Print Story: Dem candidate promotes energy in bid for Utah gov - Yahoo! News

Dem candidate promotes energy in bid for Utah gov

SALT LAKE CITY – Democrat Peter Corroon launched his gubernatorial bid Tuesday by saying Utah should become energy independent within 10 years by investing in renewable energy.

"While our federal government talks about it, Utah can achieve it." the mayor of Salt Lake County said in a speech officially announcing his candidacy. "We can and should become self-sustaining like the pioneers before us."

Utah has an abundance of energy resources — including coal, natural gas and wind energy — to meet the goal, he said.

Department of Energy statistics show Utah already produces more energy than it consumes but not in every category.

For instance, the state produces about 19.5 million barrels of petroleum a year while consuming 55.7 million barrels.

"That's a pretty big gap," said Rayola Dougher, senior economic analyst for the American Petroleum Institute. "It's not realistic or realizable for Utah" to meet its own petroleum needs.

However, she said states should look to their resources to keep more jobs and money at home.

Corroon's push for greater investment in renewable resources came as the state experienced its third straight day of having the worst air quality in the nation, making it unhealthy for elderly people and children with breathing problems to be outside.

Much of that pollution is the result of automobile emissions.

In an interview following his speech from the steps of Salt Lake Community College, Corroon said he doesn't want to restrict the availability of any resources.

"It's about expanding natural gas stations in Utah. ... It's about using solar panels on buildings so buildings can create their own energy," Corroon said. "It means that in Utah, we can supply enough of those energy resources to take care of our own demand."

Corroon said he wants state government to support job creation in the energy sector. He also promised a greater investment in education to help drive economic and energy development.

Corroon is challenging Republican Gov. Gary Herbert in a special election to complete the term of Jon Huntsman.

Huntsman resigned in August to become U.S. ambassador to China, handing over the reins to Herbert, who had served as lieutenant governor since 2005.

Democrats believe Corroon is their best chance to win a gubernatorial election since Scott Matheson did so in 1980.

Corroon has maintained high approval in the state's most populous county by developing a reputation as a fiscal conservative. He won a second term in 2008 with 66 percent of the vote but isn't well known outside the county.

Both candidates believe promoting energy and economic development along with improving education could lead to victory at the polls. Herbert highlighted those themes during his inauguration speech.

Neither Herbert or Corroon was expected to face any challengers within their own parties.

MITEI | Natural gas to become number-one energy source for this century, says oil and gas expert

Natural gas to become number-one energy source for this century, says oil and gas expert

A broad-brush picture of the global supply of natural gas shows that there’s plenty of fuel, so much so that gas may soon be the dominant fuel for producing electricity, according to Leonardo Maugeri, senior executive vice president of Eni S.p.A, a leading energy company and a founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI).

“Gas is the easiest option” for answering increasing concerns about fuel availability, price, distribution, and greenhouse warming, Maugeri told his audience at a MITEI-sponsored seminar. Maugeri is a member of the MITEI external advisory board, and his topic at the December 14 event was “All That Gas…”

Because of its competitive price, availability, and clean-burning qualities, he predicted, “natural gas is set to become the number-one energy source over the course of this century.”

The advent of plentiful natural gas is a recent and sudden development, he explained, driven in part by a major technological advance: the ability to fracture “tight” shale deposits to let trapped gas be affordably extracted. That has substantially changed the energy future here in the United States, and probably also abroad.

In this nation alone, Maugeri added, the proven supply of gas is now so huge there’s enough to last more than a century at present usage rates, with probably much more yet to be found both here and abroad.

He did warn, however, there are some environmental concerns. For example, it takes significant amounts of water—pumped at high pressure into the underground shales—to create the factures that liberate trapped gas. Some of that water may surface as a pollutant, causing its own set of environmental problems. He noted, however, that water issues for natural gas are no greater than and sometime less than for the alternatives.

“NIMBY (not in my backyard) is always around the corner” when it comes to major developments that are likely to involve pollutants, Maugeri said.

He also noted that the availability of so much gas has disrupted today’s global energy scenario, altering America’s plans to import liquefied natural gas from the Middle East and Africa. It is far cheaper to transport gas via pipelines from nearby domestic sources compared to using LNG tankers to bring it in from half a world away. And the price of natural gas is now high enough to spur domestic exploration and development.

Also, because burning natural gas is far less polluting than coal and oil for running power plants, it should become the dominant fuel as stronger emissions controls are imposed on the electric power industry. In terms of greenhouse emissions, natural gas is a far better choice than coal and oil, although less favorable than nuclear, which in use emits no heat-trapping gases. However, the construction of new nuclear power plants is an expensive and slow process burdened with regulatory hurdles and public fears, so it will be years before nuclear can actually compete with gas.

