Liquefied Natural Gas

Tue, 2013-01-29 05:00Steve Horn
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Congressmen Supporting LNG Exports Received $11.5 Million From Big Oil, Electric Utilities

On Jan. 25, 110 members of the U.S. House of Representatives - 94 Republicans and 16 Democrats - signed a letter urging Energy Secretary Steven Chu to approve expanded exports of liquified natural gas (LNG).

It was an overt sign of solidarity with the Obama Administration Department of Energy's (DOE) LNG exports study, produced by a corporate consulting firm with long ties to Big Tobacco named NERA Economic Consulting (NERA is short for National Economic Research Associates), co-founded in 1961 by the "Father of Deregulation," Alfred E. Kahn. That study concluded exporting gas obtained from the controversial hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") process - sent via pipelines to coastal LNG terminals and then onto tankers - is in the best economic interests of the United States.  

A DeSmogBlog investigation shows that these 110 signatories accepted $11.5 million in campaign contributions from Big Oil and electric utilities in the run-up to the November 2012 election, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.

Big Oil pumped $7.9 million into the signatories' coffers, while the remaining $3.6 million came from the electric utilities industry, two industries whose pocketbooks would widen with the mass exportation of the U.S. shale gas bounty. Further, 108 of the 110 signers represent states in which fracking is occuring.  

Read more: Congressmen Supporting LNG Exports Received $11.5 Million From Big Oil, Electric Utilities
Thu, 2013-01-24 10:26Steve Horn
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Smoke and Mirrors: Obama DOE Fracked Gas Export Study Contractor's Tobacco Industry Roots

At first, it was kept secret for months, cryptically referred to only as an "unidentified third-party contractor."

Finally, in November 2012, Reuters revealed the name of the corporate consulting firm the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) hired to produce a study on the prospective economic impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

LNG is the super-chilled final product of gas obtained - predominatly in today's context - via the controversial hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") process taking place within shale deposits located throughout the U.S. This "prize" is shipped from the multitude of domestic shale basins in pipelines to various coastal LNG terminals, and then sent on LNG tankers to the global market. 

The firm: National Economic Research Associates (NERA) Economic Consulting, has a long history of pushing for deregulation. Its claim to fame: the deregulation "studies" it publishes on behalf of the nuclear, coal, and oil/gas industry - and as it turns out, Big Tobacco, too.

Read more: Smoke and Mirrors: Obama DOE Fracked Gas Export Study Contractor's Tobacco Industry Roots
Mon, 2012-11-19 17:43Steve Horn
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Revealed: NERA Economic Consulting is Third Party Contractor for DOE LNG Export Study

Reuters has revealed the identity of the mysterious third party contractor tasked to publish the economic impact study on LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports on behalf of the Department of Energy (DOE). Its name: NERA Economic Consulting.

"NERA" is shorthand for National Economic Research Associates, an economic consulting firm SourceWatch identifies as the entity that published a June 2011 report on behalf of coal industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). ACCCE's report concluded, "clean-air rules proposed by the Obama administration would cost utilities $17.8 billion annually and raise electricity rates 11.5 percent on average in 2016."

That report went so far to say that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations of the coal-generated electrcity sector would amount to some 1.5 million lost jobs over the next four years.

NERA was founded by Irwin Stelzer, senior fellow and director of the right-wing Hudson Institute’s Center for Economic Policy. In Oct. 2004, The Guardian described Stelzer as the "right-hand man of Rupert Murdoch," the CEO of News Corp., which owns Fox News. 

According to NERA's website, the late Alfred E. Kahn, the "father of deregulation," advised NERA's 1961 foundation. 

Read more: Revealed: NERA Economic Consulting is Third Party Contractor for DOE LNG Export Study
Fri, 2011-12-09 10:34Steve Horn
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Another LNG Deal Inked, Fracking Export Bonanza Continues

On December 7, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision (FERC) granted a 30-year license to Jordan Cove LNG (liquefied natural gas), located in Coos Bay, Oregon, to transform its existing import terminal license into an export terminal license. It would be the first LNG export terminal on the west coast of the U.S., with multiple LNG export terminals also in the negotiation phase, set to be located on the west coast in Kitimat, British Columbia.

KMTR-TV explains where the unconventional gas, procured via the toxic fracking process explained thoroughly in DeSmogBlog's "Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens our Water, Health, and Climate," will come from for Jordan Cove:

Construction of the Ruby Pipeline has brought gas from Wyoming to Southern Oregon, where it is sent to California. Construction of a new pipeline would link Ruby with Jordan Cove.

El Paso Natural Gas, a subsidiary of El Paso Corporation, owns the Ruby Pipeline. "Ruby is a 680-mile, 42-inch interstate natural gas pipeline," according to its website.

The pipeline that KMTR-TV is referring to, which would link Ruby with Jordan Cove, is called the Pacific Connector Pipeline, and is proposed to be a "234-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline," according to its website. 

