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The size of the Utica shale play’s technically recoverable resources is larger than previously thought, a recent study by West Virginia University (WVU) has found. WVU found that the Utica play contains technically recoverable resources of 782 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas and around 1.9 billion barrels of oil. That’s higher than the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) 2012 estimate of technically recoverable resources at 38 Tcf of gas and 940 million barrels of oil. The study results indicate that the Utica – which spans West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York – is comparable to the Marcellus...

Joule says “will go commercial in 2017″: solar fuels on the way March 23, 2015 | Jim Lane     “Staged industrialization process” beginning; exotic yields from an exotic organism that uses CO2, water and nutrients and secretes ethanol or diesel. Former Total, Alcatel CEO Serge Tchuruk is now at the helm as the Joule team updates The Digest on the progress in New Mexico. For fans of the “solar renewable fuels” company Joule, there’s significant news from Bedford: the company has announced that it will undertake a “staged industrialization process”, to culminate in a 1000-acre production plant starting construction...

Now that the international community plans to lift the embargo on Iranian oil, it's time for Congress to lift the one on U.S. oil. For 40 years, the United States has banned almost all exports of U.S. crude in the mistaken belief that energy independence is the same thing as energy security. The result is that U.S. oil companies are forced to sell their product at a substantial discount to prevailing international prices to U.S. refiners who then export gasoline, diesel and jet fuel at a significant profit. Congress needs to repeal this misguided federal ban so that U.S. crude...

An Iranian supertanker with two million barrels of oil is heading to Asia after sitting in Iranian waters for months, the first vessel storing crude offshore to sail after a nuclear deal this week, data showed on Thursday. Iran and six major world powers reached a landmark nuclear deal on Tuesday, clearing the way for an easing of international sanctions on Tehran and higher oil exports. While oil analysts do not expect Iran to make a major return to the market until next year, it has been parking millions of barrels of oil on tankers for months.

CULBERTSON, Mont. – A train carrying oil derailed in northeast Montana Thursday, hours after the tracks reopened from another train derailment that occurred on Tuesday in the same county. The westbound train derailed about 6:05 p.m. Mountain Time east of Culbertson, Mont, said BNSF Railway spokesman Matt Jones. The westbound train contained 106 loaded crude oil tank cars and two buffer cars loaded with sand. Twenty-two cars derailed and two of those remained upright, Jones said. The other rail cars were still on the track in the desolate area near the North Dakota and Montana border. Roosevelt County Sheriff Jason...

<p>DENVER — A spokesperson for the radical Santa Fe-based anti-coal group WildEarth Guardians showed no regard and no respect for the families and communities in Colorado who have everything to lose if the Colowyo mine is shut down.</p>

Shale reservoirs have become an important part of North American oil and gas supply and their development has begun a new era of oil and gas production worldwide. Advances in well drilling and completion technologies supported the rapid development of shale resources which contributed to the almost overwhelming success of U.S. shale in recent years. Globally, Argentina’s Neuquén Basin and China’s Sichuan Basin are the two front-runners to emulate the successes of the United States, with Poland, Algeria, Australia, Colombia, Russia, and Mexico still in earlier phases of exploration and evaluation, while Saudi Arabia also has plans for domestic shale...

West Coast spot prices for conventional gasoline increased sharply last week, while falling slightly on the Gulf Coast and remaining flat on the East Coast. The Los Angeles, California, spot price for conventional gasoline increased nearly 90 cents per gallon (cents/gal) between July 6 and July 13, while San Francisco, California, and Portland, Oregon prices increased 24 cents/gal and 5 cents/gal, respectively (Figure 1). This most recent price rise results from a delay in receipts of waterborne imports of gasoline blending components and a decrease in total motor gasoline inventories within an already constrained supply chain. West Coast spot gasoline...

U.S. chemical plants are expected to grow in the coming months as they take advantage of cheap natural gas prices and a strengthening economy that has boosted domestic demand for raw materials used in housing and automobiles, a new credit rating analysis finds. But falling oil prices and a strong U.S. dollar threaten earnings for several domestic chemical companies, according to an economic and ratings outlook compiled by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. Domestic chemical companies have been able to crank out chemicals at a lower cost because they rely primarily on natural gas to feed their operations while their...

Cheap crude has hammered oil producing states to the point that they’re dragging down overall growth and erasing any positive effects from falling commodity prices on the economy, Goldman Sachs said in a report this week. While the dive in crude oil prices from more than $100 in June 2014 to a little over $50 this month has meant the cheapest gasoline prices since 2009, consumer spending from that windfall hasn’t outpaced deep cuts to the oil and gas sector. The research note said that slumping oil prices have meant dramatic declines in oilfield investments — fewer new wells are...

