Capitol Crude: The US Energy Policy Podcast

The US has dozens of offshore wind projects in the pipeline as the Biden administration has set its sights on deploying 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and 110 GW by 2050. And 11 coastal states have already set procurement targets that exceed 50 GW through 2035 and surpass 75 GW by 2045. But if the industry wants to build the up to 200 GW of capacity necessary to decarbonize power grids and become...

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is starting the new year with a 2-2 partisan split after former Chairman Richard Glick was forced to bid adieu to the agency after his renomination stalled out. The divide could complicate action on some of the thornier issues before the agency, and there is a risk of 2-2 deadlocked votes that could stall project authorizations. S&P Global senior editor May...

After substantial recovery in 2022 from the low crude prices and oil demand brought about by two years of the coronavirus pandemic, 2023 appears beset with uncertainties. Russia's war with Ukraine, wobbly oil prices and heavy Chinese fuel demand have dampened what was earlier hoped to be a sanguine oil patch in the new year. With inflation gobbling up what are likely to be low-double-digit capital...

What will 2023 have in store for the oil sector? EY principal Pat Jelinek is expecting healthy oil prices next year, increased investment in oil companies' traditional businesses and adjacent lower carbon options and "a pretty good outlook" for US oil and gas producers in the near term. Jelinek, EY's oil and gas leader for the Americas, joined the podcast to give his take on what's to come for the...

The US Environmental Protection Agency has pitched raising the amount of renewable fuel that US refiners must mix with gasoline and diesel over the next three years. Ethanol producers generally applauded the agency's latest proposal for the Renewable Fuel Standard program, but the biodiesel sector was dismayed and accused the EPA of lowballing the renewable volume obligations for biomass-based die...

Policy and culture in the US have aligned to paint Big Oil as the bad guy, and its time the industry started fighting back, according to Ellen Wald and Jacqueline Plunkett, who launched Washington Ivy Advisors to advocate for the necessity of legacy energy. Wald, who serves as chief industry officer at the firm, and Plunkett, the firm's chief strategy officer, want to put an end to the combative r...

As Canada's main oil-producing province, Alberta has rarely let go an opportunity to defend its constitutional rights and pick a fight with the federal government when it comes to developing its abundant natural resources. Over the past few years, the mood overall in Western Canada, led by Alberta, has been of disenchantment, with a significant amount of the ire being directed towards the federal...

The 2022 US midterm elections featured partisan clashes over energy policy, with accusations traded over whether the Biden administration's climate policies or what some saw as profit-hungry oil companies were to blame for high prices. With the possibility that divided government or slim margins for either party in Congress will result from the midterms, S&P Global senior editor Maya Weber spoke t...

High energy prices and inflation have played a front-stage role in US election politics this season, with control of the US House and Senate at stake in the Nov. 8 voting . S&P Global senior editor Maya Weber caught up with American Exploration & Production Council CEO Anne Bradbury after the annual North American Gas Forum organized by Energy Dialogues to discuss what the election results could m...

The pace of drilling and well completions activity in US oil and gas fields has slowed in late 2022 from the ramp up seen earlier in the year as premium equipment and crews to run it have become increasingly tight. But overall, 2023 should be a year of growth, although much depends on upstream operators' capital budget decisions this year as well as a host of uncertainties, from inflation to the d...

The US Supreme Court recently held oral arguments in a case that the oil and gas industry is hoping will end some of the back-and-forth regulatory scramble over whether certain wetlands and water sources fall under federal jurisdiction. The high court is examining whether the Waters of the US regulation, or WOTUS, uses the proper test when evaluating wetlands. In Sackett v. EPA , the Supreme Court...

There has been a lot of back and forth lately over whether political factors motivated the recent OPEC decision to cut crude oil production . One thing that's for certain is that supply risks to the global oil markets are running high, and the coming EU ban on seaborne Russian crude and G7 implementation of a price cap on Russian exports are adding another layer of uncertainty and potential volati...