Historically, gas has been a poor cousin of the energy industry, a bothersome by-product of oil production. “It has been a very tiring and long journey” from natural gas being considered a curse to becoming a promising fuel for the future, he said.

Natural gas has traditionally been a nuisance, getting in the way of oil production, generally being burned off (flared), vented directly into the air, or re-injected into the ground to maintain oil well pressure. That is still happening, especially in the Middle East’s oil fields, although venting is now less common. Maugeri said gas released directly into the air is a far more potent greenhouse agent than the carbon dioxide that comes from flaring natural gas, although direct methane releases have a much shorter life span in the atmosphere than does carbon dioxide.

Overseas, the technologies required to fracture tight gas deposits are less well developed, and exploratory testing has only recently begun, especially in Northern Europe. Maugeri said that Europe’s major gas supply source, Russia, “has many, many [unconventional gas] options and it’s not even pursuing them right now.”

Asked about chances that arctic regions will be explored and developed for energy supplies, he replied: “I think that is very far away,” because the costs of development in the very cold regions are far higher than other energy sources.

—Robert Cooke, MITEI correspondent

Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid Concept - LA Auto Show - Jalopnik

Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid Concept

Toyota has released images of the Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid Concept, or the T. Boone Pickens cruiser as we like to call it. Already known for their gas-electric hybrids, this concept combines the Hybrid Synergy Drive system with a natural gas-fueled engine. Toyota claims the Hybrid should travel more than 250 miles per fill-up, which could theoretically occur at any of the approximately 1,000 CNG refueling stations in the US. As this is currently just a concept, they've added an aggressive body kit with a covered grille which certainly distinguishes it from the regular Camry Hybrid. Natural gas has been part of the alternative fuel discussion because of its domestic production capacity and relatively stable price. Details about the CNG Hybrid Camry from Toyota below.

Toyota CNG Camry Hybrid


A Camry Hybrid Fueled by CNG

As you very likely know, we’re big believers in the concept of hybrid vehicles. We build gas-electric hybrids in several styles; one of them, our Prius, is the most fuel-efficient vehicle in America.

But we also believe that there’s more than one way to solve a problem. One problem we’d like to solve involves the unpredictable nature of gas prices.

Gas prices are relatively low now, but they were incredibly high last summer, and could well revert to those high levels. But the price of compressed natural gas (CNG) remains fairly stable, and there’s a strong, reliable domestic supply of CNG. It just happens to be one of many alternative fuel applications being explored in Toyota’s broad sustainable mobility research and development strategy.

That’s why we built a special concept CNG Camry Hybrid that we’ll display at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday.

To convert a stock Camry Hybrid to a CNG vehicle, the gasoline fuel system was replaced with a CNG system that includes a pair of CNG tanks installed in the spare-tire well of the vehicle’s trunk. Because it now lacks a spare tire, the CNG Camry Hybrid rolls on runflat tires.

And roll it does. With the proposed CNG equivalent of 8 gallons of gasoline in its tanks, the estimated range of the CNG Camry Hybrid is more than 250 miles. Link that efficiency to the price of CNG and you can see why we’re interested in this – as this is written, CNG is about a dime cheaper, per gallon, than the national average price of regular-grade 87-octane gasoline.

But price and efficiency are only the tip of the iceberg of CNG benefits. Natural gas also produces lower particulate emissions and lower levels of nitrous oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and non-methane organic gasses (NMOG) when compared with gasoline. And because CNG is so clean, potential wear and tear on an engine fueled by it is greatly reduced.

Those are the considerable upsides to CNG. There also are downsides. An important one is that there are fewer than 1,000 CNG refueling stations in the U.S., with fewer than half of them open to the public. Also, natural gas is less dense than gasoline. So a CNG engine will have approximately 10% less power than an equivalent gasoline engine. Also, a CNG vehicle’s fuel tank must be cylindrical, so it is more difficult to package than a gasoline tank, which can be shaped to conform to any available space.

We want to underscore the fact that the CNG Camry Hybrid is just a concept vehicle. This concept vehicle is a statement that we intend to include CNG in our diverse portfolio of future alternative-fuel R&D. Our purpose in building it as a concept is to demonstrate the efficiency and adaptability of Hybrid Synergy Drive, and to demonstrate that we continue to work with a variety of powertrain concepts to ensure that we have products that meet the current and future needs of our customers on a global basis. We think you’ll find the CNG Camry Hybrid interesting. So if you’re visiting the LA show, feel free to drop by and take a look.

