As pressure builds on the Obama administration, the Energy Department ifinally gave an approval for more U.S. natural gas exports on Monday. Read more in this TheWallStreetJournal.com article.

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration's approval of a seventh application to export natural gas drew cautious praise from a number of U.S. lawmakers who have been putting pressure on President Barack Obama to allow more gas exports as a way to weaken Russia's power over Ukraine.

"I am proud that the U.S. Department of Energy has heeded my calls to speed its approval of pending liquefied-natural-gas export terminals," Sen. Mark Udall, (D., Colo.) said in a statement following the Energy Department's announcement Monday that it was granting conditional approval for Jordan Cove, a proposed project to export natural gas out of Oregon. "This newly approved LNG [liquefied natural gas] terminal is a step in the right direction, but there is more to do. I will keep fighting to ensure the White House continues to prioritize the development and approval of additional natural-gas export facilities."

Mr. Udall's statement is notable because he is one of a number of Democrats facing a tough re-election fight this year, and Republicans have targeted his seat as they try to capture a majority of the Senate. Mr. Udall hasn't always been so outspoken on this issue and he is widely viewed as aligned with environmentalists and renewable-energy interests just as much, if not more, than the natural-gas sector. Mr. Udall will face Rep. Cory Gardner, (R., Colo.), who recently announced his candidacy.

Jordan Cove is the seventh application, of more than 20, to receive the Energy Department's conditional approval, which allows the project to move forward but doesn't guarantee it will. Only one project has final federal approval to export natural gas and it is expected to begin doing so in late 2015. Before Jordan Cove and the other five projects that have won conditional approval can be built, they must get final clearance from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who has been one of the most vocal critics of Mr. Obama's energy policies, said Monday "this is welcome news for those opposed to Russia's aggression, but the approval of one application—which has been waiting two years—doesn't suggest that the president has adopted a new approach." Mr. Buck said the administration must approve the remaining projects "if we're going to weaken Russia's dominance in many foreign energy markets."

Ukraine and many other European nations rely on Russia for their natural gas, and over the last several weeks both U.S. lawmakers and ambassadors from Eastern European nations have been urging Mr. Obama to approve greater LNG exports to chip away at Russia's regional energy dominance.

Three congressional hearings this week-two on Tuesday and one Wednesday-will examine how the U.S. can use its abundant natural-gas resources as a geopolitical tool. Tuesday's hearings feature officials at the Energy Department, which has primary jurisdiction over this review process.

The department last approved a natural-gas export project in Louisiana a little over a month ago—a shorter period than the previous six approvals, which took up to two to three months to be approved. The timing signals that the Energy Department may be giving more consideration to geopolitical factors in its approval process.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz indicated as much at a Bloomberg Government event last week. "Maybe we will give some additional weight to the geopolitical criterion going forward," he said.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission—the next step in the approval process—is coming under intense scrutiny from environmentalists opposed to using natural gas and from U.S. industries that rely on it and predict its price will rise as exports increase. Some Democratic lawmakers, wary of price increases, said Monday that the Jordan Cove approval is a step too far, putting American jobs at risk.

"There can be no doubt that we have crossed a line into an era when we could be massively exporting America's natural gas, sending the jobs and consumer benefits abroad along with the fuel," said Sen. Edward Markey, (D., Mass.), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A coalition of major companies, including Dow Chemical Co. and Alcoa Inc., that use natural gas in production processes issued a statement Monday criticizing the administration's move.

"This is a grievous error that puts billions of dollars of investment and millions of jobs at risk," the group America's Energy Advantage wrote in a statement. "This latest export approval will raise domestic natural gas, electricity, home-heating and propane prices for every American, undermine our manufacturing competitiveness and cost the nation good-paying jobs."

Both Mr. Markey and the coalition are calling on the administration to halt further approvals until it conducts a study reviewing current market conditions.

The Obama administration is restricted by a law that establishes regulatory hurdles for the U.S. to export natural gas to countries that aren't free-trade partners, which include most of the countries that most want U.S. gas: Japan, India and European nations. To comply with the export law, the Energy Department must determine that the gas shipments are in America's national interest after considering several factors, such as economic, environmental and geopolitical issues.

