Some Energy Odds and Ends to Start Another Year

Some energy-related odds and ends as we start a new year and I work to get myself back into the writing zone:

Reuters reports that global demand for U.S. LNG hit a new record high on the final day of 2024 despite the best efforts of the Biden/Harris administration to hamper the industry’s growth:

Data compiled by the financial firm LSEG showed demand for December 31 from America’s LNG export facilities hit a record 15.2 bcf, with more growth expected in 2025 and subsequent years.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

U.S. natural gas demand for LNG plants is forecast to rise to 17.8 bcfd next year with the commissioning of Venture Global LNG's 20 million tones per annum (MTPA) Plaquemines plant in Louisiana and Cheniere Energy's (LNG.N), opens new tab Corpus Christi Stage 3 expansion in Texas.

Demand for natural gas by LNG export plants could spur higher production in the U.S. and increase prices at the country's main gas exchange in Louisiana, called Henry Hub, according to analysts. Gas prices were up 48 cents in midday trading on Tuesday, at $3.94 per million cubic feet (mcf), according to LSEG data.

The U.S. is the world's largest exporter of the superchilled gas and a major supplier to Europe and Asia. LNG exports and feedgas demand also tend to be higher in the cooler months in the Northern Hemisphere as it improves the plants efficiency.

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It’s just another bit of glorious news for a great American growth industry whose prospects now promise to become even better after a real president takes office on January 20.

But never fear, all you braindead Biden fans, your hero’s handlers are dedicated to continue hampering as many energy projects as possible right up through their final moment in office.

AP reports that Biden is about to sign an order placing a big swath of Nevada’s Ruby Mountain range off-limits to leasing for geothermal and oil and gas leasing for the next 20 years! But get this: He’s leaving the same land open to massive open pit mining. Biden is going to prohibit leasing for oil and gas even though there is zero indication that any significant reserves lie beneath the area.

You cannot make this stuff up.

Why he’s going after geothermal now, given that it is a zero emissions energy source, is anyone’s guess. Maybe that industry supported Trump instead of Kamala Harris - who knows?

Naturally, the corrupt administration’s actions here come in response to a petition by the radical leftwing Center for Biological Diversity, a group whose leaders have grown wealthy over the last 30 years via serial abuse of the Endangered Species act.

Check out this excerpt from the AP story:

Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that the move will stop speculative oil leasing in the area, but he still believes the protection of the Ruby Mountains is incomplete as long as mining is allowed.

“The Ruby Mountains have no known oil reserves, and this withdrawal does nothing to ward off the truly urgent threat of gold mining,” Donnelly said.

[End]

But a spokesperson for Biden claims the move is in response to a demand by unidentified “Native American Tribes,” along with unspecified requests from “conservationists, hunters, and anglers.”

So, you are commanded to believe that all these leftwing activists are really, really worried about oil and gas leasing that no one wants to invest in and clean energy geothermal wells, but are just fine with open pit mining for copper and other minerals.

I don’t know what the real truth about all this really is, but I am absolutely certain that what the Biden handlers are saying about it is a steaming pile of smelly horse manure.

Russell Gold, an excellent, real journalist who used to write for the Wall Street Journal, has a good piece over at the Texas Monthly site about incoming Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

It’s a very good investment of 10 minute of your time.

Here’s an excerpt:

What Energy Secretary Chris Wright Would Mean for Texas

If an airplane hadn’t skidded off the runway at the old Sloulin Field International Airport in Williston, North Dakota, I wouldn’t have stumbled on Liberty Resources’ innovative drilling approach. And I wouldn’t have found myself on the phone with Liberty’s chief executive, Chris Wright, whom Donald Trump has nominated for secretary of energy.

The minor aviation mishap shut down the airport, diverting my flight from Houston to Minot, two hours to the east of Williston. This set off a scramble for a small number of rental cars. The guy next to me on the plane secured one and offered me a ride to Williston. On the drive, we talked about our jobs. I was an energy reporter at The Wall Street Journal; he was Liberty’s operations manager for something called Project Stomping Horse.

He invited me to visit his drilling site, and later that night, as the temperature plunged to -20 degrees, I drove my rental car (picked up in Williston) there. This was February 2015, and the Bakken Shale oil boom was in full flower. Companies were drilling and fracking as quickly as they could. Like an army ahead of its supply chain, wells were turned on before pipelines could be laid. This meant natural gas was routinely flared, and trucks carrying crude oil clogged highways.

Stomping Horse was different. Liberty built centralized infrastructure for the 96 wells it planned to drill on 10,000 acres. On the multiacre pad, Liberty’s wells were connected to storage tanks and saltwater disposal wells. Liberty had spent $16.2 million on pipelines for gas, oil, and water—dramatically reducing the number of trucks the company needed. “Our idea was to build the world’s greatest oil factory,” Wright later told me when I called him for an interview.

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That’s all for now - I promise I’ll get back in the writing groove in the next few days.