One of the promises of electric deregulation is supposed to be product innovation, much like breaking up telecom monopolies led to better phone service. That hasn’t panned out quite yet. Yes, we’ve got a choice of rate plans, “green power” and plans that track natural gas prices . There are even some nifty devices out [...]  More »

Got some CO2 you’re looking to get rid of? The Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage can help… sort of. The research center, a partnership between the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and the British Geological Survey, has set up an interactive Google Earth map showing carbon capture and storage sites (or planned sites) around the [...]  More »

Want to get the first skinny on Royal Dutch Shell’s second-quarter results? Set that alarm clock. The European oil major’s headquarters in The Netherlands is seven hours ahead of its U.S. arm, Shell Oil Co., in Houston. But the dedicated, the curious and the sleepless can get the first word on the company’s results by [...]  More »

Wouldn’t you love to have a rate like that now? Several Texas electric retailers went out of business earlier this summer, sending some 40,000 customers onto higher priced plans with new providers — a little drama we’ve written about extensively in this blog and in the paper. Earlier this month Texas Legal Services Center and [...]  More »

Valero Energy, the San Antonio-based oil refiner and gasoline retailer, tends to be the most open of the U.S. refiners. They regularly publish a schedule of refinery maintenance work months in advance and send reporters notice on accidents and unplanned outages before we even pick up the phone to call. Valero’s Corpus Christi refinery. In [...]  More »

Texas PUC says turn off that extra light! The Public Utility Commission has put out a Yellow Conservation Alert for this week, warning that high temperatures expected this week could push the state to new records for power usage. Before you start panicking, this doesn’t mean state officials believe doom is pending. The “Yellow” alert [...]  More »

A few of the energy related items on Chron.com and elsewhere around the Web: • We need to be realistic in our energy aspirations: Loren Steffy’s five-point plan • UT banking on profit from oil land deals: Up to $1 billion possible to beef up its endowment • Biggest Chinese oil producer to slash jobs [...]  More »

We got close, but the refining capital of the U.S. appears to have just missed reaching that dubious milestone of $4 per gallon average gasoline prices. From the AP: Florencio Blanco of Houston pumps gas at a station owned by Petroleum Wholesale, operating under the name Sunmart, on the 9400 block of the North Freeway [...]  More »

The daily update from the Minerals Management Service on the impact of Tropical Storm Dolly : • Approximately 1.39 percent of the oil production in the Gulf has been shut-in (down from 4.47 percent Wednesday). Estimated oil production from the Gulf of Mexico as of January 2008 was 1.3 million barrels of oil per day. [...]  More »

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced charges against Optiver, a Netherlands-based trading firm with Chicago offices, accusing it of manipulating oil, heating oil and gasoline prices in March 2007. The company is accused of driving prices both up and down to a profit of more than $1 million. Image from Optiver web site. From [...]  More »

The daily update from the Minerals Management Service on the impact of now Hurricane Dolly : About 4.47 percent of the oil production in the Gulf has been shut-in (or about 58,000 barrels per day based on a Jan. 2008 estimated output of 1.3 million barrels of oil) and 7.87 percent of the natural gas [...]  More »

Last night Alaska’s House of Representatives voted to award a license to TransCanada to build a natural gas pipeline off the North Slope to the Lower 48. TransCanada had the only proposal accepted under the state’s Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, but it is still seen as in competition with a plan by BP and ConocoPhillips [...]  More »