Print Story: Gas 'gold rush' ignites in rural New York - Yahoo! News

Gas 'gold rush' ignites in rural New York

CALLICOON, New York (AFP) – After a lifetime struggling to make money from the land, New York farmer Bill Graby has discovered he's sitting on treasure -- possibly the biggest natural gas deposit in America.

"It's like winning the lottery," says the 6.6-foot (two-meter) dairy farmer from the picturesque town of Callicoon in the Catskills hills.

The deposit, called the Marcellus shale, stretches all the way from New York to Tennessee, containing 168 to 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation.

That dwarfs the previous big daddy, the Barnett shale in Texas, and by industry estimates could meet all US gas needs for years.

"The size is potentially tremendous for the nation as a whole," John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, told a Pennsylvania College of Technology conference last month.

Environmentalists fear intense drilling could bring ecological disaster to the same pristine Catskills that also contain New York City's entire drinking water supply.

Many others, though, foresee an economic miracle that could turn an impoverished section of New York into "a Little Texas," as 56-year-old Graby puts it.

These are early days. Extraction is underway in Pennsylvania, but New York's authorities are still debating regulatory approval, with a decision expected in 2010.

Yet already energy companies are swarming across the countryside, offering to make millionaires of cash-strapped farmers like Graby in exchange for drilling rights on their land.

The economics are self-evident. There's not only gas, but a huge market nearby in New York and New Jersey, and a transport network that includes a big new pipeline opened a year ago to bring gas from Canada.

In a region blighted by bankrupt farms and a struggling tourist industry, the excitement is palpable.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity that can change this region," Graby said at Callicoon's old-fashioned cafe/petrol station by the snow-lined Delaware River.

Geologists long knew about the Marcellus Shale, which formed about 385 million years ago and extends more than 7,000 feet (2,133 meters) underground, mostly under New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

But development was unprofitable until recent improvements in horizontal, rather than ordinary vertical drills, and in an extraction process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

"Nobody cared much about shales. They were all around us, but then the price of gas rose and there were some techniques that were quite useful... that made shales much more attractive," said Gary Lash, a geosciences professor at SUNY Fredonia university and an expert on the Marcellus.

In southern New York, the result is what the state's Department of Environmental Conservation likens to a "modern-day gold rush."

Graby and former teacher Noel van Swol have formed a landowners' association to bargain collectively with the gas companies.

A couple years ago, drilling rights were being sold to fast-talking company reps, or landmen, for a pittance. Now, they trade for small fortunes: about 5,000 dollars an acre for a five-year drilling lease and a whopping 20 percent of royalties on gas extracted, van Swol said.

That means a farmer leasing 200 acres would collect a million dollars upfront -- and the same again for an extension -- plus potentially astronomical royalties.

"It's the big play. This changes lives," says van Swol, sporting a solid gold ring decorated with an American Indian chief that he says brings him gambler's luck. "This is game changing."

Natural gas is a relatively clean-burning fuel, but the extraction process needed in the Marcellus is not pretty

Fracking involves shooting enormous quantities of water, mixed with chemicals and sand, at extreme pressure into the subterranean rock, smashing shale and forcing out gas. The process is often likened to an earthquake.

Ramsay Adams, executive director at Catskill Mountainkeeper environmental group, says the biggest worry is what happens next, when the poisonous mix is locked underground in the same hills as New York's drinking water aquifers.

"Thirty percent of these millions of millions of gallons of water are left down there," Adams said.

"Ultimately it will migrate up and go downstream. You could find the contamination downstream. No one knows. The gas companies don't know."

The gas industry says fracking is safe because gas wells are sealed from the water table, which is closer to the Earth's surface.

"Environmental extremists have poisoned the natural gas debate by implying that drilling operators will pollute our water and air," said Brad Gill, director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York. "They have used bad science and twisted facts to oppose natural gas exploration."

New York's environmental body also says that "no known instances of groundwater contamination have occurred from previous horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing projects" during previous projects in the state.

But Adams and other environmentalists are lobbying for swaths of countryside to be off-limits, especially anywhere near to what Adams considers New York's true treasure -- water.

"They think they have found the Saudi Arabia of natural gas," Adams said, "but we are the Saudi Arabia of fresh water."

Many opposing the gas rush are second home owners from New York aghast at the idea of drilling rigs scarring the landscape.

Yet holdouts also include the Diehl family, which has been farming the same river valley outside Callicoon for six generations.

"It's all about the water. It's what we drink, it's what our animals drink. And once the aquifers are breached, you can't fix them," Alice Diehl, 58, said in the cozy kitchen of her hilltop house.

