Court vacates nearly 300 oil and gas leases on public lands

A federal court on Friday vacated 287 oil and gas leases issued by the U.S. government that covered 145,063 acres of land in Montana, deciding that the Trump administration did not adequately consider risks to the environment and water supply. “The Court does not fault BLM for providing a faulty analysis of cumulative impacts or impacts to groundwater, it largely faults BLM for failing to provide any analysis,” said the decision by Obama appointee Brian Morris, referring to the Bureau of Land Management. He vacated the leases, which were sold by the administration to oil and gas producers between December 2017 and March 2018. He also ordered the bureau to conduct further analysis of the environmental impacts of granting the leases. The decision came in response to a suit filed on behalf of landowners and environmental groups. BLM officials said the agency would evaluate the ruling and determine its next steps. The Trump administration’s continued lease sales on public lands have come under particular scrutiny in recent weeks as oil prices have plummeted amid the coronavirus pandemic. ..MORE

Murkowski, Manchin introduce major energy legislation

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Thursday introduced a long-awaited energy package that's shaping up to be the best chance this year for passing legislation to expand the use of cleaner forms of energy. The American Energy Innovation Act would touch nearly every aspect of the energy industry, incorporating more than 50 bills advanced by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took steps Thursday to bring the more than 550-page bill to the floor as early as next week. The package would promote research in up-and-coming renewables like geothermal and wave technology while shoring up supplies of minerals needed for the batteries to support long-term use of wind and solar. It also includes efforts to bolster the capture of carbon pollution, including from the coal and natural gas sector, as well as research to expand nuclear energy. However, some portions of the bill, like those dealing with mining, as well as fossil fuels, may prove too controversial for some Democrats. And it’s already being criticized by environmental groups for doing too little to address climate change. The package does not set any specific carbon reduction targets, though committee staff said it is expected to reduce emissions. The legislation contains elements of bills sponsored or co-sponsored by 60 senators from across the political spectrum, as well as some House legislation that has already been sent to the Senate...MORE

Canadian rail companies lay off more than 1000 workers, court grants injunction against protests

Canadian rail companies have announced temporary layoffs because of the ongoing protests against a natural gas pipeline which has shut down much of the country’s rail system for nearly two weeks. Today, VIA Rail announced it would lay off 1,000 workers:

“Until CN Rail opens the remaining tracks for service, VIA Rail has no choice but to continue the cancellation of its services on a large part of its network,” Via Rail said in a statement. “It is with sincere regret that we must proceed with temporary employee suspensions.”

Chief executive Cynthia Garneau called the service interruption due to a 13-day blockade east of Belleville, Ontario, “unprecedented.”

“In 42 years of existence, it is the first time that VIA Rail, a public intercity passenger rail service, has to interrupt most of its services across the country,” she said in a statement.

The company has cancelled more than 530 trains since blockades began Feb. 6.

 That’s the second set of layoffs announced this week. Yesterday, CN Rail said it would lay off 450 employees:

CN Rail is laying off about 450 workers in its operations in Eastern Canada after cancelling more than 400 trains in the past week over a rail blockade protesting an LNG pipeline in British Columbia…
The Montreal-based railway says the situation is “regrettable” because the impact on the economy and its employees from the protests is unrelated to CN’s activities and beyond its control.

There’s no immediate sign that protesters intend to stop blocking rail lines but even if they did it would take weeks for industries dependent on rail transportation to recover. Already business groups are warning of massive losses as a result of the blockade:

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U.S., Canadian oil company bankruptcies surge 50 per cent in 2019

