September 4, 2020 archive

Energy stocks slipped again in Friday’s trading

  Energy stocks on Friday followed the parallel path of a down day on Wall Street with only a few exceptions to a loss in trading. Alliance Resource Partners dropped 5 cents or 1.59% to $3.10. Blueknight Energy Partners had a nearly 3 cent or 1.84% gain to $1.52. Chesapeake Energy saw a 2.36% or …

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U.S. oil benchmark ends below $40 a barrel, down over 7% for the week

  While the Dow skidded 600 points on Friday, oil futures closed below $40 a barrel for the first time since early July. The drop contributed to a loss for the week amid concerns over prospects for demand, losses in the stock market and strength in the U.S. dollar pushing prices to their lowest in …

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Energy Sector Pullback Pushes Gross Receipts Lower for Oklahoma Treasury

Gross Receipts to the Treasury slipped by almost five percent in August with oil and gas production taxes the primary driver, State Treasurer Randy McDaniel announced on Friday. August receipts from all sources total $979.5 million and are below collections from August 2019 by $47.3 million, or 4.6 percent. It marks the fifth time since …

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Daimler expands self-driving truck tests on New Mexico public roads

    Soon, the next truck you pass on a New Mexico road might be a self-driving truck. Daimler Trucks and allied vehicle software company Torc Robotics announced the expansion of testing for self-driving trucks to public roads in New Mexico along major long-haul freight routes. The companies have established a new testing center in …

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Downlisting of the American Burying Beetle draws support from Oklahoma groups..they say “it’s about time”

  The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to downlist the American burying beetle under the Endangered Species Act drew support this week from U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma National Guard, U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma and others. The government downlisted the beetle from endangered to threatened. “Downlisting …

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North Dakota’s request to dismiss road closure suit denied

  A federal judge has denied North Dakota’s request to dismiss a lawsuit filed over the five-month closure of a section of highway during the large protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The Associated Press reported the federal lawsuit brought by members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and a reservation priest in 2018 …

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Revived Iowa ethanol plant would make RNG to meet demand in California

  A German bioenergy company is preparing to produce corn ethanol and renewable natural gas at the site of a failed cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa. Verbio Vereinigte BioEnergie AG is building an anaerobic digester on the site that will annually convert up to 100,000 tons of corn stover — a crop leftover consisting …

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Google acquires more renewable powered electricity

  Ever since making its first contract to buy wind power from a wind farm in Oklahoma in 2012, Google has been adding to its contracts nationally for renewable energy sources.The latest is a deal to buy 140 megawatts of solar power from the Texas operation of Candela Renewables. Candela’s independent utility-scale solar power project …

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Stakeholder webinar on the Illinois River Watershed

  A webinar showing the ongoing work by Oklahoma to improve high phosphorus levels in the state’s Illinois River caused largely because of chicken farming in eastern Oklahoma will be held this week. The Oklahoma Water Resources Board will present the first of three webinars on Tuesday, Sept. 8. “This webinar will inform stakeholders and …

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Virtual meeting issues dealt with by Oklahoma Corporation Commission

  An electric power outage and the resulting shutdown of air conditioning at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission’s Jim Thorpe building this past week led to issues with the agency’s ability to carry out virtual meetings. Users were alerted Thursday morning prior to the commission’s regular meeting. “The computer servers are warmer than they’re supposed to …

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