Capitol Crude: The US Energy Policy Podcast

A broad cross section of the energy industry has been in battle with the Federal Communications Commission over a band of airwaves, called spectrum, that tech and telecom companies gained the right to operate their mass-market wireless devices on last year. Because this spectrum is finite, it is allocated by the federal government, with the FCC managing commercial spectrum licenses. But the energy...

The pandemic interrupted a steady surge in global air travel demand, when passenger numbers tripled in just over 20 years. Jet fuel demand remains below pre-pandemic levels and is not expected to fully recover until late 2025 or 2026, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. Yet the race is still on to limit aviation emissions growth because there are no quick fixes for decarbonizing this sector....

Reducing carbon emissions has been a central tenet of the Biden administration's climate agenda. But methane is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide emissions in terms of global warming potential. Roughly a quarter of the warming occurring now is driven by methane, and the oil and gas sector is the single largest source of those emissions in the US.   With that in mind, it's no surprise t...

The year is nearly over and the US Environmental Protection Agency has yet to formally propose biofuel blending requirements for 2021, and will miss the Nov. 30 deadline to finalize Renewable Fuel Standard volume requirements for 2022 as well. The Biden administration has also already missed a Nov. 1 deadline to issue a multi-year rule setting renewable fuel volumes for 2023 and beyond. The countr...

The latest US inflation data showed energy costs jumping 30% in the 12 months through October. The trend is expected to continue through the winter, as home-heating costs rise across the board. The US Energy Information Administration predicts propane will see the biggest price spike in percentage terms, with heating costs surging 46%, compared with 39% for heating oil, 29% for natural gas and 6%...

US gasoline prices remain high well after the summer driving season. Domestic oil production isn't coming back fast as investors remain wary. And now President Joe Biden has struck out asking OPEC to put more oil supply on the market to help ease prices.   OPEC+ decided Nov. 4 to stick to its original plan of increasing its production quotas by 400,000 b/d in December.   Senior editor Meghan Gordo...

The UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, has been hailed as the world's best last chance to get a handle on the climate crisis. In the US, groups like the Electric Power Research Institute are working on climate solutions and advancing energy technologies to meet increasingly ambitious decarbonization goals set by companies and governments. As part of that effort, EPRI,...

With tight supplies and strong demand helping create large swings in global gas prices, Japanese utility JERA is staying the course. The world's largest LNG buyer is focused on its supply procurement and trading strategy. Sunao Nakamura, a senior managing executive officer at JERA and chief of the Japanese company's optimization department, spoke with Platts Senior Editor Harry Weber about the gas...

Asphalt, the heaviest part of crude used in road and home construction, could see a surge in demand as the $1 trillion infrastructure bill would provide record amounts of funding for highway improvements. But all that depends on the bill making it to the president's desk to be signed into law. That legislation also includes critical language that would provide five years of funding stability for t...

Amid a crowded field of US liquefaction projects, Commonwealth LNG is looking to build momentum for its proposed 8.4 million mt/year facility in Louisiana as it targets a final investment decision in late 2022 and shipping its first LNG in 2025. Senior editor Harry Weber spoke with Commonwealth LNG CEO Paul Varello about the state of the global market, the status of commercial efforts to support h...

Last week brought another major development in the outlook for the US adoption of electric vehicles, with Ford Motor Co. and South Korea's SK Innovations announcing an $11 billion project to manufacture EVs and lithium-ion batteries in Kentucky and Tennessee starting in 2025. A lot of uncertainties still surround the outlook for EV adoption in the US, including government incentives like those in...

Global oil demand will still be significant for years, even under the most ambitious energy transition. So which basins will continue to produce, and which others will be abandoned? Offshore E&P company Kosmos Energy has answered those questions by halting its frontier exploration and selling those assets in the past two years. Its oil portfolio is now focused on two areas: West Africa and the Gul...

The American Gas Association has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and believes that natural gas utilities are well-positioned to help the Biden administration achieve the ambitious climate goals laid out by the president, though they're not on board with some proposals floated on Capitol Hill, including the methane fee. Jasmin Melvin spoke with Richard Meyer, AGA's vice president of...

Chris Midgley, global director of analytics at S&P Global Platts, shares his latest outlook for global oil demand heading into the third year of the pandemic and takes stock of the tension between climate ambitions and economic growth. Midgley explains why US shale drillers continue to hold back despite relatively higher oil prices, whether the US and Iran will likely reach a nuclear deal to remov...

As August comes to a close, Washington, DC, is ramping up again with energy issues before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. On the natural gas side, the commission could start answering longstanding questions about how it will evaluate pipelines and LNG facilities in the face of opposition and pressure to weigh climate change impacts. In terms of electric markets, FERC recently kicked off...

President Joe Biden took a strong stance against fossil fuels right away, essentially canceling the long-simmering Keystone XK Pipeline and implementing a moratorium on all new oil and gas lease sales on federal lands and waters. Since then though, his administration has refused to oppose other key crude oil pipeline projects, such as the expansion of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the nearly comp...

Representative Sean Casten, Democrat-Illinois, has not been shy in sharing his belief that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will be essential in combatting climate change and pivotal to achieving the US' ambitious clean energy and decarbonization goals. To get the message across and garner support for legislation aimed at granting FERC greater authority to facilitate the shift to a clean e...

The Biden administration is racing to adopt its energy and climate policy priorities before the pressures of the 2022 midterm elections limit what the White House can do. Meghan Gordon spoke with Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, about a few of the policies set to make a big impact on the US economy, energy producers and market dynamics. They talk about the $1 trillion bi...

Many of the key moments in the oil markets still echo today and are useful in looking at the challenges ahead for producers, consumers and markets during the energy transition away from fossil fuels. We spoke with Adi Imsirovic, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and former global head of oil at Gazprom Marketing & Trading, about his new book, "Trading and Price Di...

The US Department of Energy's newly rebranded Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management aims to fund the research and technology deployment that will help the US reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. We spoke with Acting Assistant Secretary Jennifer Wilcox, head of the office and a carbon capture expert, about some of the promising technologies to curb US dependence on fossil fuels and cut...

Silos within the energy industry are coming down as companies confront the need to dramatically cut carbon emissions. The so-called energy convergence is the idea that companies, policy makers and regulators need to be more collaborative across the energy spectrum. Joe Brettell is a partner for strategic engagement at Prosody Group, which consults on energy, agriculture and financial services. We...

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are locked in a dispute over how to ease oil-production limits as global demand recovers from the pandemic. Nareeka Ahir , a geopolitical analyst at S&P Global Platts Analytics, tells us about the oil market risks that could emerge from the fight. She also shares the latest geopolitical risks from the Iran nuclear talks, Iraq's widespread power outages, Nigeria's oil facil...

Freeport LNG CEO Michael Smith joined us to talk about the state of the market, his company's expansion plans, climate concerns and the start of the Atlantic hurricane season. Activity has started picking up for US developers of new liquefaction terminals after a two-year lull in firm commercial deals that predated the coronavirus pandemic. For existing exporters, global gas and LNG forward prices...

As extreme weather events continue across the US, they're disrupting energy supplies and demanding more planning for the future. Texas and California have both in recent weeks asked residents to conserve electricity to avoid power grid failures, only a few months after crippling power outages during Texas' deep freeze. And the Gulf Coast just started what looks to be an active hurricane season. To...

It's no secret that the power sector is undergoing dramatic changes. Market dynamics and ambitious decarbonization goals set by the Biden administration are driving a transition away from fossil fuels and toward more renewable energy and electric vehicles. Consumers and investors are also expressing new expectations for sustainability and a cleaner energy economy. Utility executives have acknowled...