“Eighty-two percent of American voters believe the Keystone XL pipeline is in our national interest, according to a nationwide poll just completed for us by Harris Interactive,” said Cindy Schild, API‘s senior refining manager. “Seventy percent support building the pipeline, 77 percent agree that the pipeline would strengthen America’s national security, 81 percent agree that the pipeline would strengthen our energy security, and 85 percent agree it would strengthen our economic security.”

Support for the project has risen since February, when API’s polling showed 69 percent of Americans supported Keystone XL.

Schild said support for the transcontinental pipeline is strong across all political identifications.

“About 8 in 10 independents and Democrats agree that the pipeline is in our national interest while close to 70 percent of voters from both groups believe it would strengthen America’s national security and benefit our military,” she said. “Eighty-three percent of Republican voters support Keystone XL construction, followed closely by 69 percent of independents and 63 percent of Democrats.”

Environmental groups like Friends of the Earth oppose the project, citing its potential impact on the changing climate and the risk of dangerous spills if the pipeline leaks.

The Obama administration refused to grant a presidential permit for the project last year, but developer TransCanada has renewed its application to build the pipeline across the border from Canada.

Industry groups like API have maintained Keystone XL will enhance national security.

“It would be a means to transport secure domestic and Canadian oil supplies to American refineries for U.S. consumers,” Schild said. “We are expected to continue to consume large amounts of oil and natural gas in the decades ahead even with growing production of renewables. The International Energy Agency has noted the rising dominance of North American oil production and its game changing impacts on world energy markets and energy geopolitics, including a diminishing OPEC influence. North American production can meet 100 percent of our liquid fuels supply in the next dozen years, according to the Energy Information Administration and Wood Mackenzie. Oil from Canada is part of this, and Keystone XL would help bring more domestic and Canadian oil to U.S. markets, with U.S. refiners adding value, turning it into gasoline, diesel and other products.”

TransCanada is nearing completion of the southern leg of the pipeline, dubbed the Gulf Coast Project. It will transport crude oil from the storage hub at Cushing to the Gulf Coast.

My family and I are among the lucky ones after the latest round of deadly tornadoes struck our state.

We fled our home in Yukon, with my mother and four pets in tow, as a two-mile-wide tornado reportedly bore down on us.

It probably wasn’t the wisest course of action, as at least five of the people who died in Friday night’s storms were in their cars.

Fortunately our 7-year-old daughter was with her grandparents and the roads were clear enough to help my family avoid the worst of the storms.

I’ve been in Oklahoma since I was just 2 years old, but I’m usually not too worried about tornadoes.

That changed a bit Friday when the sirens started going off in Yukon about 5:30 p.m., as we waited for my mom, a Tulsa resident working with the Red Cross, to make it in from Moore.

Dawn and I huddled with in our daughter’s closet, the closest thing we have to an inside room in our house, while listening to some faceless TV meteorologist on the radio. Mom joined us about 6, as the weatherman’s warnings grew increasingly dire.

Hit the road if you’re not underground in Yukon.

I wasn’t sure if this was the proper advice, but an urgent call from my brother-in-law, a police officer in Edmond, convinced us to try to run away from the approaching storm.

We bundled all three dogs and the cat into my 2004 Chevy Blazer and started driving south as the massive storm system moved east through El Reno along Interstate 40.

We were able to quickly pass through Mustang, with clearer skies ahead, but we kept driving because we still didn’t feel safe.

Others apparently didn’t feel the same, as there were plenty of folks camped out along the road with their cameras and phones trained on the darkening sky.

As cell service got spotty, we relied on text messages from my dad in Tulsa and a friend in south Texas.They monitored the storms online as the radio only offered information about the tornado’s rampage through Oklahoma City.

Dad said he watched an Oklahoma City television station’s radar from laptop while monitoring the local weather on his TV. At one point, there appeared to be as many as nine tornadoes around the metro area.

We also got guidance from my brother-in-law via Facebook, interspersed with occasional phone calls from my in-laws at Lake Texoma.

Lots of other people tried to drive away from the bad weather, but the traffic wasn’t too bad.

