Energy News Beat

One of the biggest challenges with heating homes from renewable sources is the reliability of energy supplies during different seasons and types of weather – yet geothermal heat has much to offer.

The main misconception about geothermal heat is that it is reliant on steam rising from geysers as famously seen in Iceland. In fact, there are three main sources of geothermal heat – hot rocks, heat from aquifers, and heat from water in abandoned mines. It is heat from mine water that holds significant potential in Scotland.

Much progress is being made in the roll-out of heat pumps and scale-up of heat networks to decarbonise heating, but the vast potential of geothermal mine water remains relatively untapped. To harness the dormant assets of flooded mines throughout Scotland, considerable research is under way – along with some hugely promising demonstrator projects.

Harnessing geothermal heat sources in Scotland

The mines that were once the heartbeat of UK communities could soon make a major contribution to the energy transition through geothermal heat, as well as regenerating industries in towns that may not been present since the mines closed.

In Scotland, there is a potential 600km3 of disused mineworkings available in the Midland Valley. This could theoretically meet 8% of Scotland’s domestic heating requirements and up to 40% of Glasgow’s heat demand. If this potential is realised, it could make Scotland a world leader in the sector.

Research by the UK Coal Authority suggests that these flooded shafts could hold 7,920 petajoules of untapped heat. For context, natural gas was used to produce 1,080 petajoules to heat UK homes in 2020, according to UK Government data.

Shallow mines with depths down to 200m typically have water temperatures of 10˚C–25˚C. To use this in a heat network, a borehole is used to access mine water. A heat pump then extracts the heat and boosts it to the required temperature. Hot water is then circulated to household or business customers for heating, while another loop carries cold water back to the source for reheating.

Using mine water for geothermal energy storage

Flooded mines could also be used to store thermal energy. A persistent issue with wind energy is turning the turbines off when the generation capacity peak is reached. Researchers believe that in East Ayrshire, an estimated 120GW is effectively going to waste from unused wind.

To address this, the STEaM thermal storage project aims to use mine water to thermally store excess wind energy. Described as a giant immersion heater, the project team believe it is possible to establish high-volume storage of thermal energy that is consistent year-round, regardless of the season or weather.

Professor Zoe Shipton from the University of Strathclyde leads the STEaM thermal storage project. Shipton also led the HotScot project, bringing together academics, local government, industry and the social sector to establish Scotland’s abandoned mines as assets.

“We have got holes in the ground. They are big and underneath cities. The question with STEaM is if we fill them with heat and then take it out again multiple times a year, can we do that safely and effectively?” says Shipton.

“We think we can, but we need to do the research to investigate that. STEaM is a research project, but the results should unlock a really exciting opportunity, not just for Scotland but globally.”

Geothermal storage potential in Scotland

In the UK, there are 177,000 known mine entries. It is not yet known what proportion of these are suitable for storage. Older, shallower shafts are typically lined with brick or wood, with the newer shafts deeper and generally lined by concrete. STEaM is undertaking assessments to determine the structural integrity of these mine shafts under cycles of temperature.

However, if only 1% of these mine entries were capable of holding 20,000m3 of water, Shipton suggests that they could store 1,900GW-hours of thermal energy from curtailed wind. This would be enough to provide heating for 2.8 million, or 10%, of UK homes during a worst-case weather week with plunging temperatures and no wind.

Much more research is required to prove these projections in real-world settings. The goal of the project is to see if water temperatures of 55°C can be reached and safely sustained in mine water. If this is possible, researchers predict that the storage site can connect to a heat network without the need to boost the water temperature from heat pumps. Importantly, this would reduce the electrical load from the grid, contributing to grid stability during times of high demand for electricity for heating elsewhere – such as heat pumps in homes.

Studies of thermal storage in mine workings in Europe are in their early stages and small in scale. STEaM is the first project to explore storage within a shaft rather than lower-volume mineworkings.

Nevertheless, the STEaM team is committed to understanding the safe operating temperatures and avoiding chemical reactions that could potentially negatively impact the environment or the wider heat network.

The plan is to start experiments at a physical site in 2024, continuing into 2025. The team is analysing water chemistry and taking temperature samples to characterise the water and determine the baseline. Detailed analysis will be completed during and after heat injection to assess the effect of heating and cooling cycles on the water body.

Energy from wind turbines in Scotland could be stored underground in mine water. 

Reusing heat from the dancefloor

To fully harness the potential of geothermal energy, a range of different innovative projects are under way in Scotland. Perhaps the most eye-catching project is the BODYHEAT system, which stores heat from people dancing in the SWG3 nightclub in Glasgow. Developed by Scottish geothermal start-up TownRock Energy, heat pumps powered by renewable energy extract heat from the dancefloor and send it for storage in 12 U-shaped boreholes that are 200m underground.

When the energy is needed for heating or cooling, heat is pumped back up to the heat pumps and upgraded to the correct temperature before reuse. The system can even capture heat and use it for cooling during the same event. The project was developed with funding and support from the Scottish Government, the UK Community Renewal Fund and the William Grant Foundation.

“BODYHEAT at SWG3 is a world first – quick response borehole thermal energy storage for a multi-use arts venue across two buildings,” says David Townsend, founder and CEO of TownRock Energy. “We were developing the technology, as well as fundraising and permitting for three years prior to turn-on, nearly entirely during the height of the Covid pandemic.”

