“There is no evidence at this point that Russia was behind the sabotage,” said one European official, echoing the assessment of 23 diplomatic and intelligence officials in nine countries interviewed in recent weeks.
Washington Post
Archive for the ‘energy’ Category
Washington Post: No conclusive evidence Russia is behind Nord Stream attack
Posted in energy, pipelines, tagged NordStream, Russia, sabotage on December 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Who are these companies?
Posted in California, energy, Offshore Wind, tagged California North Floating, California offshore wind sale, Central California Offshore WInd, Equinor, Invenergy, RWE Renewables on December 14, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Only Equinor is a familiar name to the offshore oil and gas industry, so here are some blurbs about the other high bidders.
California North Floating, LLC, is a subsidiary of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). Since entering the US offshore market in 2016, CIP has built a leading offshore wind position through its affiliate Vineyard Offshore. This includes Vineyard Wind 1, the country’s first commercial scale offshore wind project which is currently under construction, as well as two lease areas under development totaling approximately 5.0 GW off the coast of Massachusetts and New York.
Central California Offshore Wind is managed by an East Coast offshore wind energy company, Ocean Winds North America LLC, which formed a joint venture with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to win the lease. Ocean Winds has more than 10 years of experience in floating offshore wind, most notably through the development and operation of Windfloat Atlantic (offshore Portugal), the world’s first fully commercially operational floating offshore wind farm
Equinor, a Norwegian company, is a major international oil and gas producer, an important wind energy investor, and a leader in the development of floating wind turbine technology. Equinor operates the Hywind Tampen floating offshore wind farm which will supply power to Norwegian offshore oil and gas fields.
Invenergy and its affiliated companies develop, own, and operate large-scale renewable and other clean energy generation and storage facilities in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Invenergy’s home office is located in Chicago, and it has regional development offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Japan, Poland, and Scotland.
RWE Renewables has experience covering the offshore and onshore wind energy value chain from development to construction and operation. These activities are the responsibility of two functional units, “Unit Renewables Europe & Australia” and “Unit Offshore Wind”, as well as the subsidiary RWE Renewables Americas. RWE Renewables also invests in large-scale solar projects and supports power producers, plant operators and other stakeholders in the development, construction and operation of photovoltaic and solar energy plants as well as in the construction of battery storage systems. The focus is on large-scale industrial projects.
Nord Stream: the EU agrees to better protect critical infrastructure, but ignores the elephant in the room
Posted in accidents, energy, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, tagged EU, investigations, Nord Stream, pipeline leaks, sabotage on December 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Wer ist verantwortlich?
As reported by Tagespiegel, the EU states have agreed to better protect critical infrastructure. Yet apparently the status of the Nord Stream investigation(s) was not discussed. When will the findings be released? How and when will the responsible parties be identified?
Ultradeep geothermal – It’s all about the drilling
Posted in drilling, energy, Uncategorized, tagged gyrotron, Oak Ridge Lab, Quaise Energy, ultradeep geothermal on December 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »
The hype for ultradeep geothermal is building, as it should be given the intermittency and energy density issues that limit the potential of other renewable energy options. However, the ability to drill 20 km into the earth’s surface with millimeter, rock-melting waves has yet to be demonstrated.
Conventional drilling technology gets you through sedimentary formations to the hard basement rock that lies below. That is where gyrotrons will be expected to vaporize rock to depths needed to tap into unlimited 900+ deg F geothermal energy. But questions regarding gyrotron reliability, hole stability, and material removal. Quaise Energy is working with DOE’s Oak Ridge lab to resolve these issues. Field tests are expected over the next few years with initial energy production in 2026. This is all very exciting, but even conventional drilling is seldom routine, so complications should be expected.
Here’s a very good video:
Nord Stream explosives confirmed
Posted in energy, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, Russia, tagged explosives, Nord Stream, Sweden on November 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Sweden’s prosecutor’s office said Friday that an investigation into gas leaks from two underwater pipelines connecting Russia to Germany found traces of explosives, confirming that it is a case of “serious sabotage.”
CNBC
“Deep Geothermal Is Closer Than You Think”
Posted in CCS, climate, energy, tagged gyrotron, Quaise Energy, renewable energy, ultradeep geothermal on November 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Update on the most promising renewable energy alternative:
Quaise has received a grant from the Department of Energy to scale up Woskov’s experiments using a larger gyrotron. With the larger machine, the team hopes to vaporize a hole 10 times the depth of Woskov’s lab experiments by the end of this year. After that, the team will vaporize a hole 10 times the depth of the previous one — what co-founder Matt Houde calls a 100-to-1 hole.
