Agency, which indicate that very few oil and gas operations have been implicated in earthquake activity.
 
Oil and gas activity to blame for quakes? Houston Business Journal. Steve Everley with Energy In Depth wrote a blog poking holes in SMU’s research, saying a pressure change of 5 pounds per square inch was being blamed for the quakes. That’s about the pressure of an inflated football. It also doesn’t account for the permeability of the soil, said Everley. “While the SMU study released today appears to suffer from some modeling flaws, those issues should not overshadow the fact that the research team has provided all of us with a valuable tool for better assessing induced seismicity,” Everley said in his blog.
 
Gas activities 'most likely' caused Texas quakes. KETR. Energy In Depth on Tuesday praised the researchers for developing a model that “provides greater understanding of the conditions that can ultimately lead to induced seismicity.” But on its website, it added that “several issues in the paper raise questions about its conclusion.” “The concerns we’ve identified in here are in the spirit of constructive collaboration,” Steve Everley, the group’s spokesman, said.
 
HF can build an economy. Southern Illinoisan, EID’s Seth Whitehead. If fracking is so bad, why are people flocking to North Dakota at the same alarming rate folks are leaving Illinois? The reason is simple: People go where the jobs are – and North Dakota has plenty thanks to fracking.
 
U.S. HF costs falling fast, may keep fields in play. Reuters. U.S. oil and natural gas companies have pushed down costs of fracking a shale well faster than expected, and if the trend holds up it could allow producers to keep working in oilfields that just months ago looked uncompetitive after the oil price crash.
 
Oil slump may deepen as US shale fights Opec to a standstill. Telegraph. The US shale industry has failed to crack as expected. North Sea oil drillers and high-cost producers off the coast of Africa are in dire straits, but America's "flexi-frackers" remain largely unruffled. One starts to glimpse the extraordinary possibility that the US oil industry could be the last one standing in a long and bitter price war for global market share, or may at least emerge as an energy superpower with greater political staying-power than Opec.
 
U.S. oil industry’s battle cry: exports now! Wall Street Journal. American oilmen have seized on one solution to their financial woes in the face of low oil prices: They want to export U.S. crude oil. Soon.
 
Half of U.S. HF companies will be sold this year. Bloomberg. Half of the 41 fracking companies operating in the U.S. will be dead or sold by year-end because of slashed spending by oil companies, an executive with Weatherford International Plc said. There could be about 20 companies left that provide hydraulic fracturing services, Rob Fulks, pressure pumping marketing director at Weatherford, said in an interview Wednesday at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston.
 
INTERNATIONAL

Romania signs agreement with Bulgaria and Greece on natural gas network. Business Review. On Wednesday, Sofia hosted a meeting on the construction of a gas corridor that will interconnect natural gas networks in Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, with a capacity of 3-5 billion cubic meters per year. Romania was represented by Mihai Albulescu, state secretary at the Ministry of Energy, Small and Medium Enterprises and Business Environment.
 
Could massive EU-US trade deal be extended to Israel? Electronic Intifada. Israel enjoys an extremely close trading relationship with the EU. A deal approved by the European Parliament in 2012 paves the way for Israel to be integrated into the Union’s single market for goods and services. The idea that Israel would be eligible to join TTIP is being mulled over by the cognoscenti in both Brussels and Washington.
 
Europeans fight U.S. trade deal with fear of HF Under Eiffel Tower. Daily Beast. It will afflict Europe with American abominations on an almost Biblical scale: cheap and dirty food, toxic waste, mind-numbing movies and television, gas-guzzling cars, all while scrapping healthcare and erasing labour rights. That, at least, is how angry European activists are painting a planned trade deal between the European Union and the United States. A legion of horrors has been evoked about an agreement known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, which is currently under negotiation.
 
Fifth of Labour and Lib Dem candidates pledge to defy party line on HF. Guardian. More than one in five Liberal Democrat and Labour election candidates have pledged to oppose fracking in defiance of their parties’ promises to foster the industry during the next parliament.

COLORADO

Noble agrees to upgrade Front Range equipment. Summit County Citizen’s Voice. But this week, the company agreed to clean up its act by upgrading equipment in an effort that could cost as much as $60 million, according to the EPA. Noble alos agreed to pay about $13.45 million in fines and other environmental improvement projects in the region that will help reduce air pollution along the Front Range.
 