The number of oil and gas company bankruptcies in the United States and Canada rose 50% in 2019 over the previous year, and is likely to increase as a slide in energy prices continues to shake producers Dallas law firm Haynes and Boone said in a report released on Wednesday. U.S. and Canadian oil and natural gas exploration and production company bankruptcies totaled 42 in 2019, up from 28 in 2018, the law firm said. The increase seems likely to continue, said Buddy Clark, partner at Haynes and Boone. "I think the trend line should be moving up in the first half of 2020," Clark said. A total of 208 oil and gas production companies have filed for bankruptcy between 2015 and 2019, according to the report. The impact of new U.S. oil and natural gas production is being felt globally, Clark said. "That's why you can bomb a major oil facility in Saudi Arabia or kill an Iranian general or shut in all Libyan oil production and prices don't move," he said. Thanks to a shale boom, the United States has become the world's top oil producer, adding to a global surplus leading the market to shrug off September's attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities, January's U.S. air strike that killed a top Iranian commander, and this week's disruptions to Libya's crude output. Oilfield service companies were again hit hard with the number of bankruptcies nearly doubling from 12 in 2018 to 21 in 2019, the largest being the $7.4-billion filing by Weatherford International in July...MORE

First big U.S. offshore wind project hits snag due to fishing-industry concerns

(Reuters) - Trump administration infighting is holding up approval of the first major U.S. offshore wind energy project, with agencies sparring over whether the proposal does enough to protect the fishing industry, according to interviews and agency documents. The delays are a setback to President Donald Trump’s efforts to fast-track big energy infrastructure projects and could threaten the administration’s plans to launch a promising new domestic industry. How the problem is resolved will shape the regulatory blueprint for a growing list of offshore wind developers seeking to tap in to rising U.S. demand for renewable energy, but who face objections from fishermen worried the turbines will affect commercial species or make fishing more difficult. The Trump administration has sought to fire up development of the nascent offshore wind industry by streamlining permitting and carving out areas off the coast for leasing - part of its policy to boost domestic energy production and jobs. But a federal environmental study crucial to its permitting has been repeatedly delayed since April, according to published government timelines, without any public explanation from Trump administration officials. Vineyard Wind has said the delays could threaten the project’s viability. Documents seen by Reuters, which have not previously been made public, show the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) triggered the delays by declining to sign off on the project’s design, as proposed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the lead agency on offshore wind projects. Under a 2017 Trump executive order aimed at limiting environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects to two years, federal agencies must request support from cooperating agencies at three points in the review process, including before issuing the final environmental impact study...First big U.S. offshore wind project hits snag due to fishing-industry concerns

Oil sector cutting spending as Wall Street turns its back

Rising production. Weakening demand. Skeptical investors. The U.S. energy sector, while not entering a downturn, is facing an extended period of lower oil prices, lower profits and tighter spending, ultimately leading to slower growth, fewer companies and fewer jobs in Houston and across the oil and gas industry. In less than a year, the fundamentals of energy markets have shifted dramatically, from forecasts of looming shortages to worries about mounting supplies. Even with OPEC’s agreement this week to extend production cuts into next year, oil markets remain worried about deteriorating global energy demand and record U.S. production. Crude has struggled to break out of the $50-to-$60-a-barrel range, despite heightened tensions in the Middle East and the output reductions by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Some companies can still make money at those levels, but not enough to fuel significant expansions or satisfy increasingly impatient investors. Wall Street already has turned its back on the sector, unhappy with its lackluster returns but also increasingly focused on challenges to the industry— and earnings — from climate change, renewable energy and electric vehicles. The S&P Energy index is down more than 16 percent in the past 12 months even as the broaders S&P 500 index has gained 9 percent...MORE

U.S. Renewable Power Capacity Surpasses Coal For The First Time

The revolution in renewable power hit a new milestone in April. Last week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released it's latest Energy Infrastructure Update (EIU), with data through April 2019. According to a press release by the non-profit SUN DAY Campaign, which analyzed the data, "that was enough to push renewable energy's share of total available installed U.S. generating capacity up to 21.56%. By comparison, coal's share dropped to 21.55% (down from 23.04% a year ago)."...MORE