In its order approving the Jordan Cove project, the Energy Department gave a specific nod to how America's natural-gas boom is already helping U.S. allies.

"Increased production of natural gas has significantly reduced the need for the United States to import LNG," the 158-page order states. "In global trade, LNG shipments that would have been destined to U.S. markets have been redirected to Europe and Asia, improving energy security for many of our key trading partners. To the extent U.S. exports can diversify global LNG supplies, and increase the volumes of LNG available globally, it will improve energy security for many U.S. allies and trading partners."


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This BusinessWire.com article talks about the China's oil and gas industry and how oil demand remains set to grow substantially in the country.

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/4wd5rx/analyzing_the_oil) has announced the addition of the "Analyzing the Oil & Gas Industry in China 2014" report to their offering.

“Analyzing the Oil & Gas Industry in China 2014”

In 2012, China was the fourth largest oil producer in the world, along with being the second largest consumer of oil as well. On the other hand, natural gas is not too much of a popular option in the country, accounting for less than four percent of the total energy consumption in China in 2009. Though the usage of natural gas is also rising over the years, oil demand remains set to grow substantially in China.

The potential of unconventional gas resources is significant in the Chinese oil and gas industry. Shale gas and coal bed methane (CBM) are witnessing a relatively strong growth in terms of exploration. China is also exploring the potential of methane hydrates as an energy source from the seabed.

We also analyze the oil and gas reserves in China, offshore reserves and exploration in China, the coal bed methane market, shale oil & gas in China, reserves of methane hydrates in China along with a forecast for the Chinese oil & gas sector. A SWOT framework analysis of the Chinese oil & gas industry is included.

An in-depth analysis of the oil sector in China follows next. The sector is analyzed through an overview, pricing reforms in the sector, oil exploration and production (both onshore & offshore), supply & demand scenario and the consumption of oil in China. We take a look at the strategic oil reserves in China, oil imports, the various oil pipelines, along with a sector outlook up to 2017 and beyond.

Key Topics Covered:

A. Executive Summary

B. Industry Background

C. Energy Industry in China - Porter's Five Forces Strategy Analysis

D. Oil & Gas Industry in China

E. Oil & Gas Industry in China: SWOT Analysis

F. Oil Industry in China

G. Refining Industry in China

H. Coal-to-Liquids in China

I. Gas Industry in China

J. Liquefied Natural Gas in China

K. Coal to Gas in China

L. Competition in the Industry

M. Major Industry Players

- BG Group

- BP China

- Chevron Corporation

- China National Offshore Oil Corporation

- China National Petroleum Corporation

- China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation

- ConocoPhillips

- Eni SpA

- ExxonMobil China

- Husky Energy

- PetroChina Company Limited

- Shell China

- Total SA


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According to recent reports, the United States’ monthly trade deficit was at its lowest in more than four years after importing only $34.3 billion more in goods and services than it exported in November.  This has sent a strong message to economic analysts and forecasts have been dramatically changed on how much the U.S. economy grew in the fourth quarter.



This shift in the trade balance can be attributed to the effects of the domestic energy boom, which is led by fracking operations.  Tipping the scales in favor of the U.S. economy were the consistent decreases in the imports of crude oil and other petroleum products.  While job creation still remains slower than desired, the more favorable trade balance situation does bode well in signaling a stronger overall growth for the economy.



Prior to the near-collapse in 2008, the U.S. financial system had been vulnerable to crashes due to the large current account deficits.  In reports on the third quarter, however, the nation’s current account deficit was 2.2 percent of GDP, which is the lowest level seen since the start of 2008.



On one side of the situation, it is better for workers if the shift in the financial imbalances was caused by rising exports, especially from the labor-intensive industries.  On the other side, however, because of the energy boom, one of the biggest contributors to the imbalances behind the crisis is disappearing and it is a good step towards a sustainable economic recovery.


