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Category Archives: big oil

I Say To Putin – Bring IT ON! – I will pay $5 or $6 a gallon for gasoline

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If it means kicking Putin out of Ukraine then I am willing to pay whatever at the pump. Seriously I have advocated for dropping a Tactical Nuke on Chernobyl for a while. Ever since this current conflict begin. This for two reasons. One, it would clean out the radioactive mess there and turn out the lights on southern Russian. Two it would get Putin’s attention and maybe even get him thrown from power. Is it radical? HELL yes, but tough times require tough decisions. NUKE em I say.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a39338671/us-gas-prices-skyrocketing-future/

U.S. Gas Prices Are Skyrocketing—How Much Worse Will It Get?

The average U.S. gas price is now $4.17, the highest ever, and in some places, it’s already well into the $5 and even $6 range.

By Sebastian Blanco

  • Geopolitical tensions, inflation, and the COVID-19 pandemic have converged to push the average U.S. price for a gallon of gasoline above $4 for the first time since 2008, as calculated by the price-monitoring app GasBuddy.
  • In some cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, average gas prices have hit $5 for regular fuel—the photo above was taken in Santa Ana, California, on March 6—and there are even some stations selling premium for over $7 a gallon. On the AAA Gas Prices website, you can look at the averages in the state where you live.
  • Unless something drastic changes soon, GasBuddy is predicting a national average price of $4.25 by Memorial Day. The current record is $4.10.

UPDATE 3/8/2022: AAA said the average U.S. price for a gallon of gasoline has hit $4.173, which is the most expensive ever. That’s up 10 cents per gallon since yesterday and up 63 cents since February 24 (the date on which Russia began its invasion of Ukraine).

The news everybody already seems to know is that gas prices are headed up. This weekend, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline went above $4 a gallon in the U.S for only the second time ever. The last time this happened was in 2008.

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Russia Farts in Ukraine’s Face – This is what happens when a “gas station” goes to war

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The predictions were: “Russia will be in Kyiv in hours”, “Putin will replace Ukrainian President with puppet”,  “Russia’s Air Force will crush Ukraine”, “Attacked on 4 sides Ukraine will surrender”.  To that Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians said  NYET! With just 78 planes in the air and Tanks running out of fuel the Russian attack appears uncoordinated and without passion. There are even rumors of Russian Units laying down their guns. In part here is why. Think about Brazil attacking Spain.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-economy-basically-big-gas-station-harvard-economist-2022-2

Home

News

Harvard economist and former Obama advisor says Russia is ‘basically a big gas station’ and is otherwise ‘incredibly unimportant’ in the global economy

Matthew Loh
Feb 21, 2022, 9:57 PM

Russia’s economy is “incredibly unimportant in the global economy except for oil and gas,” Jason Furman, a Harvard economist and former advisor to President Barack Obama, told The New York Times.

“It’s basically a big gas station,” he said.

His comments come as the West prepares heavy sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine. While they have the potential to throw the Russian economy into chaos, these measures could also reverberate to further damage the US, Europe, and the rest of the world as they battle inflation and rising energy prices — a ripple effect that the West hopes to mitigate.

On Monday, Moscow declared the independence of two breakaway regions of Ukraine and sent troops there — escalating the prospect of a major war. President Joe Biden has already ordered sanctions on the separatist regions — Donetsk and Luhansk — prohibiting US citizens from engaging in any exports, imports, or new investments in these areas.

Despite Russia’s size and wealth in raw materials, its economy is more on par with Brazil than with nations like Germany, France, and the UK, according to the latest nominal GDP data from the World Bank. According to the World Bank, Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s and South Korea’s, two nations with less than half of Russia’s population.

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2.5 Million Unplugged Wells – This man wants to plug them

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That a nonprofit organization would help clean up Big Gas and Oil’s  mess is not as good as THEM cleaning up and paying for their own messes, but is better than nothing. The fact that they are organizing other such Foundations in other effected States is great news as well. Support these people would you?

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/pennsylvania/articles/2021-11-27/montana-foundation-capping-abandoned-oil-wells

Montana Foundation Capping Abandoned Oil Wells

By Associated Press
|
Nov. 27, 2021, at 9:05 a.m.

Curt Shuck of the Well Done Foundation poses near a oil well capping project in Toole County, Mont., on Nov. 18, 2021. Shuck started the Well Done Foundation to raise money and cap abandoned oil wells to prevent them from continuing to release methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas because it traps heat in the atmosphere, according to the EPA. (Phil Drake/Independent Record via AP)

By PHIL DRAKE, Independent Record

OILMONT, Mont. (AP) — Curtis Shuck remembers a rush of emotions a few years ago when he came across his first “orphaned well” while walking through a field in the Kevin-Sunburst Oilfield.

