General
Greece Won’t Help Iran Oil Tanker, Deputy Foreign Minister Says
Paul Tugwell, Bloomberg
Greece will not provide any assistance to the Iranian tanker released by Gibraltar last week, Deputy Foreign Minister Miltiades Varvitsiotis said in comments on ANT1 TV. “We wouldn’t like to facilitate the transportation of oil to Syria and in no circumstance do we want to facilitate the course of the ship to Syria, ” Varvitsiotis said.
Sanders to unveil climate plan on Thursday
Tal Axelrod, The Hill
Sanders’s campaign said the Vermont independent will release his “groundbreaking and comprehensive Green New Deal” that would combat climate change and “create 20 million jobs in the process” before touring the damage of the 2018 Camp Fire wildfire and hosting a town hall.
Trump praised for energy policies, criticized for trade tariffs at Tri-Cities summit
Annette Cart, Tri-City Herald
Mark Menezes, the under secretary of energy, is DOE’s principal adviser on energy policy and a wide array of existing and emerging technology. It was his first visit to the Tri-Cities area.
5 utility trends shaping electricity’s future
Jeffrey Tomich and Rod Kuckro, E&E News
The next decade’s electric utility is taking shape today in the form of plans, sometimes thousands of pages, plopped into the laps of state regulators nationwide. Like snowflakes, each of these integrated resource plans (IRPs) — which outline how utilities intend to meet power demand cost-effectively — is unique.
Lawmakers criticize EPA draft rule for curbing rights to challenge pollution permits
Miranda Green, The Hill
Three Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday taking issue with reported changes that they warned could “benefit wealthy industry groups at the expense of everyday Americans unable to afford lengthy litigation battles.”
Trump phone call to Wheeler interrupts Alaska hearing
Geof Koss and Sean Reilly, E&E News
Wheeler’s appearance at the event, which Sullivan said was months in the making but was only announced Friday, comes as the state faces a rare federal takeover of soot standards enforcement in Fairbanks.
Harris to appear in CNN climate town hall after backlash
Tal Axelrod and Miranda Green, The Hill
The California Democrat was hammered by environmental groups, including the Sunrise Movement, after Harris was the only one of nine initial Democrats invited to the town hall who did not confirm her attendance.
Oil Steadies as Drop in U.S. Stockpiles Tempers Economic Worries
Saket Sundria and Grant Smith, Bloomberg
Futures were little changed above $56 a barrel in New York on Wednesday. The American Petroleum Institute reported a 3.45 million-barrel decline last week, people familiar with the data said.
Oil and Natural Gas
Hess Has Been 2019’s Top Oil and Gas Stock. It Has Nothing to Do With Shale.
Bradley Olson, The Wall Street Journal
The New York-based company holds a 30% stake in an immense offshore oil field being developed by Exxon Mobil Corp. in Guyana that appears poised to become one of the most lucrative megaprojects in years. The company’s shares have surged more than 50% in 2019, the biggest increase of any major U.S. oil operator, excluding companies acquired in deals.
PES layoffs accelerate as Philadelphia refinery closes
Laila Kearney, Reuters
PES began dismissing a small number of union workers last Thursday, before an earlier-stated Aug. 25 termination date, as the company idles its fire-damaged refinery after filing for bankruptcy.
2015 North Dakota liquid gas spill much bigger than reported
James MacPherson, The Associated Press
2015 pipeline spill of liquid natural gas in western North Dakota initially reported as just 10 gallons is at least hundreds of thousands of gallons larger and may take another decade to clean up, state health officials said Tuesday.
Goldman Sachs claws its way into contention for Saudi Aramco IPO
Anjli Raval et al., Financial Times
Bank makes strides after charm offensive including former Trump official Dina Powell.
Iranian oil exports fell below 100,000 b/d in July: US
Brian Scheid and Eklavya Gupte, S&P Global Platts
US sanctions caused Iranian crude exports to fall to about 100,000 b/d in July, down from roughly 2.5 million b/d a year earlier, Brian Hook, the US Department of State’s special representative for Iran, said Tuesday.
