Blog – Page 188 – Pecos Operating

An 800-MW, four-hour battery is “not a realistic option” for replacing Talen Energy’s 1,280-MW, coal-fired Brandon Shores power plant near Baltimore, according to the PJM Interconnection. The Sierra Club’s proposed battery storage solution to fill […]

GREGORY WRIGHTSTONE: Scientific Report Pours Cold Water On Major Talking Point Of Climate Activists

The purveyors of climate doom will not tolerate the good news of our planet thriving because of modest warming and increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, a recent scientific paper concludes that an optimistic vision for Earth and […]

Biden Administration Bans Fossil Fuels in Federal Buildings

The rule, mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, requires federal buildings to phase out fossil fuel usage by 2030. The focus is on transitioning to cleaner electricity sources like wind and […]

Surprise! The World’s biggest bankers are suddenly energy pragmatists

JP Morgan, BlackRock drop out of climate banker cabal, and admit the Net Zero transition is “delayed” In February three of the four largest financial houses in the world, left the giant financial cabal called“Climate […]

Oil steadies as ceasefire eludes Hamas, Israel

Saudi Aramco in Talks to Buy Shell Gas Stations in Malaysia

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Four unnamed sources have told Reuters that Saudi state-run oil giant Aramco is in talks to potentially acquire Shell’s billion-dollar gas station business in Malaysia, where the Dutch supergiant owns a network of nearly 1,000 […]

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro

01:15 – Replacing a Talen Energy coal-fired power plant with battery storage is infeasible: PJM

03:28 – GREGORY WRIGHTSTONE: Scientific Report Pours Cold Water On Major Talking Point Of Climate Activists