Shuck, who was no stranger to oilfields, said he was there that day discussing grain with a farmer when they came across a well that had been abandoned.

“I had no idea that this was even a thing,” he said, noting he had more than 30 years of experience in the oil and gas business. “I just thought this was everybody’s dirty little secret.”

He recalls feeling amazed, embarrassed and appalled all at the same time. Shuck said he could not get the image out of his mind and felt it was incumbent upon him to do something about it. Shuck said he learned it’s a huge problem, not only in Montana, but in other parts of the country as well.

He started the Well Done Foundation, a nonprofit group that caps wells across the nation. He said the organization is “making an impact in Montana and across the U.S., one well at a time.”

“Every well is a victory and milestone,” he told the Independent Record newspaper in Helena.

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Leave It In The Ground – Biden should not tap the Petroleum Reserves

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But he will because he is afraid. Generally I have liked the policies that Biden has enacted and the results. But tapping the Petroleum Reserves is not one of them. He is doing it because he is afraid of the effects of inflation on the mid term elections. But it will not change that. Those effects are already present. “Leave it in the ground”, is a slogan for a reason. Once you let fossil fuels out, they will be used. That Biden doesn’t get this is a sign that he is old. Please! Will some of the younger people around him shake him and wake him up. Like Greta says, Old People talk – blah blah blah but they DO Nothing. Wake up Biden, Wake up. Yes the costs may fall but will it be worth the Price.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/21/1056835748/u-s-emergency-oil-stockpiles-spr-gas-prices

Energy

The U.S. emergency oil stash is in the spotlight as gas prices surge. What to know

A recent surge in gasoline prices has left President Biden scrambling for options to do something about it.

One that’s getting a lot of attention is the possibility that the Biden administration will release crude oil from the country’s emergency oil stockpile, known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Much will depend on oil prices, which have soared over the past year, recovering to their pre-pandemic levels and then some. But after rising to more than $86 a barrel in October, they have since dropped to less than $80.

A lot of factors are affecting prices — including the fact that the White House is now talking about tapping the stockpile.

Here’s an explainer on the country’s oil reserves and whether tapping them would actually be effective.

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Seize Their Assets And Put Their Executives In Jail – Big Fossil Fuels have come to the end of their line

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If I have aired this piece before I apologized. But it is important and needs to be said again. Big Oil, Gas and Coal are the big nasty. They shit in our air, they pee in our politicians and they spit on our lawyers. They have know what they were doing pretty much all along. We should seize their assets and put their Executives in jail.

Special thanks to the GUARDIAN for the valuable work they do.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Climate crimesClimate change

Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price

Communities are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels.
Communities are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels. Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images

Via an unprecedented wave of lawsuits, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for the devastation caused by fossil fuels

Are you a fossil fuel industry insider? We want to hear from you

Supported by
guardian.org

About this content

After a century of wielding extraordinary economic and political power, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for driving the greatest existential threat of our lifetimes.

An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way.

Coastal cities struggling to keep rising sea levels at bay, midwestern states watching “mega-rains” destroy crops and homes, and fishing communities losing catches to warming waters, are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels.

But, even more strikingly, the nearly two dozen lawsuits are underpinned by accusations that the industry severely aggravated the environmental crisis with a decades-long campaign of lies and deceit to suppress warnings from their own scientists about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate a decades-long campaign of lies and deceit to suppress warnings from their own scientists about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate and dupe the American public.

The environmentalist Bill McKibben once characterized the fossil fuel industry’s behavior as “the most consequential cover-up in US history”. And now for the first time in decades, the lawsuits chart a path toward public accountability that climate activists say has the potential to rival big tobacco’s downfall after it concealed the real dangers of smoking.

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Big Oil Had The Worst Day Ever – That’s a good thing for the Earth

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I hate to gloat. I hate to Smirk. But I am gloating right now. I am SMIRKING so hard I think I Broke my face. As Tommy Friedman (New York Times pundent) had this to say, the Big Oil Companies business plan was “good to the last drop”. But it isn’t. Never could be. When a better technology comes along. The old technology is abandoned. They are gonna be left with all those oil leases and oil wells when nobody wants the stuff. I say – GOOD for THEM. It is what they deserve.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/big-oils-bad-bad-day?utm_source=digg

Annals of a Warming Planet

Big Oil’s Bad, Bad Day

Crushing blows to three of the world’s largest oil companies have made it clear that the arguments many have been making for decades have sunk in at the highest levels.

