Free Republic

A referendum to roll back an oil production tax change made in 2013 was defeated by voters in the state’s primary election held Aug. 19. Ballot Measure 1, which would have reinstated the state’s previous tax known as ACES that was repealed in 2013, was voted down 52 percent to 48 percent, or a margin of about 6,800 votes, the Division of Elections reported in late results with 98.6 percent of the votes counted. Earlier in the evening of Aug. 19 the “yes” votes had a thin majority of a few hundred for repeal with about 25 percent of the...

Petroleum engineers experienced the highest increase in median annual salary since 2011, according to a recent report from the American Geosciences Institute (AGI). In 2013, the median average salary for petroleum engineers was $132,000, and had increased by more than $10,000 since 2011, according to the Aug. 12 report, which quoted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since 2011, all geoscience occupations – with the exception of atmospheric and space scientists, geographers, environmental science and protection technicians, engineering postsecondary teachers, and atmospheric, earth, marine and space sciences post-secondary teachers – recorded increases in their median annual salaries, while...

Refracking brings 'vintage' oil and gas wells to life Aug 20, 2014, 10.43AM IST (The development highlights…) HOUSTON/WILLISTON, NORTH DAKOTA: A fracking boom isn't enough for U.S. oil and gas producers - they're now starting the re-fracking boom.Wells sunk as little as three years ago are being fracked again, the latest innovation in the technology-driven shale oil revolution. Hydraulic fracturing, which has upended global energy markets by lifting U.S. crude oil output to a 25-year high, has been troubled by quick declines in oil and gas output. The development highlights how producers must constantly invest and tinker, both to...

Turn natural gas into gasoline for $1 per gallon The clear liquid flowing from a collection of pipes and wires in a Hayward industrial park smells just like gasoline, and for all practical purposes, it is.But it wasn’t made from crude oil. Instead, it came from natural gas, the fuel whose sudden abundance in America is reshaping the country’s energy landscape.Siluria Technologies says it can produce large quantities of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and chemicals at a lower cost than traditional refineries and chemical plants. At today’s natural gas prices, Siluria’s technology could make gasoline at roughly $1 per gallon, according to...

The Eagle Ford Shale is boosting the fortunes of Blue Dolphin Energy Co., which took a chance when it bought a rusty, mothballed refinery in the small town of Nixon about seven years ago. Blue Dolphin bought the plant out of bankruptcy before the promise of the Eagle Ford was apparent. The company spent tens of millions refurbishing the plant and restarted it in early 2012. Nixon, which is about 54 miles east of San Antonio, straddles Gonzales and Wilson counties in a booming part of the shale play. The plant buys every drop of its crude oil from drillers...

The Texas Gulf Coast will be ground zero for a push to equip refineries to handle a flood of light crude unlocked in the U.S. shale boom, but the investments will be relatively conservative, a petrochemical consultant said Wednesday. Refiners won’t spend the big bucks they dropped when they retooled to handle heavy, high-sulfur crude several years ago, largely because it’s cheaper and simpler to modify a refinery to process lighter crude, said Jim Jones, senior vice president at Dallas-based petrochemical consulting firm Turner, Mason and Company. “It won’t be a $5 billion investment, it will be a couple million...

Congress should use the appropriations process to reassert its authority over the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a Heritage Foundation issue brief released Tuesday.The report, written by scholar Daren Bakst, identifies three issues on which the EPA has proposed rules and regulations that exceed its authority. In all three cases, Bakst recommends that Congress prohibit the agency from using its funding to implement the proposals. (RELATED: EPA Overrides Congress, Hands Over Town to Indian Tribes)According to the report, “the EPA is using the regulatory process to require greenhouse gas emission reductions even as Congress has been unwilling to take such...

The weak safety culture of a now-defunct railway company and poor government oversight were among the many factors that led to an oil train explosion that killed 47 people in Quebec last year, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board said in a new report released Tuesday. TSB chair Wendy Tadros said 18 factors played a role, including a rail company that cut corners and a Canadian regulator that didn’t do proper safety audits. The safety board issued its report 13 months after a runaway train carrying 72 carloads of volatile oil from North Dakota derailed, hurtled down an incline and slammed into...

The gap between crude oil prices in the major trading centers of Midland, Texas and Cushing, Okla. ballooned to $19 Tuesday morning, the widest point this year and second-highest on record. On Tuesday morning, the price for crude oil hit a low of $77.48 per barrel in Midland. In Cushing, the benchmark pricing point for U.S. crude contracts, the price was $96.48. Worldwide crude prices fell, Bloomberg reported, after Iraqi and Kurdish forces regained control of a key dam in Iraq and slowed the advance of Islamic State militants. Midland prices are further depressed because production growth in West Texas’...