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Keeping oil output high is the priority in Russia. Read why from this article:

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MOSCOW, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Russia retained the title of the world's top oil producer with 2013 output reaching a post-Soviet high as rising exports to China and strong prices allow the Kremlin to maintain record spending from an overstretched budget.

Energy has been the engine of Russia's growth during more than a decade of leadership by President Vladimir Putin, with oil and gas accounting for more than half of budget revenues.

But the government, which has amassed some of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over $500 billion, has been increasingly overstretching its finances due to social spending promised by Putin before the 2012 election as well as a swelling $50 billion budget for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Keeping oil output high has therefore been a priority for the government. The rise has defied predictions that new fields in East Siberia and the Arctic will be unable to compensate for declines from ageing oilfields in West Siberia.

"Enough investment is being made to slow declines in West Siberia and increase production in East Siberia in order to make for small net production increases," analysts from the International Energy Agency (IEA) told Reuters on Thursday.

The IEA, the West's energy watchdog, expects Russian production to remain flat at around 10.5 million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of the decade, and then decrease to about 9.5 million bpd by 2035.

The IEA says that key to maintaining Russian production levels would be the Kremlin's ability to extract hard-to-recover oil, emulating U.S. successes, and to encourage more production in remote Arctic and East Siberia regions.   


Despite record output, Russia's budget funding gap could reach some $300 billion between 2017 and 2020 should spending remain high and oil prices drop, according to the Finance Ministry's budget strategy to 2030.

That is three times the current value of the Reserve Fund, a rainy-day collection of windfall energy revenues.

Last year's budget was estimated to balance at an oil price of $110 per barrel and this year's at some $115 a barrel, Alfa Bank chief economist Natalia Orlova said.

That is dangerously close to or even higher than current prices for benchmark Brent crude, which stood at an average of below $110 in 2013 and are expected to remain under downward pressure in years to come due to a U.S. shale oil boom and a possible rise in exports from Iran.

WORLD'S TOPRussian energy ministry data showed on Thursday that the country's oil output rose to a post-Soviet high of 10.51 million bpd in 2013, up almost 1.4 percent from 2012.

December's monthly production averaged 10.63 million bpd, also a post-Soviet high.

Russian output likely stayed above that of Saudi Arabia, which kept production steady at around 9.7 million bpd in October and November. Saudi data for December is not yet available.

Almost all large Russian oil firms increased output in 2013 as they boosted drilling, including Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil producer and top non-state oil company, which had logged declines in the previous three years.

State-controlled Rosneft, the world's top listed oil producer, posted a dramatic jump in output to 3.1 million bpd thanks to the acquisition of rival TNK-BP and production increases in East Siberia.

The year was also marked by a further diversion of Russian oil to China, away from saturated European markets, as eastbound flows rose by almost a fifth to 740,000 bpd.

As Russia agreed to increase deliveries further to China in coming years, the Asian giant will likely replace Germany as the largest customer for Russian pipeline oil in the first quarter of 2014.

Despite the jump in eastbound flows, Russian oil exports outside the former Soviet Union fell by around 2.5 percent to 4.53 million bpd as Russia ramped up oil refining.

Domestic refining rose by 180,000 bpd, reflecting the country's $55 billion programme launched in 2011 to modernise its refineries and encourage exports of high-quality oil products.

Gazprom, the world's top gas producer, saw its output slip to 1.30 billion cubic metres (bcm) per day from 1.31 bcm per day in 2012 although its exports to Europe jumped 16 percent to a record 161.5 billion cubic metres.

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ConocoPhillips is eyeing to spend $16.7 billion in 2014. Read about it from this article:

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Dec 6 (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips, the largest independent oil and gas company, said on Friday that it expected to spend $16.7 billion next year, with more than half earmarked for shale projects in North America.

Conoco and other energy companies have ratcheted up spending on drilling in North America's shale basins because those projects are seen having higher returns and less risk.

In May, Conoco told analysts it expects to spend about $16 billion a year over the next five years. The company expects to spend about $16 billion this year.

The Houston company also said it was on track to hit its annual average production target of 1,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day, helped by output from projects in Canada, the North Sea and its shale fields like the Eagle Ford in south Texas.