05:34 – Biden Administration Bans Fossil Fuels in Federal Buildings

07:22 – Surprise! The World’s biggest bankers are suddenly energy pragmatists

10:04 – Oil steadies as ceasefire eludes Hamas, Israel

11:14 – Saudi Arabia’s Price Increase Could Indicate Oil Price Floor

14:04 – Outro

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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Michael Tanner: [00:00:14] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into the Tuesday, May 7th, 2024 edition of the Daily Energy News Beat stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, replacing a Talen Energy coal fired power plant with battery storage is infeasible, according to PJM. Unbelievable. Next up, friend of the show, Gregory writes Stone scientific report pours cold water on major talking points of climate activists. Next up, Biden administration bans fossil fuels in federal buildings. Unbelievable. Finally, in the news segment, surprised the world’s biggest bankers are suddenly energy pragmatists. Stool. Then toss it over to me. I will quickly cover what happened in the oil and gas markets today and cover what happened mainly with Saudi Arabia’s price increase, which, according to the article that we will cover, might indicate an oil price floor. We will cover all that and a bag of chips. Guys, as always, I am Michael Tanner, joined by Stuart Turley. Let’s kick it off. [00:01:14][60.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:15] Hey, let’s start with this one here. Replacing Talen Energy coal fired power plant with battery storage is infeasible. PJM. Well, let me read you this quote from BDM. While a large battery could reduce the severity and reliability concerns in the Baltimore Gas and Electric system following the eventual retirement of the Brandon Shores and Wagner units, the battery concept would not replace the needs for a reliability, run agreement or address the system reliable the needs in the near or longer term. Bottom line is it comes down in here and says it is highly unlikely that a battery system could be built by June 1st, 2025, when they’ve taken these out. You know, Holy smokes Michael, that is like it would also caused $1 billion to build a 600 megawatt, four hour battery system, more than the planned transmission upgrades and proposed battery storage. None of this is fiscal responsibility for PJM. [00:02:26][71.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:28] No, I mean, if you think shocker renewables are fiscally responsible, could have told you that. [00:02:33][4.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:33] Yeah. The, RFP, RC, approved and $796 million package of transmission projects to address the plant’s retirement. That doesn’t cover a cause. A fourth of what they need. [00:02:48][14.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:49] What I what I can’t figure out is why the Sierra Club’s got their fingerprints all over this. Aren’t they an environmental organization? [00:02:53][4.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:54] They’re supposed to, but they don’t realize that natural gas will have. Actually, if they allow natural gas instead of the battery to come in, it would actually save the planet and kids. [00:03:04][10.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:05] It would it it it it. [00:03:07][2.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:08] You know, the Sierra Club is is actually funded. I would like to go check if anybody is listening in the podcast. If George Soros is funding the Sierra Club, please send us a note. I would like to send them an invite to come on the podcast, because I think this is a despicable. [00:03:24][15.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:25] Yeah, absolutely. All right. What’s next? [00:03:27][1.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:28] Well, let’s go to our buddy over there, Gregory. Right. Stone, who’s the director over the CO2, coalition, is scientific report or is cold water a major talking point of climate activist? And, Mr. Producer, if you could bring up, our, Miss Greta there. I can’t pronounce that. Michael. Hi. In Texas, how would you say Jokic. look. You know I you know. [00:03:52][24.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:52] High school crass I don’t know I. [00:03:54][1.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:54] Don’t I don’t know. But anyway the purveyors of climate doom will not tolerate the good news of our planet thriving because of modest warming. This is actually pretty funny. Here’s a quote, from, The Lancet. Chan, public health. He says, the the potential health consequences are large, given that there’s already billions of people around the world who don’t get enough protein, vitamins, or other nutrients in their daily diet, concluded the, New York Times. Apocalypse ever. Yeah, it it’s unbelievable. It is so called greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide, perversely exaggerated to support climate fearmongering is a life saving temperature and moderator that keeps Earth from freezing over. The obvious benefits of CO2 is an embarrassment to the large and profitable movement to save the planet from carbon pollution, writes the authors. Of CO2 greatly benefits agriculture and forestry and has a small, benign effort on climate. It’s not a pollutant. [00:05:02][68.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:04] But I mean, we’ve been working and we were working with Gregory right Stone years ago when he was one of the first people to this he. Originally wrote a book. Then he came over and is now leading the CO2 college. He was one of the first people ahead of the game on this one. [00:05:19][14.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:05:19] Oh he is, and I yeah, I’ve already reached back out to him and said, hey, dude, it’s time to get you back on because we’re going to get him on the energy realities as well too. It’s a hoot. I got to give him a shout out for this one. [00:05:32][12.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:32] Yeah, absolutely. What’s next? [00:05:33][1.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:05:34] Speaking of fools, fossil fuels, Biden administration bans fossil fuels, in federal buildings. I’d like to read change that to the Turley administration. Bans fossil fuel. F o o l s. Anyway, the the the rule mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 required federal buildings to phase out fossil fuel by 2030. Cleaner energy. It means nothing. It just means that when they try to do a building, the Department of Energy is faced delays in implementing the rule due to opposition from natural gas utilities concerned about potentially business losses. The American National Gas Association criticizes the final rule. This is not about rule. It’s about the, utilities are not able to keep the lights on. Yeah. [00:06:36][62.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:37] It well, it’s I think this they’re going to end up obviously kicking the can down the road on this. It’s one of those things where they propose it. They’ll probably have an implementation period. And then when that implementation period comes up they’ll do kick the can down the road. [00:06:51][14.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:52] Oh yeah. But I really want to just say I have this story on here Michael. Just so I can say banned fossil fuels, not fuels. Absolutely. [00:07:00][8.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:01] And I love how Executive Order 1407 five and other for famous sustainability plans. The new rules aimed at goal giving net zero emissions by 2045. What happened to. I thought it was 2030? [00:07:12][11.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:14] They’re kicking the. Can they just put they launched it in a 105 millimeter and so on. All right. Hey, let’s go to the last one here. From a surprise, the world’s biggest bankers are suddenly energy pragmatics. I’ll tell you. JP Morgan, Blackrock are out of the climate banker cabal and admit net zero transition is delayed. I’ll tell you what. I think this is pretty amazing. Three of the four largest financial houses in February left the financial cabal called the climate 100. The fourth one left a year ago. Blackrock, JP Morgan and State Street all parted ways with the billionaire club. It’s pretty amazing. It’s coming apart. And now they’re saying, oh, wait a minute. We you and I talked about this for a year. They were classically kind of like sneaking in and doing closet investing in oil and gas. Now they’re pretty well. [00:08:13][59.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:14] BlackRock’s always done that. We know BlackRock’s always plausibly invest in oil and gas, but they’ve been hard on the ESG side. The interesting part is, you know, Jamie Dimon has sort of been on the forefront of a lot of this stuff. He’s come out. We saw him battling in front of the House. Committee. Was it last year when he said, you know, it’d be the road to hell in America if we if we ended up just sticking, and getting rid of oil and gas. So he’s always been on the forefront of some of this stuff. [00:08:43][29.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:44] Well, I do want to. I want to question Jamie Diamond. I’m either I’m hot and cold on Jamie. One day he’s. I’m over there rooting at him. That he’s standing up for what’s right. The next day, last Thursday, I saw him interviewed and he said, oh, by the way, the American consumers are still fine. They’re still living on their Covid money. How much money in Covid did you get? $2,400 two years ago? [00:09:15][31.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:15] Yeah. No one’s still living on their cold. [00:09:17][1.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:17] No, no. I was like, dude, what are you smoking anyway? So then you have Blackrock and, I just love this article. So anyway, thanks for letting me rant today. [00:09:28][10.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:29] Yeah. No, we’ll go ahead and pop over to finance here. Before we do that. Guys will pay the bills around here. As always, check us out. World’s greatest website www.energynewsbeat.com. All the news and analysis that you hear is brought to you by that website. Again Energy News Beat.com suing the team. Do a tremendous job making sure that website stays up to speed. Everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. You can also hit the description below links to all the articles and timestamps. If you are on Spotify and YouTube, you can also check us out. Dashboard.energynewsbeat.com [00:10:01][32.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:04] You know, in terms of the markets today, we saw about a one and a half, 1% increase in the S&P 500. Nasdaq up 1.1 percentage. We saw two and ten year yields. How pretty much flat. Dollar index basically flat. We saw Bitcoin drop about $500.60 $3,466. That’s off the having that happened last week. Crude oil saw modest gains were up to 7848 as the markets closed here. As we record this on Monday afternoon, it was up about four or 0.47 percentage points. So just shy of about a half a percentage point, mainly as as you know, it comes down to there’s there’s a couple things pulling on this. As we’ve talked about, there’s a lot of stuff pulling on the supply and demand projections. A lot of this being what’s going on in Gaza right now. It looks like the cease fire that was going to happen that they had maybe agreed upon seemed to have have pulled back a little bit. And that may or may not happen now, at least the market sentiment that way. So we did see a little bit of reversal after really what was three straight weeks of of of oil and gas prices actually getting pounded, you know, to kind of that ties in with what prices are doing. Saudi Arabia’s price increase could indicate an oil price floor. This is the next article I want to cover over the weekend to the state owned. And I’m reading straight from the article here. State owned Saudi Aramco raised the June official selling price of the Arab Light crude for customers in Asia by $0.90 to $2.90 a barrel, above the regional Oman Dubai benchmark. And this, according to Bloomberg. That compares with an increase of $0.60 forecasted in a Bloomberg survey of six refiners prices. If we can go and, drop that, table right there, you can see the other price changes for all of the the other grades from super light all the way down to heavy. The interesting part is, is what this shows and what they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re keeping that is that. And this is kind of against driven article. The hike highlights Saudi Arabia’s efforts to keep the market tight amid the fading war risk in the Middle East, which has helped drive oil prices lower. Most traders, analysts predict. And this is the key that OPEC and the signal of these raising the official selling price, and that is that OPEC in the Petro, OPEC and its allies will extend their cuts potentially to the end of the year. And, you know, this is a I’m trying to find the guy’s name here. Bloomberg Markets Live reporter Garfield Reynolds. He says that there’s a decent chance it’s busy finding a new floor rather than settling for its sustain declines, and notes that the Israel-hamas agree on a truce. This would likely set off a rapid fresh drop in the short term for crude. So Saudi Arabia, possibly by raising this official selling price, he’s trying to set a floor on where oil prices could be, whether that 70 or $75. It’s going to be interesting. You know, obviously the war in Gaza will eventually come to a conclusion one way or the other. At least we hope so. So the question is, is Saudi and what is OPEC doing in the short term. Do you tend to support that. It looks like they may come out and go ahead and extend these cuts through the end of the year. But but that that’s going to be interesting. And how that plays in with the overall economy has remains to be seen. So I think it’s interesting, stew, and I do think that, as we continue to roll and learn more information every day, we’re learning more information about where prices might go. It’s it’s it’s getting spicy out there. And I think. [00:13:26][201.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:13:26] It is and I think that, Saudi Aramco another article Michael came out and Saudi Aramco talks in talks to buy shell gas stations in Malaysia. So what we’re seeing is some of the big oil companies like total like Saudi Aramco with state owned Saudi Aramco buying other downstream asset in order to help offset some of their business so that they can still bring profits in. [00:13:55][28.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:56] Yeah, it it it really does. And you know it I think the answer remains to be seen. And as always we’ll continue to learn more information. kind of short for us. Do you got anything else? [00:14:06][10.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:14:07] No. Buckle up. It’s going to be entertaining. [00:14:08][1.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:09] That it will. So we’ll let you guys get out of here on a short show. Appreciate everybody checking us out here on the world’s greatest podcast Energy News Beat. Thanks for checking out as always www,energynewsbeat.com. Until tomorrow folks. We’ll see you then. [00:14:09][0.0][809.5]

