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Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas has no direct connection to reports of groundwater contamination, based on evidence reviewed in a study done by the Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin. The study, released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, British Columbia, found that many problems ascribed to hydraulic fracturing are actually related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs. The researchers also concluded that many reports of contamination can be traced to above-ground...

Asian buyers of Iranian crude are struggling to find vessels willing to call at ports in the Islamic Republic as shipowners fear losing insurance cover for their tankers because of European and US sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Although the EU ban on the import and transportation of Iranian crude does not directly affect Iran's Asian customers, a provision in the sanctions legislation agreed January 23 is having an impact far beyond European shores. "It shall be prohibited to provide, directly or indirectly, financing or financial assistance, including financial derivatives, as well as insurance and reinsurance, related to...

Oil and gas industry groups took issue with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s suggestion yesterday that companies would prefer a uniform national approach instead of a state-by-state approach when it comes to regulating hydraulic fracturing. Salazar yesterday defended his department’s impending regulations for hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, saying industry has told him that “they don’t like to deal with a patchwork of regulation” that varies from state to state. He said the Interior Department rules, which wouldn’t apply to non-federal lands, could create a template for states to follow. The oil and gas industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute...

The U.S. new sanctions initiative, strongly supported by Israel, to impose new sanctions against Iran, is designed to punish it for its purported covert nuclear weapons program by imposing new restrictions on Tehran. As a result, many of Iran’s oil customers are scrambling to avoid collateral damage to their economies. The sanctions’ potential fallout is now hitting South Africa, Africa's biggest economy, which receives nearly 25 percent of its needs from Iran, roughly 98,000 barrels per day (bpd), or about 4 percent of Iran’s total exports. South Africa's economy, which has been hit by fuel shortages in the past because...

A funny thing is happening on the way to the clean energy future–reality is setting in. There is ‘incontrovertible evidence’ about the economic growth and job creating effects of America’s unconventional oil and gas production boom – more than 600,000 jobs directly attributable to shale gas development. Even President Obama is praising the job creating benefits of ‘America’s resource boom’. America is getting its energy mojo back and that is good news but not the entire story. How Much Shale Gas is there in the United States? In July 2011 US EIA released a [Review of Emerging Resources: US Shale...

Presidential candidate NewtGingrich says even though rivals RickSantorum and Mitt Romney are currently leading the pack in the important primary state of Michigan — which is also Romney’s home state — the former House speaker has not given up on his chances. Gingrich, who has dumbfounded political pundits before with his repeated surges, also told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Wednesday that he continues to confidently look to Super Tuesday. “I’ll be in Michigan campaigning next week — we have every reason to believe we’re going to be competing there effectively — and we’re going to have a number of...

The United States has massive deposits of petroleum locked in shale. Government estimates are there are two trillion barrels of oil, and perhaps 800 billion barrels could be recovered. That's about three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. The problem is finding an efficient way to get that petroleum out of the rock. It's a challenge that's frustrated scientists for decades. Two North Dakota State University researchers are taking a different approach to the problem, and they believe the key to extracting oil from shale is in understanding the material at the nano scale. Nano is breaking materials down...

Besieged by international sanctions over the Iranian nuclear program including a planned oil embargo by Europe, Iran warned six European buyers on Wednesday that it might strike first by immediately cutting them off from Iranian oil.

Midstream Makeover Recent shifts in U.S. oil supply and demand patterns are testing the limits of the Nation's oil storage and transportation network. Upstream, a revolution in tight oil1 production, fostered by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques, has raised logistical challenges commensurate with the new sources of oil supply it has unlocked. Downstream, shifts in demand patterns and refining economics are opening a new chapter in supply logistics. Refinery closures in the Delaware Valley and the Caribbean mean that East Coast markets -- no longer as large as they once were, but still the Nation's largest - may become...

TEHRAN — In a new show of defiance against tightened sanctions, Iran on Wednesday threatened to cut oil exports to several European Union countries and unveiled controversial advances in its nuclear fuel programs. In a day of fiery speeches, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also lashed out at the West, condemning recent assassinations of Iranian scientists. Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned ambassadors of six E.U. states and warned at least four of them — Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece — that they must extend their long term oil-purchasing contracts with Iran or face cutoff, the semiofficial...

