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America Is Complicit in the Carnage in Yemen
Solar and Wind Manufacturing Is Thriving. Why Don’t Mainstream Reporters Know?
Solar panels Like many Americans, I am an avid listener to American Public Radio’s Marketplace Show. As their website proudly proclaims: Marketplace [is] the most widely heard program on business and the economy — radio or television, commercial or public broadcasting — in the country. This past Friday, they did their weekly roundup on the economy and focused on manufacturing jobs because of emphasis provided on this topic by both of the Presidential campaigns. The guests were John Carney of the Wall Street Journal and Catherine Rampell from the Washington Post . At minute 3:00 Catherine weighs in on whether clean energy jobs would really put the laid off manufacturing sector workers back to work. At 4:30, John Carney shows his complete ignorance and claims that clean energy jobs are “science fiction”. I know that Marketplace knows better because Scott Tong does excellent clean energy reporting on the show […]
Louisiana’s Sinking Coast Is a $100 Billion Nightmare for Big Oil
The state can’t pay, so someone has to. And the water keeps rising. The Phillips 66 oilrefinery on the bank of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, near the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s Bayou Dupont Marsh and Ridge Creation. From 5,000 feet up, it’s difficult to make out where Louisiana’s coastline used to be. But follow the skeletal remains of decades-old oil canals, and you get an idea. Once, these lanes sliced through thick marshland, clearing a path for pipelines or ships. Now they’re surrounded by open water, green borders still visible as the sea swallows up the shore. The canals tell a story about the industry’s ubiquity in Louisiana history, but they also signal a grave future: $100 billion of energy infrastructure threatened by rising sea levels and erosion. As the coastline recedes, tangles of pipeline are exposed to corrosive seawater; refineries, tank farms and […]
Lack of investment, payment delays hamper Venezuela oil output
The flow of drilling mud is seen in a container while an oilfield worker works on a drilling rig at an oil well operated by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, in the oil rich Orinoco belt, near Cabrutica at the state of Anzoategui April 16, 2015. Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest crude reserves, is on track to suffer its steepest annual oil output drop in 14 years as it suffers the effects of an economic crisis and years of under investment and mismanagement, according to data seen by Reuters and interviews with company sources and workers. The state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), is struggling to stem a production decline that has accelerated this year as a result of payment delays to suppliers, lack of investment in equipment, and poor planning in the country’s vast oil fields. In the 12 months to June, Venezuela’s crude output fell […]
The Oilfield Service Struggle: $110B in Debt; Depressed By Market Pressure
Mounting debt among oilfield service companies coupled with soft oil prices squeezes the sector. Oil prices hovering close to $40 per barrel is compounding the problems that dozens of struggling oilfield service and drilling companies face in a market that might not bounce back until late next year. The strained oilfield services (OFS) sector faces a debt wall of about $110 billion that will mature or expire during the next five years, according to a report from Moody’s Investors Service released Aug. 9. Sixty-seven OFS companies have more than $60 billion in bond and term loans, about half of which will mature between now and 2019. More than a third of those companies will have a debt-to-EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) ratio above 10 this year. That’s twice what is considered a strong ratio, and consequently, those companies have the most risk of default. “There’s so […]