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Giant Chevron and mid-cap Cheniere have said they are bullish on natural gas demand, which Chevron CEO Mike Wirth says he expects to beat expectations due to surging electricity consumption from big tech.

Speaking to CNBC on Monday, Wirth said that while the market for natural gas was evolving rapidly, making it difficult to pin down, he expects soaring electricity consumption from artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers, combined with efforts to electrify the American vehicle fleet and manufacturing, to spur global natural gas demand, which he predicts “is likely to be higher than what people have been estimating up until now”.

Chevron is counting on wind and solar power to remain lacking in terms of meeting peak demand needs due to their reliance on weather conditions.

“Data centers don’t shut down when the sun goes down,” Wirth told CNBC, adding, “We need to have the ability to provide baseload supply for all of these needs. I think natural gas will be a big part of that equation going forward.”

At the same time, Cheniere Energy, the top producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the United States, sees strong global demand for natural gas in the future, and a coming supply wave.

During Q1 earnings reporting, Cheniere noted an estimated 200 million tonnes of annual LNG output capacity set to come online after 2025.

Last Friday, Cheniere beat adjusted core profit estimates due to high-than-expected export volumes that worked to counteract falling natural gas prices.

Back in January, Cheniere predicted that China’s demand for LNG exports could double over the next decade, as reported by the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

In the U.S., electricity demand is expected to soar by up to 20% by 2030, based on April data from Wells Fargo, with natural gas demand potentially increasing by 10 billion cubic feet per day as a result.

Additionally, Goldman Sachs predicts that natural gas will account for 60% of new electricity demand from data centers, compared to estimated 40% market share for renewables, with gas pipeline operators to benefit significantly.

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The post Chevron, Cheniere Confident Nat Gas Demand Will Boom appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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The Federal Trade Commission last week gave the green light to Exxon’s acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources.
The FTC alleged that Sheffield had colluded with OPEC and OPEC+ members to limit production and increase oil prices.
In a response to the FTC allegations, the company defended its founder, saying he had always had the U.S. oil industry’s best interest at heart.

The Federal Trade Commission last week gave the green light to Exxon’s acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources. There was one condition attached to the approval of the $60-billion deal: that Scott Sheffield, the former CEO of Pioneer, does not join the combined company’s board.

The FTC alleged that Sheffield had colluded with OPEC and OPEC+ members to limit production and increase oil prices. The allegations shook the shale oil world, where several large consolidation deals are awaiting the trade watchdog’s approval. Now, the consolidation drive that has marked the last year in U.S. shale may have to slow down.

First, the allegations. According to a news release from last week, the Federal Trade Commission had informed Exxon that it would only approve the merger with Pioneer if Sheffield, who was going to become an Exxon board member as part of the deal, stayed out of it.

“Mr. Sheffield’s past conduct makes it crystal clear that he should be nowhere near Exxon’s boardroom. American consumers shouldn’t pay unfair prices at the pump simply to pad a corporate executive’s pocketbook,” the deputy director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, Kyle Mach, said in the release.

“Through public statements and private communications, Pioneer founder and former CEO Scott D. Sheffield has campaigned to organize anticompetitive coordinated output reductions between and among U.S. crude oil producers, and others, including the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (“OPEC”), and a related cartel of other oil-producing countries known as OPEC+,” the Commission in a formal complaint.

The regulator then went on to motivate the attachment of its condition to the Exxon-Pioneer deal approval, saying that it sought “to prevent Pioneer’s Sheffield from engaging in collusive activity that would potentially raise crude oil prices, leading American consumers and businesses to pay higher prices for gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil and jet fuel.”