About 55 percent of the 2014 funds are allocated for North America, with the balance going to Europe, Asia Pacific and other international businesses, the company said.

Shares of Conoco edged down 25 cents to $70.59 in midday New York Stock Exchange trading.

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THE North American shale boom has brought with it many benefits, including new jobs, cheaper electricity and the potential for energy independence.

But as producers tap ever more oil and gas, they are also exposing major shortcomings in the country’s transportation system and grappling with a problem of plenty: how to move all that product to market? “The problem is transport,” said Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston.

With the glut of oil, pipelines are congested and railroads are scrambling to pick up the slack, raising concerns about hazards like the recent explosion that killed dozens in Quebec. Similarly, highways are underdeveloped for this kind of traffic, while oceangoing tankers are burdened with regulatory constraints and there is a barge shortage.

With natural gas, the challenge is different. It generally moves through pipelines, but because its prices are low, the economics do not always support building infrastructure where it is needed.

The country has a well-developed pipeline network — more than 2.6 million miles of tubes moving a volume of fuel around the country that would overwhelm any other form of transport. Developed over decades, though, it is largely meant to bring fuel from the Gulf Coast to major markets like the Northeast or Pacific Northwest, rather than from newly established energy sources like the Bakken shale in North Dakota, the Eagle Ford development in South Texas or the Marcellus in the mid-Atlantic.

Adapting the system includes reversing the flow of some pipelines, building new routes and changing which fuel goes where, a time-consuming and expensive process that can require government approval. The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, a pipeline trade group, says building the required infrastructure will take $251 billion over the next 25 years.

Pipeline capacity has been increasing, but it is still not enough for all that North America is producing, analysts say. Kinder Morgan, the giant pipeline owner, plans to spend $10.6 billion on acquisitions and expansions this year, and at least $14 billion developing projects the next five years.

The capacity shortage is so acute that oil producers are burning the natural gas that is a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing for oil, or fracking. Given the natural gas glut, and without an inexpensive way to get it to a buyer, it is more economical to burn it.

In addition, new pipelines are expensive undertakings that can be politically fractious. Although the southern part of the Keystone pipeline between Oklahoma and the gulf is set to start operating soon, the northern leg, meant to carry heavy crude out of the Canadianoil sands, has become a lightning rod in the battle over the future of energy.

Refiners in the gulf have been getting more light crude from the shale boom than they can process and not enough of the heavier oil for which most of the refining capacity is designed. As a result, they are still importing heavy crude from Mexico and Venezuela, and medium crude from the Middle East, said Rob Smith, an analyst at PFC Energy, a consulting firm.

At the same time, companies like Valero, which is based in Texas, have been altering their refineries to handle the lighter crude from shale fields, which the southern Keystone connection could make even more available.

And since oil prices have been stuck at more than $100 barrel, Canadian oil sands producers have a strong incentive to get their product to market now.

As TransCanada, the company seeking to build the Keystone pipeline, awaits a decision from the Obama administration on whether it can build, producers have been turning to rail. A recent report by RBC Dominion Securities said that shipping crude by rail could pick up the slack if Keystone was not approved, delaying but not stopping the development of the Canadian oil sands.

“Pipeline infrastructure will always lag behind new production, just because you have to have proved production before you can invest billions of dollars in a pipeline,” Mr. Smith said, adding, “so rail steps in to fill the gap.”

In the United States, rail shipments of crude increased to nearly 234,000 carloads in 2012 from 9,500 at the beginning of the boom in 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads. Warren E. Buffett has been a big beneficiary. This year, the railroad BNSF, which he bought in 2010, helped drive the stock price of his company Berkshire Hathaway to a record high.

But North American railroad companies have been scrambling to add new track and loading terminals, as fuel companies buy more cars specially designed to carry the flammable crude.

What about safety? Rail’s record has been improving — 99.997 percent of all hazardous materials reach their destination without being released because of an accident, according to the industry association.

