The Saudis threatened to block fellow GCC member Qatar’s land and sea borders unless it cuts all Muslim Brotherhood ties, shuts down Al Jazeera and expels think tanks Brookings Doha Centre and the Rand Qatar Policy Institute. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha last week to protest Qatar’s Muslim Brotherhood support,… Keep reading →
Malaysian national oil company Petronas is selling a 10% stake in its proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG Ltd. (PNW LNG) export facility and the gas reserves underpinning the project to Indian Oil Corp. As part of the deal, Indian Oil will offtake 1.2 million tons of LNG – 10% of production capacity – from the liquefaction… Keep reading →
A huge coal ash spill was discovered on February 2 at the Duke Energy power plant in North Carolina that has caused significant damage to the Dan River. The spill was caused when a storm drain pipe that runs underneath the 27-acre containment pond sprung a leak and allowed 82,000 tons of ash mixed 27… Keep reading →
Barclays’ senior geopolitical strategist Helima Croft is heavily quoted in this piece about the potential for escalating Iraqi violence to negatively impact the country’s oil & gas industry. “If they could get the political and security situation under control, Iraq could have tremendous upside advantage for investors. It would be a fantastic growth story,” said… Keep reading →
The March 2011 Fukushima accident destroyed four and shuttered most (currently all) of Japan’s 54 nuclear plants. Japan replaced nuclear energy with discomfort, sacrifice, and costly fossil fuels, because utility oligopolies suppressed renewable competitors and national energy efficiency languished. Two and a half years later, power reserves, though easing, remain tight, fuel bills exorbitant, and… Keep reading →
Is investing in energy efficiency cost-prohibitive for developing countries? The US and other developed countries have made huge strides in using energy more efficiently. But the bulk of energy demand growth over the next few decades is projected to come from the developing world, where per capita energy intensity is expected to rise dramatically before… Keep reading →
In the United States, coal is facing hard times. The welcome, though unexpected expansion of unconventional natural gas resources and production in North America has made natural gas the economically attractive fuel choice for new electricity generating power plants and, in many cases, has replaced older existing coal fired plants. From 2003 to 2013 coal’s… Keep reading →
Coal and oil and gas producer Consol has agreed to sell its Consolidation Coal Company subsidiary, which holds five West Virginia coal mines, to Murray Energy for $3.5 billion. Consol aims to whittle its assets down to growth markets – natural gas production and coal for export – as the future of US power generation veers more… Keep reading →
On the heels of a hope-inspiring report that patents for wind and solar technologies are way up, comes this downer: Global investment in clean energy is plunging. Again. Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which has been tracking these numbers for nearly a decade now, toted up $45.9 billion in clean energy investment in the third quarter of 2013,… Keep reading →
TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline could provide Canada with an outlet for Alberta’s oil sands that sidesteps political opposition obstructing competing projects heading south and west. But with the shift in oil demand growth from the Atlantic Basin to the Pacific, moving oil east may be a second-best solution. TransCanada’s Keystone XL and Enbridge’s Northern… Keep reading →
