Musings, Continued -- The Bakken, Eagle Ford, And The Permian Are Modulating The Price Of Brent

There's really no reason to post this story, it's old news (by 24 hours). The link is to a story in which a huge amount of ink is devoted to why activist environmentalists don't want this pipeline reversal approved (I did not read much of the article). It's old news -- Canadian regulators approved the reversal.

This is why I posted the link.

Yesterday, I drove back from Williston, North Dakota, to Grapevine, TX, and had plenty of time to listen to radio stations all along the way. I happened to catch a very, very small snippet suggesting that the "fossil fuel industry" had won vis a vis the activist environmentalists.

(I personally think of it as a win for Americans, not a win for the "fossil fuel industry." But I digress.)

I didn't listen very long to that snippet. I only caught a piece of it. The "reporter" suggested that huge amounts of money were behind the North American energy revolution and although there will be a lot of political theater played out in the press, the fact is the oil and gas industry is pretty much steam-rolling ahead (poor metaphor, of course).

The price of gasoline was approaching $4.00/gallon in the northern tier, and in the mid-continent. It was back to a more reasonable (?) $3.39 here in Texas. In California it is solidly above $4.50/gallon. Without the Bakken, the Eagle Ford, and the Permian, gasoline would be a whole lot more expensive. Those three fields, and the Canadian oil sands, prevented a huge surge in the price of Brent following the events in the Ukraine/Crimean.