Fossil fuels

IRVING, Texas --

Exxonmobil's Chairman Rex W. Tillerson commented:

“Despite ongoing global economic weakness and reduced demand for products, we continued our robust investment program and delivered strong results.

“Our third quarter earnings, excluding special items, were $4.7 billion. While continuing to be impacted by lower commodity prices and weak product margins, we maintained our focus on operational excellence and invested $19 billion through the first three quarters of the year to develop new energy supplies.

“Oil-equivalent production increased by 3% over the third quarter of 2008 with contributions from major start-ups of world-class assets including Qatargas 2, Train 5 and Ras Laffan 3, Train 6 in Qatar.    » read more »

October 15, 2009 -- World production of fossil fuels-oil, coal, and natural gas-increased 2.9 percent in 2008 to reach 27.4 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) per day, the highest ever recorded. In the first half of the 2008, producers strained to meet global demand, but by year's end the global recession left the market swamped by excess supply, causing oil prices to fall to from $144 per barrel in July to $34 per barrel in December.

According to the latest Vital Signs Update on fossil fuel production:

* Continuing a decade-long trend, most of the growth in fossil fuel production was in the Asia-Pacific region, where production grew 6.3 percent.    » read more »

Tracking Volatile Energy Prices

Energy prices are volatile. They change as market participants adjust their expectations to new information from physical energy markets and markets for energy-related financial derivatives. Futures and options markets are a valuable source of information regarding these changing expectations.    » read more »

Winter Fuels: How Inventories are Stacking Up

September 30, 2009 -- One of the critical factors energy analysts focus on each fall, ahead of the rise in demand for heating fuels, is the pre-winter build-up of fuel inventories. This year, inventories are unusually high for all winter fuels, including distillates (which includes heating oil), natural gas, propane, and coal used for electricity generation.

Current high inventories stem primarily from the recession. As the economic downturn deepened throughout 2008 and 2009, energy demand fell, but supply was relatively slow to respond. As a result, stocks of many fuels were pushed well above typical historical levels.    » read more »

September 16, 2009 -- There's a good chance you've been hearing more about biodiesel lately. This article, the first of several short discussions about biodiesel that will appear in the next few months, lays out some of the basic terminology and qualities associated with this fuel. It also begins to illustrate important factors that vary among biodiesel fuels and fuel blends with petroleum diesel - variations that require fuel suppliers to make adjustments in order to ensure that these fuels perform well.    » read more »

June 8, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, applauded an announcement today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that action has been taken – under the directive of President Obama – to expedite the release of new money to promote the production and use of biofuels. These funds were mandated in the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, the farm bill, under Harkin’s leadership.    » read more »

June 3, 2009 -- Every year, typically in the first quarter, EIA releases its Annual Energy Outlook, which provides projections and analyses of U.S. energy supply, demand, and prices through the next 20 to 25 years. The projections are based on results from the EIA’s National Energy Modeling System and include a reference case, plus numerous additional cases examining factors impacting energy markets, and complete documentation.

The reference case is widely used by policy analysts, decision makers, and other energy analysts as a starting point for examining proposed energy and environmental legislation.    » read more »

June 2, 2009 -- Washington, D.C.-Innovations in food production and land use that are ready to be scaled-up today could reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to roughly 25 percent of global fossil fuel emissions and present the best opportunity to remove greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute and Ecoagriculture Partners.

As the price of carbon rises with new caps on emissions and expanding markets for carbon offsets, the contribution of land-based, or "terrestrial," carbon to climate change mitigation efforts could increase even further.    » read more »

June 2, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today was pleased to express her appreciation to the individuals, businesses, and organizations that helped start the Point Thomson oil and gas development project. Located on the North Slope of Alaska, Point Thomson is 60 miles east of Prudhoe Bay.    » read more »

Renewable Fuels Changes to EIA's Petroleum Surveys

May 28, 2009 -- EIA has recently implemented expanded data collection efforts to better capture ethanol, biodiesel, and other renewable liquid fuel volumes, marking an important milestone in a multi-year effort to address the growing role of renewable fuels. Congress enacted a mandate for the increased use of renewable motor fuels in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That same law also authorized EIA to collect better data on renewable fuels.

The need for better renewable fuels data became even more important when the mandate for renewable fuel use was significantly expanded by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which sets a target of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel use by 2022.    » read more »

May 28, 2009 -- BATON ROUGE – Today, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal joined officials from Denbury Resources Inc, an independent oil and gas company, to provide an update on Denbury’s Green Pipeline project. Denbury is building a "Green Pipeline" from Donaldsonville, Louisiana to a location in Texas, which will be one of the first pipelines designed to transport man-made CO2 injecting it into oil reservoirs to recover additional crude oil that would not otherwise be produced.

The Green Pipeline project will have a total capital investment of $750 million and is expected to create up to 800 jobs during construction.    » read more »

ST. LOUIS, May 27 -- Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) today became a founding member of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Carbon Capture Center. The center is a public-private partnership to advance the next generation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. The effort will be based at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) south of Birmingham, Ala., the nation's premier carbon research and development laboratory. Peabody has been a funding partner of the PSDF since 1997.    » read more »

SAN RAMON, Calif., May 27, 2009 - Record performance in 2008 helped enable Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) to reward its investors, fund a robust capital program and position the company to capitalize on the increase in demand for energy that will come with the global economic recovery, attendees were told today at the company's 2009 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.    » read more »

ExxonMobil to invest between $25 and $30 billion annually over the next 5 years

May 27, 2009 -- DALLAS -- Exxon Mobil Corporation’s (NYSE:XOM) financial strength and industry-leading performance continues to provide shareholders with superior value while delivering energy to fuel economic growth and protecting the environment, the corporation said today at its Annual Meeting of Shareholders.

“Despite the volatile economic times, ExxonMobil remains committed to investing in integrated solutions to the energy challenge,” said Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer.    » read more »

Springtime Transitions

May is a time of transition as days get warmer, swimming pools open, and new graduates get ready to head out into the world. It is also a time of transition for U.S. fuel markets, as gasoline suppliers prepare for summer driving. This year, May has already brought back the traditional—but lapsed—spring transition in which the average price of regular gasoline in the United States rises above the price of diesel fuel.

U.S. Retail Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Prices    » read more »