View this email in your browser
DAILY ENERGY NEWS  | 03/17/2022
Subscribe Now

Where in the wide, wide, wide world is our Secretary of the Interior? 


Errors of Enchantment (3/16/22) blog: "As Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland manages the Federal government’s onshore subsurface mineral estate – about 700 million acres (30% of the United States) held by the Bureau of Land Management. According to their website: For fiscal year (FY) 2018, sales of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids produced from the Federal and Tribal mineral estate accounted for approximately 8 percent of all oil, 9 percent of all natural gas, and 6 percent of all natural gas liquids produced in the United States. That number could be even higher if energy production were encouraged rather than being discouraged. But Deb Haaland made her political way by opposing traditional energy and that is an inconvenient fact for the Biden Administration right now with skyrocketing energy prices. Here are a few ways in which Secretary Haaland is nowhere to be found:
  • Her calendar hasn’t been updated in nearly a year (since March of 2021);
  • The Interior Department and its associated agencies have not issued a single press release on the energy crisis/situation, much less about increasing production on federal lands;
  • There have been no tweets from Sec. Haaland on the issue of increasing energy production on federal lands;
  • When she DOES focus on energy issues as she did in a visit to Ohio, the focus was on infrastructure — cleaning up orphan wells, legacy pollution from extractive industries and moving toward renewables." 

"Right now, the average cost of gasoline is spiraling upward. And big oil and gas companies have not been investing in new exploration in recent years, partly because Fink, other ESG advocates, and now President Joe Biden’s administration have been lurking over their shoulders and stigmatizing the fuel we all need to drive our cars and heat our homes." 

 

– Patrick Tyrrell,
The Heritage Foundation’

Electric Vehicles are gonna be so much cheaper than those gas guzzlers someday. 

Meanwhile, battery-grade lithium carbonate is averaging $76,700 a ton. That’s up 10% over just two weeks and 95% since the start of the year. In March last year, it was trading at $13,400 a ton.


Mining.com (3/15/22) reports: "Lithium prices have jumped across the board over the past year on the back of heavy demand from the automotive sector, but inside China there is a mad scramble, particularly for carbonate. Carbonate continues to soar in 2022 after more than quadrupling in value last year, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a battery supply chain researcher and price reporting agency. The mid-March assessment by Benchmark shows battery grade lithium carbonate averaging $76,700 a tonne. That’s up 10% over just two weeks and 95% since the start of the year. In March last year it was trading at $13,400 a tonne. The rally in lithium hydroxide, used in high-nickel content cathode manufacture, is accelerating, up 120% so far this year, narrowing the discount to carbonate, which historically is priced below hydroxide.   Benchmark says  it continues to hear reports that Chinese inventory levels for hydroxide, carbonate, and spodumene feedstock remain very low sustaining the high price environment:"

Even Rick Santorum is on message.  


Epoch Times (3/16/22) reports: "Weaknesses of the Biden administration’s energy policies became one of the decisive factors that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, said Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. War needs to be financed, and Russia relies on the revenue from the energy sector to fund its military and continue to feed its people, Santorum said in a March 11 interview for EpochTV’s 'Crossroads' program...'We can produce as much gas as the world needs, but we don’t have the facilities to ship it out because Biden is sitting on the permits,' Santorum added. 'Biden is strengthening Russia, weakening America’s dominance in the oil area, all to the benefit of the Russians.' 'The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued two policy statements making it clear that the hurdles to permit liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and their feeder pipelines would be getting higher, not lower,' said Tom Pyle, chairman of the Institute for Energy Research, when he testified before a congressional committee on March 8. Instead of producing more oil at home, Washington is asking Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iran to produce more oil, Santorum said."

European companies who don't want private companies to produce more oil.  Does anybody really wonder why Putin felt emboldened to attack Ukraine?


Reuters (3/17/22) reports: "Swiss Re, the world's second biggest reinsurer said it would no longer insure most new oil and gas projects following mounting pressure on big business to do more to help the world cap global warming. Last year, the International Energy Agency report said no more new oil and gas fields should be developed if a target of capping planetary warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average by mid-century is to be met. In its annual sustainability report on Thursday, Swiss Re said it would no longer insure projects that get the go-ahead from their parent company from 2022, unless the company has an independently verified, science-based plan to reach net-zero emissions. By 2025, Swiss Re said it wanted half of its overall oil and gas premiums to come from companies aligned with such a net-zero by 2050 plan, and by 2030 all its clients in the sector should have done so."

Energy Markets

 
WTI Crude Oil: ↑ $101.89
Natural Gas: ↑ $4.88
Gasoline: ↓ $4.28
Diesel: ↓ $5.08
Heating Oil: ↑ $344.09
Brent Crude Oil: ↑ $105.29
US Rig Count: ↑ 766

 
Donate
Subscribe to The Unregulated Podcast Subscribe to The Unregulated Podcast
Subscribe to The Plugged In Podcast Subscribe to The Plugged In Podcast
Connect with us on Facebook Connect with us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Twitter
Forward to a Friend Forward to a Friend
Our mailing address is:
1155 15th Street NW
Suite 900
Washington, DC xxxxxx
Want to change how you receive these emails?
update your preferences
unsubscribe from this list