ODAC Newsletter – July 8

Oil traded near the highest in three weeks in New York, heading for a second weekly gain, as investors bet that shrinking stockpiles and signs of economic recovery in the U.S. indicated fuel demand may increase.

Futures advanced earlier after data showed companies in the U.S. added twice as many workers as forecast in June. A Labor Department report today may show employers added 105,000 jobs last month, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Crude supplies fell 889,000 barrels to 358.6 million last week, the lowest level since April, an Energy Department report showed…

Serious spills of oil and gas from North Sea platforms are occurring at the rate of one a week, undermining oil companies’ claims to be doing everything possible to improve the safety of rigs.

Shell has emerged as one of the top offenders despite promising to clean up its act five years ago after a large accident in which two oil workers died…

The seventh ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in May looked set be a mundane affair, with its focus on signing a new search-and-rescue agreement and handover of the chairmanship to Sweden.

But the atmosphere in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, was electrified by the first visit to such a forum by the United States, courtesy of the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, secretary of the interior Ken Salazar, and a host of other heavy-hitters…

Just east of Argentina’s Andean foothills, an oil field called the Vaca Muerta — “dead cow” in English — has finally come to life.

In May, the Argentine oil company YPF announced that it had found 150 million barrels of oil in the Patagonian field, and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner rushed onto national television to praise the discovery as something that could give new impetus to the country’s long-stagnant economy…

For 20 years, Exxon Mobil’s 12-inch Silvertip pipeline lay buried beneath the waters and muddy bottom of the Yellowstone River in Montana, and Friday it was feeding 39 barrels a minute to small refineries in the Billings area.

The initial cleanup along the oil-fouled Yellowstone River could be tested Tuesday as rising waters make it harder for Exxon Mobil Corp. to get to areas damaged by the crude spilled from a company pipeline…

The Obama administration and the auto industry are locked in negotiations over new vehicle mileage and emissions standards that will have a profound effect on the cars Americans drive and the health of the auto industry over the next decade and beyond.

Depending on the stringency of the standard, the deal could also reduce global warming emissions by millions of tons a year and cut oil imports by billions of barrels over the life of the program, cornerstones of President Obama’s energy policy…

With gas prices locked at well above $3 a gallon, some retailers and manufacturers are trying to get more shoppers back on the road by picking up some costs at the pump.

Publix, the grocery chain in the Southeast, is offering $50 gas cards for $40, with a minimum purchase of $25 in other products. Kellogg’s asks that shoppers send in 10 bar codes from cereals like Raisin Bran or Corn Flakes for a $10 gas card. At CVS, customers receive a $10 gas card when they spend $30 on certain items…

A moment that Npower and all of the UK’s “big six” utilities have been waiting for will finally arrive next Tuesday, when the government is due to announce the most radical reform of Britain’s electricity market for two decades.

Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, will publish a white paper designed to give the utilities the incentives they need to invest £200bn on renewing Britain’s entire energy infrastructure over the next 10 years. This immense sum will be needed to replace lost generating capacity and reduce the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions…

British Gas’ business-to-business arm has been slapped with a £1m fine for underestimating the amount of renewable electricity it supplied to non-domestic customers.

The government’s Renewable Obligation (RO) requires utilities to provide evidence of the amount of electricity supplied from renewable sources. Financial incentives, known as Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC), designed to promote the use of renewable energy, depend on the accuracy of such information…

A leading contender to replace Naoto Kan as Japan’s prime minister has called for the country to phase out nuclear power over the next two decades.

Seiji Maehara, one of the most popular figures in the ruling Democratic party, told the Financial Times in an interview that construction of new nuclear reactors should “basically be stopped” following the crisis at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant…

Japan’s plan to hold further safety tests on its nuclear plants has drawn widespread criticism, and heaped more pressure on Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

The government announced the tests just weeks after declaring that the nuclear plants were safe to restart…

French nuclear specialist EDF has been planning to build the country’s first new station in partnership with Centrica by 2018 and the second by 2020.

RWE Npower, together with fellow German utility E.ON, have been planning the third and fourth by 2020 and 2025…

Charts and drawings bestrew the Hamburg office from which Eon, the power company, is choreographing the building of its first German offshore wind park. They give an idea of the scale of the country’s ambition to phase out nuclear energy and replace it with renewable sources in the next decade.

On the walls, schedules specify what is meant to be made when, and delivered where, by late 2013. Though poster size, none has space for the myriad further steps into 2014 when, after six years of co-ordination and construction, 80 turbines producing 300 megawatts of electricity are to go on stream. Or so the planners hope…

Global investment in renewable energy sources grew by 32% during 2010 to reach a record level of US$211bn (£132bn), a UN study has reported.

The main growth drivers were backing for wind farms in China and rooftop solar panels in Europe, it said…

A government-backed research project has hailed a breakthrough in the efficiency of printed plastic solar cells, potentially paving the way for the commercialisation of cheaper and more transportable solar panels.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council, a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, today confirmed the results of its research into the layers of materials which convert sunlight into electricity…

The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party, said claims by countries that China’s export curbs on the minerals threatened their economic and national security were “groundless”.

“It’s not that other countries don’t have their own supplies, it is just that they have hidden them away,” it said…

The Government imposed a heavier tax rate of 62pc to 80pc on North Sea oil and gas production in the Budget to fund fuel price cuts for motorists. However, on Tuesday Treasury ministers said they would increase tax relief on losses from 6pc to 10pc, costing about £50m. As a result, Statoil, the Norwegian oil giant, said it would restart work on its Mariner field. However, other energy executives were baffled about why the tax relief would help such a big player.

Centrica switched back on the UK’s biggest gas field, Morecambe Bay, on Friday but said this was “entirely a coincidence”. It said production restarted because of better market conditions…

Statoil, the Norwegian oil company, is to resume work on a large North Sea project and Centrica, the UK utility, said that it had reopened Britain’s biggest gas field following concessions by the government on taxation.

The Treasury has said it will increase the ring fence expenditure supplement from 6 to 10 per cent, a measure that allows energy companies to offset the losses they make from investments against tax payments from future profits…

British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK…

Read the emails here

The government has taken an axe to funding for marine energy despite the prime minister’s promise before he took office to put “rocket boosters” under the sector.

Ministers have decided to give £20m to kickstart commercial wave and tidal operations, instead of the £50m that was originally set aside under the marine renewables deployment fund…

Whitehall has hailed its employees as champion energy savers, revealing that central government departments have slashed carbon emissions by 13.8 per cent in a year, far exceeding the coalition’s promise to cut emissions 10 per cent during its first 12 months in office.

Prime Minister David Cameron revealed the figures today and set a new target to cut emissions by 25 per cent by 2015, including emissions from government travel — a move that could result in banning ministers and civil servants from travelling business class…

Two of the UK’s largest solar arrays are set to come online today as developers race to connect new solar farms to the grid before an August deadline cuts solar energy incentives by up to 70 per cent.

Green energy company Ecotricity will flick the switch on a 1MW development in Lincolnshire, while SolarCentury plans to inaugurate a 1.4MW solar farm, the UK’s largest to date, at a reclaimed tin mine in Cornwall…