“That’s something [the DOE] is particularly interested in, because they want to address the challenges posed by material removal over those greater lengths — in other words, can we show we’re fully flushing out the rock vapors?” Houde explains. “We believe the 100-to-1 test also gives us the confidence to go out and mobilize a prototype gyrotron drilling rig in the field for the first field demonstrations.”
Rather than getting deep in the weeds of carbon capture, imagine powering those existing facilities with steam generated without carbon emissions at all.
The key is that ultradeep geothermal has the power density and scalability of fossil fuels.
Enjoy the weekend while supporting renewable energy 😀
Posted in climate, energy, natural gas, Uncategorized, tagged Jack Daniels, Lars Herbst, RNG, TC Energy on October 28, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Advice from Lars Herbst, distinguished offshore energy leader: “Help the Energy Crisis – Drink more Jack Daniels”
Tennessee Twist:TC Energy’s $29.3 million investment in a RNG (renewable natural gas) production facility near the Jack Daniel’s Distillery will see the Canadian operator producing RNG with a carbon-intensity score that is 50% lower than traditional natural gas, saving up to 16,000 tonnes of CO2e per year, according to the company.
“This investment is our first in the production of renewable natural gas,” said Corey Hessen, TC Energy executive vice president and president, power & Energy solutions. “The production of RNG onsite at the Jack Daniel’s Distillery offers TC Energy one more opportunity to meet the challenge of growing energy needs and reducing emissions while providing customers with access to an affordable, reliable, source of energy.”
JPT
It’s a great country! 😀
Lebanon – Israel maritime boundary settlement
Posted in energy, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Eastern Mediterranean, Israel, Karish, Lebanon, natural gas, Qana on October 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »
In a world where diplomacy seems to be lacking, it’s nice to learn that Israel and Lebanon have reached an agreement on their maritime boundary, and that both countries are satisfied. Based on press reports, it appears that the Qana gas field will fall under the control of Lebanon and that Israel will control the Karish field. Good for Lebanon, good for Israel, and good for energy!
The Talos-EnVen merger is a pretty big deal
Posted in decommissioning, energy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Cognac, Deepwater, EnVen, Gulf of Mexico, merger, Talos on September 26, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Sept 22 (Reuters) – Talos Energy Inc (TALO.N) said on Thursday it will buy EnVen Energy Corp, a private producer in the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico, in a $1.1 billion deal including debt.
As the data below demonstrate, this is a significant merger from a regional perspective. In 2021, the combined company would have been the sixth largest GoM producer of both oil and gas. The two companies are operating 105 platforms, and their 8 deepwater (>1000′) platforms are 14% of the GoM total. Their compliance records, while not at Honor Roll levels, are better than the GoM average based on INCs/inspection. Some major decommissioning projects loom (see the second table below), and the extent to which the merged company is financially prepared for these obligations is unknown. Particularly noteworthy is the Cognac platform, which was the world’s first platform installed in >1000′ of water.
| EnVen | Talos | |
| 2021 Oil (MMbbls) | 9.6 | 17.5 |
| GoM oil rank | 13 | 7 |
| 2022 Gas (Bcf) | 12.6 | 34.8 |
| GoM gas rank | 16 | 9 |
| 2021/2022 well starts | 8 | 8 |
| platforms: total | 14 | 91 |
| platforms >1000′ | 4 | 4 |
| BSEE inspections | 37 | 176 |
| 2022 INCs (W, CSI, FSI) | 12/4/1 | 38/23/10 |
| INCs/inspection | 0.46 | 0.40 |
Decommissioning obligations of note:
| Platform | owner | type | water depth (ft) | installed |
| Amberjack | Talos | fixed | 1100 | 1991 |
| VK 989 | Talos | fixed | 1290 | 1994 |
| Ram Powell | Talos | TLP | 3216 | 1997 |
| GC 18 | Talos | fixed | 750 | 1986 |
| Cognac | EnVen | fixed | 1023 | 1978 |
| Lobster | EnVen | fixed | 775 | 1994 |
| Brutus | EnVen | TLP | 2900 | 2001 |
| Prince | EnVen | TLP | 1500 | 2001 |
EIA: Record US natural gas consumption in 2022
Posted in energy, natural gas, tagged EIA, record natural gas consumption on September 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »
In our September Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we expect natural gas consumption to increase by 3.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in the United States during 2022 to average 86.6 Bcf/d for the year, the most annual U.S. natural gas consumption on record. We forecast that U.S. natural gas consumption will increase in all end-use sectors this year. We expect the U.S. electric power sector to grow by 4% in 2022 to 32.1 Bcf/d, exceeding the 2020 record by 1%, which is the highest growth rate among all sectors.
EIA
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 