Tag Archives: Texas

IEA Declares OPEC Has Accomplished Its Mission: Oil Is Now “Balanced”

Tuesday, 24 April 2018 05:17

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, April 23, 2018:

“It’s not for us to declare on behalf of the Vienna agreement [the OPEC production-cut agreement in force since January 2017] that it is ‘mission accomplished’, but if our outlook is accurate, it certainly looks very much like it,” said the International Energy Agency (IEA) last week. Those production cuts, aided by the rolling disaster in Venezuela that continues to take crude oil production off the world market, have, according to the IEA, brought down the world’s crude oil stocks within shouting distance of OPEC’s goal: the five-year average of those stocks.

Compliance among members of the OPEC cartel and its friends (including Russia) has been extraordinarily high, with Saudi Arabia helping things along by cutting its own production far more deeply than the agreement called for.

U.S. production, estimated to approach 11 million barrels a day by the end of the year (twice what it was just seven years ago), has been unable to match the production cuts and worldwide demand, which has greatly surprised to the upside.

Add in concerns that on May 12 the president of the United States will decide

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Gun Rights Expanding After Florida Shooting

Wednesday, 21 February 2018 06:39

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, February 20, 2018:

English: The Bill of Rights, the first ten ame...

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution

Following mass shootings at the Connecticut elementary school, the Orlando gay nightclub, the Las Vegas concert, and now the massacre at the Florida high school, anti-Second Amendment groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety and others ramped up pressure on federal legislators to “do something, anything” about the violence. Happily, very little further infringements of precious rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment have occurred.

On the state level, in fact, much progress has been made in reasserting those rights.

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Fracking Revolution Pushes U.S. Daily Crude Oil Production Over 10 Million Barrels

Saturday, 03 February 2018 06:18

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, February 2, 2018:

November’s production of crude oil in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), not only exceeded October’s by four percent, but rose to a level not seen in nearly 50 years: 10 million barrels a day. The agency went even further: At this rate daily U.S. crude oil production will exceed that of both Russia and Saudi Arabia by the end of next year.

If not sooner. The EIA’s forecast is that crude oil production will grow by 10 percent this year, but that could turn out to be much too low. As Todd Staples, head of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, noted:

American crude oil [production] is a game-changer in international trade, global politics and domestic energy security. Crude oil imports are down 20 percent from 2006 and, today, we are competing with the Middle East in the export market.

These outcomes were unthinkable a decade ago.

Indeed. As recently as 2011 the United States was only producing about

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U.S. Oil Production Will Soon Overtake Saudi Arabia’s

Tuesday, 23 January 2018 06:45

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, January 22, 2018:

Fatih Birol, head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), told a congressional committee last week, “What we see is a result of the shale revolution [fracking]. The U.S. is becoming the undisputed leader of oil and gas production worldwide. [U.S.] oil production is growing very strongly and will continue to grow. We think that this growth is unprecedented [both in the] size of the growth and the pace of the growth.”

In 1973, Saudi Arabia punished U.S. citizens with an oil embargo in retaliation for the U.S. government’s support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. It could do so because it held the biggest hammer: Saudi Arabia controlled the world’s largest reserves of crude oil and the kingdom. Within months, the price of oil quadrupled in the United States, resulting in shortages and rationing. Gas stations were closed, and when they reopened they were forced to restrict gasoline purchases to “odd” and “even” days depending upon their customers’ license plate numbers. The federal government imposed “double-nickel” (55 mph) speed limits on highways, and experimented with “daylight saving” time in order to reduce the impact of the embargo.

Those days are long gone and not likely ever to return. Saudi Arabia and its OPEC cartel are slowly being reduced to bit players in the global energy market. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman saw that coming more than two years ago when he announced

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Obama Fracking Rule to be Overturned by BLM in January

Saturday, 30 December 2017 07:17

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, December 29, 2017:

Map of the part of the region in Texas, red is...