Iran has stopped oil exports to six European states in retaliation for European Union sanctions imposed on the Islamic state's key export, its English-language Press TV reported on Wednesday. "Iran cuts its oil exports to six European countries," Press TV reported. Press TV said Iran has stopped exporting oil to Netherlands, Greece, France, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Brent crude oil prices were up $1 a barrel to $118.35 shortly after the announcement.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday his department would formally unveil its highly anticipated rules for hydraulic fracturing on federal lands in “a few weeks.” The Interior Department has worked on a trio of rules that would require companies operating on federal lands to disclose the chemicals in their fracturing fluids (with a trade-secret exemption), impose standards meant to ensure wells can withstand fracturing and require companies to explain how they plan to dispose of flowback water. “If we are going to be successful, the public needs to have confidence that fracking operations are being conducted safely, and that drinking...

On January 18th, Representative Denis Kucinich (D-Ohio), along with five liberal Democrats in the House of Representatives, introduced a bill that displays not only a lack of understanding about the basics of business, but also champions some of the most failed government economic policies of the past 40 years. The bill, H.R. 3784, otherwise known as the "Gas Price Spike Act of 2012," would, as its preamble sets forth: "…amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a windfall profit tax on oil and natural gas (and products thereof) and to allow an income tax credit for purchases of...

BAGHDAD, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. supermajor Exxon Mobil won't be able to take part in an oil and natural gas licensing auction scheduled for May in Iraq, a spokesman said. Iraq is expected to put around a dozen oil and natural gas blocks up for auction in its fourth licensing round, scheduled for May. Exxon Mobil is prohibited from taking part because it has contracts with the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. "The Iraqi government has decided that Exxon won't be allowed to participate in the next oil- and gas-bidding round," Faisal Abdullah, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry,...

Gov. Sean Parnell’s goal of nearly doubling the flow of oil through the trans-Alaska pipeline could be achieved over the next 10 to 15 years — but not without major fiscal and policy changes, a consultant said. Pedro van Meurs, an oil and gas consultant, told a joint hearing of the Senate Resources and Finance committees that Parnell’s tax-cut bill “does not even come close” to going far enough to hit the Republican governor’s goal of 1 million barrels a day. He said “more elaborate” legislation is needed if Alaska wants significant increases in production. Reaching Parnell’s goal includes new...

Energy: While our president sleeps on the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada’s prime minister is in Beijing signing a series of trade deals to ship additional petroleum to China. Halftime in America? We need a new quarterback. While Clint Eastwood, in that thinly disguised infomercial for President Obama's re-election campaign, was promising that the world would soon hear the roar of our engines, China's economy will soon be revving up with petroleum that should and could be flowing south in a pipeline the Obama administration won't build. Prime Minister Steven Harper is making good on his warning that Canada would seek...

US Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum won all three republican voting contests last night. Let's just remind our viewers what some of his thoughts are regarding foreign policy and Iran…remember what he said on the campaign trail about nuclear scientists ending up dead being a good thing? He's also advocated airstrikes on nuclear facilities. As we hear the drum beat of war between the West and Iran, we often see war and politics as separate from the economy. They are not. Putting aside the human cost for a moment, which is huge, let's look at the economic cost. The price...

There are many contrasts that the GOP can use to go after Obama on the economy. None present such a black and white contrast as the dispute about the black, tar-sands crude that Canada would like to ship through the US to refineries on the Gulf via the Keystone XL pipeline. The dispute isn't about the environment, is about creating 10 million U.S. jobs. The State Department gave preliminary approval to build the Keystone pipeline late last summer, saying that it posed no significant environmental risks. But like a lot of things with this administration, it was a case of...

Iran's crude oil exports to India have increased 37.5% in January. India has increased oil imports from Iran to become the Islamic Republic's largest customer last month, ignoring recent sanctions imposed by US and EU on importing Iran’s oil. According to The Wall Street Journal Iranian crude exports to India rose to 550,000 barrels a day in January, up 37.5 percent from December 2011. The development, the report said, has partly offset a 50 percent cut in crude exports to China as a result of pricing dispute. China now imports around 250,000 barrels a day from Iran. The news comes...