By Bill McKibben

In what may be the most cataclysmic day so far for the traditional fossil-fuel industry, a remarkable set of shareholder votes and court rulings have scrambled the future of three of the world’s largest oil companies. On Wednesday, a court in the Netherlands ordered Royal Dutch Shell to dramatically cut its emissions over the next decade—a mandate it can likely only meet by dramatically changing its business model. A few hours later, sixty-one per cent of shareholders at Chevron voted, over management objections, to demand that the company cut so-called Scope 3 emissions, which include emissions caused by its customers burning its products. Oil companies are willing to address the emissions that come from their operations, but, as Reuters pointed out, the support for the cuts “shows growing investor frustration with companies, which they believe are not doing enough to tackle climate change.” The most powerful proof of such frustration came shortly afterward, as ExxonMobil officials announced that shareholders had (over the company’s strenuous opposition) elected two dissident candidates to the company’s board, both of whom pledge to push for climate action.

The action at ExxonMobil’s shareholder meeting was fascinating: the company, which regularly used to make the list of most-admired companies, had been pulling out all stops to defeat the slate of dissident candidates, which was put forward by Engine No. 1, a tiny activist fund based in San Francisco that owns just 0.02 per cent of the company’s stock, but has insisted that Exxon needs a better answer to the question of how to meet the climate challenge. Exxon has simply insisted on doubling down: its current plan actually calls for increasing oil and gas production in Guyana and the Permian Basin this decade, even though the International Energy Agency last week called for an end to new development of fossil fuels. Observers at the meeting described a long adjournment midmeeting, and meandering answers to questions from the floor, perhaps as an effort to buy time to persuade more shareholders to go the company’s way. But the effort failed. Notably, efforts by activists to push big investors appear to have paid off: according to sources, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, backed three of the dissident candidates for the Exxon boar

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Energy Subsidies Are A Waste Of Time – Do you want to live in the past

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The fact that we are still subsidizing old dirty forms of Energy says a lot about us and how the Energy Giants have corrupted our culture.

www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/opinion/oil-gas-companies-public-land.html

Opinion

End the Taxpayer Giveaway to Big Oil and Gas

Congress should raise the royalty rates on federal lands.

By Tom Udall and Charles Grassley

Senator Udall is a Democrat from New Mexico. Senator Grassley is a Republican from Iowa.

One hundred years ago, Congress passed the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, setting up a system in which companies lease public lands to wrest valuable oil and gas from the ground. In the century since, the royalties and rent that those corporations pay to the American people for access have remained essentially unchanged even as the scale of development and profits has grown hugely.

As senators from different parties, we have our share of policy differences. But we both believe in sticking up for the public interest and the taxpayer. In this case, we agree that oil and gas companies should pay fair market value for the public resources they extract and sell. They aren’t doing that now — not even close — and the American public is the big loser.

That’s why we introduced the Fair Returns for Public Lands Act this year to reform the antiquated law that governs royalties and the leasing of public land.

The country’s economy and the oil and gas industries have changed significantly since 1920. Automobiles had just started to replace the horse and buggy, and the oil industry was a relatively new enterprise dominated by the successors of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Yet, since then, the federal royalty rate for oil and gas on public lands has remained steady, at a bargain-basement 12.5 percent of the value of what’s extracted.

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Pipeline Defeated – Judge James Boasberg sides with Native Americans and the Environment

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We have been fighting this 1000 mile long monstrosity for over a decade. First at the EPA hearing level and the Political Level (Obama), then at the protest and blockade level, and now at the Legal level. While Obama was a great guy on the environment and temporarily halted the pipeline, this ruling is a major step at blocking tar sands and fracking products from coming to Illlinois and then ultimately to the Gulf Coast. It is also a major blow against Koch Industry. We have gone past 1.5 Degrees temperature rise with the current level of Green House Gases, so the Lord better give us a couple more victories.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/06/dakota-access-pipeline-environment-oil

Dakota Access pipeline

Judge suspends Dakota Access pipeline over environmental concerns

  • US district judge sides with Standing Rock Sioux tribe
  • More extensive environmental review is required – judge

Associated Press in Fargo, North Dakota

Opponents of the Dakota Access oil pipeline march out of their main camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in February 2017.
Opponents of the Dakota Access oil pipeline march out of their main camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in February 2017. Photograph: Terray Sylvester/Reuters

A federal judge has sided with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and ordered the Dakota Access pipeline to be shut down until a more extensive environmental review is carried out.

