Atlantic Seismic Exploration Announcement an Empty Gesture

“The administration’s announcement does not put the U.S. on track to produce more of its own energy, and does not make up for three years of failed energy policy,” said Milito. “It continues the pattern of delaying U.S. oil and gas development and supplies until well into the future.”
Milito called the announcement political rhetoric and an attempt to make the Obama administration look like it is doing something on gas prices, “but in reality it is little more than an empty gesture.”
“Without an Atlantic coast lease sale in their five-year plan, the administration’s wishful thinking on seismic research has no ultimate purpose,” Milito commented. “The White house has banned lease sales in the Atlantic for at least the next five years, discouraging the investment and job creation, and ultimately production, which would make seismic exploration valuable.”

h/t Adrian

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

…it will be Thursday, when Obama is scheduled to appear in Cushing, Okla., known as the pipeline capital of the world, to take credit for the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project announced weeks ago by TransCanada, the Keystone builder.
It’s the section that doesn’t need presidential or State Department approval since it does not cross an international boundary.

Oh, darn.

In 2010, CNPC signed a deal to help Venezuela develop a major Orinoco oil field known as Junin 4, which includes the construction of a facility to convert heavy oil to a lighter crude that could be shipped to a refinery in Guangdong, China.
“Although the contract was signed in December 2010, not one barrel of oil has yet been produced, much less upgraded,” said Gustavo Coronel, a former PDVSA board member.
“So far, nothing much seems to be happening, except for the arrival of a large group of Chinese staff to the CNPC’s Caracas office,” he added, referring to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
“Apart from money, there seems to be little that China can offer Venezuela in the oil industry,” he said, adding that a “culture gap will make working with China very difficult for Venezuelan oil people, who were mostly trained in the U.S.”

h/t Adrian

Rex Murphy

Outside Fort McMurray, it is impossible to escape the furor over the Alberta oilsands. Its product is routinely described, lazily and slanderously, as the dirtiest on the planet. The Premier of Ontario, a province that owes much of its prosperity to its huge automobile industry shivers when he looks at Alberta, mutters about the dark forces of the “petro-dollar,” and implied (until he was scolded and half-recanted) that somehow Ontario’s fretful financial state is Alberta’s fault.
It’s almost a fantasy disconnect. Dalton Mcguinty can throw billions at General Motors and urge the feds to do the same, all to save the automobile industry. He ignores that four decades or more of Ontario’s prosperity wasn’t founded on windmills: It was based on gas-guzzling cars and trucks.
[…]
[H]ow easily we bite the hand that feeds us. “Environment” has become a narrow, bitterly focussed word turning exclusively on hurts or despoilations of nature, magnifying the slightest alteration or disturbance of “the natural” as an unspeakable sin.
There is another wider, larger, humane dimension to the environment — larger and more vital than any reference to landscape. That is the human and social element, the business of supplying reasonable support for workers and their families, towns and communities, and ultimately wealth for the entire nation. We owe something, it is true to the rocks and trees. We also owe something to human beings as well.

More than half of them are not cars–will our eco-oriented do-gooders notice? And what might they do, other than try to shove a Volt, stuffed with taxpayer money, down your throat?

Canadian sales of new cars and trucks opened the year on a resoundingly positive note, Statistics Canada suggested Wednesday.
The federal agency — which collects data on monthly retail sales in dollars and in the number of new vehicles sold in Canada — found a 15.4 per cent rise in vehicles sold in January to 153,623 units from 133,146 sold in December. That’s the fastest pace in more than 15 years, economist Robert Kavcic said Wednesday in a report by BMO Economics…
Among Statistics Canada’s other findings from January; passenger car sales rose 23.9 per cent to 71,539 units on increased sales of lower-cost vehicles…

Via Zerohedge;

There is cheap oil available in the United States. You just have to be able to transport the crude from Cushing to your personal refinery to take advantage of it.
One final element is making matters worse: Refineries are currently starting to shift to producing spring-summer gasoline blends, which are lighter and therefore usually cost about 10¢ more per gallon than fall-winter blends. And this year, the quick refinery shutdowns needed to enact the seasonal shift are creating slight supply gaps because some of the “swing” refineries that usually help bridge the gap are no longer operating. For example, the Hovensa refinery in the US Virgin Islands – a joint venture between Hess Corp. (NYSE.HES) and Petroleos de Venezuela – used to produce extra volume during the seasonal transition, but it was closed down a few weeks ago after losing $1.3 billion over the last three years.

Read it all.

Well, finally.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is suing in federal court more than a dozen environmental organizations that are likely to challenge its plans for drilling Alaska’s Arctic Ocean this summer, an unprecedented preemptive move aimed at avoiding potentially costly delays.

Rigzone;

No direct connection has been found between hydraulic fracturing and reports of groundwater contamination, according to a study released Thursday by the Energy Institute at The University of Texas of Austin.

Never fear. They’ll keep studying until they get it right.

“Please try to use your own words to make sure the panel considers each comment individually.”

Related.