According to Townsend, the success of the project has led to global interest in the concept from a range of different businesses.

“TownRock Energy has received an abundance of enquiries from all over the world thanks to the global media attention over the past two years, not just from venues but also from diverse customers such as data centre operators and farmers,” he adds. “We are working on rolling it out, and some of the main challenges include retrofitting existing buildings, permanency of building use and ownership.”

Support for Scottish geothermal projects

Despite the immense potential for geothermal energy, several issues must be resolved before it can be adopted more widely. At present, there remains uncertainty as to who owns geothermal heat. The Scottish Government is ahead of the other nations in drafting legislation for heat, with further clarity surrounding geothermal expected.

To further the understanding of geothermal processes in Scotland, the British Geological Survey’s Glasgow UK Geoenergy Observatory offers essential research capabilities. The site has 12 boreholes equipped with 319 advanced sensors for testing between 16m and 199m deep to study the environmental impact and changes in the chemistry of shallow, low-temperature mine water. Various types of environmental monitoring are available, with open data available for research.

The facility can be used by industry, academia and public sector organisations. Project partnerships are also available. “It is an amazing platform for experimentation, and for validating new products such as sensors,” comments Shipton.

There is also a push in Scotland to make full use of the transferrable skills from the oil and gas industry. Geothermal could benefit greatly from extensive domestic experience in areas such as drilling, corrosion management, underground modelling and data analytics.

A further useful resource is the Mine Water Geothermal Resource Atlas, an online mapping feature that identifies a total of 370.3km2 of sites in Scotland that are potentially suitable for geothermal mine water developments.

Funding for geothermal projects in Scotland

Funding remains one of the main obstacles for geothermal. To address this in Scotland, there are a range of potential grants and other types of financial support available.

Scotland’s Heat Network Fund has a total of £300m ($379.93m) available in capital grants to support heat projects throughout Scotland. All projects must be based in Scotland, of large scale, reduce emissions, and deliver societal and economic benefits.

Furthermore, the Green Heat Innovation Support Programme from Scottish Enterprise has a total pot of £17.6m available from November 2022 to March 2026 to support the roll-out of low-carbon heating solutions, which include geothermal.

Scottish Enterprise can also help companies access funding for green energy projects within Horizon Europe after the UK was recently readmitted.

“If we can sufficiently research those first few projects and allow the academics to get in and pull apart some of the issues and demonstrate things such as how to model where the heat goes, how to monitor the water chemistry and develop mitigation measures for the unlikely event of problems – all of that will really help unlock the potential of the industry,” adds Shipton.

Source: Investmentmonitor.ai

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India and China have not signed the global renewable and energy efficiency pledge at this year’s Conference of Parties (COP28) climate summit, held in Dubai.

The pledge was to triple the global renewable energy target by the year 2030.

Meanwhile, a total of 118 nations have pledged to triple green energy.

The Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge commits to tripling worldwide installed renewable energy generation capacity to at least 11,000 GW and to double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements to more than 4 percent by 2030.

Nearly 1,00,000 delegates from 198 countries are participating in the global conference, which commenced on Thursday and will run through December 12.

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed to host the UN climate conference in India in 2028. He also launched a ‘Green Credit Initiative’ focused on creating carbon sinks through people’s participation.

Participating in multiple high-level events on the second day of the UN climate conference (COP28) in Dubai, the Prime Minister said rich nations should completely reduce their carbon footprint “well before” 2050 and give all developing countries their fair share in the global carbon budget.

He also urged countries to deliver a concrete outcome on finance to help developing and poor nations combat climate change at COP28.

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Energy News Beat

Global investments using “woke” environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards led to trillions of dollars of losses in a two-year span, especially in the U.S., according to a recent report.

The biannual assessment by the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) showed the absolute value of reported sustainable investing ESG assets — such as those addressing social justice, climate change alongside biodiversity and nature loss — dropped from $35.3 trillion in 2020 to $30.3 trillion in 2022, a 14% decline.

The decline was no more apparent than in the U.S., where governors in Republican-led states have pushed to block ESG investments at the state and local level. Congress also earlier this year moved to nullify a new Department of Labor rule that allows retirement plan managers to incorporate ESG standards into their investment decisions. But President Joe Biden vetoed Congress’ action and the new rule has survived court challenges.

The GSIA assessment showed ESG investments in the U.S. went from $17 trillion in 2020 to $8.4 trillion in 2022, a drop of 50.5%. The only other region that showed a loss was Canada which declined 2.7% from $2.423 trillion to $2.358 trillion. Europe, Australia and New Zealand and Japan saw substantial gains.

“The market for ESG bonds decreased significantly in the past two years as state leaders from across the country have fought back against the injection of woke politics into the bond market,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told the Daily Mail.

Assets under management in ESG funds in the U.S. declined from $339 billion in the second quarter of 2023 to $315 billion by the end of September, CNN reported in October.

“ESG investing … entering the final quarter of 2023 continues to be a story of declining flows and assets under management,” Robert Jenkins, head of global research at Lipper, a U.S. financial services firm, told CNN.