Pickens: Brent crude will be above $100 forever Jackie DeAngelis | @JackieDeAngelis 4 Hours AgoCNBC.com 72 SHARES                         39COMMENTSJoin the Discussion Oil and gas entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens thinks international oil prices will stay high indefinitely—over $100 a barrel—despite recent declines in the futures market. Adam Jeffery | CNBC T. Boone Pickens At the Investools 4th Annual Investor Education Conference in Dallas, Pickens reminded investors that OPEC's largest producer, Saudi Arabia, needs oil prices to remain elevated in order to maintain its social spending programs; therefore, the Organization...

Chinese oil companies are giving U.S. firms a bigger stake in exchange for the tools and technology of hydraulic fracturing, and many of those tools are made in Texas, or nearby. The Chinese hope hydraulic fracturing can launch a shale production gusher as it has in the United States–although China’s formations are deeper, and some are especially challenging because they’re in remote deserts or near densely populated cities. But the Chinese government is eager to reduce the country’s thick air pollution, and one step in that direction would be power plants that run on cleaner-burning natural gas instead of coal....

(CBS/AP) – Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.

5 Things Pioneer Natural Resources’ Management Wants You to Know By Matt DiLallo | More Articles | Save For Later August 18, 2014 | Comments (0) Pioneer Natural Resources' (NYSE: PXD  ) management team earlier this month spent nearly 75 minutes discussing its second-quarter results with analysts and investors. The company believes it is sitting on more than 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas in the Permian Basin. Here's what management wants investors to know about its plans to create value from that massive resource. No. 1: The water issue is slowly drying upOne reason for Pioneer Natural Resources' large...

Death estimates range from 1,000 to 28,000 per year The $2.2 billion plant, which launched in February, is at Ivanpah Dry Lake near the California-Nevada border. Unlike many other solar plants, the Ivanpah plant does not generate energy using photovoltaic solar panels. Instead, it has more than 300,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door. Together, they cover 1,416 hectares. Each mirror collects and reflects solar rays, focusing and concentrating solar energy from their entire surfaces upward onto three boiler towers, each looming up to 40 stories high. The solar energy heats the water inside the towers to produce...

NELIGH, Neb. — Willie Nelson and Neil Young will headline a concert next month in a Nebraska cornfield organized by opponents of a proposed pipeline that would carry oil from Canada south to the Gulf Coast. Bold Nebraska said Monday the concert will be held Sept. 27 on a farm near Neligh in northeast Nebraska. Tickets go on sale Wednesday.

Biofuel manufacturer KiOR’s financial struggles might leave Mississippi holding the title to another failed green energy project. According to the company’s quarterly report, without additional financing KiOR won’t be able to meet its financial obligations past Sept. 30. One of its biggest creditors is the state of Mississippi. The company owes the state $69.275 million on a no-interest loan to build a first-of-its kind plant to convert wood pulp into gasoline, fuel oil and diesel fuel in Columbus, Miss. It missed its most recent semi-annual payment of $1.875 million to the state, which granted forbearance June 3. But that ends...

Oil Production In Permian Causes Pipeline Bottleneck In TexasCatherine Ngai|Tuesday, August 12, 2014 NEW YORK, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Oil production from the burgeoning Permian Basin of West Texas is outpacing pipelines' ability to transport oil to the Gulf Coast, causing coastal refiners to pay an additional premium to acquire oil.On Monday, that bottleneck caused oil for delivery at Midland, Texas <WTC-WTM> to trade at nearly $20 a barrel less than Gulf Coast benchmark Light Louisiana Sweet <WTC-LLS>, the deepest discount in 17 months. It was little changed on Tuesday.The deep discount is a consequence of the U.S. shale revolution, which...

Any one else heard of this....???**************************************************** Technology Latest posts by UberGeekgirl1 (see all) Safety in MMA - July 28, 2014R2-D2 USB Car Charger - July 27, 2014Minecraft Pocket Edition - July 26, 2014 Brown (governor of California) and Perry (governer of Texas) along with Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada are in a heated battle over a secret project known as “Operation Bluestar”. Alongside them are several members of Congress, international technology conglomerates across Asia, and several Silicon Valley heavyweights. All wanting to partner with Straubel on Operation Bluestar.Being called the new area 51, the stakes are high as the project will...

Why This Oil Baron Thinks U.S. Oil Production Could Double By Adam Galas | More Articles August 17, 2014 | Comments (0) America's oil production is on a roll. After peaking in November of 1970 at 10 million barrels per day (bpd) and declining for nearly 40 years to a low of just 5 million bpd in 2008, today's oil production has soared 67%. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is expecting another 13.6% increase by 2016 to 9.5 million bpd, before production tapers off in 2020. This miracle has been made possible by soaring shale oil production out of Texas...

America could literally become energy independent given its vast reserves of energy source Here in America and elsewhere around the world, Greens continue to war against any energy other than the “renewable” kind, wind and solar, that is more costly and next to useless. Only coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear keeps the modern and developing world functioning and growing. The most publicized aspect is Obama’s “War on Coal” and, thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency, it has been successful; responsible for shutting down several hundred coal-fired plants by issuing costly regulations based on the utterly false claim that carbon...