Everything you ever needed to know about fracking;

Anti-fracking claims may be twists on reality – for example, that a legislative loophole makes fracking exempt from the America’s Safe Drinking Water Act, when really this federal legislation never regulated fracking because it is a state concern. Then there’s the completely absurd, such as the idea that frac operators are allowed to and regularly do inject frac fluids directly into underground water supplies.
We decided to set the record straight by using facts, not playing on emotion like many of the frac-tivists do. It’s important because unconventional oil and gas constitute an increasingly pivotal part of the world’s energy scene. In the United States, where shale gas abounds but imported energy rules the day, this is especially true.

h/t Adrian

Peter J. via email – Kate. A short time ago we did the boycott on Chiquita bananas and the above company was linked as being anti-oil sands also.As I tend to do. I sent a civil little hate mail and got this reply :

Dear Mr. J******** my name is Greg Dyer and I oversee Bed Bath and Beyond operations in Canada. I apologize for not getting back to you earlier, I just landed in Toronto.
Bed Bath and Beyond has no opinion on the Alberta Oil Sands. Any suggestion that we do by the media or Lobby Groups is incorrect.
Unfortunately the media has never asked me or our company if we have any kind of stance on the Alberta Oil Sands. Back in early 2010, the Lobby Group Forest Ethics linked us with their stance on the fuels derived from the Alberta Oil Sands. A little time after that the CEO of U.S. Grocery Chain Whole Foods announced he was banning the use of fuels derived from the Alberta Oil Sands in his fleet of trucks. After that, every time Forest Ethics and or Whole Foods spoke out against the Oil Sands it was linked to us. We attempted to clarify we were not associated with either and they did not speak for us.
We believe we should focus on retail and have no right or expertise to comment on the Alberta Oil Sands. I previously lived in Alberta, my wife is from Alberta and both my children were born in Alberta. Most of my family and closest friends live and work in Alberta with many of them working in the Oil and Gas Industry. Its positive economic impact is one of the primary reasons Alberta is a great place to do business. I/ we would like to see the Alberta economy continue to prosper.
Thank you for taking the time to express your concern! Please be assured we do not have and never have had any kind of boycott of the Alberta Oil Sands and the fuels derived from them.
Sincerely,
Greg Dyer
Senior Vice President
Bed Bath and Beyond Canada

Just helping to set the record straight.

Bloomberg;

A shale-driven glut of natural gas has cut electricity prices for the U.S. power industry by 50 percent and reduced investment in costlier sources of energy.
With abundant new supplies of gas making it the cheapest option for new power generation, the largest U.S. wind-energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), has shelved plans for new U.S. wind projects next year…

h/t Maz2

For those interested, Roy Green will be having two superb guests on his show today:

• Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver @ 11:05am PT / 2:05pm ET
• James Delingpole @ 11:20am PT / 2:20pm ET

Those without a Corus station in their community can listen in here.
This will provide some counterbalance to the unprogressive usual suspects who truly would love to shut down Canada’s energy industry tomorrow if they could.
Related: A most excellent primer by Rex Murphy

Richard Fernandez;

The incident illustrates the law of unintended consequences. The unwavering Green campaign to block economic growth reduces their host’s relative clout in the world. What weakens America eventually weakens the very thing they rely on to advance their agenda.
Meanwhile other organisms unburdened by parasites grow apace. Sooner or later things reach the point where the parasite-ridden host it loses its apex role in the ecosystem. And then surprise, surprise: they no longer make way from the former king of the hill. President Obama probably never believed that Canada could take its business elsewhere.

h/t Steve

Northern Gateway “interveners” signed up without their knowledge;

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said the 53-year-old woman on Tuesday from her home.
“I have never heard of this pipeline and I did not apply to speak in Canada,” she said, in broken English.
That’s strange. On the federal government’s National Energy Board website, Gudic is one of a whopping 4,522 registrants who apparently applied online to make an oral application. Her name, mailing address, e-mail and phone number are included on the website.
Gudic’s daughter, Flavia, also has never heard of the pipeline, that, if approved, would ship raw Alberta bitumen to Kitimat, B.C., to be sent to Asia via supertankers.
“Maybe the environmental organizations we donate to signed us up,” offered Flavia, a 19-year-old art student.

MayBE!

A regular reader, via email;

As a regulatory affairs worker in the natural resource industry, I’m heartened by the ongoing discussion on how so-called environmentalists are taking over the regulatory process.
That said, how many of your commenters have ever intervened at one of these environmental assessments or written to their respective environment ministers expressing their support for a certain project or process?
Interventions at these EA processes are taken very seriously, which is why environmental groups make a concerted effort to produce swaths of form letters in opposition to anything which might conceivably benefit resource producers.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is betting that far more Canadians favour jobs and business opportunity over economic stagnation. I encourage your readers to show his government that there are people in this country who support our major industrial projects and are in favour of a strong, free and prosperous Canada.

The Honourable Peter Kent
Minister of the Environment
10 Wellington Street, 28th Floor
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3
Tel.: 819-997-1441
Fax: 819-953-0279
Email: Minister@ec.gc.ca
The Honourable Joe Oliver
Minister of Natural Resources
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Tel.: 613-992-6361
Fax: 613-992-9791
EMail: Joe.Oliver@parl.gc.ca
Major Projects Management Office
155 Queen Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E4
Fax: 613 995-7555
E-mail: mpmo-bggp@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca
Information on participating in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency: http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=8A52D8E4-1

Via Ethical Oil;

“We have to have processes in Canada that come to a decision in a reasonable amount of time and processes that cannot be hijacked,” [PM Stephen Harper] said on Friday.
“In particular, growing concern has been expressed to me about the use of foreign money to really overload the public consultation phase of regulatory hearings just for the purpose of slowing down the process. This is something that is not good for the Canadian economy, and the government of Canada will be taking a close look at how we can ensure that our regulatory processes are effective and deliver decisions in a reasonable amount of time.”

Bumped for update;

Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.
These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest. They attract jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world to lecture Canadians not to develop our natural resources. Finally, if all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further. They do this because they know it can work. It works because it helps them to achieve their ultimate objective: delay a project to the point it becomes economically unviable.

h/t Kevin

SDA gets results! Chiquita won’t join bunch boycotting Alberta oilsands products