Jenkins said ESG investment had a fairly stable growth line before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Then the pandemic supercharged them, and everyone started jumping on board,” he said.

But the boom appears to be slowing as investors are souring on the concept. The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has dropped 30.4% this year and investors reportedly expect the downturn to continue into 2024.

Jenkins said the ESG concept doesn’t work and going forward, he will be abandoning the concept and its measurements altogether. He said the problem with ESG investing is that it’s based on feelings and opinions and not concrete factors.

“We saw ratings from various companies, ours included, that made no intuitive sense,” he said. “When you have a fracker getting an ‘A+’ on the environment and you have a company like Netflix getting a ‘D-‘ on the environment, that makes no sense.”

Source: Newsmax.com

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Energy News Beat

Top EU officials met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday for their first in-person summit in four years to discuss issues ranging from trade imbalances to Ukraine, with an agenda full of tough rhetoric but light on deliverables.

During the meeting, Xi urged the EU to work with China to provide global stability, enhance mutual political trust and “eliminate all kinds of interference” in the bilateral relationship, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell will also meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang on their one-day visit.

It will be their last chance to get face time with top Chinese officials before the European Parliament elections kick off next year, triggering changes in the bloc’s leadership.

Both sides have sought to play down expectations ahead of the summit, with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi warning Beijing-based diplomats from EU member states on Monday that Europe should choose “peace and stability” over a “new Cold War.”

A European official told journalists in Brussels earlier this week that “there’s not a single outstanding deliverable that will be crowning the summit,” adding that there will not be a joint statement.

In another blow to EU-China relations, member state Italy officially informed China “in recent days” that it is leaving the Belt and Road Initiative championed by Xi, Italian government sources told Reuters Wednesday.

A string of EU Commissioners have visited Beijing since China lifted pandemic border restrictions this year, including the bloc’s trade and climate chiefs, but little progress has been made on core irritants in the relationship. Most recently, Borrell’s chief of staff and senior EU diplomat Enrique Mora visited in November.

The European Union wants Beijing to use its influence on Russia to stop the war, and a main focus of the trip will be urging Xi to stop Chinese private companies exporting European-made dual-use items to Russia for its war efforts. Brussels initially left these Chinese firms off its latest Russia sanctions package unveiled last month, European officials said.

The bloc is also concerned about what it considers “imbalanced” economic relations, saying its near 400 billion euro ($431.7 billion) trade deficit with China reflects restrictions on EU businesses.

China has previously pushed back against an EU anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles and the EU’s “de-risking” policy to reduce its reliance on Chinese imports, particularly of critical raw materials.

Last month, foreign minister Wang told visiting French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna the biggest risk is “the uncertainty brought by broad politicization,” and that “the dependency most in need of reduction is protectionism.”

During Colonna’s visit, China also offered visa-free entry to citizens of the EU’s five largest economies in a bid to boost post-pandemic tourism and improve China’s image in the West after ties deteriorated during the Covid pandemic.

EU officials say the two sides could cooperate more on action to combat climate change and to promote biodiversity.

Source: Cnbc.com

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​Charlotte-based NASCAR, like so many of its Fortune 500 advertisers, has lofty goals to reduce its carbon footprint and invest in renewable energy.

But just as stock-car racing has long held prominence in the Southeast, so too have electric utility monopolies. And unlike in neighboring Virginia, which has its own share of speedways, large customers in North Carolina can’t buy renewable energy in a competitive wholesale market.

That’s why the Clean Energy Buyers Association — whose members include NASCAR, Lowe’s, Walmart, and dozens of other major employers in the state — is wading into the debate over Duke Energy’s long-term plan for zeroing out carbon emissions by midcentury.

“In the absence of a competitive wholesale market, it’s where you can get the biggest bang for your buck,” said Katie Southworth, a deputy director of market and policy innovation for the association. “It will determine whether or not over 100 customers that are located in Duke’s territory can buy clean energy.”

Even as a right-wing backlash against climate-conscious investing and so-called “woke” companies ripples across the country, the economic realities of renewable energy remain undeniable in corporate boardrooms. Volatile fossil fuel prices and the costs of remediating toxic byproducts like coal ash make ever-cheaper renewables more attractive, Southworth says.

“Companies that are making billion-dollar investments are forecasting the cost of the asset over its lifetime, and they’re choosing to procure competitive, clean energy because of economic considerations,” Southworth said. “It is least-cost, and it just so happens to also be clean.”

Combined with pressure from customers, that has pushed hundreds of companies to set and pursue climate targets often more ambitious than those of their servicing utilities. The association overall aims for a 90% carbon-free electric grid nationwide by 2030; Duke’s goal is to zero out emissions by 2050.

As the number of corporations dedicated to speeding up the clean energy transition grows, so too does their imperative to prove that they’re truly decarbonizing the grid — not just taking credit for wind and solar farms already up and running.

The association claims its members have procured 71 GW of carbon-free energy since 2014 through power purchase agreements, direct ownership, and other means. The figure accounts for roughly a third of all U.S. clean energy capacity today, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

But the vast bulk of these procurements have been outside the Southeast, Southworth says, for a simple reason: the region is blanketed with regulated monopolies that disallow many voluntary purchase arrangements.

