From USA Today The Obama administration said Thursday it will require companies that drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands to publicly disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations. The new "fracking" rule replaces a draft proposed last year that was withdrawn amid industry complaints that federal regulation could hinder an ongoing boom in natural gas production. The new draft rule rel ...

From Washington Post The Senate unanimously confirmed Ernest Moniz, a scientist and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to be secretary of energy Thursday. Environmental groups had opposed his nomination early on, saying they were concerned about his support for natural gas and nuclear power. Seems Moniz was able to assuage those concerns. The Senate vote was 97 to 0. In other action Thursda ...

From Bloomberg By Tara Patel Electricite de France SA, Europe’s biggest power producer, fell the most in five months in Paris trading after Bank of America Corp. cut its rating on the stock on concern earnings from nuclear generation will fall short. EDF (EDF) fell as much as 5.5 percent, the biggest intraday decline since Nov. 29, and was down 4.8 percent at 17.265 euros as of 4:39 p.m. local time. Trading ...

From Mining Weekly By Gia Costella Engineering, procurement and construction management services provider to the mining and minerals industry Tenova Bateman’s sub-Saharan Africa division was awarded a joint venture (JV) contract with engineering, consulting and project management service provider AMEC. The JV comprises a reimbursable contract for the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPC ...

From Presna Latina News Agency China's Vice President Li Yuanchao and Venezuelan Minister of Oil and Mining Rafael Ramirez today ratified their will to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the hydrocarbons field. In statements made from an oil extraction deposit of Sinovensa joint venture, in the Orinoco Oil Belt (OOB), the Chinese vice president said that the goal is to jointly produce 40 million tons of oi ...

From Hurriyet Daily News Turkish and South Korean companies signed a deal yesterday for construction of a natural gas cycle power plant with 141 megawatt (mW) installed capacity worth $175 million that is planned to generate power in the Aegean province of Aydın. Turkey’s Doğanlar Investment Holding’s D-Energy Group and South Korea’s KOSEP and SK E&C concluded a deal for the construction of the plant in ...

From Rigzone A deadly attack this week by Myanmar rebels won't delay the launch of two pipelines scheduled to begin pumping oil and natural gas into China later this year, a senior Myanmar government official said. Two Myanmar nationals working as subcontractors for China National Petroleum Corp. were killed on Monday after rebels opened fire at a compound near the Chinese border, said Htay Aung, head of of ...

From Oil Price By Stuart Burns We have heard a lot in the press – and indeed we have written ourselves – about the impact of shale gas and, more recently, shale or tight oil, on the energy market in the US. Lower gas prices have stimulated a pronounced switch to natural gas-powered electricity generation, provided a huge boost to the petrochemicals industry and the early steps of a switch to natural gas for ...

From Business Day Live By Dan Murtaugh Solar panels were cheaper than wind turbines for the first time last year in certain markets, per unit of capacity, and are rapidly closing a remaining gap in the full cost of power generation. Until now, wind power has been the leading low-carbon alternative to oil, coal and gas, outside large niche markets such as Germany, which has seen a huge ramp-up in installed s ...

From Globe and Mail Argentina has the world’s second largest reservoir of unconventional oil after the United States, concentrated in the Vaca Muerta megafield, said Ali Moshiri, president of Latin American and African operations for U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. The company has signed an agreement with Argentine state-controlled oil firm Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF), setting the stage for Chevron ...