But an analysis of data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration by EnergyWire found that spills and other accidents from rail cars carrying crude was up sharply, reaching 88 in 2012 from one or two a year the decade before, though none caused injuries and just four were classified as serious.

United States officials have already ordered tougher standards for moving hazardous materials by rail as they and Canadian officials continue to investigate the cause of the deadly explosion in Quebec this summer.

There has also been a sharp increase in carrying crude oil by truck, taxing the supply of qualified drivers and the small, rural roads ill-prepared for fleets speeding from new fields.

Tankers and barges, which could alleviate congestion by carrying refined petroleum to markets, especially on the East Coast where demand is high, are squeezed too. Maritime law requires commercial vessels transporting goods between United States ports to be built, owned, operated and manned by American citizens and registered under the American flag.

Those requirements, part of the Jones Act of 1920, make the vessels much more expensive to build and operate than foreign ships, analysts say, which are also more readily available.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, said shipping could add 20 cents to the price of each gallon of gas, while the charge for using a pipeline would be less than 5 cents a gallon. But when the pipelines are full, it makes it more profitable to ship refined petroleum to foreign markets where the Jones Act restrictions do not apply.

That can help keep prices high at the pump for American consumers despite having more than enough domestic crude and refining capacity to meet demand, Mr. Hirs said. Oil prices are set globally, and suppliers can move product along well-worn waterways to maximize profits.

That means a refinery manager has a choice. “That manager can sell refined crude oil — that’s diesel or gasoline or jet fuel or kerosene — to Japan, Latin America, Europe or to the corner gas station in Houston or New York City. And so if Japan bids more, that price becomes the price on the coast.”

Natural gas could soon have a similar dynamic. The Obama administration has approved three projects to export liquefied natural gas and is considering more, amid worries that it could raise the price of the fuel for American utilities and industries. But it would allow producers to take advantage of higher prices for natural gas overseas, despite the billions it would cost for new or adapted installations to liquefy the gas. That is another political battle ahead.

Oil and gas drilling helped revive the straggling economy of Greeley, Colo., but a proposal to sink 16 wells next to a neighborhood of winding cul-de-sacs met an unlikely resistance. Read more in this Forbes.com article.

GREELEY, Colo. — This is a town running on oil. From dawn till dusk, trucks carrying men and machinery rumble away for the oil and gas fields. New steakhouses and wine bars have popped up downtown. Energy companies help sponsor rodeos, blues concerts and other events. Tax revenues are surging.


In the depths of the recession, a new wave of drilling took hold across farm fields and the high plains, helping to revive the city’s straggling economy. Unemployment is still stuck at 7.5 percent, but is down from highs of more than 10 percent. And local officials estimate that one in nine jobs is somehow tied to the drilling boom. Homes are selling again, and hotels are nearly full.

“We had better occupancy than Vail did during the ski season,” said Greeley’s mayor, Tom Norton.

But this spring, an energy company proposed sinking 16 wells next to a neighborhood of winding cul-de-sacs, pastel homes and the Family FunPlex recreation center. And in this energy-friendly town, an unlikely resistance was born.

“These wells are going to be here for a long time,” said Wendy Highby, a librarian at the University of Northern Colorado who joined a group of residents to oppose the project. “They’re what we’re leaving to our children.”

The wells in the Fox Run neighborhood on Greeley’s western fringe would hardly be the first ones drilled here. Energy companies have drilled in northern Colorado for more than three decades, and Greeley is ringed by about 20,000 oil and gas wells.

About 425 wells are tucked within the city limits, along roadsides and near industrial parks and commercial strips, and that number is expected to grow to 1,600 in coming years. Empty lots near strip malls are scheduled for drilling, and a vacant patch of grass near graduate-student housing on the city’s east side bears this sign: “Future Drilling Site.”

As companies here and across the energy-rich West look for new places to drill, they are increasingly looking toward more densely populated areas, and bumping into environmentalists and homeowners. In a study last year, the environmental advocacy group Western Resource Advocates found that 32 schools in northern Colorado were within 1,000 feet of a well.

