Aging baby boomers are leaving the workforce in droves. In the oil patch, this is known variously as “the great crew change," the "brain drain," or "the graying of the workforce." But whatever it's called, the energy industry is experiencing a serious labor shortage from entry-level workers to geologists and engineers.
New York Times: Home Heating Costs Likely to Be Cheaper This Winter
After enduring frigid temperatures and higher energy costs last winter, many American consumers will spend considerably less this winter, mostly because a warmer season is forecast, the Energy Department projected on Tuesday. The roughly half of American households that heat with natural gas can expect a decline of 5 percent in their gas expenditures despite slightly higher residential prices as homes use 10 percent less gas, the department estimated in its report on winter fuels.
Bloomberg: Keystone Be Darned: Canada Finds Oil Route Around Obama
So you’re the Canadian oil industry and you do what you think is a great thing by developing a mother lode of heavy crude beneath the forests and muskeg of northern Alberta. The plan is to send it clear to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast via a pipeline called Keystone XL. Just a few years back, America desperately wanted that oil.
The Hill: Poll: Most see Obama as a failure
A clear majority of Americans describe President Obama's tenure as a "failure" according to a new poll released Monday.
The Washington Times: Low-carbon foolishness
The Keystone XL pipeline has now waited six years for White House approval. The notion of transporting Canadian oil-sands crude oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries is anathema to radical “greens.” who form much of President Obama’s political base.
Reuters: Factbox: Novozymes, biofuels and U.S. regulation
This year has been a good one for Novozymes' biofuels business but it may yet end on a sour note as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalizes its long-overdue biofuel targets for this year and next.
The Hill: EIA to release studies on crude oil exports, spokesman says
The Energy Information Administration is expected to release a comprehensive summary of the studies it is conducting about crude oil exports by the end of 2014 or early 2015, spokesman Jonathan Cogan said. The agency will release a study on the exports' financial impact on trade markets and crude prices this month and an analysis of crude processing costs and technology in December, Cogan said.
New York Times: Energy Mergers Born of a Production Boom
As a number of mergers and acquisitions in recent months demonstrate, energy company executives say they believe that the shale revolution is here to stay. “The industry is in the midst of a significant transformation as companies position themselves to be able to develop and exploit unconventional resources,” said Rob McCeney, a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ energy practice.
Bloomberg: Shale Boom Tested as Sub-$90 Oil Threatens Drillers
The U.S. shale boom is producing record amounts of new oil as demand weakens, pushing prices down toward levels that threaten to reduce future drilling. Domestic fields will add an unprecedented 1.1 million barrels a day of output this year and another 963,000 in 2015, raising production to the most since 1970, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Energy Department’s statistical arm forecasts consumption will shrink 0.2 percent to 18.9 million barrels a day this year, the lowest since 2012.
Fuel Fix: Shell testing new laser-based sensor to find shale gas
Royal Dutch Shell is testing a new device that uses lasers to help identify shale gas reservoirs, Wyoming-based oilfield service company WellDog announced Tuesday. The device, which weighs more than 100 pounds, is dropped into a wellbore where it shoots lasers and measures the frequency at which that light is reflected.
Huffington Post: Shale Development’s Unexpected Benefit: U.S. Manufacturing Oversight
The boom in U.S. natural gas production from shale formations, enabled by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques lumped under the label of "fracking," has come like a valentine for U.S. manufacturers. Natural gas from shale has injected new life into the U.S. chemical industry and has begun to bolster energy-intensive manufacturing sectors such as aluminum, steel, paper, glass and food.
Wall Street Journal: California Finally to Reap Shale’s Riches
For the past decade, the U.S. shale boom has mostly passed by California, forcing oil refiners in the state to import expensive crude. Now that’s changing as energy companies overcome opposition to forge ahead with rail depots that will get oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale.
Associated Press: 2 California companies fined for risk to water
California has fined two oil companies a total of nearly a half-million dollars for dumping oilfield fluid into unlined pits in Kern County. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board said Tuesday the dumping between January 2012 and November 2013 posed a threat to groundwater. NOTE: KERO also reports.
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