Naturally, Pioneer had something to say about the allegations. In a response to the FTC allegations, the company defended its founder, saying he had always had the U.S. oil industry’s best interest at heart. The response also suggested that any communication Sheffield may have conducted with OPEC and OPEC+ members had been to the same end—to protect the U.S. shale industry.

“Mr. Sheffield and Pioneer believe that the FTC’s Complaint reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the U.S. and global oil markets and misreads the nature and intent of Mr. Sheffield’s actions,” the response said.

The actions in question were conversations with OPEC and OPEC+ officials in 2020, when pandemic lockdowns decimated global oil demand, pushing U.S. oil prices briefly below zero. At the time, Sheffield was an advocate of production cuts in the shale patch as well, in a bid to minimize the damage that the demand drop was already causing the industry, Pioneer also said.

It didn’t make any difference, however. The FTC had already made up its mind and acted on it. As a result, Bloomberg and the Financial Times are reporting that shale executives are getting spooked about future mergers in case they get caught in the crosshairs of the regulator, which has not exactly been a fan of the oil industry since 2020.

“The implications go far beyond Sheffield,” James Lucier, an analyst at Capital Alpha Partners, said in a note to clients following the news, as quoted by the Financial Times. “The FTC has not to date taken an adversarial approach toward oil industry mergers . . . This relative hands-off policy is no more.”

In a sense, the FTC’s move against Sheffield is the other shoe dropping as far as the oil industry is concerned. The regulator has been looking for a way to interfere with the consolidation drive prompted by strong financial results and limited untapped inventory. Until recently, it has been unable to find one. But now, it seems, it has.

Not everyone agrees the FTC’s attack on Sheffield needs to be taken particularly seriously. “This is the government trying to save some face — it’s irrelevant to the whole issue of antitrust,” the managing director of investment bankers Roth MKM, Leo Mariani, told Bloomberg. “This whole thing is just politics ultimately. In an election year it helps to be tough on Big Oil.”

President Biden and his fellow Democrats have repeatedly made it clear that the anti-oil lobby is a key voter demographic and they have been busy tending to its needs. Earlier this year, Biden’s White House paused approval of new LNG export capacity as part of these efforts. Then, just this month, Democrats in Congress announced the completion of an investigation into Big Oil that, while it did not contain anything in the way of a revelation, sought to reinforce an image of the industry as the hydrocarbon equivalent of Big Tobacco, deserving of an identical treatment.

Whether any of this will help Biden win the November vote remains to be seen, but judging by the latest in his approval ratings, there may be a possibility that most Americans have bigger problems than climate change and oil.

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Energy News Beat
The International Energy Agency (IEA) recommends leaving new oil discoveries in the ground to achieve global climate aims.
African and Caribbean nations face pressure to choose between economic development and climate action.
Developing countries need support from high-income countries in the form of financing for renewable energy development.

As the world focuses on transitioning to green, there are big questions about whether new oil and gas resources should be developed. On the one hand, new oil regions present the opportunity to develop lower-carbon oil and gas through less damaging operations. On the other, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and environmental organisations say it is vital to transition away from fossil fuels to green alternatives and leave any new oil in the ground, to achieve global climate aims. However, many recent oil discoveries have been made in low-income countries across Africa and the Caribbean, offering them the opportunity to develop their natural resources for significant revenues, which is difficult for many to turn down.

For decades, the Western World has been exploiting fossil fuel resources to provide power worldwide and bring in high revenues. This has led regions such as China, the U.S., and the European Union to be some of the world’s biggest polluters. High levels of greenhouse gas emissions produced from fossil fuel production and industrialisation have contributed to climate change, an issue that the governments of many high-income states are attempting to tackle through decarbonisation and a green transition. However, a global green transition will require support from governments around the globe, from both rich and poor nations.

To combat climate change, the IEA recommends that oil and gas producers decrease their production and leave any new oil discoveries in the ground. However, there is still not enough renewable energy capacity to make the switch, meaning that the global demand for fossil fuels remains high. In addition, many oil discoveries in recent years have been made in Africa and the Caribbean. These regions are looking increasingly attractive to producers looking to develop “low-carbon” oil operations and move away from existing depleted oil fields. Oil and gas majors insist that developing these regions would help decrease the carbon emissions associated with oil and gas production, as well as help low-income countries improve their economies.

The World Bank estimates that the African continent held around 40 percent of the natural gas discoveries from 2010 and 2020. Many countries have increased their reliance on the region following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russian energy, as they seek out alternative gas supplies. However, environmentalists worry that developing new oil and gas regions could quash efforts to tackle climate change. To ensure there is enough energy to replace the demand for gas, significantly more investment must go into developing the world’s renewable energy and nuclear power capacity. In addition, high-income countries must provide financing for developing countries to establish their renewable energy industries and allow them to turn down the opportunity to earn high oil and gas revenues.

Nevertheless, turning down money is a difficult pill to swallow, particularly as many African and Caribbean powers view the Western World as highly hypocritical. The African Energy Chamber believes that “At a time when both African and Caribbean nations are making great strides towards developing recently discovered oil and gas reserves, countries whose development was driven by hydrocarbons are accelerating efforts to transition to a renewable energy future. This transition has seen wealthy nations establish a ‘green agenda,’ one which does not take into consideration Africa’s economic needs.”

Macky Sall, the President of Senegal – a country which discovered a deposit of 15 trillion cubic feet of gas in 2015 – explained, “How can you tell people in Africa, where half the population does not have electricity … ‘Leave your resources in the ground’?” He added, “There is no sense in that, and it is not fair. We need an energy transition that is fair.”

