The U.S. oil glut continues, bolstering the arguments made by many environmentalists that Sabal Trail is unnecessary to serve Florida, and will result in fracked gas products to be exported, thus undercutting all the so-called “eminent domain” talk, which was really a sham by Sabal Trail, Spectra Energy, FERC, and all those agencies which approved it:
The American Petroleum Institute (API) paints a rosy picture for fossil fuels in the near future. In their news release of June 2, 2017, they note that overall the industry will benefit from the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. In spite of this, Exxonmobil and ConocoPhillips opposed the move, believing that the U.S. would have been able to influence the future of fossil fuels if they stayed in the agreement.
US shale drilling activity is increasing faster than anyone had expected and will likely continue its expansion for the rest of the year and into 2018, thwarting efforts to lift oil prices, writes John Kemp. The US produced nearly 9.1 million barrels per day of crude and condensates in March, up by 62,000 barrels per day over February, while production is seen climbing by 440,000 barrels per day on average by the end of the year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
US shale natural gas exports hit a new record in May, with 18 liquefied natural gas cargoes departing Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana during the month for destinations such as China, Europe and Latin America. The surging LNG exports could help the US become a net exporter by 2018 and possibly the third-largest operator of LNG export terminals after Australia and Qatar by 2020.
Bloomberg (5/31)
The glut is confirmed even more by the fact that the U.S. set a new oil export record:
The volume of US oil exported last week hit a fresh record of 1.3 million barrels of crude per day, while oil production was 9.34 million barrels per day, up from 9.32 million the previous week, according to the Energy Information Administration. Refinery runs for the week were 17.51 million barrels of oil per day, breaking an earlier record of 17.29 million barrels set in April.
And finally, Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access Pipeline began moving oil last Thursday, June 1, 2017:
The 1,200-mile pipeline connects the Bakken oilfields in North Dakota to Patoka, Ill., and then to refineries on the Gulf Coast. It was the subject of months of protests last year, which grew to thousands of people in size and, at times, drew clashes with police. Environmentalists saw it as a symbol of global warming and the proliferation of fossil fuel use. The Standing Rock Sioux, who tap the Missouri River for tribal water, argued that the pipeline traversed sacred burial grounds and threatened the tribe’s main water source.
Late last year, President Barack Obama refused to approve the pipeline’s final connection, under the Missouri, and sent plans back to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for review. But President Donald Trump, fulfilling campaign promises, quickly reversed Obama’s decision after taking office.
The pipeline is a joint venture with Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum and Houston-based Enbridge Energy Partners and Phillips 66.
The full pipeline, from the Bakken to the Gulf, cost nearly $5 billion. It has commitments to ship about 520,000 barrels per day and could pipe as much as 570,000 barrels per day.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-
Like it or not, the politics of “Big Oil” determines the economic health and social stability of the world. Deprived of life’s necessities, cold and hungry people will rob and kill just to get food and shelter. An
abundance of oil is, therefore, a good thing–it is applied science benefitting humanity. On the other hand, environmentalism is not a “hands-on” science, but an armchair philosophy–perhaps even a religion in some circles. Even so, it can be a worthwhile belief system if it focuses on experiential fact and not vapid, regurgitated rhetoric, Those who would return us to the “good old day” of whale oil and beef tallow for light and lubrication “frack” the very bedrock of their inane, environmental poppycock!
So the U.S rich fat cats used eminent domain as a guise to take over people’s land in order to pipe fossil fuels across GA, Alabama and Florida
so that they could export the fossil fuel to China and India
So that China and India can build more factories and drive more cars
so that they can pollute the earth’s atmosphere even more
so that they can violate their own Paris agreement to reduce air pollution
so that the the earth warms up 5 degrees more celsius
so that thousands and maybe millions of species go extinct, land floods, extreme storms kill people, polluted air and water and chemicals sicken and kill people,
so that U.S. fat cat oil billionaires can get richer and richer and richer?
WHAT????
What we want in this in in the works are government is still that we are telling the truth even if trump go out of Paris agreement such we are standing up in his place not let destroy are only earth
Michael, thanks so much for your caring comment, but would you please find an editor to proofread your writing before you submit it? I don’t understand your message here–it’s almost incomprehensible! I think you’re trying to say that we don’t need a misguided president to tell us what to do. We know what needs to be done.