Wyoming is home to the Niobrara Shale basin, which the Environmental Protection Agency recently revealed as a site of groundwater contamination linked to the fracking process.

Read more: Another LNG Deal Inked, Fracking Export Bonanza Continues
Thu, 2011-12-01 14:43Steve Horn
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LNG Groundhog Day: Cheniere Energy Signs Yet Another Gas Export Deal on Gulf Coast

Credit: Oleksandr Kalinichenko / Shutterstock

Another day, another unconventional gas export deal signed. Nascent North American LNG (liquefied natural gas) export deals are happening so fast and furiously that it is hard to keep track of them all.

The latest: On November 21, Cheniere Energy Partners signed a 20-year LNG export deal with Gas Natural Fenosa, an energy company which operates primarily in Spain but also in such countries as Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Morocco. Cheniere will maintain the Sabine Pass LNG export terminal located off of Sabine Lake between Texas and Louisiana, which feeds into the Gulf of Mexico, while Gas Natural Fenosa will ship the gas to the global market.

Cheniere, which made waves when its CEO Charif Souki announced that his corporation's business model would center exclusively around LNG export terminals, also recently signed a 20-year export deal with BG Group, short for British Gas Group.

Like the recent export deal with BG Group, which involves carrying fracked unconventional gas from various shale basins around the United States via pipelines to the Sabine Pass LNG export terminal, the Gas Natural Fenosa deal also centers around the export of gas from Sabine Pass to the global market.

Read more: LNG Groundhog Day: Cheniere Energy Signs Yet Another Gas Export Deal on Gulf Coast
Thu, 2011-11-17 12:28Steve Horn
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ExxonMobil and Shell Stamp Huge Oil and Gas Deals in Iraq

Just a few weeks after President Barack Obama announced U.S. troops are "leaving" the war-torn country, ExxonMobil and Shell each announced major new oil and gas production agreements in Iraq.

On November 12, ExxonMobil signed an oil production deal with the Kurdish Regional Government to drill in Iraqi Kurdistan, located in northern Iraq. This comes on top of an existing oil deal it landed in 2009, to drill for oil in the West Qurna Field, located in southern Iraq.

The New York Times explained both deals:

Exxon and its partners agreed to invest $50 billion over seven years to increase output by about two million barrels of oil per day there, at West Qurna Phase 1, bringing more new oil to market than the United States currently produces in the Gulf of Mexico. Margins, though, are low. Kurdistan offers more lucrative production-sharing agreements, allowing the company to earn a larger share of revenues and to count more of the crude on its books, which helps boost stock prices.

Days later on November 15, Royal Dutch Shell signed a $17 billion natural gas production deal with the Iraqi government. Shell will utilize the natural gas by-product from oil produced at the West Qurna Field, the Rumaila Field, and the Az Zubair Field, and transform it into a usable product. "Shell said it would sell the gas to electrical utilities in Iraq, but that it may also eventually export some," explained The New York Times.

Read more: ExxonMobil and Shell Stamp Huge Oil and Gas Deals in Iraq
Tue, 2011-11-15 13:37Steve Horn
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Fracking Leads To Export Bonanza: Another Unconventional Gas Export Terminal Submitted to US DOE by Sempra

On November 11, Sempra LNG, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, submitted an export proposal to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Sempra explained in a press release,

Sempra Energy has become the sixth US company, and fourth in the US Gulf, with formal intentions to export US natural gas as LNG (liquefied natural gas), having filed a request with US regulators...The California-based company asked the US Department of Energy (DOE) for consent to send up to 1.7 billion cubic feet (bcf)/day (0.05 million cubic metres/day) to free-trade-friendly countries for 20 years. Sempra said the [this] was the first in a two-part process, with a request to export to non-free-trade nations to follow.

This comes on the heels of the huge announcement by Cheniere Energy, Inc. and BG Group, in which the two corporations agreed to work together to export natural gas from the Sabine Pass LNG Export Terminal located on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana to the global market. DeSmogBlog covered that deal in depth in an article titled, "Massive Natural Gas Export Deal Inked by BG Group, So Much for Industry's 'Domestic Energy' Claims."

Sempra's prospective LNG export facility is located on the Calcasieu Channel, 18 miles from the Gulf of Mexico in Hackberry, La, which is approximately 148 miles east of Houston, Texas, and 230 miles west of New Orleans, Louisiana. It appears much of the gas will be shipped off to Europe, as in August 2005, Sempra LNG signed an agreement with Eni, an Italian oil and gas conglomerate, to supply 40 percent of their LNG export capacity to Eni. 

Fracking for unconventional gas for "energy independence" and "national security" purposes? Once again, the facts reveal the contrary.

Read more: Fracking Leads To Export Bonanza: Another Unconventional Gas Export Terminal Submitted to US DOE by Sempra
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