Part of the Permian Basin in west Texas

A federal appeals court refused on Wednesday to reconsider its decision to overturn an Obama administration rule on fracking, holding that the issue was moot: The Trump administration is planning to throw out the rule altogether in January.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said that the Obama administration’s rule “unnecessarily burdens industry compliance costs and information requirements that are duplicative of regulatory programs of many states and some tribes. As a result, we are proposing to rescind, in its entirety, the [Obama administration’s] 2015 final rule.”

The original decision in 2016 ruled that the Obama administration was guilty of federal overreach,

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The Permian Basin is Driving Another Nail into OPEC’s Coffin

Saturday, 30 December 2017 07:00

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, December 29, 2017:

English: Pumpjack east of Andrews, TX

English: Pumpjack east of Andrews, TX

Just a few years ago, the Permian Basin was considered nearly depleted. But with the advent of fracking technology, the enormous basin – called a “super basin” – could now contain two trillion barrels of recoverable crude oil. That is more than the reserves of Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil field and all of Venezuela’s proven reserves put together. IHS Markit, the world leader in information gathering and analysis, just announced that the Permian Basin’s production exceeded its previous high registered back in 1973, producing a record 815 million barrels of oil in 2017. It estimates that its daily production will approach 3 million barrels a day (mbd) next year, which will set another record of a billion barrels produced in single year.

This far exceeds the requirements for any oil basin to quality as a “super basin”: 5 billion in reserves and 5 billion in accumulated production. It also far exceeds the reserves of Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil field (265 billion) and those of Venezuela (300 billion).

It’s also a “disrupter,” according to Pete Stark, a director of IHS: “When we consider the impact on the world’s crude markets, the Permian has to be considered a global disrupter.” IHS’ Reed Olmstead added:

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Not a Single Shooting Following Campus-carry Freedom in Texas Last Year

Saturday, 30 September 2017 06:58

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 29, 2017:

Denton Record-Chronicle newspaper

Denton Record-Chronicle newspaper

Somehow, more than 53,000 students attending Texas public universities have managed to make it through the first year of concealed-carry on campus without murdering each other. Heaven knows that if there had been even one shooting incident, the anti-gun media would not only have put it on the front page of every newspaper in the country but would have made it the lead story on the six-o’clock news.

Instead, the Denton Record-Chronicle had to ask the University of North Texas Police Chief if there had been any shooting incidents among UNT’s 38,000 students since the campus-carry law became effective last year. Said the chief:

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Shiller’s CAPE, Harvey, Irma, and now Jose: How Much More is Needed for a Stock Selloff?

Saturday, 09 September 2017 06:08

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, September 8, 2017:

English: (left) and meeting shortly after the ...

Republicans Smoot and Hawley

Wall Street prognosticators have watched Robert Shiller’s CAPE – “cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings” ratio – for years for signs that stocks are becoming overvalued. It’s now at a nosebleed level reached just before the October 1929 crash. The good news is that CAPE has been at that level ever since Shiller said that stocks were overvalued earlier this year. It is not a market timing tool, but more of an early warning indicator.

Short sellers have gotten smashed as the stock market continues to defy gravity. Bets against the SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund, the largest ETF tracking that index, fell to lows in July not seen since May 2013.

But Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and now possibly Jose may finally bring things back to earth. The jump in unemployment claims for the week ending September 2, caused by Harvey and reported by the Department of Labor (DOL) on Thursday, not surprisingly exceeded economists’ consensus. The increase of 62,000 for the week to

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Did CNN Fake That Rescue?

Friday, 01 September 2017 10:33

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 1, 2017:

CNN’s Drew Griffin performed a dramatic rescue on live television near Beaumont, Texas, on Wednesday. The YouTube video of the rescue has already been viewed nearly 400,000 times.

Said Griffin:

We just literally rescued this guy out. This man just accidentally drove into a ravine that looked like a road.

And his truck just went in, and it’s now going down that ravine.… It happened within seconds. There was no time to call 911. There was no way they were going to get here in time.

