New Look at Pipeline Blasts
By DANIEL GILBERT, Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2011
Regulators, Preparing to Tighten Safety Rules, Focus on Combination of Causes
Judge says Alaska pipeline has proven reserves to operate until 2065; puts value at more than $9 billion
Dermot Cole, Fairbanks News Miner, Dec 30, 2011
Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason of Anchorage issued a much-anticipated decision today that the trans-Alaska pipeline is worth about 9 times as much as the oil companies contend and there are enough proven oil reserves on the North Slope to keep it operating until 2065.
Bitter Twist in Louisiana Family’s Long Drilling Fight
CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, Ocala.com, December 29, 2011
ERATH, La. — It began as a landlord-tenant dispute, Louisiana style.
Cheniere plans second U.S. LNG export terminal
By Ben Lefebvre, Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2011
HOUSTON (MarketWatch) -- Cheniere Energy Inc. said Friday it is taking steps to develop a second terminal along the U.S. Gulf Coast to export liquefied natural gas.
The move would help the heavily indebted company tap into booming natural-gas production in the area.
Deloitte: Assumed US LNG export volumes could boost gas prices
By Paula Dittrick, Oil & Gas Journal, 12/16/2011
HOUSTON - If the US were to export 6 bcfd of LNG in the future, a world gas model developed by Deloitte MarketPoint LLC estimates a weighted-average price impact of 12¢/MMbtu on US prices during 2016-35, Deloitte LLP announced Dec. 15 at its annual Oil & Gas Conference in Houston.
Pipelines need a watchful eye
Editorial, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 13, 2011
No one should fault Pennsylvanians living amid the state's natural-gas boom for finding it deeply troubling that the miles and miles of pipeline being strung across their communities will never see a government inspector.
Burning Love
Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, December 5, 2011
Americans have never met a hydrocarbon they didn’t like. Oil, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, tar-sands oil, coal-bed methane, and coal, which is, mostly, carbon—the country loves them all, not wisely, but too well. To the extent that the United States has an energy policy, it is perhaps best summed up as: if you’ve got it, burn it.
Proposed Ore. LNG terminal gets export permit
By JEFF BARNARD, San Jose Mercury News, December 7, 2011
A company that originally wanted to import liquefied natural gas from overseas through the Oregon port of Coos Bay received a preliminary permit Wednesday allowing it to switch to exporting.
As Americans max out on tar sands, more pipelines head for Vancouver and B.C.
Barry Saxifrage, Vancouver Observer, November 29, 2011
Americans are in deep trouble and their years of absorbing the tar sands growing production are over. This is a two part series. In today’s first part we explore the dramatic decline in American oil imports that set the stage for the Keytsone XL pipeline protests and delay. Tomorrow’s second part will explain just what that means for Vancouver and BC as a proposed string of gigantic tar sands pipelines heads for our coast.
Six U.S. states abandon carbon-trade partnership
By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun, November 18, 2011
B.C.'s future in ambitious greenhouse-gas deal unclear
The heated competition for shale gas
By Andrew Maykuth, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 13, 2011
The shale-gas bonanza is fueling a hot competition among businesses that want to claim a share of what is promoted as an abundant long-term energy source.
Clean energy: Costs rising for California consumers
By Garance Burke and Jason Dearen, Associated Press, Christian Science Monitor, November 13, 2011
Clean energy got a boost from a 2006 California law mandating it. But some clean energy projects are so expensive, they'll raise consumers' utility bills for decades.
A Gold Rush of Subsidies in Clean Energy Search
By ERIC LIPTON and CLIFFORD KRAUSS, New York Times, November 11, 2011
WASHINGTON — Halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, on a former cattle ranch and gypsum mine, NRG Energy is building an engineering marvel: a compound of nearly a million solar panels that will produce enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes.
