Archive for May, 2009

After following oil higher, prices for natural gas slide–and take an industry along for the ride.

HOUSTON — As crude oil grabs headlines for trading above $60 a barrel, little brother natural gas seemed to be following. Since the end of April, gas climbed out of its $3.15-per-thousand-cubic-feet ditch to a recent $4.42.

But two bullies in the market–weak demand and unrelenting supply–suffocated a 40% gain this week. Thursday, the Energy Information Administration reported that natural gas inventories continue to climb faster than expected. Supply in storage is a third higher than it was this time last year, 22% above the five-year average. Small exploration and production companies have fallen by the wayside, seeking bankruptcy protection, while others teeter on stock prices measured in nickels and dimes. Gas traded Friday at $3.54, back in the trough where analysts say it belongs.

“Three words: Too. Much. Gas,” says energy analyst David Pursell, of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

Full Story

5/27/2009

Oil prices hit a new high for the year and gasoline jumped a dime a gallon locally Tuesday as the stock market responded to a rise in consumer confidence.

Benchmark crude for July delivery gained 78 cents to settle at $62.45 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest close since oil hit $62.98 on Nov. 14, according to Bloomberg data.

Meanwhile, many retailers in Tulsa raised the cost of a gallon of regular unleaded from $2.15 to $2.25, the most expensive local price since fuel hit $2.29 on Oct. 25.

Full Story

Declaring “The Panhandle’s time is now,” the chairman of OGE Energy Corp. told shareholders Thursday he expects wind and solar energy to play a growing role in the electric utility’s future.

The Oklahoma Panhandle has wind and it has great sun resources, which puts it in position to take advantage of the political push to convert a growing percentage of the nation’s power supply to renewable energy sources, said Pete Delaney, chairman, president and chief executive of OGE Energy Corp.

Speaking at an annual shareholders meeting, Delaney was peppered with questions from shareholders interested in knowing more about the company’s plans to use wind and solar energy.

Delaney told investors OGE Energy Corp. only gets about 2 or 3 percent of its power from wind energy, but he expects that to increase to 15 to 20 percent in the next 10 or 15 years.

Full Story

By John Dorschner The Miami HeraldFor a year, while the green movement was at its height, Florida environmentalists, new solar companies, utility lobbyists and state regulators spent thousands of hours trying to determine how much of the state’s power supply should come from renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

They did it because the Legislature in 2008 ordered them to do it. After sifting through thousands of pages of documents and sitting in lengthy workshops, the Public Service Commission sent its recommendations to the 2009 Legislature. A renewable-energy bill passed the Senate but died in the House. The result: A year of work wasted.

Among the major victims: The ballyhooed Babcock Ranch project, which is trying to become the first solar-powered city in the world, and thousands of construction workers who would have been hired to build new power plants.

Full Story

May 26, 2009

HOUSTON (AP) — The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the United States fell by 18 this week to 900, down more than half from a year ago.

Of the rigs running nationwide, 711 were exploring for natural gas and 180 for oil, Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday. Nine were listed as miscellaneous.

A year ago, the rig count stood at 1,889. The U.S. count is down 56 percent since the end of August as weak energy demand has hampered oilfield activity.

Full Story

By MEERA SELVA , 05.26.09

The U.S. energy secretary said Tuesday that he’s had enough of talk about fighting global warming. He wants action and has pledged that America will act first to help move along the talk.

And if others, especially new No. 1 carbon dioxide emitter China, are waiting for U.S. action, they’ll get it, said Steven Chu, a Nobel-Prize winning physicist who has long warned of the dangers of global warming.

“The U.S. will move, inevitably it will move first, as a more developed country we should be moving first, and I hope China will follow,” he said.

Full story

Source: EnviromentalLeader.com
Concentrated solar power (CSP), using hundreds of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays, could meet up to 7 percent of the world’s power needs by 2030 and 25 percent by 2050, according to a new joint report from Greenpeace International, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA) and IEA SolarPACES.

Even with moderate assumptions for future market development, the world could have a combined solar power capacity of over 830 gigawatts (GW) by 2050, with annual deployments of 41 GW, representing 3.0 to 3.6 percent of global demand in 2030 and 8.5 to 11.8 percent in 2050, according to the Global CSP Outlook 2009 report.

The report finds that CSP installations provided 436 megawatts (MW) of the world’s electricity generation at the end of 2008; however, projects under construction, primarily in Spain, will add at least another 1,000 MW by around 2011. Projects in the U.S. are expected to add up to 7,000 MW along with an additional 10,000 GW in Spain by 2017.

Full Story

May 26 (Bloomberg) — Reduced spending on energy threatens to slow the economic rebound, trigger a surge in prices and hurt future prosperity, the Group of Eight industrialized nations said at the close of their meeting in Rome.

“The current financial and economic crisis must not delay investments and programmed energy projects which are essential to economic recovery and sustainable prosperity,” ministers from the G8 and 15 other countries including Saudi Arabia, China and India said in their concluding statement yesterday after a three-day meeting.

The global economic slowdown has restricted credit for new energy projects and eroded demand for fuels, leading to a 58 percent slump in crude prices from their high of $147.27 a barrel in July. Oil companies’ spending this year dropped almost $100 billion, or 21 percent, according to a report this month from International Energy Agency.

Full Story

Pamela A. Grady
5.26.2009

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. and the city of Oklahoma City dedicated a new compressed natural gas fueling station at Will Rogers World Airport.

Designed, built and operated by Clean Energy, the large-scale, public access station will provide clean, green, domestic CNG to the expanding Airport Express fleet of shared-ride CNG shuttles. The facility, located at 4424 Amelia Earhart Drive, will be available 24/7 to serve CNG-powered vehicle fleets that operate in the area.

The Department of Airports awarded a 10-year contract to Clean Energy to develop and supply the new station.

Full Story

Heidi Rambo Centrella
5.26.2009

For three consecutive months, Oklahoma City saw a drop in sales tax receipts over the same months last year – a first for Forbes’ “recession-proof” city. Mayor Mick Cornett says he is disappointed and unsure how the city will plan its 2010 budget with these numbers.

“This is the time of year when your budget forecasters need to have some degree of certainty about the amount of revenue that’s going to be coming into the city so that we can properly budget the hundreds of millions of dollars, literally, that we expect to be coming into this city,” Cornett says. “I’m concerned about it.”

Budget Director Craig Freeman introduced a proposed 2009-2010 fiscal year budget at the May 5 City Council meeting. Council is scheduled to vote on the budget at its June 16 meeting. The budget will become effective July 1.

Full Story