Big utility sees pathway to $10 oil
The oil industry must brace for five energy “tsunamis” that threaten to drag prices as low as $10 a barrel in less than a decade, according to Engie SA’s innovation chief.
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$50 oil is here to stay if OPEC sticks to its deal
It was a roller coaster year for oil prices. And little wonder.
The future of OPEC: it won’t die, but it will become a different animal
Regardless of the outcome of the meeting on 30 November, the future of OPEC looks uncertain. The organisation is facing a perfect storm, squeezed as it is between the revolution in shale oil, which has increased global supply and brought down prices, and the prospect of a global peak demand, and falling costs of alternatives.
OPEC’s last cut shows oil market could get a whole lot messier
Anyone planning to trade the outcome of this week’s OPEC meeting might consider the lessons of the group’s last production cut. Then take a deep breath.
Electric cars are about to dent global gasoline consumption
Gasoline is like some kind of drug: we know it’s bad for the planet, but we just can’t give it up. Now a number of voices from the energy industry suggest that our addiction could begin to ease, thanks to the rise of electric cars.
Food vs. fuel: It’s not what you think
Food vs. fuel. It’s an argument you’ve likely heard before, and you’re likely to hear again. People in the world are still going hungry, so we shouldn’t be using crops to make fuel. The corn grown in the United States should be going into the bellies of starving children, not our gas tanks. Read more →
Tesla runs out of charge in China
Telsa Motors Inc.’s plan to cut jobs in China underscores the electric-car pioneer’s struggles in the country, a crucial market for the developing technology.
Banned documentary on air pollution is a hot topic in China
“Under the Dome,” a searing documentary about China’s catastrophic air pollution, had hundreds of millions of views on Chinese websites within days of its release one week ago. Then on Friday afternoon, the momentum over the video came to an abrupt halt, as major Chinese video websites deleted it under orders from the Communist Party’s central propaganda department.
Brazil prepares indictments in bribery scandal involving oil giant
Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, is embroiled in what might become one of the largest corruption scandals in the nation’s history.
This week The New York Times reported that prosecutor general Rodrigo Janot had prepared indictments on at least 11 executives from Brazil’s largest construction companies.
According to the story, Janot:
is opening the way for a trial that would focus scrutiny on growing testimony about a web of illicit dealings between former executives at Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, powerful contractors and political figures in Ms. Rousseff’s government.
“We are following the money and we will reach all of these perpetrators,” Mr. Janot said Saturday night in an interview with the Globo television network.
The scandal, which involves claims of bribes to obtain contracts with Petrobras, stunned Brazil’s business establishment in November, when police arrested the executives and transferred them to a jail in the southern city of Curitiba. If testimony already obtained in the case is proven true, the case would dwarf previous corruption scandals in Brazil.
Evidence points to vast sums of money changing hands:
Pedro Barusco, once an obscure, third-tier executive at Petrobras, has agreed to return about $100 million in bribes related to his time at the company, a disclosure that could rank him among the largest known bribery recipients in Brazil’s history. Separately, Augusto Mendonça, an executive at Toyo Setal, a shipbuilding company, testified last week that he paid more than $23 million in bribes directly to the governing Workers Party and to Petrobras executives in exchange for contracts to build oil tankers.
The scandal already affecting the popularity of President Dilma Rousseff, who was narrowly re-elected in May. Rousseff is a former energy minister who once served as chairwoman of the board at Petrobras.
A new opinion survey released on Sunday by Datafolha, a prominent Brazilian polling company, showed that 68 percent of Brazilians hold Ms. Rousseff responsible for the bribery scandal. At the same time, Ms. Rousseff, who narrowly won re-election in October, has an approval rating of 42 percent, the survey showed.
“Methanol Mania” Hits The Gulf Coast
Lane Kelley of ICIS Chemical Business calls it “methanol mania” and he probably wasn’t exaggerating. Last week Texas and Louisiana underwent an explosion of activity, promising to turn the region into a world center for methanol.
Earlier this month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced that Castleton Commodities International LLC (CCI), a Connecticut firm, will be building a $1.2 billion methanol manufacturing plant on the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish. The plant is expected to produce $1.8 million tons of methanol a year.
“This plant will help our children stay in Louisiana instead of leaving the state to find jobs,” said Jindal. “My number one priority it to make Louisiana a business friendly place.”
But that’s not even half of it. The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) just gave its final approval to a $1 billion methanol plant to be built near Beaumont, Texas. The facility will be operated by Natgasoline LLC, a subsidiary of a Netherlands-based company that already employs 72,000 people in 35 countries. It will employ thousands of construction workers and carry a $20 million payroll when it begins operating in of 2016.
Does that sound like a lot? Well, don’t forget Methanex Corporation, the country’s largest manufacturer of methanol, is in the process of moving two plants back from Chile to Louisiana. One plant is scheduled to open in a few months. And ZEEP (Zero Emissions Energy Plants), an Austin-based company, has just raised $1 million for a proposed plant in St. James Parish, La.
Does that sound like a full plate? Well, it’s still just the beginning. The Connell Group, a government-supported operation, announced long-range plans for what would be the largest methanol plant in the world — even if only half it gets built. The first unit, located in either Texas or Louisiana, would produce 3.6 million tons a year, twice the current world record holder in Trinidad. Together, the two units would produce more than the current U.S. demand, 6.3 million tons a year. The term “Gigafactory” soon may be standard vocabulary.
So what’s going on? Well, the plan is for nearly all this Texas and Louisiana methanol production to be exported to China. The widening of the Panama Canal for supertankers, scheduled to be completed in early 2016, will be a bit part of the puzzle. Believe it or not, China also has plans to build three more plants in Oregon and Washington. But they run into trouble there, of the West Coast’s dislike of fossil fuels.
So China is planning to use American natural gas as a substitute for its own coal, in producing large amounts of methanol. It’s no different from the Chinese buying up farmland in Brazil and Ukraine in order to grow crops.
But the Chinese have other things in mind as well. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd, Chery International, Shanghai Maple Guorun Automobile Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. all produce methanol-adaptive cars, which now accounts for eight percent of China’s fuel consumption. Israel is also experimenting with methanol from natural gas as a substitute for imported oil.
Methanol produces only 50 percent of the energy of gasoline, but its higher octane rating brings it up into the 65 percent range. It produces 40 percent less carbon dioxide and other pollutants and would go a long way toward helping China improve its pollution problems. As far as methanol production is concerned, China sees only see an upside.
So what’s going on in this country? Well, so far we have the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, we are on the verge of becoming a world center methanol manufacturer — yet we still have a set of rules and regulations and sheer inertia that prevent us from powering our cars with methanol. For some strange reason, the United States is about to become a world center for the production of methanol, yet we still haven’t figured out how to put it to one of its best uses.
Sounds like an opportunity for somebody.
