Gas prices likely to jump to $4 per gallon

Consumers could soon be paying $4 or more for a gallon of
gasoline.MICAH MOORE/E-T

Posted: Monday, January 30, 2012 12:58 pm

Gas prices likely to jump to $4 per gallon

By MICAH MOORE
micah.moore@empiretribune.com

Stephenville Empire-Tribune

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Gasoline costs could leap above $4 per gallon after one of
Europe’s largest refineries announced its

Read the whole article at: http://www.yourstephenvilletx.com/news/local/article_f47fd3ba-4b74-11e1-9966-001871e3ce6c.html

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While the price of natural gas price is low in North America due to a vast abundance of supply, the same is not true in the rest of the world. That dynamic has been captured by the rig counts all over the world. When prices are good, companies drill oil and gas to earn what they believe to be a solid rate of return. When prices for oil and gas fall too far, they no longer provide sufficient returns to justify drilling for them.

One company I love following to get a pulse on oil and gas capital spending worldwide is Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI  ) , since it publishes very helpful rig count information that helps track the trend of oil and gas drilling worldwide. In the North American market, Baker Hughes continues to see the shift in rigs from gas to oil. In the fourth quarter, gas rigs comprised 42% of the total North American rig count, down from 54% a year earlier. Further, the company expects gas rigs to decline by 218 rigs by the end of 2012, which contrasts sharply with the expected increase in oil rigs by 220 rigs.

While the outlook for a region like Europe is understandably cloudy given the debt situation, Baker Hughes predicts rosier outlooks for some other regions. For example, the Latin American rig count is forecast to climb about 13%, the Middle East and Asia Pacific rig counts should climb by about 9%. It’s worth examining some of the players in the North American onshore market

Read the whole article at: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/01/30/is-anyone-still-drilling-for-natural-gas.aspx

Saving money on natural gas is great if the gas line runs past your house.

If not, it’s like watching free money go down the street and you can’t catch it.

Chuck Russell of Hampden Twp. said he’d save at least $800 a year converting from oil to natural gas.

Mike Ressler, business development director for UGI, said extending a gas line costs $60 to $100 a foot, depending on whether the line is in town or in a rural setting, the lay of the and and other factors.

But he can’t, because the line doesn’t run past his house. The closest is about 2,000 feet away, and Russell said UGI won’t pay to bring the line to him.

The company didn’t quote a price to extend the line, but Russell figures it in the tens of thousands.

At least. Mike Ressler, business development director for UGI, said extending a gas line costs $60 to $100 a foot, depending on whether the line is in town or in a rural setting, the lay of the land and other factors. So extending the line to Russell could run up to $200,000.

Many midstate residents live in older developments, where part of the neighborhood has natural gas and part doesn’t.

Ressler said these developments go back to the ’70s or before, when energy was cheap and power companies offered builders incentives to build all-electric. In later years as energy costs skyrocketed, other builders got UGI to extend lines into newer parts of the development.

If you live in one of these developments and the line is fairly close — say 500 feet — you might be able to convince UGI to extend

Read the whole article at: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/01/companies_extend_gas_lines_if.html

Banks Seek a DirectionThe Wall Street Journal

Although bank stocks have been driving this year’s market advance, they also may be its weak link.

Read the whole article at: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/equity-research-southwestern-energy-company-130000824.html

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Obama Industry Job Forecast Includes Lawyers, Estate Agents

New jobs in oil and gas were added in places such as North Dakota, where producers have spurred a fivefold increase in the Bakken, a geologic formation that stretches from southern Alberta to the northern U.S. Great Plains. Photo: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg

New jobs in oil and gas were added in places such as North Dakota, where producers have spurred a fivefold increase in the Bakken, a geologic formation that stretches from southern Alberta to the northern U.S. Great Plains. Photo: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg

The boom in natural gas produced
from shale rock will add U.S. jobs, though whether it supports
as many as President Barack Obama predicts depends on how you
count them, economists say.