Regulators approved Duke’s 2022 Carbon Plan largely without edits, despite scores of critics who said it low-balled solar, energy efficiency and wind while relying on as-yet commercially unproven technologies like small modular nuclear reactors and hydrogen to meet its midcentury climate targets.

In its draft 2024 plan, Duke presents only one pathway to cut emissions 70% by 2030. The utility’s preferred route is to meet the 70% target by 2035, leaning again on nuclear and gas.

“We’re generally disappointed at the lack of ambition that we’re seeing from Duke and what they’ve proposed,” Southworth said. “I think there are some good reasons for the commission to question many of the assumptions that Duke has made around natural gas fuel cost.”

Plus, even if Duke reached the 70% target by the end of the decade, Southworth’s organization has a 90% goal by that time. So, the group also hopes the Carbon Plan process will help dissolve barriers to members’ investment in clean energy and, at the very least, build an argument for increased market competition.

“We’re a state that doesn’t provide America’s largest employers an opportunity to buy the kind of energy they want,” said Chris Carmody, executive director of the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, a consortium of renewable energy producers. But, he said, “I think there’s several opportunities within the Carbon Plan for more competition.”

One concerns a cap on the amount of solar Duke can connect to its grid each year. In its first Carbon Plan the company proposed, and regulators accepted, adding about 1,000 MW of solar per year — a pace critics said was far too slow. In this draft, the company suggests a minimum of 1,350 MW.

This interconnection limit doesn’t just impact how much solar Duke adds to the grid for its own generation portfolio. It also restricts the size and number of solar farms that companies can build and access through pass-through arrangements like Duke’s Green Source Advantage program.

“This is one huge problem,” said David Rogers, deputy director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “If Duke makes a deal with Google or the Department of Defense to build a bunch of solar, that just comes out of the 1,350 [MW cap].”

Unlike some other barriers to clean energy for large customers, there’s no other docket so far in which to contest the annual cap. “This artificial limitation that Duke has placed on solar interconnection,” said Carmody, “that’s a specific Carbon Plan feature.”

The Carbon Plan process also offers the Clean Energy Buyers Association the chance to push for more competition in the Carolinas, which it and other experts believe will result in more clean energy and lower costs.

Though the 2021 law requiring Duke to decarbonize requires the utility to own 55% of new solar and 100% of other renewables added to the grid, experts say third parties could still vie to build renewables in a competitive process, then transfer ownership to the company.

Another popular idea among many clean energy experts: a wholesale regional marketplace that would allow large customers to buy wind, solar, and other energy sources directly at competitive prices.

A regional transmission organization could save the Southeast hundreds of billions of dollars and cut emissions 37%, according to a 2020 study by Vibrant Clean Energy and Energy Innovation. A Brattle Group analysis commissioned by the South Carolina legislature concluded the state alone could save $360 million a year in such a wholesale market.

“One thing the commission should and can do is promote competition in procurement and require Duke to model expanded market options,” said Southworth.

Related is the question of Duke’s reserve margin. A stable of power plants that can ramp up to meet peak demand, the most recent reserve margin was targeted at 17%. The company now proposes hiking it to 22%.

Rather than build more gas plants that may fail in extremely cold temperatures — as they did nearly a year ago during Winter Storm Elliott — Southworth says Duke should consider tapping power reserves from other utilities in the region. That, too, would lower costs and make more room for clean energy.

“They ought to be working with their neighbors to address these reliability issues versus trying to fix the world themselves,” Southworth said of Duke. “They should evaluate reserve sharing. Sharing is caring.”

Still, while evaluation and study are possible, few observers believe regulators would direct Duke to join a wholesale regional market without explicit legislative direction. Some said the ultimate impact of the Clean Energy Buyers Association’s involvement in the Carbon Plan might be to achieve just that.

“These are certainly the companies that could get something done in the legislature,” said Steve Kalland, executive director of the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center.

And while Charlotte-based NASCAR and Mooresville-based Lowe’s aren’t likely to exit North Carolina altogether, other companies could, or choose to invest heavily elsewhere.

“They’re setting goals, and they need to meet them,” Southworth said last month on a conference panel hosted by the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association. “They’ll leave if they can’t get the clean energy they need. They’ll go to Oklahoma.”

But on that same panel, Duke’s deputy general counsel, Jack Jirak, pushed back.

“We certainly respect and value very much the perspective of customers who desire clean energy. That’s a high priority for us,” Jirak said. “North Carolina for two years in a row was the number one state for economic development. I think that shows there’s something we’re doing right.”

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The UN’s climate chief has urged countries to lift “tactical blockades” to a deal to phase out fossil fuels.

Speaking 24 hours before the COP28 climate summit draws to a close, Simon Stiell called on Monday for delegates to remove obstacles to sealing a deal at the meeting in Dubai.

“First, clear the unnecessary tactical blockades out of the way,” he said, citing the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support the transition of less developed countries.

“Any strategic landmines that blow it up for one, blow it up for all,” he told reporters.

Talks have intensified over calls to phase out fossil fuels, the top culprit in the planet’s worsening crisis, but oil producers led by Saudi Arabia have put up tough resistance.

As the official end of COP28 approached, work on finding the right language to achieve a consensus among nearly 200 countries had raised hopes of a new draft deal on Monday morning.