On The Navajo Reservation, Turning From Coal To Renewables

Laurel Morales

The Navajo and Hopi have fought hard to hold onto coal. Three generations have worked for the West's largest coal-fired power plant, the Navajo Generating Station. The tribes have relied heavily on its revenue. So when the Phoenix-based Salt River Project announced it was shutting down the plant at the end of the year, the tribe scrambled to find a buyer or — as a last resort — purchase the plant. It finally came down to a vote late last month at a Navajo Nation Council Special Session meeting. The delegates deliberated for eight hours. The council finally voted against the purchase...That decision marks the end of an era. Before coal, many tribal members worked with the federal government to blast uranium out of the Navajo Nation to make atomic weapons. "The Navajo economy had been kinda built upon resource extraction," said Brett Isaac, who grew up next to the Peabody Kayenta Coal Mine. "I still have an uncle that works for the Peabody Energy Co. I've had other uncles and cousins and friends and ... You had a lot of people who that's the only industry and job they ever knew."...Now Isaac and a group of entrepreneurs have formed Navajo Power, a renewable energy company that's trying to help the tribe shift away from coal. The tribe has built two utility-sized solar farms already and it's working on a third...There's just one problem. The number of jobs at a solar farm can't compare to coal. The plant and mine supplied 800 of the best-paying jobs on the Navajo Nation and many more support jobs. Solar, on the other hand, requires hundreds of temporary employees to construct the farm, but after it's built the sun does most of the work. That's a tough sell to a tribe where half of the people are unemployed...MORE

Power lines: The next 'Green New Deal' battlefront?

If the goals of the "Green New Deal" are a political minefield, so, too, are the most likely strategies for reaching its target of very high national levels of renewable energy output. A shelf of authoritative studies under the Department of Energy's sponsorship dating back to George W. Bush's presidency define how to take a big step in that direction. Their answer — build a network of long-distance, ultra-high-voltage transmission lines to widely share wind and solar power across the continent's time zones. But the strategy has faced overpowering headwinds of not-in-my-backyard opposition from residents and not-through-my-state political pushback. It's also been rare for Congress to put aside partisan politics and pass major legislation facilitating transmission corridors. "If you're going to do a 100 percent clean energy portfolio — that is really 70 to 80 percent of electric power from renewables — I don't know how you avoid huge transmission builds," said Richard Sedano, president of the Regulatory Assistance Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank advocating a clean energy future. "It's either that or overbuilding the system so much with surplus renewables and batteries" that consumers will be hammered. "I don't see how you have a national clean energy standard without significant federally mandated or incented transmission build cutting across regions of the country," added Travis Kavulla, a former Montana utility commissioner and president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, now with the R Street Institute in Washington, D.C...MORE

The $32 Trillion Push To Disrupt The Entire Oil Industry

Global oil and gas companies are increasingly facing an uphill battle as global warming policies are taking their toll. Most analysts and market watchers are focusing on peak oil demand scenarios, but the reality could be much darker. International oil companies (IOCs) are likely to face a Black Swan scenario, which could end up being a boon for state-owned oil companies (NOCs). Increased shareholder activism, combined with global warming policies of institutional investors and NGOs, are pushing IOCs in a corner, constricting financing options for oil companies. The first signs of a green revolution in the shareholder-investors universe are there, as investors have forced Dutch oil and gas major Shell to officially change its strategy, investing in more renewable energy and energy storage. The Dutch IOC wasn’t forced by to do so because of mismanagement or a lack of reserves but due to a well-orchestrated investor/stakeholder offensive. Several other peers, such as BP, ENI or Total, are expected to experience comparable situations. And it has become clear that not only oil and gas giants are being targeted, after one of the world’s largest mining and commodity trading companies, Glencore, decided to put a limit on its thermal coal investment. The group stated that this was done after it was confronted by a largely unknown shareholder network called Climate Action 100+, which claims to be backed by more than 300 investors, managing assets of around $32 trillion. The group was founded a little over a year ago but has already forced oil majors’ boardrooms to take radical decisions. The above shows that international hydrocarbon and mining sectors are facing a new obstacle, being confronted by large groups of socially and environmentally engaged shareholders, which are no longer looking at commercial value only. A combination of activist institutional investors, international pension funds and NGOs, is a new force to be dealt with. Stock-exchanged listed companies will need to address the will of their shareholders, especially with regards to climate change policies or decarbonization of the economy. After decades of having focused on creating maximum shareholder returns, things have changed dramatically, but maybe not for the better...MORE

Giant Wind Power Transmission Project Could Spark New Wind Rush In Wind Belt

Wow, anybody remember the Grain Belt Express? No? No wonder! The massive 700-mile wind power transmission project in the US Midwest has been on the boards since at least 2011. It got off to a promising start but suffered death by a thousand cuts when state officials in Missouri balked.

