Energy / Natural Gas

• Scientists Studying the Link between Fracking and Recent Earthquakes in Texas

  Scientists from two Texas universities are looking into a pair of recent earthquakes near the Texas-Louisiana border for clues to whether they were related to underground injection of oil and gas drilling waste produced in the course of hydraulic fracturing or fracking.One of the scientists studying the two recent Texas quakes was on a team that concluded a swarm of earthquakes near Dallas in 2008 and 2009 were related to the disposal of drilling wastes, according to E&E’s Energy Wire.Cliff Frohlich, a research scientist at the University of Texas who studied those Dallas area quakes, did not rule out a…

• Kiev Stands to Lose EU-Russia Natural Gas Game

  European lawmakers this week said they had indications that Kiev was ready to take a closer look at updating its gas transit system. A substantial portion of the Russian natural gas bound for Europe runs through the Soviet-era pipeline system in Ukraine. Contractual, and perhaps political, problems between Kiev and Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom have sparked something of a pipeline war in Europe, however. With two major pipeline proposals sitting on the desk of those with a controlling interest in one of the largest natural gas fields in the world, by the time Kiev gets its house in order,…

• Iran's Green Revolution may come from Energy

  Against the backdrop of discussions about pending negotiations over its controversial nuclear program and the upcoming deadline of an European embargo on Iranian oil comes a quiet push by the Islamic republic to become a major electricity exporter. Tehran had said it was expecting to secure electricity deals with Syria and Lebanon and had somehow attracted an estimated $1 billion to help build new power plants in the country. With some of the largest natural gas reserves in the world, Tehran might be able to shrug off international sanctions by embracing an ambitious electricity agenda.European restrictions on Iranian oil go…

• How a Deeper Understanding of Fracking could Increase the Lifespan of Oil Wells

  There is a real, practical limit to the amount of oil that can be recovered from a reservoir. Depending on the availability and economic viability of different technical approaches that limit might be less than 25% of the total volume of oil originally in place, or it can be more than 50%, as has been achieved in some of the fields in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia(KSA). But one cannot get out more oil than is originally there, and in most cases it is difficult to reach even half that value.  However, where the volumes of oil that have been…

• Taking a Second Look at the Southern Gas Corridor

  With Russia covering two-thirds of Europe’s gas needs, Europe’s buzzword du jour since the start of the recurring Russo-Ukrainian disputes in 2005 over prices, debt and supplies of natural gas has been energy supply diversification.  Aiming to maintain its presence in the European market and to meet its rising gas demand, Russia plans to boost its gas supplies to the European Union (EU) through its new Nord Stream (55 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year ) and the proposed South Stream (63 bcm per year ) pipelines, which are to take some of the gas capability from its troubled transit…

• Abundance of Methane Hydrates will Destroy the Oil Market

  U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu contributed a statement to an announced breakthrough in research into tapping the vast fuel resource of methane hydrates that could eventually bolster already massive U.S. natural gas reserves.As Al Fin pointed out yesterday natural gas is priced to a barrel of oil equivalent at about $10-$11 per the estimable Geoffrey Styles view, something less than 10% of the cost of oil.  For North Americans adding a viable and hopefully low cost means to make use of gas hydrates could be giant boost to low cost fuel sources and a massive kick to…

• An Economic Analysis of Fracking

  When people look at “fracking”—the production of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing techniques–they see different things. Critics see polluted wells, exploding houses, and earthquakes—an environmental disaster in the making. These anti-frackers have a simple solution: ban it. In contrast, industry supporters see hydraulic fracturing as a safe technology that drillers have been using for decades without controversy and that now promises a new era of energy abundance. The pro-frackers, too, have a simple solution: get the government out of the way and drill baby, drill.As an economist, I see something still different: a familiar pattern of negative externalities and missing…

• Egyptian-Israeli Natural Gas Agreement Now Officially Over

  On 22 April Mohamed Shoeb, Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company head said that his company unilaterally abrogated its contract to ship natural gas to Israel because of contractual obligations violations.Populist evidence from Egypt indicates that the natural gas agreement was deeply unpopular in the world’s most populous Arab state, and since 2011, the pipeline supplying gas from Egypt to both Israel and Jordan has been attacked 14 times.This is a potentially a major political game changer in the Middle East, overturning more than 30 years of relatively quiescent Egyptian-Israeli relations. The natural gas sales were Israel’s major economic benefit from…

• Methane Hydrate Production could Replace Fracking as Next Major Concern

  The U.S. Department this week said it worked with ConocoPhillips and the Japan, Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. on the extraction of natural gas from methane hydrate ice structures from the North Slope of Alaska. Scientists were able to coax natural gas out of the crystals by injecting carbon dioxide and nitrogen into ice formations. The U.S. energy secretary said the field test was just the beginning, but given the history of methane hydrates, it could replace fracking as the next major concern in the natural gas industry.U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the team of scientists worked on…

• The Impossibility of Forecasting the Natural Gas Market

  Let me start by admitting that the future of natural gas is especially difficult to predict. Commodity forecasting is always a pseudo-science at best. At times it seems that its primary function is to make astrology look respectable.But America has enormous natural gas resources, roughly a 100 year supply. That supply could be the low cost/low pollution energy source that provides a bridge to a better economic and environmental future. Or it may just sit in the ground for some time.After 25 years in the oil and gas business I spent ten years working in public policy and politics. In…