Mmarrkk

Energy Secretary Chu Wimps Out Again

Jack: please tell me who "Big Oil" is and then tell me how much Natural Gas each member of this so-called "Big Oil" society produces. I think you know that some of the largest Natural Gas producers in the U.S. are also members of your "Big Oil" gang. Exxon is spending large amounts of their money on natural gas...look up in the Rockies, look in the Horn River Basin in Canada, look in Pennsylvania. look in many other states. BP and COP are in the top 5 U.S. natural gas producers. Explain why these "Big Oil" bad guys don't support natural gas?


On Aug 28 10:50 AM john s. gordon wrote:

> the federal govt gas been controlled by big oil since 1981. what
> do you expect?

Making Natural Gas Transportation a Reality

WisdomvsInfo and Fitz: One other BIG issue for Asia and CNG vehicles: Asia imports a lot of their natural gas from the Mid East and Australia via LNG. LNG is priced at the oil market in those countries. Makes for a) higher prices and b) higher volatility!

The U.S. is blessed to have huge (huge with capital TCF's) NG resource in the ground. Most of the countries with populations in Asia do not. They also have even less infrastructure than the U.S. for nat gas. India still uses a large amount of LPG in tanks for their home use. Those nice little bottles of gas you use to power your gas grill...just a little bit larger and painted red! CNG will work there but will be more expensive than here.

I did hear yesterday that in those massive 0.5% budget cuts announced, oil and gas research was some of what was being cut! Thanks Dr. Chu! Way to stick up for us! Also nuclear power research was cut. Windmills and bio's are well funded though! Oh yeah, defense programs were cut, but that's not a surprise!

Good job Fitz! Keep it up! When my truck wears out I'll be looking for the NG powered truck. Probably won't be a Chevy again, as it looks like they'll either be gone or run by Obamma+UAW. That ought to be a jewel of a truck with those folks in charge! Hopefully Hyundai will make a truck here in the US, preferrably at a non-union plant. I'm not a big fan of the Toyota truck just yet!

On a lighter note, Artful Dodger, are you an english professor by any chance?

A Natural Gas Centric Strategic Long-Term Comprehensive Energy Policy

Fitz: re "subsidies" to oil companies. You listed "low royalties" as a subsidy. I disagree with this completely but here's but a piece of my rationale: COP and BP are the #2 and #3 NATURAL GAS producers in the U.S. Their number one gas producing field is the San Juan Basin, and a very large percentage of that natural gas comes from Federal Lands with those "subsidized" low royalties!! Those royalties were agreed to many years ago and are part of a contract. The contract was negotiated and were based on the going market rates. Same for offshore. Now, the "market" for royalties has gone up over the years, but do you contend that we need to dissolve the contracts that were previously signed? I don't like the fact that a government can go in and rip up contracts they signed. That puts contract law back many years and it is something that Obama seems to like (see his mortgage bailout plan).

Also, many of the so-called "subsidies" are actually targeted breaks for the most expensive incremental production, like deepwater drilling. Without these subsidies, none of that U.S. oil will get pumped out of the ground. So, eliminate these subsidies and you will eliminate some of our domestic production.

Still waiting on my NGV and the infrastructure to keep it filled. I believe its coming...just darned slowly!

H.R. 1835: Legislation for Natural Gas Transportation

Thanks Fitz. I'll look over these and see if there is a handy place to fill up around here. There used to be a BP place that had it but I'm not sure. Many of the fleet trucks have CNG stickers so I'm assuming there is something. Of course, the "at home" version would work too as I usually don't drive long distances for my commute and I'm home at least 8 hours each night.

Why don't CEO's promote NG? You got me. Guess they are busy counting their gazillions!

H.R. 1835: Legislation for Natural Gas Transportation

Fitz: the reserves and production numbers I posted were U.S. only, and didn't include foreign sources. So the percentages didn't include any impact of XOM's foreign sources.

I'll do more digging on the work you mentioned. But you know, the 70's were a long time ago...I had hair back then!! I've been around for over 30 years and I've seen nothing but positives from all of the majors on natural gas, from technology development to buying acreage. Now, I'll admit that the majors have lagged the Large Independents on getting moving on shales, etc. but COP and BP were early movers in the San Juan basin, Exxon was an early mover in the Rockies and several of them are big in South Louisiana/South Texas in gas fields. Deep gas too.

The revenue split by product is a bit more difficult to pull up so I'll have to plow through those.