U.S. Sanctions Are Forcing Iran to Ditch Push to Cleaner Fuels
Verity Ratcliffe, Bloomberg
Iran produces a surplus of fuel oil, and the excess has swelled since the U.S. began restricting the OPEC member’s exports last year. Sanctions also prevent Iran from importing the equipment it would need to refine the heavy oil product into less-polluting products like gasoline and, even if they find a way building refineries takes time.
Texas shale towns grapple with growth as oil-bust fears fade
Jennifer Hiller, Reuters
For most of the last century, oil money has flowed into this region like a rising tide during booms – but residents here had enough sense to know it would flow right back out again when the next bust hit. That cycle has always made officials, developers and voters wary of investing too much during the good times on everything from school construction to roads to housing.
Utilities and Infrastructure
Vistra buys Ambit in deal to further consolidate Texas electricity market
L.M. Sixel, Houston Chronicle
Vistra Energy, the Irving-based power generator and retailer, announced Tuesday morning it is buying Ambit Energy, a Dallas-based company that sells electricity through multi-level marketing channels, for $475 million in a move that will further consolidate the retail electricity market in Texas.
Renewables
Connecticut looks to purchase more offshore wind power
The Associated Press
The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said Monday it had released a request for proposals for offshore wind power as required by a new state law. The department says it’s the state’s first solicitation dedicated specifically to offshore wind development.
Cost of Hydrogen From Renewables to Plummet Next Decade: BNEF
James Thornhill, Bloomberg
Renewable hydrogen costs may fall to as low as $1.40 per kilogram by 2030 from the current range of $2.50 to $6.80, BNEF said in a report. That could slide further to 80 cents by 2050, equivalent to a natural gas price of $6 per million British thermal units.
The Auto Industry Charges Into China
Jeffrey Ball, Fortune
Global carmakers like Volkswagen are betting that electric vehicles are the future. But to win in the world’s largest EV market, they will have to battle a host of fierce new Chinese competitors. Oh, and Tesla.
Coal
Coal workers fight for benefits as industry struggles under Trump
Heidi Przybyla, NBC News
The year 2018 was second only to 2015 for coal plant retirements this decade, as the industry contends with strong competition from natural gas and renewable energy. At the same time, safety protections for miners, enacted after deadly mine collapses, have been weakened.
Nuclear
7 groups interested in investing in Bulgaria nuclear project
The Associated Press
General Electric and France’s Framatome have also declared interest in financing and supplying equipment for the 2,000-megawatt plant near Belene on the Danube River.
Climate
As Wildfires Get Worse, Insurers Pull Back From Riskiest Areas
Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times
Insurers are quietly reducing their exposure to fire-prone regions across the Western United States, putting new pressure on homeowners and raising concerns that climate change could eventually make insurance unaffordable in some areas.
U.S. Seen as Climate Risk With Two-Thirds of New Oil and Gas
Alex Nussbaum, Bloomberg
Propelled by the shale boom, the U.S. will pump out the equivalent of 88.9 billion barrels of oil from new fields in the 2020s, Global Witness, an environmental and human rights group, said in a report Tuesday that cites data from industry consultant Rystad Energy.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
Save California’s species from Trump
The Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times
California has its own laws to protect endangered plants and animals from extinction, and they are more important than ever as the Trump administration weakens enforcement of the landmark federal Endangered Species Act. But those state protections will mean little without additional action in Sacramento, where the real issue is water.
Watch President Trump get clean and affordable energy for America
Mandy Gunasekara, USA Today
Activists and Democratic politicians like to portray President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the ineffectual and counterproductive Paris Agreement as an example of his “inaction” on the environment.
Small-scale LNG projects make market inroads in US
Jim Magill, S&P Global Platts
Small LNG plants, usually with production capacities of less than 1 million mt/year, are springing up across the US to service niche markets, such as providing IMO-compliant bunker fuel to oceangoing vessels, meeting peak-shaving demand and serving a growing export market in the nearby Caribbean.
Research Reports
EPA Office of Research and Development Needs to Address Barriers to Gathering External Feedback
Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General
With regard to our second objective, the ORD faces a key barrier of being significantly limited in surveying non-federal external customers when collecting data to support its strategic measure. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, the ORD cannot survey more than nine non-federal external customers without approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
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