The short version of the story is that a 1970s deal cemented the US dollar as the only currency to buy and sell crude oil, and from that monopoly on the all-important oil trade the US dollar slowly but surely became the reserve currency for global trades in most commodities and goods. Massive demand for US dollars ensued, pushing the dollar's value up, up, and away. In addition, countries stored their excess US dollars savings in US Treasuries, giving the US government a vast pool of credit from which to draw.

The United States has long been seen as a nation in its twilight as an oil producer, facing a relentless decline that began when President Richard Nixon was in the White House. He and every president since pledged to halt the U.S. slide into greater dependence on foreign oil, but the trend seemed irreversible—until now. Forty-one years later, U.S. oil production is on the rise. U.S. oil fields yielded an estimated 5.68 million barrels per day in 2011—their highest output since 2003, thanks largely to a surge of new production from shale oil that lies beneath the Great Plains. The...

Is $26 million worth the reputation of a venerable, 1.4 million member environmental group ? The Sierra Club may be about to find out. the 120-year-old organization’s hushed financial marriage to the natural gas industry — and its just-as-secretive divorce — have left some long-time supporters feeling angry, betrayed or misled. The news cut especially deep for activists who have spent years fighting the spread of shale gas drilling in states like New York and Pennsylvania. The Sierra Club quietly accepted $26 million in donations from gas industry interests from 2007 to 2010 — years when the group’s national leaders...

In a move announced by Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday, the state will give more than $22 million to help fund a major expansion at the Port of Tampa. The Port of Tampa is planning for a new Petroleum Terminal Project that will cost $45 million dollars overall. Port officials said the current terminal is almost 50 years old and designed for only two ships to dock at a time. According to officials, the Port of Tampa provides energy supplies for 9 million people from Fort Myers to Orlando. It also provides jet fuel for Tampa International Airport and Orlando...

Even the worst of presidents cannot stop the best of times, and it's beginning to look as if an unprecedented energy boom just might save President Barack Obama's re-election, despite his undying efforts to thwart energy development. He's worked hard at it, you know, and few things I've read sum it up better than a Wall Street Journal article by Stephen Moore. He interviewed Harold Hamm, an oil-company CEO who first discovered the Bakken oil fields in Montana and North Dakota, which was a bit like discovering gold in California in the 19th century but more than that. This is...

NAMPA, Idaho—The staccato of nail guns echoes across a cavernous building here as workers piece together manufactured houses with easy-to-clean linoleum floors and rugged interiors for muddy oil-field workers. There is no oil and gas production in Idaho, but that doesn't mean the U.S. energy boom has bypassed this bedroom community west of Boise. Fleetwood Homes of Idaho, a subsidiary of Cavco Industries Inc., has increased production by 25% since last fall at its Nampa factory, hiring 40 workers and adding hours for employees. It is building the extra-insulated "Dakota" model for shipment 1,000 miles east to the Bakken oil...

The keystone pipeline was one of the most well studied, environmentally safe projects in modern history. It was not blocked by Obama because of environmental concerns, it was simply another casualty in a long list of cynical vote-getting ploys to appease Obama's radical base of support, the American People be damned. It is clear: Our Chicago politician considers his re-election more important than American jobs or energy independence. Better to dump billions into Solyndra and a host of other feel-good, politically correct scams. This administration has gone beyond corrupt or incompetent; it is placing the survival of the United States...

Sen. Maria Cantwell, a longtime opponent of oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, has helped defeat the latest Republican plan to open up the refuge for new energy exploration. The Washington Democrat and member of the Senate Finance Committee raised objections Tuesday when Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch offered a plan that would have allowed drilling rigs into the refuge and protected waters off the coast of Florida and southern California “We all know that gas prices going up are a very big challenge to us and we need to find alternatives to foreign oil,” Cantwell said. “But...

More than two-thirds of Iran's lawmakers have endorsed a statement calling for cutting off oil sales to the European Union before EU sanctions on their country go into effect. The statement, which was read Wednesday in an open session of parliament broadcast on state radio, said "in the case of the continuation of illogical policies" by the EU, Iran will look for alternative customers for its oil before the European embargo goes into effect in the summer. The statement was signed by 200 of the parliament's 290 lawmakers.

