** Exxon Mobil Corp on Friday missed analysts’ estimates with a 28% year-on-year drop in first quarter profits as weaker refining margins and lower natural gas prices offset volume gains. The largest U.S. oil company, which is in the process of closing a $60 billion deal for top shale oil producer Pioneer Natural Resources, posted first-quarter earnings …
Category: Oil & Gas
Texas oil firm wins contracts with Venezuela
Texas oil billionaire Rod Lewis and a company he started, LNG Energy Group have announced a deal to rehabilitate five aging oil fields in Venezuela. The agreement came just days after the Biden administration reimpose sanctions that had been in place against the country. The Associated Press reported LNG was awarded contracts by state-run …
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Rafeh sent crude oil prices upward
As crude oil prices gained about 1% in Thursday’s trading, Oklahoma energy stocks were mixed while a few had losses ranging from 5% to 7%. Crude rose after Israel stepped up airstrikes on Gaza’s Rafah and caused concern the fighting might interfere in the movement of crude out of that part of the world. West …
AARP warns utilities—expect a fight over rate hike requests
AARP Oklahoma made it clear this week, it will not stop fighting the rate hikes of utilities in the state. OG&E and PSO can expect a battle before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. Oklahoma State Director Sean Voskuhl told members during a Thursday Facebook presentation, it’s like a “whack-a-mole” fight. “We’ve been fighting unfair utility …
Gov. Stitt joins other GOP state leaders telling Biden to lift his LNG freeze
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt was among 25 Republican Governors who wrote the White House this week asking the President to remove his freeze on permits for LNG export projects. “As governors, we are very concerned by the Biden Administration’s move to pause approvals of new liquified natural gas (LNG) export projects, especially after Iran’s …
Energy briefs
** The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a highly anticipated suite of rules to cut hazardous, planet-warming pollution generated by power plants in one of its most significant environment and climate actions to-date. The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules will compel coal and new natural gas power plants to either cut or capture 90% of their climate pollution by 2032. ** The …
Tensions ease in the Middle East and crude oil prices dropped on Wednesday
With no major outbreak in fighting in the Middle East, investors seem less concerned about any impact on the flow of oil out of the region. As a result, prices fell in Wednesday’s trading. At the same time, crude inventories across the U.S. tumbled and it stopped a further fall in oil prices. West Texas …
Crude stocks tumbled at Cushing Hub and the U.S.
Crude oil inventories across the U.S. and including at the Cushing Hub in Oklahoma fell over the past week. The U.S. stocks, according to to the U.S. Energy Information Administration fell more than 6 million barrels. The fall was from 460 million barrels reported on April 12 to 453.6 million barrels on April 19, …
Peter Zeihan on development of shale oil and why it can’t be so easily copied in other countries
Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan has been thinking about the development of shale oil and its success in the oil and gas industry in the U.S. He wondered whether it can be duplicated in other countries. In a commentary this week, Zeihan suggested it’s not so easy in other countries….it’s not a matter of “copy …
Tulsa sues rail operators in fight over butane loading operation
A railroad fight in Tulsa over a butane transloading operation near a USA BMX facility near the city’s downtown has erupted in court. Tulsa sued South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad LLC and Centennial Energy LLC and asked a judge to decide the question whether municipal or federal law takes precedence over the regulation of …