The REAL Russia Scandal

MELISSA BARREIRO/TRUMPET

 

Is Vladimir Putin trying to strengthen the Trump presidency—or weaken it?

Claims that United States President Donald Trump secretly cooperated with Russia to steal the 2016 United States presidential election have been making headlines for over a year. New allegations seem to come out every week, but none of them are backed up by proof against the president.

WikiLeaks published 19,252 e-mails hacked from the accounts of seven key Democratic National Committee staff members on July 22, 2016. These staff members are chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chief executive officer Amy Dacey, chief financial officer Brad Marshall, communications director Luis Miranda, press secretary Mark Paustenbach, broadcast media director Pablo Manriquez and finance director Jordan Kaplan.

The e-mails revealed that under Schultz’s leadership, key officials within the Democratic Party worked to sabotage the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders so Hillary Clinton would win the party nomination. Many Sanders supporters were outraged. Schultz apologized and resigned in disgrace.

Could Germany Become The Next Shale Hotspot?

Nuclear power is out in Germany, but could shale gas soon be included in the historic German energiewende?

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Up until now, opposition to hydraulic fracturing has also been very strong. But the German government is flirting with the idea of allowing oil and gas drillers to begin fracking. There has been a de facto moratorium on fracking in place for several years, but a new proposal, if passed, could open up the country to drilling by the end of the decade. Under the proposal an expert panel of six government officials would be granted authority to approve fracking at depths greater than 3,000 meters below the surface.

No Shale Revolution For Europe

It’s looking increasingly unlikely that Europe will be able to sever its reliance on Russian energy supplies by developing its own shale gas industry.

For years, Poland has been regarded as the European Union’s biggest hope for developing indigenous sources of natural gas because it sits on large reserves of natural gas trapped in shale. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Poland has 148 tcf (trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas reserves and 1.8 billion barrels of shale oil. By comparison, Russia has an estimated 285 tcf of shale gas.

Poland represents the European Union’s best hope at breaking Russia’s grip over natural gas supplies, and its government has been highly supportive of shale gas development, which is rare in the green-tinged political circles of Europe.

But things have not gone according to plan. Dozens of wells have been drilled since 2010, but almost none have been successful. In fact, Bloomberg reports, the most productive shale projects have returned gas flows that were just 30 percent of what is needed to be commercially viable.

US poised to become world’s leading liquid petroleum producer

The US is overtaking Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of liquid petroleum, in a sign of how its booming oil production has reshaped the energy sector.

US production of oil and related liquids such as ethane and propane was neck-and-neck with Saudi Arabia in June and again in August at about 11.5m barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency, the watchdog backed by rich countries.

With US production continuing to boom, its output is set to exceed Saudi Arabia’s this month or next for the first time since 1991.

Russia in secret plot against fracking, Nato chief says

Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia was mounting a sophisticated “disinformation campaign” aimed at undermining attempts to exploit alternative energy sources such as shale gas

Russia is secretly working with environmental groups campaigning against fracking in an attempt to maintain Europe’s dependence on energy imports from Moscow, the secretary-general of Nato has said.

Speaking at the Chatham House foreign affairs think-tank in London, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia was mounting a sophisticated disinformation campaign aimed at undermining attempts to exploit alternative energy sources such as shale gas.

He said: “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas. That is my interpretation.”

Time for an EU energy union, says Polish PM

BRUSSELS – The European Union must create an energy union to secure its supply and reduce its dependence on Russian gas, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said.

Tusk’s energy blueprint, set out in an article in the Financial Times on Tuesday (22 April), would establish a single European body that would buy gas for the whole 28-nation bloc. This would end a system that currently sees the different countries negotiate their own deal with energy giant Gazprom, the government-backed firm which dominates Russia’s gas market.

Meanwhile, “solidarity mechanisms” between EU countries would kick into action if countries were threatened with being cut off from gas supplies.

World Entering “Golden Age of Gas”

Bloomberg published a lengthy article on the proliferation of shale gas drilling around the world, with interviews from top oil and gas executives. Drillers are trying to replicate the U.S. shale gas revolution in places such as China, Russia, India, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, the U.K, and Poland, among other places, according to the report. For example, Shell is working with Sinopec to tap the world’s largest shale gas reserves in China; Chevron teamed up with YPF SA to drill the massive Vaca Muerta shale formation in Argentina; and oil and gas companies are lining up to move into Mexico to drill the Mexican side of the Eagle Ford shale.

Shocking US factory orders and Chinese bank woes trigger global flight to safety

“Absolutely awful” factory figures as new orders suffer worst slump since 1980 recession

Factory orders in the US suffered their steepest fall for 33 years in January and also slowed further in China, raising fresh concerns about the strength of the world’s two biggest economies.

The shock figures set off a renewed flight to safety in New York, where yields on US 10-year Treasuries fell to a three-month low of 2.60pc. The Dow Jones index tumbled 326 points, breaking through crucial technical support levels.

The “Fracking” Revolution Comes to China

With some predicting China will import 79% of its oil by 2030, could domestic shale gas extraction help China meet its energy needs?

As shale gas fever sweeps through Beijing, analysts are looking at the costs and benefits of extracting what is increasingly a controversial source of energy. But for China, with its growing middle class, the immediate and long-term demand for energy has the potential to spark a revolution in shale gas before sufficient and safe technological know-how and regulations are developed.

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The emergence of shale gas is a game changer. Countries that have traditionally relied on hydrocarbon exports for political clout (the Persian Gulf, Russia, Venezuela) will inevitably lose some of their petro power. Europe could become less energy dependent on Russian supply by importing liquid natural gas (LNG) from North America and by exploiting the potentially significant shale gas deposits in Poland and other countries. Australia, which has significant deposits and much of the pre-existing infrastructure to begin extraction, could see its clout in the energy politics of the region increase– forcing a significant redraft of Canberra’s “Australia in the Asian Century” White Paper.

UPDATE 5-U.S. to overtake Saudi as top oil producer – IEA

Believing this one might be a difficult thing to uphold. The energy resources available aren’t disputed, but the actual motive to use them are. Most of the news the last four years reflects that the Obama administration has gone out of its way to close everything up it can (i.e. available shale oil land in Colorado via making national parks out of everything) and kill Canadian imported oil. Only time will tell what will come of this anomaly.

* U.S. to become biggest oil producer by 2017

* To overtake Russia as top gas producer by 2015

* Moving to become self-sufficient in energy (Adds details, para 8-9)