“These cities are the last open bastions where they can drill,” said Mark Schreibman, who created a community group to oppose the drilling in Greeley. “They’re the only places left. Now they’re finding themselves under siege.”

As wells have sprouted in cities across northern Colorado, some towns have pushed for bans on the drilling technique known as fracking, in which highly pressurized water, sand and chemicals are pumped into the ground to crack open rock formations and pull out the minerals. Last week, the liberal college town of Boulder passed a one-year ban on fracking.

Others have embraced the boom’s royalty checks and tax payments, crediting drilling for the new grocery store in Platteville, the huge lunch crowds in Ault or the reopened Tumble Weed Café in Nunn.

Greeley and drilling have a complicated history. In the mid-1980s, the city banned drilling inside its borders, a move that was overturned by Colorado’s highest court after a long and expensive legal battle with energy companies. Since then, the city has passed rules to manage drilling and has learned to coexist with the industry, and even embrace it.

Last year, Greeley collected $3.3 million from oil and gas operations, and it estimates that energy production will generate $429 million in tax revenue over the next 25 years. The University of Northern Colorado and school districts inside Greeley have leased out their drilling rights, and this spring huge “thumper trucks” rolled through the streets, sending seismic jolts deep into the ground to see where mineral deposits might lie.

This winter, when Colorado’s oil and gas commission passed new rules requiring 500-foot setbacks between new wells and homes, Mayor Norton publicly opposed the changes. He argued that they would hurt development and city planning and would undermine local governments.

Last year, a drilling rig rose like a beanstalk about 1,000 feet from Mr. Norton’s home. The nights were filled with clanking and thudding as trucks came and went and as workers bored into the ground and pumped fracking fluid into the well. It was not bliss, he said, but he and his neighbors got by.

“It’s not that you want them there,” he said, “but you’ve got to put them someplace.”

Residents are fiercely divided on that point. At a packed meeting last month to discuss the drilling project in Fox Run, some spoke in favor of the economic benefits of oil and gas development. Dozens of others urged city officials to reject the proposal, saying the flurry of new wells would forever damage their city of parks and walking paths.

Logan Richardson, the vice president of the energy company Mineral Resources, promised to do everything possible to keep the noise down and mask the drilling near Fox Run. He said the company would build a fence and plant trees and was making extensive efforts to protect the environment around the well sites.

Despite strong public objection, city officials unanimously approved the new wells. And now, inside the house that she and her husband built six years ago, Karen Janata is bracing for what comes next. The couple moved to Greeley from Illinois to be close to their children and grandchildren, and loved their home’s mountain views and sunny suburban charm. She wonders whether all that will survive after the drilling rigs arrive.

“I’m just devastated by this,” Ms. Janata said. “I would move out of Greeley tomorrow if I could.”

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According to this Huffington Post article, it will take two to three years to complete construction of manufacturing facilities on natural gas supply.

As someone who's lived through the whipsaw impact of a total overturn in outlooks for the energy sector in the U.S,. I am constantly searching for holes in the new natural gas consensus. In less than a decade, we've gone from running out of an essential fuel to placing a century-plus of anticipated supply at the heart of our economic future.

We've proved quite clearly that as an analytical community we thoroughly lack for imagination when picturing what the world of energy will look like. Looking at the smoothed-out pricing and supply lines in presentations at this week's North American Gas Forum was as much an exercise in forgetting the volatility of the past 20 years as it was in imagining how domestic and global markets might adjust to the potential plethora of supply.

The problem may not get easier as the gas market does tend toward globalization. At least OECD countries generally produce reasonably reliable and comparable data (when their governments aren't shutting down, sigh). When major markets for natural gas open in Latin American and Asian nations that don't have in place the same variety of statistical gathering structure, bets on serving those markets would need to be hedged as often through securing political access and anti-competitive guarantees rather than through market mechanisms or financial instruments.

But try as I might, real skepticism about the future promise of the natural gas resource in North America all too quickly turns into paranoia. Unless companies are deliberately lying about their reserves, their technologies and the investments of their clients -- and I cannot convince myself they are -- we are seeing a degree of access to a clean(er), reliable fuel source that is, to use the over-used term, game-changing.

