P10. Pick Points

Some half-a-dozen or so stories of current interest.

In the Russia:Ukraine dispute Gazprom has increased the amount of gas that it is sending to Poland via Belarus to 109,000 tcm per day, an increase of 26,000 tcm, 20,000 of which is through the Yamal pipeline, while the war of words continues, and President Putin declares the era of “cheap gas over. ” Gas supplied to Ukraine (for passage to the West) is, meanwhile, being cut another 65,000 tcm per day, down to 250,000 tcm per day.
Update. The cut-off in Russian ga is already starting to bite, with Austria, Italy and Romanian supplies down 90%, 80% and 75% respectively. The cold weather is not helping.

Chesapeake, the natural gas production company in the United States, and Boone Pickens partner, has sold 98 bcfe of proved reserves and 60 mmcfe/day of current production for $412 million, or $4.20 per mcfe as part of a drive to build cash reserves over the next two years. At the same time Comstock, who is drilling in the Haynesville shale, plans on spending $399 million on drilling approximately 76 wells 43 will be horizontals in the Haynsville, 5 will be horizontal wells in Cotton Valley and for $51 million it will drill 10 wells in South Texas.


Farmers decide on their crops for the year, as planning for the ethanol, and perhaps biodiesel from soybeans, gets reviewed in terms of costs and possible benefits.

For those who care to speculate, over the last week the Newsweek/Washington Post has been asking for forecasts on oil prices at the end of three months, and while numbers range from $10 a barrel to over a hundred, there seems to be more sentiment for an increase of some limit that may take the price into the $60 - $70 range within 3 months.

TIME magazine has a lead article on Energy Efficiency where, rather than preaching of conservation, it talks of those changes that, with improved efficiency of power use, can similarly lower costs, without needing a change in lifestyle. Using offpeak power to cool refrigerators, saved a beer distributor $150,000 a year, for example, and by controlled and acceptable load shedding at peak, EnerNOC can drop 1.800 MW of consumption on demand, the equivalent of two medium sized power plants.

The continuing electricity problems of Nepal have seen mandatory load shedding extended in three-hour increments until now it has reached 12 hours a day.

Saudi Arabia has found five new oil fields and three new gas fields as a result of recent exploration, and test production for one well at the largest was in the 2,500 bd range.

There are more stories listed at the Energy Bulletin, and at Drumbeat on The Oil Drum.