Sharp eyes at Conservative Treehouse noted something strange, however, and it was picked up by Monica Showalter at American Thinker and elsewhere. A careful viewing of the video reveals several things that didn’t fit. First,

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Trump’s Pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio Sends a Message: There’s a New Sheriff in Town

Monday, 28 August 2017 09:56

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, August 28, 2017:

English: cropped from File:Maricopa County She...

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio

There’s little doubt that sheriffs in counties on or near the country’s southern border have been watching, and waiting, for a signal from the Trump administration about its views on enforcing immigration laws. Those would especially include those who consider themselves “constitutional” sheriffs.

That signal arrived late Friday with President Trump’s pardon of Maricopa County Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Before Friday, all those sheriffs had to go on was hope – hope that they wouldn’t be targeted for enforcing the law the way Arpaio was. Now they can rest easier knowing they have a friend in the White House and not an enemy. And the net effect will be stronger enforcement of the country’s immigration laws.

For Arpaio it was a long-awaited victory over the Obama administration. For the citizens of the United States it is also a victory over illegals committing crimes without consequences.

Said Trump:

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Hurricane Harvey, President Trump Putting More Pressure on Venezuela

Monday, 28 August 2017 05:35

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Sunday, August 27, 2017:

Embed from Getty Images

On Friday President Donald Trump once again ramped up sanctions against Venezuela’s Marxist dictator, shutting off his ability to sell new debt or equity in the U.S. financial markets. On Saturday, Hurricane Harvey, the worst hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast in 50 years, has all but sealed Maduro’s fate.

Following Maduro’s installation of his illegal “constituent assembly” in July, President Trump placed sanctions on Maduro himself, freezing any and all of his assets lying within American jurisdiction. A week later Trump added a few of Maduro’s cronies to that list, and on August 9 he added a few more. At the time The New American expressed skepticism that they would have any effect on Maduro’s obstinacy and determination to continue policies that have caused Venezuela’s economy to shrink by 35 percent just since 2014.

On Friday the Trump administration broadened those sanctions to include

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Texas Grows 3.9 Percent in First Quarter. California? 0.1 Percent

Saturday, 29 July 2017 05:35

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, July 28, 2017:

This map shows the incorporated areas in Colli...

This map shows the incorporated areas in Collin County, Texas. McKinney is highlighted in red.

Melissa, a resident of San Diego with degrees in psychology and Spanish, could find work only at a fast-food restaurant, recounted an article in (of all places) the Los Angeles Times about how some conservatives fed up with California are looking to Texas for greener pastures — and not just economically. The final straw for Melissa was when her daughter came home from public school one day with a “young adult” novel as homework. The book celebrated the use of cigarettes and pills to cope with stress, and Melissa decided it was time to leave the Golden State.

She found Conservative Move, a website just launched to help Californians

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From Hero to Zero: $2-Billion Private Equity Fund Goes Broke in Oil

Wednesday, 19 July 2017 05:48

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, July 18, 2017:

EnerVest Ltd., a Houston-based private equity firm run by John Walker, is being taken over by one of its largest lenders to satisfy its unpaid debts. The firm raised capital from large investors, foundations, and pension plans and bought existing oil wells, improved them, and sent the dividends back to the investors.

In 2011, it had come off a very successful year. It owned 19,000 onshore oil wells on four million acres of land in 12 states. Its previous investments delivered a compounded annual return of 36 percent, a track record that made it relatively easy for Walker to raise additional capital. In a classic understatement, Walker said, “We had an outstanding year.” He explained just how he and his company did it; he bought cheap and sold dear, without using borrowed funds:

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From Hero to Zero: $2-Billion Private Equity Fund Goes Broke in Oil

Tuesday, 18 July 2017 05:51

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 17, 2017:

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo

EnerVest Ltd., a Houston-based private equity firm run by John Walker, is being taken over by Wells Fargo, one of its largest lenders, to satisfy its unpaid debts. The firm raised capital from large investors, foundations, and pension plans and bought existing oil wells, improved them, and sent the dividends back to the investors.