OPEC and its allies slashed production targets for the next 14 months by 2 million b/d, signaling that the bloc is set on managing global production in a way that maintains a higher oil price, according to market analysts. At higher prices, oil companies are continuing to produce enormous amounts of free-cash-flow, and that bodes well for long-term investors in the sector like Equinox Partners, ac...

Rotting food, farm waste and sewage don't sound all that appealing, but they're the bread and butter of the biogas industry – an industry that believes it has a pivotal role to play in providing green solutions to address the energy crisis spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the impending food crisis. Danish company Nature Energy touts itself as the largest producer of biomethane in the wo...

Development of the Greater Sunrise gas and condensate fields, first discovered in the Timor Sea in 1974, has been stalled for decades. With a maritime border dispute between the Southeast Asian island country of Timor-Leste and Australia solved, the project continues to be held up over a disagreement on whether the gas should be piped to Timor-Leste or Australia for processing and eventual export....

Texas is one of the largest emitting states in the US and stands to become ground zero of the carbon management industry. But unlike other states, Texas law provides no clarity on ownership rights of pore space -- the empty underground cavities where companies can pump and permanently store captured CO2. While surface rights and mineral rights are crystal clear, Texas hasn't defined who owns those...

Voters will head to the polls November 8 where control of the US House and Senate are at stake along with the potential to flip the leadership in several states. The outcome of those contests will shape the second half of President Joe Biden's term and influence the pace of change in US energy and climate policies. S&P Global Commodity Insights editors Maya Weber, Ellie Potter and Kate Winston joi...

Oil and natural gas industry groups were not pleased with the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law Aug. 16, despite some positive elements for the sector, including provisions to ensure more oil and gas lease sales and expand carbon capture tax credits. Among their main objections are the new 15% corporate minimum tax; the expansion of Superfund excise taxes to crude oil and petroleum products...

The oil and gas sector and policymakers in Texas and New Mexico are on high alert over a notice posted to the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory agenda that they fear could have a crippling impact on domestic oil production. That notice revealed that the EPA is considering redesignating portions of the Permian Basin as ozone nonattainment areas under the 2015 National Ambient Air Quality...

So far this summer, power demand in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market has set 11 new all-time records as the grid has faced weeks of 100-plus degree temperatures. With that has come power scarcity conditions and high power prices, both affected by state policymaker actions. S&P Global senior editor Mark Watson spoke with Alison Silverstein , an Austin-based independent energy market...

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 would make available $369 billion in energy security and climate change spending over the next decade. The bill offers a mixed bag of wins and losses for an array of stakeholders. But the biofuel industry feels they made out pretty well. Growth Energy Vice President of Government Affairs John Fuher joined the podcast to weigh in on how the ethanol industry could...

So, what exactly would a climate emergency declaration free the Biden administration to do? Senior editor Jasmin Melvin posed that question to Liz Craddock , a partner at the Holland & Knight law firm. She joined the podcast to explain what authorities President Joe Biden would newly have at his disposal, the key energy statutes that could possibly come into play and the potential political pitfal...

As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine , the Biden administration is contemplating ways to starve the Russian economy of revenues, the bulk of which come from Russian oil and energy exports. As part of that effort, the US Treasury Department has been lobbying European and Asian leaders to support a price cap on Russian oil. Details of how that would be structured and enforced have been scant,...

US President Joe Biden just wrapped up a trip to the Middle East with a closely watched visit to Saudi Arabia. His national security director signaled that the success of his oil diplomacy will be judged in the coming weeks, not immediately. So will OPEC+ agree to increase production at its Aug. 3 meeting to help ease global prices? Ellen Wald, president of Transversal Consulting and senior nonres...

The International Energy Agency, in its road map for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, set a near-term target for the deployment of carbon capture capacity at 1.7 billion metric tons by 2030, a level that is more than 40 times the global capacity in 2021. The most significant action the US has taken towards reaching that goal has been to provide funding for various types of carbon management t...