Meanwhile, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the President of Guyana, a massive new oil power, stated, “Did you know that Guyana has a forest that is the size of England and Scotland combined… a forest that stores 19.5 gigatons of carbon, that we have kept alive? “I’m going to lecture you on climate change. We have kept this forest alive that you enjoy, that the world enjoys, that you don’t pay us for, that you don’t value,” in response to calls to leave its oil in the ground.

Further, many believe that Africa’s fossil fuel problem stems from the decades-long involvement of foreign oil majors who have exploited the region’s resources. Vanessa Nakate, a Unicef goodwill ambassador, says “Oil and gas giants have sold African leaders big promises that gas is the key to development. But this week’s analysis by energy experts at the IEA makes those seem even more dubious. It predicts that beyond 2025 there could be too much natural gas in the global energy system, causing a “gas glut”.” Nakate calls for greater investment in Africa’s renewable energy sector, which would give leaders across the region a reason to leave their fossil fuel resources undeveloped.

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HOUSTON, May 6 (Reuters) – Oil futures rose on Monday after Saudi Arabia hiked June crude prices for most regions and as the prospect of a quick agreement for a Gaza ceasefire deal appeared slim, reviving fears that combat between Hamas and Israeli forces will resume soon.
Brent crude futures were up 69 cents, or 0.84%, at $83.65 a barrel at 11:15 CDT (1615 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $78.89 a barrel, up 78 cents, or 1%.

Last week, both futures contracts posted their steepest weekly loss in three months, with Brent falling more than 7% and WTI down 6.8%, as investors weighed weak U.S. jobs data and the possible timing of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut.
Prospects for a Gaza ceasefire faded as Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages and Israel appeared poised to launch a long-threatened assault in the southern Gaza Strip.

On Monday, Israel’s military called on Palestinian civilians to evacuate Rafah as part of a “limited-scope” operation.
“Markets are a little jaded about geopolitical risk from the war,” said John Kilduff, partner with Again Capital. “I think you’re going to have to see more kinetic activity to move the markets,”
News that talks were continuing between Hamas and Israel despite failure to reach agreement over the weekend, also tempered market reactions on Monday, Kilduff said.

Also supporting oil was Saudi Arabia’s move to raise the official selling prices for its crude sold to Asia, Northwest Europe and the Mediterranean in June, signalling expectations of strong demand this summer.
In China, the world’s largest crude importer, services activity remained in expansionary territory for the 16th straight month, while growth in new orders accelerated and business sentiment rose solidly, boosting hopes of a sustained economic recovery.

Source: Reuters.com

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The post Oil steadies as ceasefire eludes Hamas, Israel appeared first on Energy News Beat.

Energy News Beat
The rule, mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, requires federal buildings to phase out fossil fuel usage by 2030.
The focus is on transitioning to cleaner electricity sources like wind and solar power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite opposition from natural gas utilities, the rule is projected to significantly reduce carbon and methane emissions, equivalent to those of nearly 310,000 homes annually.

The U.S. Department of Energy has finalized a rule banning fossil fuels from new and renovated federal buildings. The Clean Energy for New Federal Buildings and Major Renovations of Federal Buildings Rule, mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, mandates a phased reduction in fossil fuel usage in these buildings. The law requires federal buildings and major renovations to phase out fossil fuel-generated energy consumption by 2030. This provision had been pending due to regulatory delays until now.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm highlighted the significance of this rule, emphasizing the federal government’s commitment to energy efficiency and cost savings: “The Biden-Harris Administration is practicing what we preach. Just as we are helping households and businesses across the nation save money by saving energy, we are doing the same in our own federal buildings.”

With commercial and residential buildings contributing 13% of direct greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, primarily from burning natural gas, the focus has shifted towards electrification. This entails transitioning from gas to cleaner electricity sources like wind and solar power.

Given the absence of regulations enforcing the removal of gas-fired appliances, some federal buildings continue to install them. For instance, Independence Hall in Philadelphia plans to switch to gas-fired boilers instead of remaining connected to a city-wide steam loop for heating.

While projects that are already underway, like Independence Hall, are exempt from the new rule, its implementation aims to accelerate the electrification of federal sites as envisioned in EISA’s Section 433. Advocated by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), this provision sought to leverage government leadership to drive technological advancements and cost reductions in climate-friendly measures.

Complemented by Executive Order 14057 and other Federal Sustainability Plan initiatives, the new rule is aimed at the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2045, supported by DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP). Through supplemental guidance and resources, FEMP will assist agencies in achieving compliance, facilitating clean energy deployment and phasing out on-site fossil fuel usage. This milestone reflects extensive engagement with federal stakeholders, underscoring the collaborative effort to accelerate the adoption of clean energy within the federal building sector.

The Energy Department faced delays in implementing the rule, largely due to opposition from natural gas utilities concerned about potential business losses. The American Gas Association criticized the final rule, citing cost increases and lack of environmental benefits.

However, the Energy Department’s analysis countered that the rule is projected to reduce carbon emissions by 2 million metric tons and methane emissions by 16 thousand tons, equivalent to the emissions of nearly 310,000 homes annually.

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Neither Shell nor Aramco would comment on the rumor of the talks for Reuters; however, one source told the news agency that talks began late last year and could be finalized in a matter of months.

A second source told Reuters that the deal could be worth over $1 billion.

While Shell owns a network of just under 1,000 fuel stations in Malaysia, along with a 50% share in the 300,000-barrel-per-day Pengerang refinery, Aramco presently does not own any fuel stations in the country, though it does operate stations in other venues alongside French TotalEnergies and South Korean S-Oil Corp, Reuters noted.