The darkest cloud on the horizon for gas that I can see is political risk. Governments have a remarkable ability to render investment in otherwise promising markets unprofitable, and that holds doubly true for sectors like energy that require extensive long-term infrastructure investment. FERC Commissioner Tony Clark had some promising things to say about the Commission's approach to the fuel's infrastructure needs at the Forum, but the fate of the Keystone Pipeline (amusingly referred to by one panelist as "the pipeline that dare not speak its name") is a perfect demonstration of how logic, the gravitational pull of billions of dollars and even strict regulatory compliance fail to serve as even reliable predictors, much less guarantees, of success for individual projects.

I wrote quite a bullish piece from the Forum's opening day for Breaking Energy:

"Expect the promised benefits of natural gas to really begin hitting the North American economy in the second half of this decade, said Chevron Vice President of Supply and Trading Greg Vesey at the North American Gas Forum in Washington, DC this week.

It will take two to three years to complete construction of manufacturing facilities predicated on cheap and abundant natural gas supply, at which point industrial needs should dovetail with growing awareness among domestic customers to drive a demand boost. That increased demand, which Vesey conceded could result in a bump in prices as natural gas suppliers race to catch up, would mark the start of further additions to employment and a staved-off increase in energy costs that the sector has predicted since the extent of the continent's shale gas resource became apparent a few years ago."

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Thirty Greenpeace activities could face formal charges of piracy because of their protest in the Pechora Sea last September 18. Read more of the details about this issue in this Yahoo! News.com:

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Moscow, Sep 27 (IANS/EFE) A Russian court Thursday began remanding 30 Greenpeace activists who protested against plans for oil production in the Arctic.

"In my hands, I have the documents that confirm that 10 have already been remanded in custody for two months. They're citizens of Russia, France, Turkey, Poland, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand," said Greenpeace Russia's Anton Beneslavski.

The US citizen who skippered the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker was among those remanded, other sources said.

The court must still decide whether the remaining activists will be released or held pending a piracy investigation.

All 30 could face formal charges of piracy for their Sep 18 protest in the Pechora Sea, in the southeastern portion of the Barents Sea, although Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that the activists are not pirates.

After several of the Greenpeace members tried to board a drilling platform operated by Russian state energy titan Gazprom, the Arctic Sunrise was seized last Thursday by the Russian coast guard and its crew members were detained.

"We have sufficient legal basis for appealing all the actions taken by the Russian authorities in this process," Beneslavski said.

"Violence was not employed during the protest. There was no assault nor illegal seizure of another's property, and also no attempt to take control of the (platform)," Greenpeace Russia said.

Meanwhile, Russia is facing international calls to release the activists, with the Netherlands, where the environmental watchdog is based, saying it was not ruling out resorting to other legal avenues if Moscow does not respond promptly to its request.

Gazprom claims the Greenpeace action endangered the health and lives of workers on the Prirazlomnaya oil platform.

Greenpeace says Gazprom's plans to begin oil production with that platform in the first quarter of 2014 increase the risk of an oil spill in an area that contains three natural reserves protected by Russian law.

--IANS/EFE

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Read about the ongoing issue on oil spills in Colorado from this TheState.com new article.

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DENVER — More spills are emerging from a Colorado oil patch ravaged by flooding as soggy conditions continue to hamper attempts to inspect the damage.

Three new spills were reported Tuesday: 5,100 gallons of oil from a Noble Energy facility east of Kersey, 2,500 gallons from a PDC Energy location east of Greeley and an unknown volume from a Mineral Resources operation west of LaSalle.

State officials are now tracking 11 "notable" releases from the Wattenberg oil patch along the South Platte River in Weld County.

The amount of crude spilled totals at least 34,500 gallons, or about 822 barrels. The volumes of two releases are still unknown.

Industry representatives have said 1,900 oil and gas wells were shut down across northern Colorado because of flooding. About 600 wells have since re-opened.

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Dr. Ali Ghalambor has over 32 years of experience in the field of oil and gas production. More about him can be read in this blog site.