6-7-16 Plenty of North American Energy News Today!

North American Energy News From Consumer Energy Alliance

WIZM-AM: La Crosse Talk with Mike Hayes *Brydon Ross Interview

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Shell moves ahead with ethane cracker in Beaver County
Royal Dutch Shell will build the multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant it proposed more than four years ago on the banks of the Ohio River in Beaver County, a move heralded by leaders across the region.

Associated Press: Energy bill prospects dim in dispute over drilling, drought
Congressional efforts to approve the first major energy bill in nearly a decade are in jeopardy amid a partisan dispute over oil drilling, water for drought-stricken California and potential rollback of protections for the gray wolf and other wildlife.

Morning Consult: Greens Urge Congress to Oppose TPP
More than 450 organizations are urging Congress to vote against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and make changes to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. A Monday letter sent to Congress from a coalition that includes the Sierra Club, SustainUS and Friends of the Earth, urged Congress to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

The Des Moines Register: Despite critics, Bakken pipeline gets go-ahead in Iowa
State regulators gave the go-ahead Monday for construction to start on the Bakken oil pipeline in Iowa, despite a complaint by the Sierra Club that the action is illegal.

Wall Street Journal: Oil Prices Rise Above $50 a Barrel on Weaker Dollar
Oil prices rose above $50 a barrel Tuesday on a weaker dollar and ongoing supply disruptions. U.S. crude oil for July delivery recently rose 33 cents, or 0.7%, to $50.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, rose 36 cents, or 0.7%, to $50.91 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

Reuters: U.S. funds buying in to energy sector’s latest bull market: sand
With new signs of life in U.S. oil fields as the price of crude has climbed back above $50 a barrel, fund managers are upping their bets on an unheralded aspect of the fracking boom: sand. Shares of companies that mine and sell sand – which is pumped into wells to make them more efficient – are on a tear, with some stocks nearly doubling for the year to date while the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 SPX index is up less than 3 percent.

Financial Post: Oil recovery is on its way after two-year-long rout, says energy economist
As crude posted its best day in more than 10 months, a leading U.S. energy economist declared the price recovery has begun. The pronouncement is a welcome sign for energy producers in Canada and the U.S., who have now weathered an almost two-year-long rout in oil prices.

Bloomberg: Fuel Joins iPhones and Barbie as Stuff China Makes for the World
After supplying the world with everything from Victoria’s Secret lingerie to iPhones and Barbie dolls, China is now producing fuel that’s finding its way to pumps across the globe. The Asian manufacturing giant is turning a record amount of crude into refined products and sending some of it abroad at an unprecedented pace.

Bloomberg: Devon to Sell Oil and Gas Assets for Almost $1 Billion
Devon Energy Corp., the energy producer that’s targeted $3 billion of asset sales to fund drilling and lower debt, agreed to sell fields in Texas and Oklahoma and a royalty interest in the northern Midland Basin for almost $1 billion to undisclosed buyers.

The Canadian Press: TransCanada files draft Energy East pipeline impact study with Quebec
TransCanada says a draft impact study for its Energy East pipeline project has been submitted as requested by the Quebec government. The 10-chapter document wasn’t released publicly, but an analysis of technological risks will be added once it is completed, the company said Monday.

The Washington Post: How a North Dakota oil billionaire is helping shape Trump’s views on energy
The dead duck story starts with oil billionaire Harold Hamm, whom Donald Trump has hailed as the “king of energy” and who helped introduce Trump at the North Dakota event at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference. The youngest of 13 children of an Oklahoma sharecropper, Hamm, 70, made much of his fortune in North Dakota’s Bakken shale oil region. He is the chief executive of Continental Resources and owns $12 billion of the company’s stock.

Washington Times: D.C. pension board ignites debate after pulling ‘direct’ investments from fossil fuels
The District of Columbia Retirement Board has divested its $6.4 billion pension fund from direct investments in 200 fossil-fuel companies, drawing kudos from climate-change groups even as critics dismissed the move as an “empty gesture.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Coal export terminal suffers second big setback: State permit is denied
The controversial proposed Gateway Pacific coal expert terminal suffered its latest body blow on Monday with denial of its application for an aquatic land lease at the Cherry Point site north of Bellingham.

The Denver Post: Hickenlooper appoints Bob Randall as Colorado natural resources chief
Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday announced the appointment of Bob Randall as executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, drawing praise from conservationists.

The Daily Caller: Colorado Oil Town Still Fearful All their Prosperity Could Be Taken Away
A town that’s greatly benefited from hydraulic fracturing is in the midst of an identity crisis. Greeley, one of the country’s fastest growing communities, is under attack from the environmental left, which is intent on drying up oil and gas exploration that just seven years ago bailed one northern Colorado city out of near economic disaster.

Oil & Gas 360: Three Colorado Ballot Proposals Could Stop or Reduce Oil & Gas Development
While a November voter approval for a proposed Colorado constitutional amendment posed by initiative #78 would effectively put an end to new shale development activities in the state, there are two other initiatives that could significantly nibble away at oil and gas development should they receive the required signatures and gain approval of voters in November.