The alleged talks are taking place against the backdrop of Shell’s attempt to sell a refinery in Singapore that supplies the fuel stations it owns in Malaysia. If reports are true, talks are progressing against the backdrop of new offshore exploration deals handed to Shell in late January when seven new production-sharing contracts were awarded. State-run Petronas awarded contracts for six exploration blocks and one discovered resource opportunity (DRO) in the Sarawak basin and the Northwest Sabah basin as well as for basins in Peninsular Malaysia, World Oil reported in late January.

Shell has been refocusing on its most profitable businesses and is said to be seeking to divest 500 fuel stations this year and next. In total Shell owns some 950 fuel stations in Malaysia.

Shell is also pursuing efforts to sell its Bukom refinery and petrochemical plant in Singapore, The Star of Malaysia reported.

In addition to offshore exploration, fuel stations and a refinery, Shell also produces oil and gas offshore Malaysia and is a JV partner in LNG projects there, as well.

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One of the recent positives for bonds and non-energy stocks could have run its course after Saudi Arabia raised the price of its flagship crude to Asia for a third consecutive month, according to Bloomberg markets live reporter Garfield Reynolds

Over the weekend, state-owned Saudi Aramco raised the June official selling price of Arab Light crude for customers in Asia by 90 cents to $2.90 a barrel above the regional Oman-Dubai benchmark, Bloomberg reported. It compares with an increase of 60 cents forecast in a Bloomberg survey of six refiners. Prices for other lighter and heavier varieties were also increased from May.

The hike highlights Saudi Arabia’s efforts to keep the market tight amid fading war risk in the Middle East, which has helped drive oil prices in London lower. Most traders and analysts predict that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies will extend their output curbs, potentially to the end of the year.

Crude took a marked step lower last week thanks to a surge in US inventories and optimism that Middle East tensions can cool further, but there’s a decent chance it’s busy finding a new floor rather than settling in for sustained declines according to Reynolds who notes that if Israel and Hamas can agree on a truce — a substantial if with the status of talks unclear after the latest round in Cairo — that would likely set off a fresh, rapid drop in the short term for crude.

But even then it looks as though Saudi Arabia and the other producers would be likely to respond with further efforts to trim supply to prop up prices.

With two-year US inflation swaps sitting at ~2.5% that shows bonds remain vulnerable to sticky oil prices even with WTI under $80/barrel.

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The Biden administration wants the United States to triple the global supply of nuclear power, with American-designed reactors running on fuel enriched in the West. The goal: Usurp Russia’s near monopoly on atomic energy exports, and keep China from gaining control of yet another green energy industry.

But there’s one big problem: The U.S. isn’t even building any more reactors at home.

After nearly 15 years of billion-dollar cost overruns and delays, the utility giant Southern Company just hooked the second of two new reactors at a power plant in Georgia up to the grid this week — the only two atomic energy units built from scratch in the U.S. in decades. Developers are shopping around all kinds of novel designs for new-age nuclear plants. Yet few utilities can afford — or persuade investors to put up the cash for — projects that can take a decade or more to complete.

Luckily for President Joe Biden, the federal government owns a massive power utility specifically designed to deploy large-scale infrastructure that remains out of reach for the market’s invisible hand. But building new megaprojects means borrowing money — and Congress hasn’t bothered to adjust the utility’s credit limit for inflation in 45 years.

Established almost exactly 91 years ago to electrify rural parts of the American South too poor to attract profiteering utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority today generates and sells power to 153 local distributors that serve 10 million people in Tennessee and the surrounding region. The TVA’s seven reactors, spread out between three nuclear power plants, churned out 43% of its electricity in the past few months.

The TVA functions like any other independent power company. But the New Deal-era state corporation’s board of directors is appointed by the White House and its shares are owned by the federal government. That makes the TVA the closest thing the U.S. has to the kind of government-controlled entity that other countries have tasked with completing their own years-long nuclear megaprojects.

France, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Poland and Ukraine all use government ownership to build and operate nuclear energy plants. The Kremlin-owned Rosatom has only widened Russia’s lead over the U.S. in reactor and uranium fuel exports in recent years, while successfully deploying new technologies at home. China’s state utilities have built reactors at home faster than any other country, and the country now looks poised to begin exporting its reactor designs in direct competition with the U.S.

Putting the TVA at the cutting edge of the U.S. government’s nuclear revival strategy is not a new idea. But it’s gaining momentum. The utility is already working on two next-generation projects to build some of the country’s first small modular reactors. Now even the regulator who oversaw construction of the nation’s only all-new reactors in Georgia is encouraging the TVA to take up the challenge of constructing more.

In this April 29, 2015 photo, a home sits within view of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant cooling towers Unit 1, left, and Unit 2 near Spring City, Tenn.

VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

On a call with reporters Tuesday, TVA chief executive Jeff Lyash reversed his past opposition to building more of the large reactors that just came online in Georgia, saying he would no longer rule it out.

But the TVA’s atomic ambitions are hurtling toward a major roadblock.

In the 1970s, the TVA started work on 17 nuclear reactors to meet growing electricity needs. But it ended up constructing just seven, as increasingly efficient electric technology and the growth of fossil fuels kept demand flat, despite a rising U.S. population. Faced with soaring debt from unfinished projects that would never earn money, Congress set the utility’s debt limit at $30 billion.

If Congress had set that budget to automatically rise to account for inflation, that same dollar value would now surpass $137 billion. And with demand now surging from data centers and as the world races to replace fossil fuels with electricity, two-thirds of the TVA’s credit line is used up.

Since its debt levels reached $24 billion at the end of 2016, the TVA has steadily shaved billions off its negative balance sheets, in part with contracts that direct revenues directly to paying down debt, John Thomas, the TVA’s chief financial officer, said on the call.

He insisted the debt “doesn’t inhibit our ability” to get started on more projects, such as a proposal to build two or more BWRX-300 nuclear reactors — newer, smaller generators designed by North Carolina-based GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy — in Tennessee.