The US Bureau of Land Management published a draft programmatic environmental impact statement and possible land use amendments for federally administered oil shale and tar sands acreage in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. It also opened a 90-day comment period on the proposals on Feb. 3. The draft PEIS analyzes several land allocation and resource management alternatives, the US Department of the Interior agency noted. It said if it decides to adopt the preferred alternative, 461,965 acres would be available for research and development of oil shale (35,308 acres in Colorado, 252,181 acres in Utah, and 174,476 acres in Wyoming), and...

Gas Prices Expected To Soar 60 Cents: How That Impacts Your BudgetBy: Diane Lee | News Channel 7 Updated: February 06, 2012 - 4:32 PM GREENVILLE, S.C. - For 16 years John and Clare Coulis have driven the 1200 mile journey to Ontario and back every May. When they started, gas was under a dollar. Now... "I think I want to occupy BP," he said with a laugh. In all seriousness, it is slated to get worse. Analysts predict prices will sour 60 cents from now until May. The main reasons: Oil refiners have cut back on production because of...

It's the billion-dollar question in Alaska for 2012: Will this be the year Shell Oil begins large-scale offshore exploratory drilling in Arctic waters? Two months into 2012, the oil giant is beyond the lead time it said it needed to assemble the flotilla of support vessels that must accompany drill ships to leases in the remote Chukchi and Beaufort seas. But Shell Alaska Vice President Pete Slaiby remains hopeful drilling can begin when Arctic Ocean ice melts this summer, even as he awaits a green light from regulators. "There is clearly more certainty with the regulatory process than we've had...

Participants in a recent shale gas energy conference held in Hobbs, New Mexico, referred to a whirlwind trip to Lea County, NM, as “exhausting” but “enlightening.” Bradford County Commissioners Doug McLinko, Mark Smith, and Daryl Miller, Susquehanna County Commissioner Mary Ann Warren and Pennsylvania state Rep. Tina Pickett were among local elected officials to partake in discussions and serve as guests on informative panels.

Iranian officials announced they have successfully launched a new satellite into orbit, the latest in the Islamic Republic's space program. Iran's state news agency IRNA said the satellite was launched Friday. It is reportedly designed to collect data on weather conditions and monitor for natural disasters. IRNA also said the Navid, or Gospel in Farsi, weighs some 110 pounds and will orbit the earth at an altitude of up to 234 miles (375 kilometers). Navid is the third small satellite Iran has launched in recent years. None have had a life-span of much more than a month. It falls into...

MADRID - Spanish oil firm Repsol YPF SA has begun offshore drilling in Cuban waters as part of its global exploration operations, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday. Deep-water exploration drilling began about 50 kilometers north of Havana and will take at least 60 days to complete, this person added. Repsol is resuming exploration in the area after it failed to find exploitable oil in 2004. The U.S. Geological Survey has said there could be a substantial amount of untapped oil off the Cuban coast. The Repsol well is much closer to Florida than any other well in...

Energy: Small- and medium-size businesses serving Louisiana's energy industry are shedding employees, dipping into personal savings or moving elsewhere to stay afloat. The administration's war on fossil fuels is taking its toll. The federal six-month moratorium on drilling that was issued in May 2010, after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, has been officially lifted, but it might as well still be in effect. The glacial permitting process put in place in the aftermath in the name of public safety is killing an industry pledged to wean us from the "energy of the past" will not mourn. A...

[Background History on...] James G. Rickards is a writer, lawyer and economist with over 30 years experience in global capital markets. He is Senior Managing Director at Omnis, Inc., a consulting firm in McLean, VA and is the leading practitioner at the intersection of global capital markets and national security. His advice to clients from 2002 to 2006 included early warning of impending financial collapse, the rise of sovereign wealth funds, the decline of the dollar and the sharp rise in gold prices years in advance of these events. He has held senior executive positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management...

