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• Small Oil Drillers Face Blow from EPA’s New Methan …

• Today’s Edition Is Brought To You By OilPatch Pro

• Activists Win Oil Case Against Norway

• Tweet of the Day

Small Oil Drillers Face Blow from EPA’s New Methane Rules

Small oil drillers are worried that new methane regulations will saddle them with massive additional expenses.

And that’s despite assurances from Congress the rules were only for the big guys.

Twisted wording

The assurances for exemptions of the small drillers came from clever wording in the new rules.

Per those, only companies operating “facilities” that emit more than 250,000 tons of CO2 need to report them and pay the fee for emitting.

However, the same rules define “facility” as all of a company’s wells in a basin.

So, if your company has 100 wells in the Permian, they’re all one facility.

Clever, right?

This means no exemptions for anyone but whatever wildcatters remain still alive in the shale patch.

Which won’t be many.

One industry executive accused the EPA of manipulating what Congress had approved.

Tall City Exploration CEO Michael Oestmann said drillers would have to report methane emissions on a lot more operations than Congress had originally approved.

“Such an increase in scope would be well beyond any increase proposed, stated or intended by Congress,” he said.

Pay up or shut down

This is what these rules are essentially all about.

Methane is suddenly the new enemy number one.

Everyone generating methane must pay for that.

If they can’t afford to pay, they will be forced out of business.

Problem solved, emissions gone.

Yes, this really seems to be the way the current administration thinks.

And it’s not averse to manipulating federal legislation.

What could go wrong, right?

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Activists Win Oil Case Against Norway

Two climate NGOs won a landmark case against Norway for the development of three oil and gas fields.

The ruling says that the Norwegian state’s approval of the projects is invalid.

Because it did not consider “emissions from combustion.”

A dangerous precedent

 The decision, by a district court in Oslo, is a first.

And it sets a precedent, just like that Montana case, where a group of children sued the state for oil production.

Now, Norway will probably appeal, and it might win.

Still, the ruling will motivate other lawsuits of the same nature.

And other courts might also side with the activists.

In this case, the court said “emissions from combustion” should have been studied in an impact assessment.

Because they weren’t, production at the three fields “must be stopped immediately,” per the head of Greenpeace Norway.

That’s what it’s come to – suing to stop oil and gas production.

Hypocritical much?

Norway has one of the highest living standards in the world.

Thanks to this standard, Norway also has the most Tesla owners per capital.

But how did it attain that standard of living?

It came from oil.

And this oil money turned the country’s sovereign wealth fund into the largest in the world.

That’s right.

It’s not the Saudi fund. It’s not any Middle Eastern fund.

It’s Norway’s oil fund that has $1.4 trillion in assets. Thanks to oil and gas.

But sure, let’s put a stop to the flow of money into the state, field by field.

Let’s see what happens next.

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