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MORNING ENERGY NEWS  |  06/25/2020
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And the people want trucks!


E&E News (6/25/20) reports: "Ford Motor Co.'s announced commitment yesterday to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 drew mixed reactions from environmentalists. Some praised Ford for becoming the first U.S. automaker to align its emissions trajectory with the Paris Agreement on climate change, saying it marked a milestone for corporate sustainability. But others raised serious concerns about the company's historic responsibility for climate pollution and future reliance on carbon offsets...Dave Cooke, a senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted that Ford's F-150 pickup truck has been the best-selling vehicle in the United States for more than 30 years. 'Obviously the F-150 is their bread and butter, and while it is definitely one of the most efficient pickup trucks out there, it is still a highly polluting vehicle,' he said. The 2020 model of the F-150 emits 402 grams of carbon dioxide per mile when running on regular gasoline, according to fueleconomy.gov, a federal website maintained by EPA and the Department of Energy."

"The U.S. shale gas boom of recent years has enabled domestic job creation and economic growth, and it has recast the U.S. role in the global energy landscape. The growing availability of low-cost shale gas could catalyze a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing"

 

– Mark Barteau,
University of Michigan

The people who want to ban cars and planes are 'mainstream' now?


Washington Post (6/25/20) reports: "Joe Biden further consolidated the support of mainstream environmentalists by scoring the endorsement of a major green group on Wednesday. The political arm of the Natural Resources Defense Council announced that it is backing the former vice president in his bid to beat President Trump. Citing Biden's four decades working in Washington, the group's chair Gina McCarthy wrote in a blog post that the nation 'need a leader who can rebuild us from the crises we are reeling from today, and make us stronger and more resilient against the demands of the next. That person is Joe Biden.'..His campaign put several of Sanders’s climate advisers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), on a climate task force meant to bridge the divide between Democrats on climate change. McCarthy also serves on that committee. And Biden said he would revoke the Trump administration’s permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, most likely vaulting the project to a campaign issue."

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.


Reuters (6/24/20) reports: "ussia is taking a leaf out of the U.S. shale playbook so it can ramp up oil production quickly and hang on to its share of the global market when demand finally recovers after the coronavirus pandemic. At least two state-owned banks, Sberbank and VEB, plan to lend oil firms some 400 billion roubles ($6 billion) at effectively almost zero interest rates to drill about 3,000 unfinished wells, officials involved in the scheme told Reuters. Once oil prices recover, the wells can be finished off faster than starting from scratch so Russia can get its output back to levels reached before it agreed along with other leading producers to cut supply because of the fallout from COVID-19. U.S. shale producers tend to drill but not complete wells when oil prices are low, rather than freezing all activity, so they can finish off the wells and quickly boost production when demand picks up."

A clear reminder that underpinning the entire green dream is a dependence on the largest violator of human rights in history. 


Bloomberg (6/24/20) reports: "The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the U.S. has an Achilles heel in its heavy dependence on overseas mineral production critical to national security and clean energy, witnesses told a Senate panel Wednesday. 'The United States is getting lapped,” Joe Bryan, a former Obama administration deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. China dominates the critical minerals market, and the major disruption of the supply chain because of the coronavirus pandemic underscores the need for America to wean itself off such imports, lawmakers have said. However, 'while China is the dominant player, we are also quickly losing ground to our European allies as well,' leaving the U.S. without a ready domestic source of those minerals, said Bryan, now a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the energy panel’s chairman, said the Covid-19 pandemic, which strained supplies for a range of products and technologies including personal protective equipment for health care workers, 'should be a wake-up call for all of us.'" 

Energy Markets

 
WTI Crude Oil: ↓ $37.89
Natural Gas: ↓ $1.55
Gasoline: ↑ $2.17
Diesel: ↑ $2.43
Heating Oil: ↓ $112.95
Brent Crude Oil: ↓ $40.24
US Rig Count: ↓ 300

 
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