The only real scary point came as we were backed up on State Highway 4 north of Tuttle, with heavy rain swirling around us. A text to mom’s phone indicated there might be a tornado nearby, but we pressed on.

I veered east on a county road as southbound traffic backed up on both sides of the highway, but soon looped back around to continue our flight south.

We broke into the clear after we turned toward Chickasha on the H.E. Bailey Turnpike.

We pressed on to the Grady County seat before finally stopping about 9 p.m. for a fast-food dinner and a visit to Walmart in search of chargers for our depleted cell phones.

I’d heard secondhand that the night’s tornado warnings had expired so we headed back home about 10 p.m.

The streets of Mustang were dark because storms had knocked out the power.

We saw new lakes of water that had sprung up along Mustang Road, but we pressed on. I drove through several feet of water just south of Reno.

I knew as I did it that I shouldn’t have, but I was just ready to be home.

Oil Change International, which is dedicated to facilitating the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy, on Tuesday released its study on the actual cost of the pipeline, which would move diluted bitumen and crude oil from Canada to refineries along the Gulf Coast. Read the full report here.

“Americans are fed up with footing the bill for corporate pollution. The Keystone XL Pipeline will cause billions of dollars in damages every year that no one wants to pay,” said Lorne Stockman, research director for Oil Change International.

“TransCanada is proposing a massive wealth transfer from our own pockets to Big Oil — we will pay in hospital visits, rebuilding after super storms, and in clean up efforts in communities like Mayflower and Kalamazoo.

That’s outrageous, and President Obama should reject this pipeline immediately as a lose-lose gamble.”

Developer TransCanada is awaiting a federal permit for the Keystone XL project.

Supporters contend it will be a boon to the economy and North American energy security, while opponents fear future ecological disasters and other climate impacts, citing past pipeline spills in Michigan and Arkansas.

The Obama administration denied a permit for the $5.3 billion project last year, but TransCanada renewed its application after altering the pipeline’s route through Nebraska‘s Sand Hills.

The southern leg of the project, dubbed the Gulf Coast Project, is nearing completion in Oklahoma and Texas, despite scores of protests by opponents. The 485-mile pipeline between the oil storage hub at Cushing and Houston-area refineries is expected to be in operation by the end of the year.

 

]]> http://blog.newsok.com/energy/2013/04/24/recap-of-the-osu-energy-conference/feed/ 0 http://blog.newsok.com/energy/2013/04/16/irs-clarifies-rules-on-construction-to-qualify-for-wind-tax-credit/ http://blog.newsok.com/energy/2013/04/16/irs-clarifies-rules-on-construction-to-qualify-for-wind-tax-credit/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:54:23 +0000 Paul Monies http://blog.newsok.com/energy/?p=2691 Congress granted the wind industry a one-year extension of a critical production tax credit in the deal cut at the end of 2012 on the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

But the extension also changed the trigger on when the tax credit can be claimed.

The company has added close to 100,000 acres in Ohio’s Utica Shale to the properties it has listed with broker Meagher Energy Advisors. Chesapeake last summer listed more than 330,000 net acres in the area.

Chesapeake is refining its focus as it tries to rein in its budget and reduce drilling costs, acting CEO Steve Dixon said in a conference call last week.

Dixon said many of the assets Chesapeake will sell this year will be smaller acreage packages.

We are particularly pleased with the market’s response to the multiple small asset packages that we have offered,” he said. “Many of these assets may not be individually noteworthy to investors, but in aggregate, the combined value that we anticipate collecting this year will likely be very meaningful and lead to further progress in improving our balance sheet.”

The latest Ohio assets to hit the market include about 94,000 acres in Portage and Stark counties.

Chesapeake caught the eye of the SEC’s Fort Worth office last year after Reuters reported CEO Aubrey McClendon took more than $1 billion in shrouded personal loans to fund his stake in the company’s wells. It confirmed the SEC’s informal inquiry in May.

The company’s board, revamped last year amid shareholder unrest, announced last week its review of McClendon’s finances revealed no sign of intentional misconduct.

On Friday, Chesapeake filed its annual report, showing received notice Dec. 21 the SEC would continue its inquiry as an investigation.