To compensate for a collapse in milk prices, the Diehls are working overtime on everything from making maple syrup and honey to selling Christmas trees.

They say nothing can persuade them to risk contaminating their beloved land, where Diehl ancestors lie buried among a copse of trees in a broad field.

"Money isn't everything," said Alice's husband Peter, a wiry, bearded man of 65. He looked out over the snow-covered valley. "They can pay you a lot, but if they ruin the land, you have nothing."

Alice Diehl smiled as she recalled a gas company landman coming to the house last summer and promising to make them "multi-millionaires."

"Pete just ran him off," she said.

As New York's authorities get closer to ruling, tensions are running high.

Van Swol compares environmentalists to Soviet dictators and Adams acknowledges that people like van Swol "probably see me as the devil. I'm standing between them and that money."

Peter Diehl even finds himself arguing with his own brothers, who farm other parts of the family's valley. All their signatures would be needed to deal with a gas company.

"It makes things a little tense at Christmas," as Alice Diehl said.

In the Callicoon cafe, the air was full of expectation.

"I want to see those drilling rigs coming into town!" exclaimed one local as he greeted van Swol and Graby.

"You and me both," van Swol answered.

Later, van Swol said: "When those permits get approved here, all hell's going to break loose."

Print Story: Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight - Yahoo! News

Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight

An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet.

It's natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It's now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation's homes, it's becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks.

Natural gas' abundance and low price come as governments around the world debate how to curtail carbon dioxide and other pollution that contribute to global warming. The likely outcome is a tax on companies that spew excessive greenhouse gases. Utilities and other companies see natural gas as a way to lower emissions — and their costs. Yet politicians aren't stumping for it.

In June, President Barack Obama lumped natural gas with oil and coal as energy sources the nation must move away from. He touts alternative sources — solar, wind and biofuels derived from corn and other plants. In Congress, the energy debate has focused on finding cleaner coal and saving thousands of mining jobs from West Virginia to Wyoming.

Utilities in the U.S. aren't waiting for Washington to jump on the gas bandwagon. Looming climate legislation has altered the calculus that they use to determine the cheapest way to deliver power. Coal may still be cheaper, but natural gas emits half as much carbon when burned to generate the same amount of electricity.

Today, about 27 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions come from coal-fired power plants, which generate 44 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. Just under 25 percent of power comes from burning natural gas, more than double its share a decade ago but still with room to grow.

But the fuel has to be plentiful and its price stable — and that has not always been the case with natural gas. In the 1990s, factories that wanted to burn gas instead of coal had to install equipment that did both because the gas supply was uncertain and wild price swings were common. In some states, because of feared shortages, homebuilders were told new gas hookups were banned.

It's a different story today. Energy experts believe that the huge volume of supply now will ease price swings and supply worries.

Gas now trades on futures markets for about $5.50 per 1,000 cubic feet. While that's up from a recent low of $2.41 in September as the recession reduced demand and storage caverns filled to overflowing, it's less than half what it was in the summer of 2008 when oil prices surged close to $150 a barrel.

Oil and gas prices trends have since diverged, due to the recession and the growing realization of just how much gas has been discovered in the last three years. That's thanks to the introduction of horizontal drilling technology that has unlocked stunning amounts of gas in what were before off-limits shale formations. Estimates of total gas reserves have jumped 58 percent from 2004 to 2008, giving the U.S. a 90-year supply at the current usage rate of about 23 trillion cubic feet per year.

The only question is whether enough gas can be delivered at affordable enough prices for these trends to accelerate.

The world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp., gave its answer last Monday when it announced a $30 billion deal to acquire XTO Energy Inc. The move will make it the country's No. 1 producer of natural gas.

Exxon expects to be able to dramatically boost natural gas sales to electric utilities. In fact, CEO Rex Tillerson says that's why the deal is such a smart investment.

Tillerson says he sees demand for natural gas growing 50 percent by 2030, much of it for electricity generation and running factories. Decisions being made by executives at power companies lend credence to that forecast.

Consider Progress Energy Inc., which scrapped a $2 billion plan this month to add scrubbers needed to reduce sulfur emmissions at 4 older coal-fired power plants in North Carolina. Instead, it will phase out those plants and redirect a portion of those funds toward cleaner burning gas-fired plants.

Lloyd Yates, CEO of Progess Energy Carolina, says planners were 99 percent certain that retrofitting plants made sense when they began a review late last year. But then gas prices began falling and the recession prompted gas-turbine makers to slash prices just as global warming pressures intesified.

"Everyone saw it pretty quickly," he says. Out went coal, in comes gas. "The environmental component of coal is where we see instability."

