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Oil and Gas

Iran Vows ‘Decisive Response’ To US Threats

May 19, 2020 Lucas Koerner, Venezuelanalysis. , , ,
Tehran has issued a formal warning to Washington over threats to five of its tankers currently en route to Venezuela. On Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister summoned the Swiss ambassador representing US interests in Tehran, vowing that any hostile action would be met with a "quick and decisive response.” The vessels, which set sail from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, are reportedly carrying at least US $45.5 million in gasoline and other products. One of the tankers, Clavel, is presently sailing through the western Mediterranean, according to data from tracking websites. Last week, Reuters reported that US authorities are mulling actions against Iran over the latter’s fuel shipments to Venezuela. The Trump administration has targeted Venezuela with crushing economic sanctions, including an oil embargo blocking fuel exports to the Caribbean country as well as a blanket ban on dealings with Venezuelan state entities.

While Pushing Big Oil Bailouts, Trump Slaps Wind And Solar With $50 Million In Old Rent Bills

May 19, 2020 Julia Conley, Commondreams. , , ,
While giving fossil fuel companies access to relief funds ostensibly meant for small businesses struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration on Monday slapped solar and wind power firms with retroactive rent bills dating back two years. The Interior Department is demanding rent payments from renewable energy companies operating on federal lands, two years after it suspended rent for the operators as it investigated whether the Obama administration had charged too much. The administration plans to collect $50 million in rent this year from 96 companies operating on federal property—the same amount of money that a recent report showed is going to fossil fuel companies in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Open Letter In Support Of Environmental Lawyer Steven Donziger

May 19, 2020 the National Lawyers Guild International. , , ,
New York - Over 75 organizations, including international legal organizations and major human rights networks, signed on to an open letter released today in support of environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who has faced nearly unprecedented sanctions from a U.S. federal judge for his pursuit of Chevron for a judgment against the oil giant over its environmental devastation in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The letter identifies the case as “one of the most important corporate accountability and human rights cases of our time.” In 2011, indigenous plaintiffs in the Ecuadorian Amazon received a $19 billion judgment against Chevron for the actions of its predecessor company, Texaco, which spilled over 17 million gallons of crude oil, dumped over 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater and left hundreds of open pits throughout the Ecuadorian Amazon.

No Sacrifices Of The Public Interest In Times Of Emergency

May 11, 2020 By Adam M. Sowards, The Revelator. , , ,
Never one to miss an opportunity, the Trump administration has repeatedly used the COVID-19 crisis as cover to enact unwise and dangerous environmental policies against the public interest and to forestall citizen input. In recent days the Environmental Protection Agency has moved forward with weakening rules for automobile emissions and relaxing pollution standards. The Bureau of Land Management continues leasing for oil and gas drilling even as prices drop. And while much of the country remains under stay-at-home orders and faces the most disruptive public health crisis in a century, deadlines for public statements on forest plans have not been extended and formats for hearings about dams have frustrated citizens who wish to speak up for public resources.

Wet’suwet’en Clans Endorse Governance Agreement With Canada And BC

May 8, 2020 The Energy Mix. , , ,
Wet’suwet’en clans in British Columbia have ratified a memorandum of understanding that will see them take back management of their traditional territories, although one clan says the deal doesn’t go far enough in response to the controversial Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline now being built across their lands. The communities’ deliberation over the draft agreement between the Wet’suwet’en, Canada, and British Columbia took two months, and the result “could change the future of Indigenous rights and title negotiations in B.C.,” The Narwhal reports. It has yet to be ratified by Ottawa or B.C. “The Wet’suwet’en People have reached consensus and have agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding between the federal government and province of B.C. to resume the full management of our yintahs [traditional territory] using our governance system...

The Myth Of The ‘New Normal’

May 7, 2020 Tim Watkins, The Consciousness of Sheep. , , ,
The warm sunny days leading up to the Easter holidays are quickly fading from memory.  Then, despite the threat of a global pandemic, there was optimism in the air.  People came together in a manner not seen since the neoliberals seized the reins of power in the 1980s.  It was as though we were all waiting for some common threat to bring us together.  The gradual shutdown of “non-essential” employment revealed for all to see who is and who is not important in the grand scheme of things.  And it turned out that the truly important people were mostly the ones on low wages; while the very highest paid among us could retreat to their front rooms without having any noticeable impact on the rest of the world. 

Big Oil Fears Keystone XL Ruling Means End Of Easy Pipeline Permits

May 5, 2020 Steve Horn, DeSmog Blog. , , ,
On April 15, Judge Brian Morris nullified water-crossing permits in Montana that were granted for the Keystone XL, a major setback for the long-embattled tar sands oil pipeline. The ruling came just days after Keystone XL owner TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada, obtained billions of dollars in subsidies from the Alberta government as global oil prices plummeted. The oil and gas industry has taken notice. Seemingly just a ruling on Keystone XL — the subject of opposition by the climate movement for the past decade — the ruling could have far broader implications for the future of building water-crossing pipelines and utility lines. In his decision, Judge Morris cited a potential violation of the Endangered Species Act when he ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do a deeper analysis of potential impacts to protected species.

