12-17-2017, 08:48 AM
It’s not exactly the Pike’s Peak gold rush of 160 years but with crude prices on the rise, explorers are returning to the oil-rich rock of Colorado as a way to expand beyond the shale plays of Texas and New Mexico. During the three-year crude-market collapse, as prices fell below $27/bbl, the Denver-Julesburg basin northeast of Denver was largely abandoned as explorers tightened down drilling budgets. Now, with prices headed toward $60 on the heels of OPEC-led production cuts, the region is spurring renewed interest.
Drillers flock to Rockies as sleepiest corner of shale awakens
The massive explosion that shut down natural gas flows for half a day in Austria this week was caused by a loose cap seal on a newly-installed filtering unit, according to investigations by the operator of the Baumgarten hub. The cap was on an installation that removes solid or fluid parts from the gas stream. The incident triggered a chain of events that culminated in a blast that halted flows through the facility about 9 a.m. on Dec. 12, according to a statement from the pipeline’s owner, OMV AG’s Gas Connect Austria GmbH. Gazprom PJSC, the hub’s biggest user, suggested safety breaches were involved, a claim denied by Gas Connect.
Loose cap caused blast in Austria that rattled energy market
Oil’s slump is over and industry domination beckons, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In 2018, companies from Royal Dutch Shell Plc to ExxonMobil Corp. will find themselves with a surplus of cash to fund dividends, ruling the world of deepwater mega-projects and even coming out ahead in tax negotiations with oil-reliant governments around the globe, according to Michele Della Vigna, Goldman’s head of energy-industry research.
Goldman says oil giants poised for best year in decades
Turns out, America’s decade-long shale boom might just end up being a little too good to be true. There’s no denying that fracking has turned the U.S. into a force in the global oil and gas markets, which has more than a few people abuzz about the prospect of energy independence. But now, researchers at MIT have uncovered one potentially game-changing detail: a flaw in the Energy Department’s official forecast, which may vastly overstate oil and gas production in the years to come. The culprit, they say, lies in the Energy Information Administration’s premise that better technology has been behind nearly all the recent output gains, and will continue to boost production for the foreseeable future. That’s not quite right. Instead, the research suggests increases have been largely due to something more mundane: low energy prices, which led drillers to focus on sweet spots where oil and gas are easiest to extract..
MIT Study Suggests U.S. Vastly Overstates Oil Output Forecasts - Bloomberg