A lawsuit brought by environmentalists and federal regulators has forced a major utility to phase out coal use at six power plants in Iowa. Activists claim these retirements bring the total number of U.S. coal plants shut down to 200 — or 40 percent of the U.S. coal plant fleet. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department of Justice announced an Iowa subsidiary of Alliant Energy agreed to pay $7.1 million in civil penalties to environmental projects for violating the Clean Air Act. The settlement also requires the company to stop burning coal or shut down six power...

Average price up at least 25 cents a gallon across the stateWhile gas prices nationwide are on a downward trend, California is experiencing a spike that could see prices top $4 a gallon before easing again, according to analysts. Gas prices are soaring across the state, up at least 25 cents a gallon over the span of a few days, and for motorists in the Bay Area, it's expected to spike even more. A shortage in oil and other components used in refining California's unique blend of less-polluting gas was one of the reasons for the price jump, industry analyst...

What OPEC countries fear most is a follow-up technological revolution that will lead to a second oil boom in the U.S., and that fear is now being realized. A technological revolution spurred the U.S. oil boom that resulted in the greatest increase in domestic oil production in a century, and while that has stuttered in the face of a major oil price slump and an OPEC campaign to maintain a grip on market share, the American response could be another technological revolution that demonstrates that the first one was merely an impressive embryonic experiment. It’s not only about shale now—it’s...

What OPEC countries fear most is a follow-up technological revolution that will lead to a second oil boom in the U.S., and that fear is now being realized. A technological revolution spurred the U.S. oil boom that resulted in the greatest increase in domestic oil production in a century, and while that has stuttered in the face of a major oil price slump and an OPEC campaign to maintain a grip on market share, the American response could be another technological revolution that demonstrates that the first one was merely an impressive embryonic experiment.

It's the little things that matter. What can you do to top a deal in which socialists bail out even worse socialists, which we got this morning from the Greeks and the masters of the Eurozone? How about a deal in which a group of Islamic fanatics get the go-ahead to build a bomb from a guy who is either the most naive fool ever to grace the world stage or a complete Muslim sympathizer? HTML5 video is not supported! Maybe you can be both, come to think of it. But don’t despair! While the Iranians are building their bomb,...

In the past, I documented the overstatements by both the IEA and EIA in 2014 & 2015 in terms of supply, inventory and understatements of demand. Others also noticed these distortions and, whether intentional or not, they exist and they are very large in dollar terms. These distortions, which are affecting price through media hype and/or direct/indirect price manipulation, are quite possibly the largest in financial history. Putting numbers behind it, with worldwide production running some 95 million barrels per day, and assuming $55 per barrel for oil, the market for crude oil is about $5.2 billion per day. Each...

The news from the IEA is not good. “World oil demand growth appears to have peaked in 1Q15 at 1.8 mb/d and will continue to ease throughout the rest of this year and into next as temporary support fades.” I don’t have great faith in forecasts but the data shows declining demand growth from late 2010 to the 2nd quarter of this year The weak global economy is the cause of low demand growth. The current debt crisis Greece and collapsing stock markets in China are the latest alarm signals.

GasBuddy started an emergencypetition on Friday calling on Governor Brown to obtain an EPA waiver to prevent gasoline price increases of at least 50-cents a gallon in Southern California and 30-cents in Northern California. As Breitbart News warned in December in “Brown Needs Oil Trains to Prevent Skyrocketing Energy Prices,: decades of anti-oil-production-policies in the Democrat-controlled state had made residents highly reliant on inconsistent supplies of oil from Iraq and oil trains from North Dakota. With supplies now breaking down, Californians are sure to be angry paying $5 a gallon for gasoline. GasBuddy noted that an “extraordinary convergence of fuel supply problems...

Natural gas overtook coal as the top source of U.S. electric power generation for the first time ever earlier this spring, a milestone that has been in the making for years as the price of gas slides and new regulations make coal more risky for power generators. About 31 percent of electric power generation in April came from natural gas, and 30 percent from coal, according to a recently released report from the research company SNL Energy, which used data from the U.S. Energy Department. Nuclear power came in third at 20 percent. A drilling boom that started in 2008...

Most of the 1.5 million electricity consumers served by the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association probably don’t think about it. But when they wake up and flip on their light switches each morning, they can thank in significant part Tri-State’s Craig Station power plant in Moffat County, the second largest in Colorado. And that power plant can operate only thanks to hundreds of local workers digging in, not just figuratively at the plant itself, but literally at the two area surface mines — Colowyo and Trapper — that provide the plant’s coal. ... With 220 people working at Colowyo, some...