Well, it looks like the naysayers forgot to cut off its head or at least sever the spinal cord, because the Grain Belt Express could come back to walk the Earth once more.
The Grain Belt Express is one in a group of ambitious wind power transmission projects under the umbrella of the company Clean Line Energy.
Clean Line’s business model looked simple enough. Harvest low cost renewable energy from prime wind-producing states in the Midwest “wind belt” and shuttle it over to high-population states to the east.
CleanTechnica took note of the project’s legal status back in 2016:

…The ambitious project is designed to link Kansas wind farms with Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and other points east, but it hit a brick wall last summer when property owners in Missouri objected. Ever since then, Clean Line has been prepping for Round 2, and it is bringing some heavy artillery with it for the next go-around.

The good news for fans of renewable energy is that last summer, the Missouri Supreme Court decided in favor of Clean Line...MORE

Energy Revolution Unleashed: Interior Shatters Previous Records With $1.1B In 2018 Oil And Gas Lease Sales

$500M of that revenue has gone back to states, providing support to key institutions like hospitals and public schools

Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt recently announced that Interior Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state offices generated $1.1 B from oil and gas lease sales in calendar year 2018, an amount nearly equal to the BLM’s budget for Fiscal Year 2018, and the highest-grossing year on record, nearly tripling what had been the agency’s highest year ever in 2008, which generated approximately $408M. Bonus bids from the 28 oil and gas lease sales held in calendar year 2018 came to $1,151,109,064 in preliminary figures released today by the BLM. Among these, a total of 1,412 parcels, covering almost 1.5 million acres, were leased.

...BLM New Mexico had the largest lease sale of 2018, generating approximately $972M in bonus bids for 142 parcels. The two-day lease sale, held in September, brought in more revenue than all BLM oil and gas lease sales in 2017 combined and broke all previous records. A bonus bid is a one-time payment in exchange for exclusive access to explore for hydrocarbons on a parcel and grants an exclusive lease for a set period of time.

Individual states also benefit from the BLM’s lease sales. Forty-eight percent of lease sale revenue goes to the state while the rest goes to the U.S. Treasury. The state also receives half of the revenue from royalties if oil and gas is developed on the lease...MORE

Trump Looks To Neutralize Pipeline Opponents

The White House is preparing measures that will reduce states’ powers over the approval or ban of new energy projects, notably oil and gas pipelines, Bloomberg reported last week, citing three unnamed sources in the know. The implications of such measures would be bad news for a state such as New York, which has already put the brakes on a natural gas pipeline, but they could be good news for consumers. Last week, FreightWaves.com reported that residents of the Northeastern states are being increasingly burdened by high electricity bills coupled with unreliable supplies, the root cause of which is the lack of enough natural gas pipeline capacity to bring in the fuel needed for power plants. The report followed an announcement by a regional utility, Con Edison, that it will stop taking on new customers in Westchester County on the grounds that “new demand for gas is reaching the limits of the current supplies to our service area.” In other words, the utility cannot supply electricity to all who need it because it cannot produce enough electricity to satisfy demand and the reason it cannot produce it is lack of sufficient gas supply. What’s more, New York is not the only state struggling with growing electricity demand and insufficient supply because of pipeline opposition on the political level, according to the FreightWaves.com report. All New England states are in the same position and even worse, author Henry Carmichael reports, citing a scientist from the Institute for Energy Research. “The New England states used to be dependent on coal, oil, nuclear and hydroelectricity. And they’ve shifted quickly to natural gas for generation, and they’ve shifted so fast that its caused huge draws of natural gas into the system [pipelines] without increasing infrastructure,” Dan Kish told Carmichael...MORE 

I hate to see any more authority taken away from the states.

Is The Permian Bull Run Coming To An End?