In his State of the Union address this week, Obama said
hydraulic fracturing, in which a mix of water, sand and
chemicals is injected underground to free gas trapped in rock,
could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.

The estimate was based in part on a forecast by energy
researcher http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-26/obama-s-600-000-fracking-job-forecast-includes-lawyers-realtors.html

British Gas is to pay Thames Water to promote free insulation to its
customers, ahead of the December deadline for energy companies to meet
government carbon emissions reductions targets (CERT).

Britain’s biggest energy and water utilities have taken the unusual step of
signing a five-year deal to promote energy and water-saving products,
beginning with a six-month campaign offering free British Gas loft and
cavity wall insulation to Thames Water’s 2.3m households about half of
whom use a rival energy supplier.

The Big Six energy companies face investigation and possible fines of up to
10pc of their turnover if they do not carry out enough household energy
efficiency measures to meet CERT. Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, told
suppliers to “pull their finger out” to meet the targets after
figures last year showed some needed to significantly increase installation
rates.

British Gas was third closest to meeting its target at the time but declined
to reveal its progress since. It said it was working “extremely hard”
but that CERT was “set at unrealistic levels”.

Although the targets are proportional to the size of a supplier’s customer
base, installations in the homes of rival suppliers’ customers count.

Nina Bhatia, British Gas’s managing director of Electrical and Dyno Services,
said: “Insulation measures do count towards CERT and we are keen to
make sure that, if this is an opportunity to do that, we use it. But our
primary focus is to help customers save money and energy.”

Piers Clark, Thames Water’s commercial director, said it would receive an
undisclosed commission for each installation, of which it would use a

Read the whole article at: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/british-gas-pays-thames-water-213827134.html

ATLANTA (CBS ATLANTA) -

There were surprisingly no long lines at a southwest Atlanta gas giveaway today.

A local tax preparation company, Tax City, Inc. is giving away $20 in free gas. The only catch? Drivers need to bring in their W-2 forms to the Tax City office to get a free quote on your tax return. 

“People respond to free gas in this economy,” said Cyrus Ellison, Tax City Inc. owner. “Everybody has somewhere to go. We want to help out in that process, especially with your tax return.”

Drivers like Andrew Gilchrease were surprised that there were no long lines for the gas. Gilchrease thinks it’s because the process to get the free gas was long. Tax City, Inc. is located at 565 Joseph E. Lowery Blvd. SW Suite A, Atlanta, GA  30310. The gas station you’ll get free gas at is the Exxon down the street. 

About 200 – 300 people will be able to walk away with free gas.

Copyright 2012 WGCL-TV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.

Read the whole article at: http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/16622971/tax-prep-service-gives-away-free-gas

NEW YORK – A different kind of F-word is stirring a linguistic and political debate as controversial as what it defines.

The word is “fracking” – as in hydraulic fracturing, a technique long used by the oil and gas industry to free oil and gas from rock.

It’s not in the dictionary, the industry hates it, and President Barack Obama didn’t use it in his State of the Union speech – even as he praised federal subsidies for it.

The word sounds nasty, and environmental advocates have been able to use it to generate opposition – and revulsion – to what they say is a nasty process that threatens water supplies.

“It obviously calls to mind other less socially polite terms, and folks have been able to take advantage of that,” said Kate Sinding, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who works on drilling issues.

One of the chants at an anti-drilling rally in Albany earlier this month was “No fracking way!”

Industry executives argue that the word is deliberately misspelled by environmental activists and that it has become a slur that should not be used by media outlets that strive for objectivity.

“It’s a co-opted word and a co-opted spelling used to make it look as offensive as people can try to make it look,” said Michael Kehs, vice president for Strategic Affairs at Chesapeake Energy, the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer.

To the surviving humans of the sci-fi TV series “Battlestar Galactica,” it has nothing to do with oil and gas. It is used as a substitute for the very down-to-Earth curse word.

Michael Weiss, a professor of linguistics at Cornell University, says the word originated as simple industry jargon, but has taken on a negative meaning over time – much

Read the whole article at: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/348817/