Why The Oil And Gas Industry Will Never Be The Same

May 3, 2020 Marshall Auerback, Brave New Europe. , , ,
When a staple commodity collapses to negative value it signals that something is clearly amiss in the global economy. When it is a global energy source like crude oil, it does not just signal pain in the oil patch, but an economic dislocation evocative of the Great Depression. Rare is the time when a commodity over which nations have fought wars in the past presents itself as something that traders would literally pay you to take it off their collective hands. To be sure, there are good technical reasons why U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI), the underlying commodity representing the NYMEX’s oil futures contract, actually traded negative in the second half of April, and continued to stay low (even though the June contract has now turned positive).

Under Pressure, JP Morgan Chase Demotes Former Exxon CEO

May 2, 2020 Jamie Henn, Stop the Money Pipeline. , , ,
New York, NY — Bowing to pressure from climate and shareholder activists, JP Morgan Chase will be demoting former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond from his Lead Independent Director position on the bank’s board. The news was buried in a filing with the SEC released on Friday.  Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of over 100 groups working to pressure Wall Street institutions to stop financing fossil fuels, have been pressuring JP Morgan Chase for months to kick Raymond off the board entirely. Tens of thousands of activists with organizations such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and others have sent messages in recent months calling on Chase to remove Lee Raymond from the board.

A Silver Lining In The Global Pandemic

April 29, 2020 Michael T. Klare, Tom Dispatch. , , ,
Energy analysts have long assumed that, given time, growing international concern over climate change would result in a vast restructuring of the global energy enterprise. The result: a greener, less climate-degrading system. In this future, fossil fuels would be overtaken by renewables, while oil, gas, and coal would be relegated to an increasingly marginal role in the global energy equation. In its World Energy Outlook 2019, for example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that, by 2040, renewables would finally supersede petroleum as the planet’s number one source of energy and coal would largely disappear from the fuel mix. As a result of Covid-19, however, we may no longer have to wait another 20 years for such a cosmic transition to occur -- it’s happening right now.

Could COVID-19 Spell The End Of The Fracking Industry?

April 19, 2020 Dahr Jamail, Truthout. , , , ,
It has always been known that the oil and gas industry only survives by way of debt financing. Fracking is capital intensive, and very few companies involved ever actually even turn a profit in excess of the cost of capital. Instead, they have always operated by dependency on cheap money from Wall Street banks to finance their drilling and operations. Fred Nathan is the executive director of Think New Mexico, an independent nonpartisan statewide think tank whose mission is “to improve the quality of life for all New Mexicans, especially those who lack a strong voice in the political process.” Nathan said that the contraction of the oil and gas industry in New Mexico is a “cause for deep concern” for the state budget, because every time the price of a barrel of oil drops $1, the state’s general fund takes a $22 million hit.

Challenging The Oil Industry Through Community Action

April 13, 2020 By Wangũi wa Kamonji, Open Global Rights. , , ,
The Hoima-Kaiso-Tonya highway connects the Ugandan fishing town of Kaiso to Hoima town, the headquarters of the Bunyoro Kingdom and Hoima District. Kaiso is on the south-eastern edge of Lake Mwitanzige, in a region with an estimated potential three billion barrels of crude oil. The Hoima-Kaiso-Tonya road was built to enable access to the lake for oil prospecting and as an investment for future petroleum production, so the residents call it “Oil Road”. For many, however, the road takes away more than it brings. To carve out space for the road, the Uganda National Roads Authority took land from Kaiso residents. Valuation and compensation, handled by an outside consultant, were arbitrary and low (going by the number of doors on a house for example), without taking full account of past investments and future livelihood losses.

Pipelines Are Still Being Built As The Economy Shuts Down

April 7, 2020 Leanna First-Arai, Truthout. , ,
Governors of at least 37 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have issued strict orders for residents providing “non-life-sustaining” services to remain inside. All but five states have at least some form of shelter-in-place policies underway, such that millions of workers deemed “non-essential,” like teachers, therapists and community organizers, are clocking hours on Instagram and Zoom from living rooms across the continent. Over half of all small businesses in the U.S. are closed or could close within the coming weeks. And yet, although you cannot eat, drink or be ventilated by the fossil fuel industry’s products, oil and gas companies are carrying on with plans to dig and lay down pipelines in multiple Canadian provinces, and states including Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Oil Industry Exploits Pandemic As Excuse To Dodge Federal Regulations, Fees

April 3, 2020 Erik Molvar, Counterpunch. , , ,
In an act of appalling hubris, the oil and gas industry is asking the federal government to loosen enforcement of federal regulations on public lands in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, one of the petroleum industry’s primary lobbying groups, was quoted in EnergyWire as seeking one-year extensions for two-year drilling permits and 10-year federal mineral leases, a change that would allow them to hold onto unused leases they are stockpiling. Sgamma also referenced changes to compliance requirements and “royalty and fee waivers” for the world’s wealthiest industry. Robert McEntyre of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association is quoted in the same story as seeking “commonsense flexibilities” when it comes to complying with federal regulations.

Coronavirus And Oil War Trigger Economic Collapse

March 9, 2020 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance , , ,
Economist Jack Rasmus reported on Sunday night, 'the economic collapse is underway. ' On top of the impact of the rapidly spreading coronavirus which was already crashing the markets, an oil war began between Russia and Saudi Arabia over the weekend. Crude oil prices plummeted 30 percent with oil prices suffering their biggest plunge since the Gulf War in 1991 over the weekend as the oil war developed. he Dow Jones had its single largest one-day point decline in history, dropping 2,013 points. This is just the beginning -- the oil war has just begun, the coronavirus is still in its early stages
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