Kurt Cobb

The bad news coming out of the shale oil fields of America could all be put down to slumping oil prices. That is certainly a big factor. But as investment professionals like to say, when the tide goes out, we all find out who's been skinny-dipping. The pattern of negative news from shale country is not just related to price, however. Oil production, it seems, is being overstated industry-wide by 10 percent and 50 percent in the case of some companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. The CEO of one of the largest players in the industry, Continental Resources, predicted that growth in shale oil production could fall by 50 percent this year compared to last year. In reality, we should expect worse as the industry for obvious reasons tends to exaggerate its prospects. The place where the damage to investors has become severe is in private equity firms who hold a large portion of the shale oil industry's high-yield debt. The plan for the firms was always to unload the debt on somebody else when better opportunities presented themselves. But the firms overstayed their welcome and are having a hard time even finding a bid in the market for these bonds. With the big Wall Street players now questioning the value of their existing investments in shale oil, the industry is finding it hard to raise money. Not a single bond sale has come off since November in an industry which must continuously raise capital to survive. To add to the problems, the future of U.S. shale oil production seems to be in the Permian Basin in Texas which has been providing the lion's share of oil production growth for the entire country. But ongoing drought in an already arid West Texas has raised doubts about whether the Permian will have enough water to meet all the demand for fracking new wells...MORE

New U.S. oil and gas drilling to unleash 1,000 coal plants’ worth of pollution by 2050

Amid mounting calls to phase out fossil fuels in the face of rapidly worsening climate change, the United States is ramping up oil and gas drilling faster than any other country, threatening to add 1,000 coal plants’ worth of planet-warming gases by the middle of the century, according to a report released Wednesday.  By 2030, the U.S. is on track to produce 60 percent of the world’s new oil and gas supply, an expansion at least four times larger than in any other country. By 2050, the country’s newly tapped reserves are projected to spew 120 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The findings ― from a report authored by the nonprofit Oil Change International and endorsed by researchers at more than a dozen environmental groups ― are based on industry projections collected by the data service Rystad Energy and compared with climate models used by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate research body.    Nearly 90 percent of new U.S. oil and gas drilling through 2050 is expected to depend on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the controversial technique that blasts bedrock with chemical- and sand-laced water, creating cracks that release previously inaccessible fuels. Upward of 60 percent of the emissions enabled by new U.S. drilling would come from two major fracking hot spots ― the Permian Basin, a massive field stretching from Texas to New Mexico; and the Appalachian Basin, encompassing most of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Continued extraction in the Permian Basin alone would use up 10 percent of the emissions that remain in the entire world’s carbon budget to keep warming within 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit...MORE

How Supermajors Are Transforming The Permian

The Permian Basin was once a hotbed of small, independent prospectors, wide-eyed wildcatters, and small companies hoping to strike it rich. Now, it is brimming with supermajors clamoring to buy out the region’s smaller operators and pump out the basin’s vast reserves of crude with the kind of breakneck efficiency that only massive corporate backing can achieve. Ten years ago, in 2008, United States oil production bottomed out at about 3.8 million barrels a day. Today, 3.8 million barrels are produced in a day in the Permian Basin alone. For a bit of perspective, the entire state of California, which recently beat out the United Kingdom as the fifth biggest economy in the world, has around 10 active drilling rigs. The Permian Basin alone has nearly 500. Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the United States’ top energy moguls, have both made the Permian Basin their focus, prioritizing their investments in West Texas over all their other projects worldwide, while European supermajors including Royal Dutch Shell and BP are also working diligently on growing their presence in the Permian. As of last year, Exxon Mobil, based in Irving, Texas, became the most active driller in the Permian basin with 38 drilling rigs running in the region that extends from West Texas to southeastern New Mexico. The Midland, Texas-based Concho Resources (previously the most active driller in the Permian before being surpassed by Exxon Mobil) comes in second with 34 rigs. Concho Resources significantly expanded their presence in the Permian Basin last year when they acquired competing company RSP Permian for $8 billion. San Ramon, California-based Chevron takes third place in regional drilling activity with more than 20 rigs in the Permian. Chevron has recently begun ramping up the development of their holdings, and now says that their Permian Basin production spiked a whopping 80 percent in less than a year, up to its current level of about 340,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Displaying a similar bravado, Exxon Mobil has said it plans to produce more than 600,000 barrels a day in the Permian Basin by the year 2025...MORE

