Enbridge Inc on Friday endorsedeither an underwater tunnel or trench to replace a section ofits 65-year-old energy pipeline that travels under a stretch ofthe U.S. Great Lakes in Michigan.Some local officials want the line removed to prevent thepotential for a spill into lake waters. The state of Michiganproposed moving the line into a tunnel under the lake bed andasked the company to evaluate it and other alternatives. The Canadian pipeline operator said a tunnel would costbetween $350 [Read more]
U.S. drillers add oil rigs for fourth week in a row
(Reuters) - U.S. energy companies added one oil rig this week, the fourth consecutive week of increases, despite a 9 percent decline in crude prices over the past four weeks. Despite that decline, producers still expect higher prices for their oil in 2018 than they received in 2017. The oil rig count in the week to June 15 rose to 863, the highest level since March 2015, General Electric Co’s Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday. That was the [Read more]
Potential Cushing bottleneck could increase U.S. oil discount
NEW YORK, June 14 (Reuters) - As the discount of U.S. crude to global benchmark Brent nears three-year highs, an emerging bottleneck at the key storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, is making U.S. futures vulnerable to a drop, traders and analysts said. Infrastructure constraints in the shale-rich Permian basin have already kept U.S. oil prices below international grades. Now, new constraints threaten to depress them even further and widen the gap between U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) [Read more]
U.S. oil firms use shale know-how to revitalize old oilfields
BURTON, Texas (Reuters) - Among vineyards and cow pastures in east Texas last month, roughnecks started to drill in an oilfield that is 25 years past its production peak. Houston-based oil producer Wildhorse Resource Development Corp tasked the crew with breathing new life into the field by using technology developed for fracking shale rock. In the limestone and clay Austin Chalk formation, which stretches across south Texas into central Louisiana, Wildhorse is among a growing group of [Read more]
TransCanada working on Leach Xpress natgas pipe after W.Va. blast
TransCanada Corp's Columbia GasTransmission (TCO) unit said it was working on a section of theLeach Xpress natural gas pipeline downstream of a pipe blast inWest Virginia last week.That work will enable the Stagecoach-Leach Xpress meter insoutheast Ohio to return to service, according to a notice tocustomers late Tuesday.The Stagecoach meter in Monroe County on the Ohio-WestVirginia border connects to EQT Midstream Partners LP's Strike Force South gathering fields in Monroe and [Read more]
Trump, Iran spar over oil prices ahead of OPEC meeting
WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran exchanged sharp words over oil prices on Wednesday, with Trump blaming OPEC for high oil prices and Tehran accusing him of stoking volatility after he withdrew last month from a global nuclear arms deal with Iran. Trump sparked the latest back-and-forth when he renewed his attack on OPEC in a tweet that said oil prices are too high and that the cartel was “at it again.” Oil prices have risen by around 60 percent over the [Read more]
Oil demand seen steady in 2019 but OPEC supply, trade risks loom
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil demand will grow steadily in 2019 thanks to a solid global economy, but the world may face a large supply gap by late next year if OPEC cannot cover any supply shortfalls, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday. The report serves as a stark warning to the world’s largest oil exporters, who meet next week in Vienna to discuss supply policy. The IEA said it expects global oil demand to grow by 1.4 million barrels per day in 2019, to top 100 million bpd by [Read more]
Enbridge takes steps on pipeline policy after BP complains
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canada’s biggest pipeline operator, Enbridge Inc, said on Monday it was taking steps to address complaints from oil shipper BP PLC about abrupt changes it made in allocating space on its Mainline system. The company announced the policy change late last month before reversing it last week, after it caused panic among shippers and dramatically increased a discount on Canadian heavy crude. Enbridge had intended to change how it verifies shippers’ oil supplies [Read more]
Two ex-Penn West executives must face U.S. SEC fraud charges
NEW YORK, June 11 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ordered two former finance executives at Penn West Petroleum Ltd, now known as Obsidian Energy Ltd, to face regulatory charges that they helped engineer a multi-year accounting fraud to reduce the Canadian company’s operating expenses. In a decision made public on Monday, U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods in Manhattan said the Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint raised a “strong inference” that Todd Takeyasu and Jeffery Curran intended [Read more]
U.S. drillers add oil rigs for third week in a row
June 8 (Reuters) - U.S. energy companies added oil rigs for a third week in a row even though crude prices have declined about 8 percent over the past three weeks. Drillers added one oil rig in the week to June 8, bringing the total count to 862, the highest level since March 2015, General Electric Co’s Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday. That was the ninth time drillers added rigs in the past 10 weeks. The U.S. rig count, an early indicator [Read more]