Oil


Foreign firms, hungry to cash in on the American energy boom, have invested nearly $6 billion in U.S. gas and oil drilling in the last few weeks. Energy giants from China, France and Spain have snapped up stakes in fields in Ohio, Mississippi, Colorado and Michigan. These investments will likely add to the recent boom in U.S. natural gas production, pushing already low natural gas prices even lower. Low domestic prices could drive natural gas producers to seek out European and Asian markets, according to analysts, where the fuel commands three or four times the price. “Of course that will” lead to more exports, said Nansen Saleri, president of the oil field consulting firm Quantum Reservoir Impact. “And it will be a tremendous opportunity.”


The economy is making gains on its path to a slow recovery, which means consumers can expect higher gas prices this year. “When the economy improves, we will be using more petroleum,” explains Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com. “It’s all but a certain that prices will likely go up this year.” The Department of Energy released its 2012 oil forecast Tuesday, upping the price of crude oil to $100 per barrel, which could be bad news for consumers because the price of oil directly correlates with gas prices. For 2011, the average price per barrel of U.S. crude oil was $95 per barrel, according to the Energy Department, and according to GasBuddy.com, the yearly average for 2011 was $3.51 per gallon. The current national average of unleaded regular gas two weeks into 2012 is $3.34 per gallon. With the current national average so high at the beginning of the year, DeHaan says things aren’t looking good for motorists. This article is a linkout: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/01/11/expect-higher-gas-prices-this-year/#ixzz1jBnHe6TI


The Arab Awakening and Iran’s continued pursuit of a nuclear program dominated the conversation in the Middle East in 2011. But a longer view calls for greater attention to a seemingly obscure but potentially pivotal issue: the discovery of large natural gas deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean, known as the Leviathan Basin. Shared economic interests should compel the nations of the Middle East and Europe to set aside their differences and quickly exploit Leviathan. But as tensions among the United States, Israel, and Iran increase and unrest in the region persists, this valuable resource could become a casualty – or even driver – of an international row, scuttling a key opportunity for European and global energy consumers.

When a US energy company discovered new areas of the Leviathan basin between Israel and Cyprus in mid-2011, regional players weighed in decisively. Turkey deployed a naval mission to explore deposits in the waters off Turkish Cyprus. A demonstration of Turkey’s discomfort with a closer relationship between Israel and Cyprus, this alone nearly sparked a conflict between Israel and Turkey. Iran also weighed in, offering to help Lebanon explore its own waters and supporting Lebanon’s claim that parts of the basin lay within its territory. The US quickly sided with Israel and Cyprus, creating the appearance of further Turkish alignment with Iran and a division between two diametrically opposed camps. Keep reading →


The European Union’s threatened boycott of crude oil imports from Iran is likely to have little effect on global oil prices, the Iranian economy, or its controversial nuclear program because the country will be able to find other buyers such as China, analysts said.

The EU agreed the measure in principle on January 4 in the latest effort to persuade Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium in a nuclear program which Iran says is purely for peaceful domestic purposes but which the UN, US and EU say has aggressive intent. Keep reading →

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that his government should pull out of a World Bank-affiliated arbitration body and won’t recognize its decisions. Exxon Mobil Corp. is one of more than a dozen companies with arbitration cases against Venezuela pending before the World Bank-affiliated International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID. Chavez announced his decision while referring to a more than $900 million award that Exxon Mobil recently won in another arbitration case before the International Chamber of Commerce. This article is a linkout from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/y5o0pr


Can the millions of workers in the US energy sector, their families and neighbors, and the millions more whose lives are built on energy activities, be convinced to vote their concerns about an industry?

In other democracies workers in individual sectors often view their politics through their professional and industrial identities, while many recent election races in the US have hinged on political identities rooted in social values as much as economic beliefs. While the US energy sector remains one of the country’s largest employers and most visible sources of economic vibrancy, its natural constituents rarely raise its issues in their lists of concerns politicians (and presidential hopefuls) should address. Keep reading →


Energy issues aren’t popping up much yet in election year discussions and debates, but if the American Petroleum Institute gets its way, they will be.

API President and CEO Jack Gerard told a luncheon in Washington, DC Wednesday that the oil and gas lobby is launching a nationwide “conversation with the American people” called “Vote for Energy.” Keep reading →


Foreign companies continue to take a strong interest in US shale assets, with French oil firm Total’s $2.32 billion payout for a 25% share of a Utica Shale play in Ohio owned by Chesapeake Energy a recent highlight.

Some of the acreage for the new joint venture, which underlies all or most of ten counties in the latest region targeted by firms for both natural gas and oil or natural gas liquids was provided by Houston-based Enervest. The deal, announced December 31, 2011, covers 619,000 acres that Chesapeake says is in the “liquids-rich area of the Utica Shale,” and underlies all or a portion of ten counties in the Eastern part of the state. Keep reading →


Things are not always as they seem.

I learned that, at first excitedly and then painfully, during my eight-month stint as Associate Editor of Breaking Energy. I’ll be moving to Israel next month where I will be apprenticing with a midwife and continuing to cover the energy sector with a focus on Israeli clean tech. Keep reading →


U.S. prosecutors are reportedly considering filing criminal charges against BP employees over the U.K. energy giant’s role in the worst offshore oil spill in American history. According to The Wall Street Journal, federal officials may disclose felony charges early next year against employees who may have provided false information to regulators about the risks tied to the Gulf of Mexico well while drilling was ongoing. The charges would mark the first criminal charges stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 people, injured 17 and caused almost 5 million barrels of crude oil to spill. A conviction would call for up to five years in prison in addition to a fine, the paper said. This article is a linkout.

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