The U.S. Just Finalized The Largest Offshore Wind Sale in the Nation's History

The U.S. government just broke a record by leasing the rights to build new offshore wind power, in a deal reaching upwards of $405.1 million late last week. This is the most expensive offshore wind deal in the country’s history. In a few years, a small region in New England could start producing enough electricity to power around 1.5 million homes, according to a new Utility Drive report. The process started about a year ago, when two different turbine manufacturers—Statoil and PNE Wind—approached the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management with an offer to build new wind turbines in an area off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Because both companies were interested in the same area, the agency held an auction to determine who would get the rights. Over the past week, that auction was held and 11 different companies participated. At the end of the process last Friday, three different companies made winning bids to develop offshore wind technologies. Equinor, Mayflower Wind, and Vineyard Wind each bid approximately $135 million for a lease on that part of the sea...MORE

Colorado BLM sells all the oil, gas leases up for bid after dramatically slashing the offerings

All the federal oil and gas leases offered at the Colorado Bureau of Land Management’s quarterly sale were bought Thursday. But the 7,847 acres of public land leased were a far cry from the roughly 224,000 acres of minerals originally on the block. The sale of the leases, mostly in western Colorado, netted a total of $981,143 in rent and fees, which will be split between the federal government and the state of Colorado. In September, the BLM said it would offer leases on parcels totaling 224,341 acres. The agency then pared the offering a few times in response to requests from Gov. John Hickenlooper, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and local elected officials and residents in the North Fork Valley of southwest Colorado. They raised concerns about the potential impacts of drilling on wildlife habitat, tourism and agriculture and approval of leases before the BLM finished updating its resource management plan for the area including the North Fork Valley. Another development was a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in Idaho in a lawsuit challenging changes the national BLM office made to shorten the time periods for public comment and revise requirements for environmental review to streamline and speed up leasing. The ruling in September by Chief U.S. Magistrate Ronald Bush in Pocatello, Idaho, temporarily replaced part of the Trump administration’s policy on the leasing of public lands in greater sage grouse habitat.
Colorado BLM officials have said the oil and gas leases pulled from Thursday’s auction could be offered at a later sale...MORE

Permian is about to create OPEC's worst nightmare

The map lays out OPEC’s nightmare in graphic form. An infestation of dots, thousands of them, represent oil wells in the Permian basin of West Texas and a slice of New Mexico. In less than a decade, U.S. companies have drilled 114,000. Many of them would turn a profit even with crude prices as low as $30 a barrel. OPEC’s bad dream only deepens next year, when Permian producers expect to iron out distribution snags that will add three pipelines and as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day. “The Permian will continue to grow and OPEC needs to learn to live with it,’’ said Mike Loya, the top executive in the Americas for Vitol Group, the world’s largest independent oil-trading house. The U.S. energy surge presents OPEC with one of the biggest challenges of its 60-year history. If Saudi Arabia and its allies cut production to keep prices higher, shale will thrive, robbing them of market share. But because the Saudis need higher crude prices to make money than U.S. producers, OPEC can’t afford to let prices fall. Cartel Squeezed So the cartel finds itself squeezed between the-sky’s-the-limit U.S. output and softer demand growth. The 15 members, and allies including Russia, Mexico and Kazakhstan, will discuss the possibility of their second retreat from booming American production in three years when they gather Dec. 6 in Vienna...MORE

Trump wields his energy weapon

he tip of the spear when it comes to President Trump’s diplomacy is not the tongue of the diplomat, but the power of the pipeline. The United States is now the world’s No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas, eating away at Washington’s past dependence on foreign producers and oil cartels. And that means the influence of petrostates like Iran and Russia and autocracies around the world. Trump calls it “energy dominance,” and the freedom it provides has undergirded many of the president’s decisions, from moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem to re-imposing sanctions on Iran, according to administration sources. “It allows us to impose these sanctions and not upset the world oil market very much,” said Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. “It’s a fundamentally different posture to be in, in regard to our foreign policy. … It just gives us leverage.” In negotiations with European, Chinese, and other world leaders, the president has made energy a central theme. Earlier this year, Trump even taunted NATO members at a summit in Brussels, calling them “captives” to Russian energy...MORE