Nevada power company NV Energy Inc. canceled plans for a $5 billion coal-fired plant early this year. That came after its homestate senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid, made it clear he would fight to block its approval, and executives' fears mounted about the costs of meeting future environmental rules.

"It was obvious to us that Congress or the EPA or both were going to act to reduce carbon emissions," said CEO Michael Yackira, whose utility already gets two-thirds of its electricity from gas-fired units. "Without understanding the economic ramifications, it would have been foolish for us to go forward."

Even with an expected jump in demand from utilities, gas prices won't rise much beyond $6.50 per 1,000 cubic feet for years to come, says Ken Medlock, an energy fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston. That tracks an Energy Department estimate made last week.

Such forecasts are based in part on a belief that the recent spurt in gas discoveries may only be the start of a golden age for gas drillers — one that creates wealth that rivals the so-called Gusher Age of the early 20th century, when strikes in Texas created a new class of oil barons.

XTO, the company that Exxon is buying, was one of the pioneers in developing new drilling technologies that allow a single well to descend 9,000 feet and then bore horizontally through shale formations up to 1 1/2 miles away. Water, sand and chemical additives are pumped through these pipes to unlock trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that until recently had been judged unobtainable.

Even with the big increases in reserves they were logging, expansion plans by XTO and its rivals were limited by the debt they took on to finance these projects that can cost as much as $3 million apiece.

Under Exxon, which earned $45.2 billion last year, that barrier has been obliterated.

The wells still capture only about a quarter of the gas locked in the shale formations. Future improvements could double that recovery rate. Bottom line: this new source of gas supply in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, New York and other states holds out the promise of as much as 2,000 trillion cubic feet of supplies. It is estimated that the U.S. sits on 83 percent more recoverable natural gas than was thought in 1990.

"The question now is how does this change the energy discussion in the U.S. and by how much?" says Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and chairman of IHS CERA, an energy consultancy. "This is domestic energy ... it's low carbon, it's low cost and it's abundant. When you add it up, it's revolutionary."

Print Story: Exxon Mobil makes $29B bet on natural gas - Yahoo! News

Exxon Mobil makes $29B bet on natural gas

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, is making a $29 billion bet that pressure to curb climate change will mean natural gas — cleaner than coal and suddenly much easier to reach — will become a crucial source of U.S. power.

Exxon agreed to buy XTO Energy in an all-stock deal at a 25 percent premium, showing how eagerly a company that is among the most conservative in a conservative industry is jumping into the market for natural gas.

As negotiators haggled in Copenhagen over a global plan to curb carbon emissions, the deal suggested Exxon sees change coming for an energy source best known now for heating homes.

The deal announced Monday was also the largest for the U.S. energy sector in at least four years and Exxon's biggest acquisition since it bought Mobil Corp. for $75 billion in 1999.

The technology to unlock natural gas from tight rock formations has advanced so rapidly that energy experts have raised their estimates of how much fuel is available by 35 percent in just two years.

The emergence of massive supplies of natural gas in the U.S. coincides with the nation's focus on cutting emissions.

The newfound supply and looming climate legislation have been cited by utilities this year as they have shuttered old coal-fired power plants and scrapped plans to build new ones.

Climate legislation would put utilities in the crosshairs, and many are aggressively seeking new fuels like natural gas to minimize the economic hit.

"From the outside view, it does look like this move makes much more sense in a world where there's carbon policy because that ensures a growing market for natural gas," said Amy Jaffe, a fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Just this month, Progress Energy became the latest utility to announce it would close coal-fired power plants in favor of natural gas. Exxon Mobil expects global demand for gas to grow 50 percent by 2030.

"Natural gas is really well-suited to meet that growing power generation demand, both from the standpoint of its lower environmental impact, but also its capital efficiency and its flexibility," Exxon Mobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson told analysts on a conference call.

Through August, utilities used gas to generate 23 percent of the nation's electricity, up nearly three percentage points from last year. Coal's share was down about 13 percent.

XTO claims about 45 trillion cubic feet of gas, much of it trapped in tight shale formations. Technology developed over the past decade has made it much cheaper to pull natural gas from those formations.

Already on Monday, energy experts were laying odds as to which natural gas companies would be sold next, and which major oil companies might follow Exxon's lead by snapping them up.

"Exxon is the group leader, and it sets the trend. I would expect more acquisitions in the next three to six months," said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer.

European oil companies are already cutting deals with Chesapeake Energy, one of the biggest independent U.S. natural gas companies. Companies like Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil want more exposure to natural gas fields in the U.S. and the technology to extract gas.