The first time he was asked about a proposed increase in the severance tax on natural gas, Gov. Mike Beebe was lukewarm in his support. Last October, he said he probably would vote for it, but not campaign for it. His temperature on the idea is cooling — with good reason. The governor sees potential new natural gas exploration in southern Arkansas on the horizon and doesn't want to scare away investments that just as easily could go to other states. Arkansas' best interest is always on Beebe's mind. That has made him an even better governor than most people...

The announcements by Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) that they would not run for reelection reflects what may be the last gasps of the Great Plains Democrats, much as California’s 2010 Democratic landslide assured that Republicans are soon to become endangered species in places like Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. The conventional explanation for these trends centers on culture or ideology, but the real cause may lie with an evolving conflict between two dueling political economies. On one side lies the information or “creative” economy, centered in coastal big cities and university towns. On the other lies...

For good or bad, from 1980-2010, North America lost some of its oil production edge. .....North America was the only region in the world that had a net production decrease over these three decades.

TOWANDA - While Bradford County has experienced extensive gas drilling for a few years, what will it be like after the drilling has gone on for decades? The three Bradford County commissioners and other local officials had a chance to get a sense of what could happen when they traveled last week to participate in a two-day conference in Lea County, N.M.

It is called underground injection, a process that brings up oil by using a rush of steam, water and chemicals from old, depleted wells. And it is getting the ‘go ahead’ from California Governor Jerry Brown, a major supporter of alternative energy.

The latest chapter in Canada’s quest to become a full-blown oil superpower unfolded this month in a village gym on the British Columbia coast. Here, several hundred people gathered for hearings on whether a pipeline should be laid from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific in order to deliver oil to Asia, chiefly energy-hungry China. The stakes are particularly high for the village of Kitamaat and its neighbors, because the pipeline would terminate here and a port would be built to handle 220 tankers a year and 525,000 barrels of oil a day. But the planned Northern Gateway Pipeline...

President Barack Obama might have rejected the enormous Keystone XL pipeline, at least for now, but that doesn't mean heavy crude from Canada won't be flowing into Texas' refineries later this year. TransCanada Corp. — the Canadian company that proposed building the $7 billion, 830,000 barrel-a-day pipeline — has some ideas that could lead to moving oil from the oil sands region in northern Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast of Texas without the blessing of the president, the company said. "We are still very much committed to building this pipeline," TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said in an interview with...

Tehran has stepped up its bellicose warnings of conflict in the Persian Gulf as potentially crippling new European Union and American sanctions have been approved on Iran's oil exports and central bank. The US defied the warning of a top Iranian general this week and sent the USS Abraham Lincoln – flanked by British and French warships – through the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf. A senior Iranian lawmaker scoffed that the US "did not dare" to send its ship alone, because of the danger posed by the Islamic Republic. If Iran were to close the...

Remember this? The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan. The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-I’m Bank says it has not decided...

Remember this? The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan. The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-I’m Bank says it has not decided...

The president raised some eyebrows this week speaking well of fracking and drilling and getting more of those nasty fossil fuels to use. The greens had conniptions. Meanwhile, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. The Akron Beacon Journal reportsthat FirstEnergy Corp. has announced will will shut six coal-fired power plants, including four in Ohio, because of stricter federal anti-pollution rules. That would be stricter Obama rules. . .

Hypocrisy: As the great investor's secretary sat with the first lady at the State of the Union, the president spoke of economic "fairness." Is it fair to make a supporter wealthier at the expense of the American people? During the 2008 campaign, candidate Barack Obama cited billionaire Warren Buffett as one of his economic muses. In the 2012 State of the Union address Tuesday night, the president returned to his advocacy of the "Buffett rule," a proposed minimum tax on millionaires and billionaires. To highlight his theme of "fairness," there in the first lady's box sat Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek,...

Way back in early 2011, members of the U.N. Security Council had no problem getting a resolution through that authorized military force in Libya ostensibly to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to strongman Moammar Gadhafi. The year before, lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic were bickering over who did what and why in terms of the cancer-stricken Lockerbie bomber. This Scottish decision to release him, depending on which U.S. lawmaker you spoke with, was tied to a BP deal to drill for oil in Libya. Despite fractures in the new interim government in Tripoli and reports of...