Stiell sought to maintain the momentum, calling on countries to remain ambitious as they seek a way to preserve the goal of checking global warming at no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

“I urge negotiators to reject incrementalism. Each step back from the highest ambition will cost countless millions of lives,” Stiell said.

“The reality is the highest-ambition outcomes are the only way for all governments to leave Dubai with a win under their belt,” he said.

“One thing is for certain: ‘I win, you lose’ is a recipe for collective failure. Ultimately, it is eight billion people’s security that is at stake.”

The annual Conference of the Parties, or COP, has rarely finished on schedule in its 28-year history, but COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber has called on countries to wrap things up on time on Tuesday.

Al-Jaber, the head of the national oil company of the United Arab Emirates, has repeatedly promised to deliver a historic deal and urged countries to find a “consensus and common ground” on fossil fuel.

“Failure is not an option,” he said on Sunday.

China, the world’s biggest emitter, was also initially seen as hostile to a phase-out but has since been working to find a compromise.

Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua recalled on Saturday that the United States and China issued a joint statement last month agreeing on the need to speed up the deployment of renewable energy to gradually substitute the use of oil, gas and coal.

A deal drafted on Friday included similar language on the need to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 to “displace fossil fuel-based energy”.

Countries are waiting for the new draft deal before putting all their negotiating “chips” on the table, said a source close to the COP28 presidency, quoted by the AFP news agency.

Talks intensify over calls to phase out fossil fuels, as oil producers led by Saudi Arabia put up tough resistance.

​

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Energy News Beat

Dynagas LNG Partners, the owner of six LNG carriers which operate under long-term charters, reported a drop in its net income for the July-September period.

The NYSE-listed limited partnership formed by shipowner Dynagas posted a net income of $1.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2023.

This marks a decrease of $6 million, or 81.1 percent, compared to the same period last year, the LNG shipper said in a statement.

Net income also dropped compared to $14.4 million in the prior quarter.

Dynagas LNG attributed this drop in net income mainly due to the increase in vessels’ operating expenses, as well as to the dry-docking and special survey costs attributable to the scheduled dry-docks of the company’s three LNG carriers.

The LNG shipping firm completed dry-docks for Yenisei River in August, and for Lena River and Arctic Aurora in September.

Dynagas LNG also attributed the drop in net profit to the decrease in interest rate swap gains and the increase in the interest and finance costs.

The company said that its adjusted net income decreased 31.1 percent to $3.1 million in the third quarter mainly due to increase of interest and finance costs compared to the corresponding period of 2022.

Voyage revenues for the three-month period reached $37 million, up by 23.7 percent compared to the same quarter last year.

Dynagas LNG said voyage revenues rose due to the increase in the non-cash deferred revenue amortization relating to the new time charter party agreement of Arctic Aurora with Equinor as well as the increase in available days of Amur River and Ob River.

The partnership reported gross of commissions of about $68,800 per day per vessel in the three-month period, compared to about $61,560 per day per vessel for the corresponding period of 2022.

The partnership’s vessels operated at 99.8 percent fleet utilization during the three-month period.

Also, vessel operating expenses were $10.6 million, which corresponds to a daily rate per vessel of $19,288 in the three-month period, as compared to $7 million, or a daily rate per vessel of $12,743, in the corresponding period of 2022.

This increase is mainly attributable to the increased engine overhauling costs on Arctic Aurora, Yenisei River, and Lena River incurred during the three-month period ending September 30, Dynagas LNG said.

Chief executive Tony Lauritzen said all six LNG carriers in the company’s fleet are operating under their respective long-term charters with international gas companies with an average remaining contract term of about 7.2 years.

“Barring any unforeseen events, the partnership will have no contractual vessel availability until 2028,” he said.

Lauritzen said the company’s estimated contract backlog currently stands at about $1.16 billion equating to some $193 million per vessel as of December 7, 2023.

He said Arctic Aurora was delivered under a new three-year time charter party agreement with Equinor in September, and “we expect her to continue to generate solid cash flow contribution to the partnership.”

“We strongly believe in the long term role of natural gas as a vital energy source. Part of its sustained demand stems from its comparatively low emission profile upon combustion and its capacity to generate power swiftly and effectively as and when needed,” he said.

“This is further supported by the existence of a well-developed global infrastructure facilitating its production, transportation, storage, and consumption,” Lauritzen said.

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Spanish liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports dropped in November while reloads rose compared to the same month last year, according to Enagas.

LNG imports decreased by 14 percent to about 22.8 TWh in November and accounted for 69.4 percent of the total gas imports. In October, LNG imports reached some 21.8 TWh.

Including pipeline imports from Algeria, France, and Portugal, gas imports to Spain reached about 34.5 TWh last month, a slight drop from some 34.7 TWh in November last year, Enagas said in its monthly report.

Moreover, national gas demand in November dropped by 6.8 percent year-on-year to some 26.1 TWh.

Demand for power generation declined by 35.5 percent year-on-year to about 6.1 TWh last month, while conventional demand rose by 7.9 percent to 19.9 TWh, the LNG terminal operator said.

The firm previously said that August of this year marked the first time in its history that Spain has managed to fill 100 percent of its underground storage facilities.