MICHIGAN

MSU power plant to swap coal for natural gas. State News. On April 8, MSU announced the university will move toward completely cutting the use of coal at the MSU Power Plant by the end of 2016. This decision is partly in response to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations launched in 2014, officials said.

NEBRASKA
 
HF wastewater well application approved. KOTA. A Nebraska agency has given the green light to a controversial fracking wastewater disposal well project in KOTA Territory. The Nebraska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission voted in favor of the plan by Terex Energy Corporation to inject wastewater from fracking operations in nearby states.
 
Commission approves HF wastewater application. Star Herald. On Wednesday, the Nebraska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approved the Terex application to allow the injection of up to 5,000 gallons per day of fracking wastewater into an abandoned oil well in Sioux County.

NORTHEAST

Final HF report being printed, DEC chief says. Poughkeepsie Journal. A several-thousand-page document that will lay out the rationale for prohibiting fracking is "being printed as we speak," state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joseph Martens said Wednesday. That report, known as the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement or SGEIS, has been nearly seven years in the making and will pave the way for Martens to issue an order keeping large-scale fracking from moving forward at the current time.
 
Trucked natural gas to replace scrapped pipeline. Rutland Herald. A New York paper mill is slated to receive truckloads of compressed natural gas beginning next month as a workaround for a canceled underground gas pipeline. According to NG Advantage, the Colchester-based gas transportation company behind the semi-truck delivery route called a “virtual pipeline” by the company, the switch from fuel oil to North American natural gas is expected to save International Paper Company’s Ticonderoga, N.Y., paper mill about 32,000 gallons of oil every day. Deliveries to Ticonderoga are scheduled begin in May.
 
Radioactive gas pollution? WV Public Broadcasting. A new study of a radioactive, carcinogenic gas has grabbed the attention of news outlets and both pro and anti-fracking groups alike. The study published earlier this month says increases of radon gas in people’s homes in Pennsylvania coincide with the horizontal drilling boom. Some geological researchers in the region are skeptical while others aren’t at all surprised.
 
West Virginia natural-gas complex is put on hold. Wall Street Journal. Two Brazilian companies are putting on hold plans to build a multibillion-dollar natural-gas refining complex in West Virginia, a project that was supposed to give an economic boost to a state reeling from the faltering coal industry.

OHIO

Belmont County named site for possible multibillion-dollar ‘cracker’ plant. Columbus Dispatch. It is not every day that elected officials from Appalachian Ohio get to announce the possibility of a multibillion-dollar development. So Belmont County leaders had reason to enjoy news yesterday that a planned ethane “cracker” plant is envisioned for a site near the Ohio River. And they hope the news will be followed in about a year with a firm commitment by developers to build the project. NOTE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Cleveland also report
 
Group pushes for county home rule, injection well ban. Athens News. A group of anti-fracking activists announced Tuesday they will be circulating petitions to turn Athens County into a charter government and ban the dumping of oil-and-gas hydraulic fracking waste, as well as use of water from sources in the county, for fracking activities, on the November ballot.

TEXAS​

Conferees get warm feeling from natural gas. San Antonio Express-News. The blue flame of natural gas glowed at a Houston energy gathering Wednesday, where producers touted the fuel’s virtues, including low prices that present both a challenge to the industry and testament to its success.
 
Small earthquakes in Dallas-Fort Worth area linked to HF. Realty Biz News. Clusters of small earthquakes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are likely caused by nearby natural-gas drilling, suggests a new study by researchers at Southern Methodist University and the U.S. Geological Survey.


We will also be interested in the messages given by BP's Robert Dudley and these CERA Week speakers, among many others:

Colette Honorable, NARUC, CERA Week, Regulator, Dave Harbour PhotoNARUC's Colette Honorable

 

 

 

Lisa Murkowski, US Senate, CERA Week, Dave Harbour PhotoU.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski

 

 

 

Ryan Lance, CERA Week, Dave Harbour Photo

ConocoPhillips' Ryan Lance.

 

 

 

Daniel Yergin, CERA Week, Dave Harbour PhotoDaniel Yergin, CERA