I work across the entire U.S., but with very little current exposure in the East. Just an area our company hasn't yet decided if its worth dealing with all the junk the locals are throwing at developers. Love E Texas/N. Louisiana/Arkansas. The Fayetteville is one of my favorites and I think SWN has done a heck of a job locking up a company making position. But if a company hasn't got an effective hedging position, not much of this makes sense right now. CHK is still selling a lot of their gas at $8+ due to their hedges, so their numbers will look better. Others have done the same, except for Big Oil/Gas. Most of them like to stay unhedged and take the market price risk. In rising times, that's good. In falling times, that's not so good!!

Can I get a natural gas driven pick up truck?? or a Suburban? You just look silly pulling up at the C&W dance hall in a Prius!

H.R. 1835: Legislation for Natural Gas Transportation

Fitz: I was able to get a few data points.

U.S. Production on a BOE basis
% Nat Gas, % Oil/Liquids
Shell 39%, 61%
Exxon 42%, 58%
COP 49%, 51%
BP 42%, 58%
Chevron 37%, 63%

U.S. Proven Reserves on a BOE basis
% Nat Gas, % Oil/Liquids
Shell 40%, 60%
Exxon 50%, 50%
COP 49%, 51%
BP 45%, 55%
Chevron 26%, 74%

Will take me more time to get US revenues by product. But this shows that "Big Oil" is very concerned with natural gas production as it is roughly 40% to 50% of their production and reserves. So I doubt they would be suppressing its production!

H.R. 1835: Legislation for Natural Gas Transportation

Fitz: I believe you meant that XOM has 28,000 acres in the shale play, not 28,000,000 acres.

Not sure I can line up with you about XOM and other big bad "Big Oil" trying to destroy domestic natural gas. Do you know who 2 of the top 3 natural gas producers in the US are? COP and BP, two of the "Big Oil" club. Also, XOM produces a lot of gas in the US and its a critical piece of their overall portfolio. But maybe I'm missing something; can you point me in the direction of things that XOM or other "Big Oil" companies have done to harm domestic NG? I'd like to do some checking.

What I do know is that all of the Big Oil companies have huge portions of their reserves in natural gas and a large portion of their domestic reserves and revenues come from natural gas. It will take me a while to pull the numbers together but I'll try and post them later. But generally its more than 30% and for some companies, it approaches 50%.

There is NO SUCH THING as a "Big Oil" company. They are all "Big Oil & GAS" companies. By the way, for full disclosure, I work for one of those "Big Oil and Gas" companies and have done so for over 30 years. Right now, I'm focused on North America and spend 80-90% of my time working on natural gas prospects.

Great news about the bill pending in congress. Hope it gets to the floor for a vote!

The Pickens Plan Changes Its Strategy

Thanks for the education on smale scale LNG. Looked at a few of the links. I'm guessing the LNG idea would be feasible for larger transport needs but on an individual car basis, might be a bit costly. But I don't know. My experience is working with 500 MMCF/day plants that cost $6 billion, not things on this scale.

I think some of the issues expressed really are an issue of short vs long term goals and how we transition from one to the other. Getting rid of coal fired plants isn't going to happen in the next 5-10 years. Sorry, it just can't. The U.S. economy won't be able to handle it and that was true before this little depression/big recession hit us. Long term, yes we can move from coal if we are willing to accept the additional costs. Maybe we can ship our coal to other countries?? Or convert it to some other fuel that is more acceptable to our climate change/global warming/global freezing friends. Trying to be all inclusive as over the last 30 years I've seen concerns over too cold and too hot. Stop trying to keep up. Its going to be too something and we are to blame I guess.

Jack: from a security standpoint I don't have the same concern. One can do the same amount of damage with some of the rogue nuke material floating around the world. Just put the regas terminals in remote areas. LNG terminals are built all over the world. We in the U.S. are starting to lag the rest of the world when it comes to this source/supply. The Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Australians, Qatari's, Spanish, Italians, Dutch, Germans, etc. all seem to have incoroporated LNG into their energy supply chains. Why not us?

The Pickens Plan Changes Its Strategy

Please be careful with the use of LNG when discussing transportation fuels. The more generally accepted use of the term "LNG" is liquified natural gas which is what is used to transport natural gas around the world. It involves extreme temperatures/pressures and would not be a viable alternative for any transportation need.

Are you trying to say "LPG"? Liquified Propane Gas? Like we use for our B-B-Q pits??