Potential targets include big natural gas companies like Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy and Anadarko, Gheit said. Chesapeake Energy shares rose 6 percent in trading Monday morning and other companies saw shares rise as well.

Exxon is moving beyond the U.S. to ramp up natural gas production and last week gave the go-ahead for a $15 billion natural gas project in Papua New Guinea, a nation just north of Australia. The deal would position Exxon to provide energy to a fuel-hungry China.

Once the XTO deal closes, Exxon said it will establish a new organization to manage global development and production of so-called unconventional resources.

XTO's chairman and founder, Bob Simpson, said his company has the capability of developing the unconventional resources that have given North America more than 100 years' worth of natural gas supplies.

The deal was valued at about $31 billion based on Exxon's closing stock price Friday. Exxon shares fell nearly 5 percent on Monday, placing the deal's value closer to $29 billion.

Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, will issue about 0.7 shares of common stock for each common share of XTO, a 25 percent premium to XTO stockholders. Exxon will also assume $10 billion in XTO debt.

The deal values XTO's shares at $51.69, based on the closing price Friday. XTO shares rose $6.11, or 15 percent, to $47.60 in trading Monday. Exxon shares fell $3.41 to $69.42.

Simpson is one of the highest paid executives in the United States. His compensation last year was valued at $53.5 million. He retired as CEO of XTO, based in Fort Worth, Dallas, in 2008.

Print Story: Weak demand puts natural gas prices at 52-week low - Yahoo! News

Weak demand puts natural gas prices at 52-week low

By CHRIS KAHN, AP Energy Writer Chris Kahn, Ap Energy Writer 5 mins ago

NEW YORK – Natural gas prices have slumped well below what they were last year, and that trend will likely continue into 2010.

The New York Mercantile Exchange contract for January delivery at one point dropped to a new 52-week low of $4.432 per 1,000 cubic feet on Thursday.

The government then reported that the amount of natural gas in storage rose again, surprising most energy experts. The country has never had this much natural gas in storage.

At this time of year, natural gas is almost always being drawn from the ground as people turn on the heat in their homes.

That's not happening this year because the winter has been so mild. Instead, more gas was placed into storage last week, the first time that has happened this late in the year since at least 2001.

The salt caverns and other places where the U.S. stores natural gas are near or at capacity because major industrial power users have been shuttering plants or slowing production.

For consumers, that likely means an extended period of cheap energy, though how long that will go on is not clear. But heating bills will be cheaper in most places and power companies that use natural gas also will feel less pressure to raise electricity rates.

Oil prices rose Thursday along with a weeklong rally on Wall Street and promising jobs numbers.

Benchmark crude for January delivery added 14 cents to $76.74 on Nymex. In London, Brent crude for January delivery rose 91 cents to $78.79 on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of newly laid-off workers dropped unexpectedly to the lowest level since the week of Sept. 6, 2008.

Still, the U.S. continues to sip at its petroleum reserves as millions of laid off workers have stayed out of the morning commute. Oil companies are finding it easier to store crude and deliver it later when demand has hopefully picked up.

Refiners that turn crude into gasoline and other fuels have slowed production and even shut down facilities permanently.

"Demand is pretty bad," said Peter Beutel, an analyst with Cameron Hanover. "Refiners just don't have the incentive to run right now. So people will store crude, thinking that something will happen down the road."

That weak demand is also affecting imports.

Oil imports have sunk to the lowest point since the fourth quarter of 1990, when the U.S. was preparing for the first Gulf War, according to analyst Stephen Schork.

At the pump, retail gas prices ticked higher by less than a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.633 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular unleaded is 5.3 cents cheaper than it was a month ago, but it's still 83 cents more expensive than the same time last year.

Refiners shut down much of their operations last year as energy prices tanked, and they're doing so again. Crude prices are still high enough that refiners are struggling to make a profit converting it into fuel.

In other Nymex trading in January contracts, heating oil increased 2.22 cents to $2.0586 a gallon and gasoline grew 1.45 cents to $2.0073 a gallon. Natural gas gave up 6.5 cents to $4.465 per 1,000 cubic feet.

___

Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Print Story: Natural gas plunges 12 percent this month - Yahoo! News

Natural gas plunges 12 percent this month

NEW YORK – Natural gas prices have dropped by more than 12 percent in the past month as the country continues to sip at its energy reserves and a balmy November allowed homeowners to leave the heat off.

Retail prices for natural gas, or what many consumers will pay to heat their homes, are expected to be substantially lower this year.

