Category

Energy

Article, Consumer, Economy / Finance, Energy, Utilities and Providers, Weather

Winter of discontent for oil and gas producers

March 13, 2016

U.S. consumers saved substantially on their heating bills this winter, as the country enjoyed its warmest winter ever. But with the first day of spring just a few days away, not everyone is rejoicing. “If you’re a consumer, it’s great. But if you’re the guy responsible for producing the stuff, it’s not. This is a rough time,” said Porter Bennett, a longtime analyst of U.S. energy markets. In fact, Bennett’s firm, Ponderosa Energy, just put out a report whose title sums up the situation confronting oil and gas producers: “Winter of Discontent”. (Read more)

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Climate, Corporations, Energy, International

Wind power prospects get a Norwegian nudge

March 8, 2016

It’s a tiny investment for a global oil and natural gas company, but one that nevertheless reflects big changes underway in U.S. energy markets: The Norwegian producer Statoil announced this week that it would provide $3 million to a Brooklyn-based company that installs small wind turbines on farms and other rural properties in the U.S. For Statoil, the investment in United Wind is the first from a new $200 million venture capital account set up to support “attractive and ambitious companies in renewable energy,” ones that could help Statoil expand its own clean-energy push. (Read more)

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Consumer, Economy / Finance, Energy, Government and Politics, Technology

Clean-energy effort avoids D.C. dystopia

March 7, 2016

Democrats and Republicans agree on little when it comes to government policy, including how Washington should influence the ways that Americans produce and use energy. But one exception is a relatively small program at the U.S. Department of Energy that invests in early-stage technologies with the potential to provide new forms of low- or no-carbon energy efficiently, economically and satisfactorily. Established with bipartisan support in Congress in 2007 and first funded two years later, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has awarded $1.3 billion to more than 475 projects formed by teams from academia, private industry and national laboratories with ideas for technologies in such fields as biofuels, energy storage, superconducting wires, and solar and wind systems.

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Economy / Finance, Energy, Government and Politics

Oil, gas production ramping up in the Gulf: Here’s why

March 2, 2016

The U.S. government will open nearly 45 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas development later this month, at a time when low prices are forcing producers to cut back sharply on their exploration budgets. But the industry’s troubles have had little impact so far on oil output in the region. In fact, unlike onshore production, which has been tapering off as oil prices decline, Gulf of Mexico production is on its way to setting a record in 2017. (Read more)

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by Bill Loveless
Energy, Government and Politics, International, Podcast

Columbia Energy Exchange podcast: Outlook for Russian oil, gas

February 11, 2016

On this episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, Tatiana Mitrova, Head of the Oil and Gas Department at The Energy Research Institute in the Russian Academy of Sciences, discussed Russia’s energy outlook with host Bill Loveless. Their conversation touched on topics ranging from the impact of the oil price drop on Russia’s budget and investment strategy, to the role of sanctions in the domestic economy, to the response of Gazprom to changing global natural gas markets, among others. (Listen Here)

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Consumer, Corporations, Economy / Finance, Energy

Oil sector may see spurt in M&A activity

February 1, 2016

Shareholders for the British-based BG Group paved the way for the biggest energy merger in more than five years the other day when they approved the acquisition of their oil and gas company by Royal Dutch Shell for $50 billion. When Shell announced plans for the takeover last April, the proposed deal was widely seen as a possible harbinger of mergers and acquisitions across the industry. But aside from an earlier and still pending bid by the oil service provider Halliburton to buy one of its rivals, Baker Hughes, for $35 billion, no such trend has emerged, despite the plunge in oil prices that has taken place over the last 18 months and its devastating impact on many companies. (Read More)

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Consumer, Energy, Utilities and Providers

Huh? Utilities spur power savings, see profits

January 29, 2016

For nearly 125 years, electric utilities have operated according to one basic business principle: the more power they sell, the more money they make. But the industry founded by Thomas Edison in 1882 now faces the potential for the kinds of upheaval that have transformed telecommunications, transportation, TV programming and other industries. Will the utility as we know it disappear? (Read more)

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by Bill Loveless
Corporations, Energy, Podcast, Utilities and Providers

Columbia Energy Exchange: Nick Akins, CEO, American Electric Power

January 19, 2016

Responding to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is just one of the major tasks for U.S. electric utilities in 2016. New technologies and customer expectations, not to mention shareholder demands, are presenting new challenges and opportunities for the nation’s utility executives. In this episode of the Columbia Energy Exchange, a podcast at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, host Bill Loveless interviews Nick Akins, the chairman, president and CEO of American Electric Power, one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the U.S., and the chairman of the Edison Electric Institute. (Listen Here)

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Energy, Policy, Regulations, Utilities and Providers

Why this Ohio utility lauds carbon controls

January 17, 2016

The year 2016 will be a crucial one for electric utilities as they prepare to meet new Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring them to cut their carbon emissions more than ever. Among the milestones in EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which the agency issued last year, is a requirement for states to submit plans by September to comply with the policy’s requirement to reduce emissions by 32% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. Utilities will play a big part in the development of those plans. (Read more)

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by Bill Loveless
Article, Economy / Finance, Energy, Government and Politics

‘Worst is over’ on oil plunge, CEO says

January 13, 2016

When it comes to putting the best foot forward in difficult times, Harold Hamm does so as surely as anyone in the U.S. oil industry. Since oil prices began spiraling down last year, the CEO of Continental Resources has predicted a recovery sooner than many analysts would venture, and he’s sticking to that point of view even now as the cost of a barrel of crude has sunk to 12-year lows. “The worst is over, I believe,” Hamm said the other day as oil markets struggled to take account of the escalation in tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran and turmoil in the Chinese economy. (Read more)

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by Bill Loveless