Storage facilities were also full in October and November, according to Enagas.

Enagas operates a large network of gas pipelines and has four LNG import plants in Barcelona, Huelva, Cartagena, and Gijon.

It also owns 50 percent of the BBG regasification plant in Bilbao and 72.5 percent of the Sagunto plant, while Reganosa operates the Mugardos plant.

In August, Spanish power group Endesa delivered the first commercial cargo to the El Musel LNG terminal in Gijon.

Enagas awarded the logistics services contract to Endesa in July and it also completed the sale of a 25 percent stake in the El Musel LNG terminal to Reganosa.

The seven operational Spanish LNG regasification terminals, unloaded 25 cargoes last month, down by five cargoes compared to November 2022, according to Enagas.

The US was the biggest LNG supplier to Spain for the second month in a row in November with about 12.7 TWh, up from 8.17 TWh last year, followed by Algeria with 9.35 TWh, a rise from 6.39 TWh in November 2022.

Nigeria was the biggest LNG supplier to Spain in September and the US in August. Prior to that, Russia was the biggest supplier for three months in a row.

Spanish LNG terminals received 6.43 TWh from Russia in November, up from 5.95 TWh last year, while Nigerian volumes reached 3.7 TWh, and Qatari volumes reached 0.87 TWh, the data shows.

Spanish LNG terminals loaded about 2.79 TWh in November, up 41 percent compared to some 1.98 TWh in November 2022 and also slightly up from about 2.66 TWh in October.

The Sagunto LNG terminal reloaded about 1.84 TWh of LNG, followed by the Cartagena terminal with about 0.48 TWh and the Barcelona terminal with about 0.29 TWh.

Moreover, the number of truck loads at the LNG terminals rose by 9.2 percent year-on-year to 1017, the data shows.

The Barcelona LNG terminal completed 211 truck loads in November, while the Huelva terminal completed 204 truck loads and the Cartagena terminal completed 197 truck loads.

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Stuart Turley: [00:00:14] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News podcast. My name Stuart Turley, President and the Sandstone Group. I’ll tell you what, today is kind of an exciting day from a standpoint. We’ve got a couple new series that we’re announcing today is December 11th. Welcome. And we are going to have a Zen tastic discussion. Michael’s out on assignment today. But today I’m going to talk about Russia’s shadow fleet. This really fits into the ENB thread very nicely. There’s EU countries still buying Russian oil and gas. Here’s another great article. We no longer need the cop circus. Technology and markets are already solving the climate crisis. Tell you what is going on. I had some great interviews, but this one I agree with and don’t agree and I’ll cover that here in just a minute. OPEC leader tells members to block any climate summit deal to curb fossil fuels. You’re starting to kind of get a little bit of a thread here. Russian natural gas in geopolitical realignment. A reverse domino Theory. This is by George Macmillan. George Macmillan I had an earlier podcast and I mean, it was a two hour podcast that is phenomenal. It seemed like five minutes for me. Unbelievable. We’ve got a geopolitical series by George just kicking out. The next one is the left is silent on the imperialist war from oil from Venezuela. I’m on the inner energy transition with David Blackmon, Armand Gavin from Brazil and Tammy Nemeth tomorrow morning line at 8:00 Central on LinkedIn. And looking forward to being live with them to talk about this. So with that, all of these stories will be in the show note. Also want to give a shout out to Mark Masters. Mark is a phenomenal leader in the media space. The staff is rolling his podcast out that we did. We are starting a series with Mark and other energy leaders about how the energy space can change and potentially make a gigantic difference to the future of the United States. We got a lot on the table today, guys. [00:02:34][139.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:35] So let me start off with Russia’s shadow fleet. Michael and I have been talking about this for a very, very long time. The Shadow fleet is old tankers that are being bought by Iran, Venezuela. There’s an estimated 500 to 600 tankers in the fleet. They take their transponders, they turn them off. They’ll meet with a legitimate tanker. Here’s the catch. These tankers are not insured through the normal insurance companies for oil. If something happens and these rust buckets have a problem. Let me bring up this one right here. This rest bucket, one of the best movie lines that’s out there says, I think I need a tetanus shot just from looking at it. That was from up Periscope with Kelsey Grammer. This is an amazing movie. It’s a Bloomberg video that they have had a excellent aging discussion or of the aging fleet that’s out there. And they’re a direct response to the weaponization of the U.S. dollar that has gone on. This weaponization of the U.S. dollar is going to come back and bite the U.S. in the market. It is not going to be pretty. So in this article, it says this little piece of paper on a dark ship may say that it’s insured, but it’s not worth the paper it’s written on, said Simon Lockwood, a marine executive with the insurance broker. Two thirds are carrying Russian crude, are now insured by unknown source these tankers are registered to I don’t know. And they are insured by unknown or who knows? So this is a Abbott and Costello skit waiting to happen. I was planning on that today. Michael’s out on assignment. We’ll have to come up with that again some other time. So with that, how this plays in and this is an excellent video, it’s worth all of your time to watch it. The key thing is this plays into OPEC and OPEC plus, because they’re worried that all their OPEC members are producing more than their quotas, their quotas that are imposed on them that they’re allowing or they’re going to do. In fact, Brazil says, oh, we are now in OPEC and oh, by the way, we’re going to go ahead and produce everything that we can anyway. The CEO of Petrobras just basically put that out last week. So let’s go to the next one that feeds into that. [00:05:17][162.0]