US district judge James Boasberg had previously said the pipeline, which has been in operation three years, remained “highly controversial” under federal environmental law, and a more extensive review was necessary after an environmental assessment by the US army corps of engineers.

In a 24-page order on Monday, Boasberg wrote that he was “mindful of the disruption such a shutdown will cause” but said he had concluded that the pipeline must be shut down for an environmental impact statement (EIS).

“Clear precedent favoring vacatur [an order setting aside a previous judgment] during such a remand coupled with the seriousness of the Corps’ deficiencies outweighs the negative effects of halting the oil flow for the 13 months that the Corps believes the creation of an EIS will take,” Boasberg wrote.

Boasberg had ordered both parties to submit briefs on whether the pipeline should continue operating during the new environmental review.

 

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Go there and read. Hallelujah. More next week.

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A Town In Northern Siberia Had A 100 Degree Day – This is the last time I will write about Climate Change for awhile

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Why? Because I am tired, pessimistic and it all seems so repetitive. I am also extremely disappointed. I am disappointed in myself, my friends, my State, my Nation, and hell even my enemies. WE HAD A CHANCE to stop this thing. We had the science and even the modeling on our side and yet we failed. We misjudged the power it would take and i think we totally misunderstood the violence it would take to stop the carbon industry from continuing to sell their products. We should have elected a President who wasopposed to fossil fuels 10 – 15 years ago. We should have blown up gas stations and power plants 10 – 15 years ago. Here we are looking at a 3 Degree uptick in temperature which will kill off all but the very hardy species. We act like there is still hope. We act like there is a future. Well I am done with that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/21/arctic-temperature-record-siberia/

Capital Weather Gang

Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with 100-degree reading in Siberia

Record-shattering reading continues Siberia’s hot streak, foreshadows more heat elsewhere


Temperature departures from average projected during the next three days, showing extreme temperatures in Siberia and parts of Canada. (Climate Reanalyzer)
By Andrew Freedman

June 23

A northeastern Siberian town is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic Circle, with a reading of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) recorded Saturday in Verkhoyansk, north of the Arctic Circle and about 3,000 miles east of Moscow. Records at that location have been kept since 1885.

If verified, this would be the northernmost 100-degree reading ever observed, and the highest temperature on record in the Arctic, a region that is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the globe.

On Sunday, the same location recorded a high temperature of 95.3 degrees (35.2 Celsius), showing the Saturday reading was not an anomaly. The average June high temperature in Verkhoyansk is just 68 degrees (20 Celsius).

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Oil Prices Plunge – Well the futures markets do anyway

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Yes it’s true, this is a historic plunge in oil futures prices. It is true that the oil just keeps coming because there is no way to shut off the larger wells. Yes it’s true that oil storage is filling up to the point where they may have to use railroad tanks cars for storage. But is this a significant point in history. I think the short answer is no. I think it may be a foreshadowing of the turbulence that lies at the END of oil. But that is nowhere near. BIG OIL is too nasty and too viscous (vicious sorry) to give up while there is a single drop to pump. Here is a great discussion of the incident:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/about-150-years-of-oil-price-history-in-one-chart-illustrates-crudes-spectacular-plunge-below-0-a-barrel-2020-04-22

In One Chart

About 150 years of oil-price history: This one chart illustrates crude’s spectacular plunge below $0 a barrel

By

Mark DeCambre

The formerly unthinkable drop in oil prices below $0 a barrel on Monday is still reverberating through financial markets, as supply overwhelms demand destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic, forcing some energy companies into possible bankruptcy as storage reaches maximum capacity.

Indeed, the now-defunct May West Texas Intermediate crude US:CLK20, which expired on Tuesday, plunged into negative territory to start the week in a history-making event that saw, the front-month contract, at the time, settle at negative $37.63 a barrel before recovering some of that in the following session.

That jaunt into negative territory had never happened before that period and although the oil market was seeing some traction higher on Wednesday, with the current front month and most-active West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery CLM20, 17.53% gaining $2.21, or 19.1%, to settle at $13.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, still about the lowest level since the late 1990s, researchers at Deutsche Bank thought it would be interesting to look at oil prices over the past 150 years.

Strategists Jim Reid and Nick Burns did so with straightforward charts published April 22 that shows both the nominal price of oil since 1870 and the cost of crude in real, or inflation-adjusted, terms in U.S. dollars (see chart below):

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