Due to its federal ownership, the TVA is legally barred from receiving money from certain government funds, like those from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office. But the TVA can even benefit from huge new subsidies in Biden’s landmark climate-spending law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The law specifically included language to allow the TVA to receive direct cash payments from the government to help fund new clean energy investments.

There is more money on the way. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), who heads the energy and water subcommittee on the House committee that handles the federal budget, included a nearly $900 million line item, through which the TVA could request cash to build the three small nuclear reactors.

But Fleischmann said once the project begins, “there would be a potential” scenario where Congress would “have to actually look at the possibility of raising” the TVA’s debt limit.

“I think we need to do everything possible” to facilitate the TVA’s nuclear buildout plans, Fleischmann told HuffPost. “I would certainly be willing to look at that possibility.”

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) on July 19, 2018.

TOM WILLIAMS VIA GETTY IMAGES

At $35 billion, the two new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors at Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle project comprise the most expensive power plant ever built in the U.S., and experts believe those reactors are still the cheapest possible projects for large-scale capability.

But even optimistic cost projections would test the limits of TVA’s budget, particularly if the utility goes forward with building both the nation’s third-ever AP-1000 and multiple BWRX-300s. And on top of these nuclear investments, the TVA is still building out new gas-burning generators at roughly double the rate needed to make up for retiring coal plants.

On its quarterly earnings call Tuesday, the TVA’s top executives highlighted its two small modular reactor projects as technological innovations that could fill the need gas is currently serving.

While the nuclear plants the TVA is now considering use traditional water-cooling technology, the TVA is also working with the California-based startup Kairos Power on a pilot project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to demonstrate a next-generation reactor that runs on a special kind of fuel and uses fluoride salt instead of water as a coolant, allowing it to more easily rev up and down to match demand. The test reactor got the green light from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December.

“Advanced nuclear in particular holds a great deal of promise as a dispatchable, carbon-free technology,” Lyash said.

Once a few projects get going and the supply chain kicks into gear, GE Hitachi estimates that the cost of the smaller BWRX-300 reactors would compare favorably to other energy sources. At $60 per megawatt hour, the reactor would produce electricity more cheaply than many wind and solar sites and could provide back-up to the grid for roughly half the price of a gas-powered backup generator, according to widely-cited data from the consultancy Lazard.

But if cost overruns prevent the TVA from actually building more than one BWRX-300 at its new Tennessee plant, there’s no guarantee that they’d see the same cost savings. And their impact on the grid would be less than a large-scale nuclear plant, since each small modular reactor produces at most 300 megawatts of energy.

Each AP-1000, meanwhile, packs 1,114 megawatts of power, enough to supply steady electricity to nearly 1 million homes. That scale may make them make more financial sense, even if the first two that were built more expensive up-front to build, now that the U.S. has at least a few functional AP-1000s.

Unit 3’s reactor and cooling tower stand at Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant on Jan. 20, 2023, in Waynesboro, Georgia.

VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Not everyone agrees that TVA should prioritize more nuclear projects. With nearly half the TVA’s electricity already coming from nuclear reactors, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy said the utility should look to build wind turbines, solar panels and batteries — all of which are increasingly cheap but still make up a tiny fraction of the TVA’s overall generating system.

“I’m not convinced we need to be building more nuclear plants at TVA,” said Stephen Smith, the environmental group’s executive director. “There’s a decarbonization path that the TVA can take that’s more cost effective, less risky, and balances their portfolio before they jump into bed with the next supposedly favorable nuclear project.”

Renewables are by no means incompatible with nuclear power. The country installing by far the most solar panels — China — is also the nation building nuclear reactors at a faster rate than any other. France, which has generated most of its electricity from nuclear power since the 1980s, grew its solar capacity by 30% just between 2022 and 2023. A growing body of research shows how atomic energy’s steady “baseload” power can complement solar and wind, which generate electricity more intermittently.

Yet in the U.S. many advocates on opposite sides of the debate pit weather-dependent renewables like wind and solar, which are today the cheapest and most fastest-growing sources of clean electricity, against nuclear power, the largest and most efficient single source of carbon-free generation in the U.S.

One reason for the rivalry is logistics. Renewables’ fluctuating output requires a different degree of planning from grid operators than those with power systems with a lot of nuclear reactors, which maintain steady production regardless of the time of day or weather.

Another reason is financial. Energy modelers measure the total construction price of a power plant in “overnight cost” — meaning what it would cost to build the facility overnight without incurring interest on loans. A combined-cycle gas plant could come for as little as $1,330 per kilowatt of electricity, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That same gas facility with hardware to capture at least 90% of its carbon emissions? $3,140 per kilowatt hour.

Solar panels with batteries would cost $1,808. Onshore wind? $2,098.

Now look at nuclear power. A traditional large light water reactorcosts $7,777 per kilowatt hour. The federal researchers’ estimate forone of the newer small reactors amounts to a whopping $8,349 per reactor. Given how much longer it takes to build a nuclear reactor, those expenses ― and the interest on loans ― adds up quickly, a risk that few utilities operating in markets with limited options for financing large-scale projects are prepared to take.

But the “overnight costs” don’t tell the full story. Measured by the “levelized cost of energy,” a metric that factors in the cost of generating electricity from a plant throughout its operating lifetime, nuclear power makes more sense.

Absent subsidies for any sources, nuclear reactors would generate electricity almost as cheaply as solar panels and wind turbines, according to Lazard’s analysis. (The consultancy warned that the calculation may be inflated due to the limited number of new nuclear projects forcing its models to rely on high-cost data from the Vogtle project.)

“I think we need to do everything possible.”

– Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)

And even that dollar figure doesn’t account for recent breakthroughs in maintenance and part replacements that could allow modern nuclear reactors to operate for a century or more.

The TVA could be better positioned to soak up upfront costs than private utilities, who have a clearer conflict between stewarding investors’ money and gambling on costly projects for the greater good.

In states like New York, Texas and California, which broke up their giant monopoly utilities and created competitive markets for electricity, the steep upfront price tag makes building a new nuclear plant almost impossible without targeted government support.

Yet even in a traditionally-regulated market like Georgia, where Southern Company’s Georgia Power subsidiary enjoys an old-school monopoly, the debt the utility company incurred from building the new AP-1000s made it spike ratepayers’ bills. In South Carolina, where Westinghouse planned to build another two AP-1000s in the mid-2000s, the local utility went bankrupt and its top executives went to jail for lying about the ballooning cost.

The TVA, by contrast, has historically used the rates it collects from selling electricity to pay for maintenance and administrative costs, not new power plants.

The TVA itself was also launched to invest in power infrastructure the market deemed too risky. If the only way to drive down the cost of new reactors is for the U.S. to start rolling them out in bulk, it’s difficult to find many boards of directors prepared to sacrifice their companies’ profits at the altar of progress when waiting for a competitor to build their generators first might yield significant price savings. That makes the TVA — the only utility whose board is appointed by a president seeking to spur a nuclear revival, not by big business — a unique candidate for building reactors.

But that also puts particular scrutiny on the TVA’s financial decisions. The TVA’s borrowing shows up on the federal balance sheet, making the utility a perennial target of fiscal hawks looking to rein in the national debt.

In past administrations, the TVA’s debt may have been a factor in plans to sell off the utility to private investors. Amid a political feud with Republicans, former President Barack Obama proposed “reforming” the TVA, in a move widely interpreted as laying the groundwork for privatization. Former President Donald Trump openly pitched breaking up the TVA and selling off its parts.

Republican lawmakers whose states benefit from the TVA balked at Trump’s proposal in 2018. But Trump took a renewed interest in the TVA during his final year as president, abruptly firing the board chairman as part of a bid to oust Lyash as chief executive. Two of the most vocal GOP opponents of Trump’s privatization strategy – including former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who called the plan “loony” – are no longer in office. The presumptive Republican nominee for president, meanwhile, is already signaling plans to try again at selling off parts of the federal government.

Russia launched the world’s first seaborne mobile nuclear power plant in 2019 and now wants to begin exporting its atomic barges. Two years later, China completed the world’s first onshore small modular nuclear plant, which Beijing aims to sell overseas.

The Biden administration led more than a dozen countries in signing a pledge in November to triple the world’s supply of nuclear energy. But just a week earlier, the project meant to debut the first U.S. small modular reactors went bust in November.

Now, with the Senate voting this week to ban imports of Russian uranium, the U.S. wants to not only end its reliance on foreign nuclear fuel, but invite more of the world to depend on American technology to power the next wave of atomic buildouts. The country is already behind its rivals. The TVA might offer an avenue to catch up ― unless the election scrambles its plans.

Source: Huffpost.com

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An 800-MW, four-hour battery is “not a realistic option” for replacing Talen Energy’s 1,280-MW, coal-fired Brandon Shores power plant near Baltimore, according to the PJM Interconnection.

The Sierra Club’s proposed battery storage solution to fill in for the retiring power plant fails to address all reliability problems with the planned shutdown and probably couldn’t be built in time, PJM said Friday in a letter to Paul Pinsky, director of the Maryland Energy Administration.

“While a large battery could reduce the severity of the reliability concerns in the [Baltimore Gas & Electric] system following the eventual retirement of the Brandon Shores and Wagner units, the battery concept would not replace the need for [a reliability must-run] agreement or address the system reliability needs in the near and longer term,” PJM said.

The issue centers on Talen’s plan to retire the Brandon Shores power plant by June 1, 2025. PJM last year found that shuttering the power plant would cause major reliability problems that can most effectively be solved by building new transmission lines that would help maintain grid voltage and prevent thermal overloads.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in November approved a roughly $796 million package of transmission projects to address the plant’s retirement. PJM, however, doesn’t expect the projects to be completed until the end of 2028.

The grid operator has entered into an RMR contract with Talen to keep Brandon Shores, along with two units totaling about 700 MW at its Wagner power plant near Baltimore, operating until the transmission projects are online. The contract includes a fixed charge of about $18 million a month, or $216 million a year, plus cost recovery for fuel and other costs, according to the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel and the Maryland Public Service Commission, which have asked FERC to extend the comment period on the proposal to June 3 from May 9.

Earlier this year, Telos Energy and GridLab, backed by the Sierra Club, found that a 600-MW, four-hour battery, plus some transmission line reconductoring and voltage support projects, would be a less expensive option for reliably replacing the Brandon Shores power plant compared to an RMR contract.

The plan, including an 800-MW battery option, has several critical flaws, according to PJM’s analysis released Friday.

It is “highly unlikely” a battery system could be built by June 1, 2025, when Talen plans to shutter its generating units, PJM said. Also, it would cost about $1 billion to build a 600-MW, four-hour battery system, more than the planned transmission upgrades, and the proposed battery storage wouldn’t fully address the area’s reliability problems following Brandon Shores’ shutdown, according to the grid operator.

“While a large battery could reduce the severity of the reliability concerns in the BGE system following the eventual retirement of the Brandon Shores and Wagner units, the battery concept would not replace the need for an RMR agreement or address the system reliability needs in the near and longer term,” PJM said in the letter to the Maryland Energy Administration. “PJM’s analysis ultimately concludes that to maintain reliability in Maryland, the Brandon Shores units cannot be retired until new transmission reinforcements are in place.”

Source: Utilitydive.com

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