Spot prices for natural gas have dropped to almost half of what they were last year, though they've increased slightly this month, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The recession has kept natural gas demand low most of the year. With manufacturers shuttering factories and closing offices, the country is using less electricity and power plants are burning less natural gas.

Analyst Stephen Schork noted that with industrial production still weak, home heating would be the primary source of natural gas demand for the rest of the year.

"What does that say about the current recovery, or lack thereof?" Schork said in a research note.

The U.S. has added more natural gas into storage every week since March 27, and there is now more natural gas tucked away in the U.S. than at any point in history. Storage houses are crammed beyond their listed capacity in the West on the Gulf of Mexico, and they're nearing capacity elsewhere, according to data from the Department of Energy.

With so much in storage, natural gas futures prices have plunged on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The December contract fell from $5.045 to $4.412 per 1,000 cubic feet between Oct. 30 to Friday.

Benchmark crude also dropped Friday, giving up 81 cents to $76.65 a barrel on the last trading day for the December contract. Crude prices for January delivery lost 65 cents to $77.40.

At the pump, retail gas prices increased for the third straight day, adding less than a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.642 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular unleaded is 4.6 cents more expensive than last month and 62.2 cents more expensive than the same time last year, when prices were in free fall.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil fell 2.14 cents to $1.975 a gallon. Gasoline for December delivery added less than a penny to $1.978 a gallon.

In London, Brent crude for December delivery fell 42 cents to $77.22 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Exxon's Latest Quarter Signals A Turn to Natural Gas - BusinessWeek

Exxon's Latest Quarter Signals A Turn to Natural Gas

Posted by: Steve LeVine on October 29

Today’s message from Exxon: Think, value, embrace natural gas.

The world’s largest publicly traded oil company reported its third-quarter earnings today, and — apart from its missed profit numbers — natural gas is the most significant story.

It’s been clear for a year or more that Exxon — along with most of Big Oil — is becoming more of a natural gas-led company than a dominant oil play. That’s significant because generally oil earns a lot more money by volume than natural gas. But since accessible conventional oil is in shorter and shorter supply — at least at economical-to-produce costs — Big Oil is making a virtue of the necessity of turning to natural gas for replenishing its reserve base.

So it is that in Exxon's latest report, almost the only good news is that production was up by 3% compared with the same period in 2008. Look at the report, and you see that almost all this increase is from the company's newly producing natural gas fields in Qatar -- Qatargas 2 and Ras Laffan 3. These are liquid natural gas plays whose volumes are meant primarily for Asia.

Looking at the future, the message is the same -- a focus on gas, specifically the same two Qatari fields, plus Gorgon, an Australian joint venture LNG deal with Chevron and Shell. Such projects make Exxon "well-positioned for continued production growth," the company said in a statement.

On the plus side, Exxon argues that the natural gas fields will suffer much less of the long-term production decline that erodes the value of most oil and natural gas fields. So they will hold their value much longer without as much expensive maintenance.

In addition, natural gas emits about half the carbon as oil, so it would more easily satisfy any carbon-reduction mandates to come in legislation in Washington or a globally negotiated climate-change agreement.

Still, apart from its Canadian oil sands, Exxon's growth story for the last three or so years has been one-dimensional -- that of its enormous volumes of natural gas in Qatar and now Australia.

Big Oil usually argues against reliance on any single country or field. But times have changed. Chevron -- whose third-quarter figures come out tomorrow -- is dependent on Kazakhstan, for instance, for much of its oil volumes. BP relies to a large degree on Russia and Azerbaijan.

For Exxon, the story is natural gas.

Print Story: Climate concerns turn city's smell into cash cow - Yahoo! News

Climate concerns turn city's smell into cash cow

GREELEY, Colo. – The smell of manure hangs over Greeley as it has for half a century.

These days it's more than just a potent reminder of the region's agricultural roots and the hundreds of thousands of cattle raised on the city's outskirts.

The stench smells like an opportunity.

Investors are lining up to support a planned clean energy park that eventually will convert some of the methane gas released from the manure piles into power for a cheese factory and other businesses. JBS, which runs two of the largest feed yards and the local slaughterhouse, is testing a new technology that heats the cattle excrement and turns it into energy.

"What once used to be a waste stream that was just a byproduct ... they are now recognizing has value," said Bruce Biggi, the economic development coordinator for the city of Greeley, which received an $82,000 grant from the governor's energy office this year for the park.

The idea is to lure new business to the area with what Biggi likes to call its renewable natural gas — the endless supply of methane from cheap manure.

By reducing the amount of the potent greenhouse gas released into the air, the projects also potentially could turn cow dung into dollars, if a climate bill before Congress becomes law.

