Wednesday, June 22, 2016: Panama Canal Expansion; Obama Fracking Regulation Overturned; Positive Turn Of Events For Dakota Access Pipeline In Iowa

Maybe it's just me, but it certainly seems that for the dog days of summer -- yes, I know, we've only had one day of summer so far -- there certainly has been a lot of energy news.

Unprepared. Perhaps the biggest story of the day, from The Wall Street Journal: as the expanded Panama Canal prepares to open, New York isn't. Spending too much time worrying about rising sea levels (sea levels, by the way, are falling on the East Coast -- previously reported), they did not get around to raising the Bayonne Bridge. The East Coast's busiest port cannot receive biggest ships. This should have been a huge win for Charleston, South Carolina, but their port is too shallow. The big winners will be the ports on the west coast, and probably along the Gulf Coast.

Jim Newsome, CEO of the South Carolina Ports Authority, recently predicted the East Coast's share would hit 50% within a couple of years. A Boston Consulting Group analysis issued less than a year ago forecast East Coast ports could reach parity with West Coast terminals by 2020. But that looks unlikely now, said Peter Ulrich, one of the authors of that report.

Preparing. research study looks at nine US ports (East Coast and Houston) -- how they have prepared for the Panama Canal expansion.  Port of Savannah is already receiving these ships. The Port of Baltimore is the second East Coast port to be fully prepared for Panama Canal expansion. Port of Houston, ready, but congested. Port of Miami is accessible but infrastructure (intermodal system, waterside improvements) lacking.

Obama fracking regulation overturned. Had it not been for a reader I would have completely missed the story on a federal judge overturning the Obama regulatory ban on fracking on federal land. I didn't even find it over at The Bismarck Tribune. I found the story in The Washington Times which hardly counts. The same federal judge had put an injunction on the Obama regulatory ban on fracking last September, so probably this was something anti-climactic and a foregone conclusion. The federal judge was an Obama appointee. From a reader:

I looked for the text of the court ruling today that overthrew Obama's bid to regulate fracking on federal land, and I found it here:

http://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/pdfforms/orders/15-cv-043-S%20Order.pdf

There is quite a bit of legalese to wade through, but if you read the last  quarter of the ruling, starting on page 20, it is clear that the judge is  emphatically rebuking the administration for distorting legislation and past  court rulings to claim that its regulators can do just about anything in what it construes to be the public interest. Here's a quote: "With Congress "having explicitly removed the only source of specific federal  agency authority over fracking, it defies common sense for the BLM to argue  that Congress intended to allow it to regulate the same activity under a  general statute that says nothing about hydraulic fracturing."

German government, on the other hand, agrees to ban fracking indefinitely. Reuters/Rigzone link here. Bullish for the Bakken! A big whoop.

Dakota Access Pipeline. Also, barely making headline news, was a decision in Iowa in favor of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This is huge.

Work on the Bakken crude oil pipeline in northwestern Iowa tribal lands can proceed — as long as the work takes place underground.

An amendment made Friday to the Dakota Access pipeline’s Sovereign Lands Construction Permit allows work to proceed on that portion of the pipeline in Lyon County’s Big Sioux River Wildlife Management Area.

That amended permit requires pipeline officials to bore through the ground, rather than dig a trench for the pipeline.

Man-camps. Speaking of injunctions, Williston man-camp operators also got a reprieve. A judge dropped a temporary injunction on the city of Williston, allowing man-camps to stay open until the process is "handled appropriately."

Cash strapped. The Tesla-SolarCity story continues to get headlines. The most recent from Bloomberg.

The word of the day: dispatchable. The announcement that PG&E will not apply to extend nuclear certification for its two-unit plant at Diablo Canyon continues to generate headlines also. Dispatchable will be the word du jour, but will have lasting importance as California turns to unreliable, non-dispatchable energy to replace incredibly reliable energy. If PG&E prevails, the natural gas industry and GE are huge winners.

Politics. I thought I heard on the radio that Trump and Hillary are "even" in the polls in the "swing stages" of Ohio and Pennsylvania. I hope those folks remember that Hillary supports efforts to ban fracking. I already know how Hillary will respond to her comments in Detroit, apparently associating fracking with lead contamination in Detroit's public water system: "That was during the silly season, during a campaign."

Fatality. There was another Bakken oil patch fatality -- Monday, near Ross. A 37-y/o worker was struck by a boom/crane. 

Market. After a couple of good days on the market, futures are up again today, and crude oil remains above $50/bbl. Tesla, as expected is slumping: a) down $25/share; b) down almost 12%; and, c) trading below $200/share for the first time in a long time. The market sees this as a bailout for SolarCity: a) shares are up $3/share; b) shares are up 15%; and, c) shares are back trading where they were some months ago.

New record set. India set a new record in space mission by successfully "injecting" 20 satellites into orbit from one rocket/launch.