[00:05:17] The EU country is still buying Russian gas for us as well. United States. Go figure that out. The Netherlands reported purchase 200 million. Let me get to the point here. 200,000,000m³ of Russian LNG. The i r a Novosti has reported it is importing. I’ll tell you what countries are going to buy energy because it’s either goes through energy poverty, as George McMillan says, or you’re going to realign your entire entire geopolitical alignment on energy. So if you think you have an ally, think again. If you can’t protect their energy supply lines. So with that, let’s go ahead and go to the next one. I love this article from the standpoint that with I had the pleasure of producing Rey Trevino’s podcast with Grace Dennehy. She is the Miss America 2023. And also I also put a short out and want to give a shout out to Grace. She is a nuclear engineer, graduating, I believe, this month. And I mean, she is one sharp young lady. And I mean, she was in Dubai. It was midnight in the U.S. and it was 9 a.m. and she was on fire. So excellent. I want to give her a shout out. But this is an interesting article saying that we cop no longer needs the cop circus. The U.N. has been putting this on for a very long time. I couldn’t agree more. But when we sit back and say that humanity and the markets know the best path has, it’s kind of a misnomer from the standpoint that they are still printing a lot of money. The energy hypocrisy from Bill Gates and BlackRock is out there. BlackRock is saying that all ESG funds have lost billions of dollars. They lost over $5 billion in their ESG funds. It’s now okay to invest in oil and gas. There’s a little bit of energy investing hypocrisy. Bill Gates came out and said, oh, by the way, climate change is not going to kill us. He’s now rescinding that. I saw an interview with him saying, oh, no, it’s now bad. Somebody must have got to him. So I’m not totally sure that it is 100%. They’re saying, well, we are seeing the oil and gas companies. Let’s take Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Saudi Arabia is using their oil profits in order to pay for green energy. Again, as I’ve always said, Saudi Arabia, I don’t agree with everything socially that they do, but I applaud the leadership for taking care of Saudi Arabia, first taking the oil and gas profits and then moving to renewables and funding both. That is actually an applicable thing to go forward with. And so the fact that there were so many oil companies there and so many of the green agenda folks that were not pleased by that, the best thing about cars was nuclear. The 22 countries that signed the nuclear deal is phenomenal. We need all forms of energy. You hear me say this all the time, but we need it nuclear. We need natural gas. We need oil. Because, as you know, you sit back and think, Ronald keeps telling me, you know, you can build an iPhone from a wind farm. You have to have oil. The just stop oil folks need to check their living standards. So let’s go to the OPEC leaders. Now, I’ve already mentioned that story. I don’t want to overdo it, but let me step into the next article. George Macmillan. Absolutely a hit. I had the two hour interview with George. It is already out there. It is phenomenal. I can tell that people are listening to it and then having to come back to it. It is just amazing. On time, on Page, who’s been on there and the article. Unbelievable. [00:09:34][257.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:35] This is this article is Russian Natural Gas and Geopolitical Realignment a Reverse Domino Theory. This article is incredibly important because this really is the first part of a series where George is talking about how all of the pipelines matter, how the geopolitical alignment is, and that the West is really got things going on and they’re got one mission. That mission is to stop Russian low cost natural gas and oil. Going to market the geopolitical strategies and chess matches that are out there. I don’t understand why. I understand now better after talking to George, after seeing all of his academic studies that George has done and what is out there. He is putting the thread together like you wouldn’t believe. So when you talk about now, here’s another tidbit. I visited with a one of the head of the investment side for Gazprom years ago. $0.13. That is what Gazprom cost to market on their natural gas was at that. That is profit to the Russian countries. So when you sit back and think of the amount of money that sanctions have not cost Russia, what it did was it built the dark fleet. It built additional pipelines. It’s realigning all of what we think is the United States, our political allies. This article from George is critical. Come in, read this. And when you sit back and think about our $34 trillion in debt, we cannot sustain our country in this particular model. Who you vote for matters. [00:11:37][121.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:38] Here’s where I’m bringing up this next piece of the puzzle. The left is silent on the imperialist war for oil from Venezuela. This is an excellent article. And when you sit back and take a look, it’s from Patrick Robinson. He posted this on LinkedIn. Want to give him a shout out? It’s amazing that the left is really not saying anything about Western. The we’re kind of like just kind of ignoring Venezuela’s power grab over the oil and gas of Guyana. I’m going to be on the energy transition with Armando tomorrow, as I mentioned, and I’m going to have to do some research on this. Tami Nemeth is just with the Nemeth report is phenomenal. David Blackmon is also phenomenal, and I’m enjoying visiting with them about this article, as well as the other key issues and sources that they’re bringing to the table. So the last one that I want to just bring up is Mark Masters. 11 Steps for Saving America via the Energy Sector, Renewed thought leadership and Ultimate narrative dominance within a national media. I think personally, one of the reasons Michael and my podcast, the podcast series with our Daily Show with Michael and I and then my CEOs and industry thought leader articles has gone nuts. 5.5 million article reads on energy news And we’ve had over a million downloads on our podcast this year. Unbelievable. I’d like to thank every one of our listeners. I can’t begin to tell you. Thank you very much. This is an important podcast from Mark Masters. I’m going to have several more podcast with Mark. I’m writing several other things. This is I’m already in discussions with other oil and gas CEOs about this entire process. Mark lays out several key things that I’m going to talk about again in a few others. Understanding number one with no friends, the national media, the entire energy sector must become the media. This is critical. The understanding to the ESG form of corporate communism is designed in part to curtail investment in the domestic energy producers. Understanding number three Domestic energy unleashed is far better faster to break the back of inflation. That is huge. Understanding for an energy sector supported media machine will make the energy sector be loved by the general public. The only way this ties in to all of the other articles, this energy thread today is about the most important that we’ve done. And then the last piece of this puzzle is it can only be the energy sector that the agriculture sector helps. So we can tell the agricultural story. And the agricultural story is the only one that we can tell. I’ve got to get this articulated correctly with Mark. Hold tight. I’m teeing you up for these. [00:15:02][203.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:15:02] So with that, make sure that you have an absolute wonderful day, a wonderful week. Hug your family and be prepared for any unknown natural disaster Or manmade. The government may not be there for you just because of the volume. The f e r c said major blackouts may be coming because of the grid issue. So. Manmade or natural disaster. Make sure that you’re ready to take care of your family. Thank you. With that, my name’s Do. Turley and Michael will be back here tomorrow. Thanks. Have a great. [00:15:02][0.0][884.5]