“The company, including Mr. McClendon, is providing information to the SEC in connection with this matter. The company is also responding to related inquiries from other governmental and regulatory agencies and self- regulatory organizations,” according to Friday’s filing.

Chesapeake’s board still faces more than a dozen breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits filed by shareholders after news of McClendon’s loan deals emerged last year.

McClendon is leaving the company by April 1, but the board said its review had nothing to do with his departure.

The company also is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for possible antitrust violations in Michigan, where Chesapeake and rival Encana Corp. have admitted to sharing information before lease auctions in 2010. Both companies have denied any wrongdoing.

Bob Greco, API’s director of downstream and industry operations, said earlier testing showed E15 could harm valve and valve seat engine parts.

“The additional E15 testing, completed this month, has identified an elevated incidence of fuel pump failures, fuel system component swelling, and impairment of fuel measurement systems in some of the vehicles tested. E15 could cause erratic and misleading fuel gauge readings or cause faulty check engine light illuminations. It also could cause critical components to break and stop fuel flow to the engine,” Greco told reporters in a conference call. “Failure of these components could result in breakdowns that leave consumers stranded on busy roads and highways. Fuel system component problems did not develop in the CRC tests when either E10 or E0 was used. It is difficult to precisely calculate how many vehicles E15 could harm. That depends on how widely it is used and other factors. But, given the kinds of vehicles tested, it is safe to say that millions could be impacted.”

The American Coalition for Ethanol dismissed the CRC results, maintaining motorists have nothing to fear from ethanol in their fuel.

“This is just another ghost story, told by people who stand to lose market share when consumers finally have access to E15,” said Ron Lamberty, the group’s senior vice president. “We shouldn’t be surprised at Big Oil’s latest attempt to scare consumers — they’ve shown no shame in twisting test results to protect their market share. There is a reason that the oil companies don’t want E15 and it has everything to do with protecting the bottom line and nothing to do with protecting consumers.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year allowed retailers to use a higher blend of ethanol in their gasoline, but E85 is not widely available in Oklahoma.

Tar Sands Blockade, Rising Tide North America, Rising Tide Texas and 20 others agreed Friday not to trespass on TransCanada property in Oklahoma and Texas in order to avoid facing a lawsuit seeking $5 million in damages for disrupting the pipeline project.

“The permanent injunction that these protesters have now agreed to relates to TransCanada, Keystone, our affiliates and contractors. It covers existing operations, offices, construction sites, storage yards, right-of-way/easements and equipment in Texas and Oklahoma,” the company told The Oklahoman. “They cannot interfere with the use and enjoyment of our property, equipment, construction materials and facilities or prevent access to and from our properties and equipment.”

The activists who oppose the $2.3 billion pipeline contend the lawsuit was a strategic move by TransCanada to disrupt their protests, noting the Canadian company had claimed the protests had not impeded construction in any way.

Tar Sands Blockade spokesman Ramsey Sprague said the protests will continue, despite the settlement.

“TransCanada is dead wrong if they think a civil lawsuit against a handful of Texans is going to stop a grassroots civil disobedience movement. This is nothing more than another example of TransCanada repressing dissent and bullying Texans who are defending their homes and futures from toxic tar sands.”

Texas grandmother Tammie Carson, one of the defendants in the case, said she got involved on principle, but financial concerns led her to accept the settlement.

“I took action for my grandkids’ future. I couldn’t sit idly by and watch as a multinational corporate bully abused eminent domain to build a dirty and dangerous tar sands pipeline right through Texans’ backyards,” Carson said. “I had no choice but to settle or lose my home and everything I’ve worked for my entire life.”

TransCanada said Monday the Gulf Coast project is about 40 percent complete, with plans to get it into commercial operation by late this year.

The process, commonly known as fracking, is used to extract oil and natural gas from dense rock like shale, but it has been dogged by concerns that it contaminates drinking water.

Chesapeake, one of the nation’s leading oil and gas producers, will allow the EPA to sample water at one of its well sites before and after the well is drilled, an Obama administration official told the Journal.

A Chesapeake spokesman declined to comment on the report Wednesday night.

Texas-based Range Resources Corp. may cooperate with the EPA as well, according to the Journal, if liability concerns can be addressed.