"Agriculture and agribusiness is what Greeley is all about," Biggi said. "We needed to take that strong traditional economic base and ... merge it with emerging renewable energy and technology."

Waste may be the new energy crop in these parts. But elsewhere, communities are looking anew at power sources such as the sun and wind that may exist in their own backyards.

The shift is being driven partly by legislation in Congress that would reduce the gases linked to global warming.

The legislation, experts acknowledge, would do little to stem the heating up of the planet if other countries don't take similar action.

Should President Barack Obama sign the bill, it would put a price on each ton of carbon dioxide released. That would drive up the cost of polluting fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas and lead to investment in cleaner sources of energy.

Getting into the game now — like JBS and the investors eyeing Greeley's energy park are doing — could potentially reap profits: selling credits generated by reducing greenhouse gases now into the emissions-trading market the bill would create.

That market could prove lucrative for projects that reduce methane, which is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere.

The fear in Greeley, and elsewhere, is what else the legislation would change.

In the city and surrounding Weld County, the worry is it would raise energy and fertilizer costs for farmers. They need to pump water to irrigate their crops and rely on cheap manure — the same manure that will be tapped for energy — when high natural gas prices drive up the cost of fertilizer.

For the oil and gas industry, which produces more oil in Weld County than any other in the state, a shift to cleaner sources of energy could take away good-paying jobs. And it's not clear whether all those will be replaced by the new green jobs that supporters are banking on.

"I can't think of another place in the country like Weld County, where all the various interests are at play," said John Christiansen, a spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which produces oil and gas from 4,600 wells in the county. Many are on fields planted with feed corn, which also is being used to produce ethanol for gasoline locally.

The confluence of different interests has made Weld County a frequent stop for members of Congress interested in how climate legislation is playing outside of Washington. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., all made visits over the summer.

"Our rural communities aren't sold on this yet, there is a lot of uncertainty. But I think in the long run it will stabilize energy prices," Markey said in an interview.

Markey voted for the climate bill when it passed the House in June. Her vote could play a role in her re-election race next year in the largely Republican district.

On an August afternoon, Markey and three other members of the state's congressional delegation were singled out for their climate bill vote. A billboard covered with signatures and topped with the words "Shame on you!" stood at the entrance of the lunchtime event, organized by the American Petroleum Institute. The event drew about 600 people to a cavernous exhibit hall outside of Greeley for a pep rally opposing the legislation. API is a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization for the oil and gas industry.

"Why would we do anything to drive up their cost of doing business? It makes no sense," local radio host Amy Oliver Cooke told the crowd. Many wore shirts that said, "Congress, Don't Take Away my Job."

"I can't afford the legislation and neither can you," she said.

David Eckhardt, a fourth-generation Weld County farmer, is struggling with the math. Despite meeting with Bennet and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Eckhardt remains skeptical of an Agriculture Department's analysis of the House climate bill that says farmers stand to make more money from trapping carbon in their soil and crops than they will pay out in higher energy prices.

"I know my fuel will go up, I know my chemicals will go up. And the question that was asked at the meeting we had with them was how much? And their answer was not as much as you think it will," said Eckhardt. "That's not an answer."

For Eckhardt, a climate law could change what crops he plants.

For JBS, which operates a feedlot down the road from his farm, changes are already afoot.

Fattening the tens of thousands of cattle the company slaughters annually at its Greeley headquarters requires flaking with steam the corn it receives from farmers. That can get expensive because it relies on traditional natural gas, which in recent years has been subject to price swings.

In 2006, with gas prices peaking, Tom McDonald, the environmental affairs manager for JBS Swift's cattle-feeding operation Five Rivers, started looking for ways not to waste the cows' waste any longer.

At one of the company's largest feedlots in Weld County, some of the manure that used to be raked up from the pens and stockpiled is now being fed into a manure gasifier. The apparatus, which looks like an extra large pizza oven, bakes the excrement, extracting the gases which in turn feed the fire. The heat generated can power the feedlots' boiler, reducing the company's natural gas consumption.

Eventually, McDonald says it could supply all the power the facility needs to make its corn flakes.

It would also help with global warming because the process converts methane into the less efficient heat-trapper carbon dioxide.

"These ideas had been kicked around for years and been dismissed because they weren't economical," said McDonald. "Well now the economics are coming in line and these systems actually have a payback are looking very promising."

___

On the Net:

JBS: http://www.jbsswift.com/

City of Greeley: http://www.greeleygov.com/

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: http://tinyurl.com/ybcmypo

House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://tinyurl.com/ph52vs

Information on the House-passed bill, H.R. 2454, and the Senate bill, S. 1733, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/