U.S. Delays Decision on Pipeline Until After Election
By JOHN M. BRODER and DAN FROSCH, New York Times, November 10, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, under sharp pressure from officials in Nebraska and restive environmental activists, announced Thursday that it would review the route of the disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline, effectively delaying any decision about its fate until after the 2012 election.
Cheniere and BG ink $8 bln deal to export US LNG
By Edward McAllister, Reuters, October 26, 2011
- Cheniere to supply 3.5 mln tonnes a year to BG
- Deal will run for 20 years
- BG will ship LNG to markets across the globe
New gas, oil reserves a boon for pipeline construction
Shawn McCarthy & Nathan VanderKlippe, Globe and Mail, Oct. 21, 2011
OTTAWA AND CALGARY—Spectra Energy Corp. (SE-N28.260.562.02%) is driving North America’s pipeline construction boom into the heart of New York City, part of a massive industry push to connect previously untapped shale gas and oil reserves to under-served markets.
Kinder Morgan to Buy El Paso for $21.1 Billion
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED and CLIFFORD KRAUSS, New York Times, October 16, 2011
Kinder Morgan agreed on Sunday to buy the El Paso Corporation for about $21.1 billion in cash and stock, striking one of the biggest energy deals in history, to tap into a boom in natural gas drilling and production.
Keystone XL pipeline becomes a political headache for White House
By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, October 7, 2011
The question of how best to handle the federal permit for the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline extension — which will transport crude oil 1,700 miles from Alberta to Texas — has evolved from a backwater process at the State Department to a high-profile political headache for the Obama administration.
Keystone XL: More about the politics than the petroleum
Konrad Yakabuski, Globe and Mail, Oct. 05, 2011
WASHINGTON— For months, the stars seemed pretty well aligned for the Keystone XL pipeline, the proposed $7-billion megaproject that would carry oil-sands crude from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast in Texas.
The Cronyism Behind a Pipeline for Crude
By BILL McKIBBEN, New York Times, October 3, 2011
LATE last month, the Obama administration unveiled a new tool that lets anyone send a petition to the White House; get 5,000 signatures in 30 days and you’re guaranteed some kind of answer. My prediction: it’s not going to stop people from trying to occupy Wall Street. After the past few years, we’re increasingly unwilling to believe that political reform can be accomplished by going through the “normal channels” of democracy.
Say No to the Keystone XL
Editorial, New York Times, October 2, 2011
Unless good sense intervenes, it looks increasingly likely that the State Department will approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry a coarse, acidic crude oil from northern Alberta in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. That would be a mistake.
Former Keystone Pipeline Inspector Says Construction Shortcuts Are Tied To Leaks
Tom Zeller Jr., Huffington Post, September 28, 2011
Michael Klink, a 59-year-old civil engineer from Auburn, Ill., says he reported a litany of problems when he was working as a construction inspector at several pumping stations along the Keystone oil pipeline as it was being built in 2009 -- from sloppy concrete jobs and poorly spaced rebar to bad welds and poor pressure testing.
The Coming Decline and Fall of Big Coal
By Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, September 28, 2011
AP ran a great story yesterday about the coming decline of the coal industry in Appalachia that I fear is not going to get nearly the attention it deserves. Because if you think about this story seriously for more than 30 seconds, you will come to see that it has huge implications not only for future U.S. energy policy but also for the coming presidential election.
Pipelines not even built but already competing
By TOM FOWLER, San Antonio Express News, September 29, 2011
Houston and Canadian firms propose Wrangler line from Cushing, Okla., to the Gulf Coast.
HOUSTON — TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline isn't the only big oil pipeline in the works.
Enterprise and Enbridge to Develop Crude Oil Pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf Coast
News Release, Enbridge, September 29, 2011
HOUSTON, TEXAS and CALGARY, ALBERTA--(Marketwire - Sept. 29, 2011) - Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD) ("Enterprise") and Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) (NYSE:ENB) ("Enbridge") today announced plans to design, construct and operate a new pipeline to transport crude oil from the oversupplied hub at Cushing, Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf Coast refining complex.