In 2011, it had come off a very successful year. It owned 19,000 onshore oil wells on four million acres of land in 12 states. Its previous investments delivered a compounded annual return of 36 percent, a track record that made it relatively easy for Walker to raise additional capital. In a classic understatement, Walker said, “We had an outstanding year.” He explained just how he and his company did it; he bought cheap and sold dear, without using borrowed funds:

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Crude Oil to Climb to $60 a Barrel, Claim Aramco’s CEO, Citi, and Goldman

Tuesday, 11 July 2017 05:33

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 10, 2017:

Claiming that the worldwide demand for crude oil will jump by 20 million barrels of oil per day over the next five years, Amin Nasser, the CEO of Saudi Aramco, said, “Investments in smaller increments such as [U.S.] shale oil will just not cut it.” Speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul last week, Nasser said:

If we look at the long-term situation of oil supplies, for example, the picture is becoming increasingly worrying.

Financial investors are shying away from making much-needed large investments in oil exploration, long-term development and the related infrastructure….

New discoveries are also on a downtrend. The volume of conventional [non-shale] oil discovered around the world over the past four years has more than halved compared with the previous four.

Speaking to his own interest, Nasser is trying to talk up the value of his company, which remains on schedule to sell five percent of itself in what some are calling “the world’s largest IPO [initial public offering].” To stress the point, Nasser said

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Keystone XL Pipeline Granted Approval by State Department

Saturday, 25 March 2017 06:39

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, March 24, 2017:

With the signing of the cross-border permit by the State Department on Friday, the real work on completing Phase IV of the Keystone Pipeline from Canada to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast begins. TransCanada, the owner and operator of the pipeline, still thinks the project is viable economically even though it has been stalled for 16 months by the previous administration. In a press release, TransCanada’s CEO Russ Girling said:

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More Evidence that OPEC’s Influence is Waning

Thursday, 23 March 2017 05:36

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, March 22, 2017:

A measure of the success – and failure – of OPEC’s agreement to limit crude oil production can be seen in the chart of NYMEX crude oil price behavior (Sources below) dating from last fall. When the agreement was inked back in November, crude was at $46.50 a barrel. The price soared and traders got excited, putting in long bets that set records.

By early January, reality began setting in as compliance among the cartel’s members and non-members (who agreed to go along for the ride) began to wane. The roof fell in a couple of weeks ago when inventory builds continued to set records, and the price dropped through support at $50.

In other words, in OPEC’s attempt to birth an elephant, it succeeded in birthing a gnat.

Saudi Arabia maintained a stiff upper lip during the Houston oil conference, stating flat out that

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Saudi Arabia Losing Influence in Global Oil Markets

Wednesday, 22 March 2017 06:01

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 21, 2017:

Embed from Getty Images

As it continues to wrestle with declining oil prices worldwide, Saudi Arabia, the de facto head of the OPEC oil cartel, is giving up ground. It said a week ago that it would not allow any “free riders” to enjoy higher oil prices if they rose due to Saudi’s singular attempt to keep them up. A week later it was reported that the kingdom cut its production by 800,000 barrels per day, 60 percent below its agreement. So much for disclaimers against those “free riders” who continue to violate the agreement by exceeding their quotas.

Now comes news that the kingdom’s exports to the United States for the week ended March 10

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New Hampshire the 12th State to Allow Constitutional Carry

Friday, 24 February 2017 06:33

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 23, 2017:

OpenCarry.org open carry gun laws

OpenCarry.org open carry gun laws

Residents of New Hampshire are enjoying a long-awaited expansion of their Second Amendment rights with the signing into law on Wednesday of a bill allowing them to carry a firearm without first obtaining government permission. The third time “is a charm,” it is said, and this bill passed on the third attempt. The previous two attempts passed both state houses but were vetoed by previous Democrat governors.

Said Republican Governor Chris Sununu:

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Number of Former Sanctuary Cities Reversing Policy

Tuesday, 14 February 2017 07:10

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, February 13, 2017:

In response to President Donald Trump’s executive order issued on January 25 — “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” — a number of cities that formerly considered themselves as “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants are reversing their policies. The first to do so was Miami-Dade County in Florida the day after Trump issued his order.

Miami-Dade was followed by

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