 

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The post Daily Energy Standup Episode #267 – Unveiling Russia’s Shadow Fleet, Climate Realities, and Media’s Vital Role in Energy Narratives appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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On December 3, 2023, a large number of registered voters in Venezuela voted in a referendum over the Essequibo region that is disputed with neighboring Guyana.

On December 3, 2023, a large number of registered voters in Venezuela voted in a referendum over the Essequibo region that is disputed with neighboring Guyana. Nearly all those who voted answered ‘yes’ to the five questions. These questions asked the Venezuelan people to affirm the sovereignty of their country over Essequibo.

“Today,” said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, “there are no winners or losers.” The only winner, he said, is Venezuela’s sovereignty. The principal loser, Maduro said, is ExxonMobil.

In 2022, ExxonMobil made a profit of $55.7 billion, making it one of the world’s richest and most powerful oil companies, notes Vijay Prashad, the Director of Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, and co-author to famous philosopher Noam Chomsky.

Companies such as ExxonMobil, exercise an inordinate power over the world economy and over countries that have oil reserves. It has tentacles across the world, from Malaysia to Argentina. In his Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (2012), Steve Coll describes how the company is a “corporate state within the American state.”

Walking through the various polling centers in Caracas on the day of the election, it was clear that the people who voted knew exactly what they were voting for: not so much against the people of Guyana, a country with a population of just over 800,000, but they were voting for Venezuelan sovereignty against companies such as ExxonMobil. The atmosphere in this vote — although sometimes inflected with Venezuelan patriotism—was more about the desire to remove the influence of multinational corporations and to allow the peoples of South America to solve their disputes and divide their riches among themselves.

When Hugo Chávez won the election to the presidency of Venezuela in 1998, he said almost immediately that the resources of the country — mostly the oil, which finances the country’s social development — must be in the hands of the people and not oil companies such as ExxonMobil. “El petroleo es nuestro” (the oil is ours), was the slogan of the day. From 2006, Chávez’s government began a cycle of nationalizations, with oil at the center (oil had been nationalized in the 1970s, then privatized again two decades later). Most multinational oil companies accepted the new laws for the regulation of the oil industry, but two refused: ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil. Both companies demanded tens of billions of dollars in compensation, although the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) found in 2014 that Venezuela only needed to pay ExxonMobile $1.6 billion.

In 2015, ExxonMobil announced that it had found 295 feet of “high-quality oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs”; this is one of the largest oil finds in recent years. The giant oil company began regular consultation with the Guyanese government, including pledges to finance any and every upfront cost for the oil exploration. When the Production Sharing Agreement between Guyana’s government and ExxonMobil was leaked, it revealed how poorly Guyana fared in the negotiations. ExxonMobil was given 75 percent of the oil revenue toward cost recovery, with the rest shared 50-50 with Guyana; the oil company, in turn, is exempt from any taxes.

Even worse for Guyana is that the deal is made in waters disputed with Venezuela since the 19th century.

The December 3 referendum in Venezuela and the “circles of unity” protest in Guyana suggest a hardening of the stance of both countries.

War does not seem to be on the horizon. The United States has withdrawn part of its blockade on Venezuela’s oil industry, allowing Chevron to restart several oil projects in the Orinoco Belt and in Lake Maracaibo. Washington does not have the appetite to deepen its conflict with Venezuela. But ExxonMobil does. Neither the Venezuelan nor the Guyanese people will benefit from ExxonMobil’s political intervention in the region. That is why so many Venezuelans who came to cast their vote on December 3 saw this less as a conflict between Venezuela and Guyana and more as a conflict between ExxonMobil and the people of these two South American countries.

Source: Modern Diplomacy, 

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The post ExxonMobil And A Possible War In South America appeared first on Energy News Beat.