Associated Press: Despite downturn, East Texas firm builds new Permian HQ
An East Texas-based energy company is investing more than $6 million in a new Permian Basin headquarters despite the oil and gas downturn. The Hobbs News-Sun says that Mewbourne Oil started construction on a 32,000-square-foot office facility in Hobbs, New Mexico.

San Antonio Business Journal: Life at $49 per Barrel: Permian Basin hot, Eagle Ford dormant
As crude oil prices remain stuck in the $49 per barrel range, the Permian Basin of West Texas is emerging as a bright spot while new drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale remains flat.

Longview News-Journal: Texas Royalty Council red flags oil property appraisals
The prices of oil and natural gas have plummeted since late 2014, but the values set by appraisers for tax bills paid by millions of royalty owners across Texas haven’t followed them down, an advocacy group says. The group is urging oil and gas royalty owners statewide to contact the firm it’s accusing of over-appraising the minerals under their land.

OilPrice.com: Permian Springs to Life with $50 Oil
Last week saw the first significant increase in the number of active drilling rigs in the U.S. since the start of this year, suggesting that optimism is returning, albeit cautiously, to the shale plays, and nowhere did things look better than Texas’ prolific Permian Basin—long regarded as America’s ‘sleeping giant’.

The New York Times: Regulators Fear $1 Billion Coal Cleanup Bill
Regulators are wrangling with bankrupt coal companies to set aside enough money to clean up Appalachia’s polluted rivers and mountains so that taxpayers are not stuck with the $1 billion bill.

Farm and Dairy: Utica and Marcellus shale: May permitting slows again
May was a slow month for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources when it came to the number of Utica shale permits – just 16 were issued. The number is low when you compare it to May 2015, when more than 40 permits were issued for drilling in the Utica shale in Ohio.

WTOV9 FOX: Wellsville welcoming idea of new power plant
Big changes could be coming to the Ohio Valley. A public hearing was held this evening to discuss plans for a new energy project. The south field energy project was the topic of a public hearing at Wellsville High School. The plan is to build an 1100 megawatt power plant in Columbiana County. It will be powered by natural gas and it’s a capital investment of over one billion dollars. An investment this large will not pass without careful discussion… And south field energy has worked closely with locals.

Cincinnati Enquirer: Gas pipeline controversy erupts in Hamilton County
The largest high-pressure natural gas pipeline ever constructed in Hamilton County could be coming to a neighborhood near you. Duke Energy has proposed three possible routes through the northern suburbs, passing by hundreds of homes and businesses, as well as many schools, parks, public buildings, religious centers and hospitals. Even Kenwood Towne Center.

Natural Gas Intelligence: Ohio Lawmaker Wants More Severance Tax Revenue Distributed to Oil/Gas Drilling Communities
An Ohio lawmaker from Belmont County, which has been transformed in recent years by heavy Utica Shale development, has introduced legislation that would direct more oil and gas severance tax revenues to communities most affected by drilling.

The News & Advance: Pipeline opponents plant ‘seeds of resistance’
Activism opposing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has often taken place on social media or in courtrooms, but the battle took a different form Monday. Off Va. 56 in Wingina, about 75 people from Nelson County and the surrounding area planted sacred Ponca Tribe corn — or “seeds of resistance” — in the proposed path of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a move Friends of Nelson President Joanna Salidis called a “tangible way to express our connection with the land and the people in Dominion’s crosshairs.”

StateImpact Pennsylvania: Fellow Democrat blasts Wolf on environmental issues
One of the state legislature’s most vocal environmentalists is criticizing Governor Tom Wolf for failing to support tougher regulations for Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry. The attack is coming from a member of his own party—the minority chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, Rep. Greg Vitali (D- Delaware).

The Patriot-News: Lawmakers clash over drilling regulations as deadline looms
When the state legislature returned from break Monday, environmental advocates didn’t waste any time trying to rally support for proposed natural gas regulations. The state Department of Environmental Protection’s new rules for oil and gas producers already passed an oversight commission’s review, but face a challenge in the Republican-led House and Senate.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Drilling group takes on rules protecting parks, species in court case
Whether state regulators can put conditions on new oil and gas well permits to minimize the impact on nearby public resources may hinge on how courts interpret the words “insofar” and “to the extent.” Those slippery words appeared in a 2013 state Supreme Court decision that threw out significant parts of Act 13, the state’s update to its oil and gas law. The words were used to signify whether the public resource provisions were so entwined with the rejected sections of the law that they must also fall.

StateImpact Pennsylvania: PennFuture urges township to scrap gas-drilling ordinance
An environmental group is challenging a zoning ordinance that allows gas drilling throughout a southwest Pennsylvania township, arguing that the measure is unconstitutional, and violates a state Supreme Court ruling that struck down part of the state’s controversial Act 13 oil and gas law.

WRAL: McCrory vetoes coal ash bill
Gov. Pat McCrory has vetoed a bill that would have reconstituted the Coal Ash Management Commission, following through on his earlier threat and prolonging his fight with the General Assembly over how to approach the toxic material leftover when coal is burned for fuel.