Mining News: Wanted: Mineral prospectors with skills 01/17/2010
Far North territories, B.C. governments use mining incentives to ease financial burden of grassroots exploration by individuals
Just as junior and major mining companies have important roles to play in the chain of developments that lead, hopefully, to discovery of substantial mineral deposits and subsequent commercial develop...

Mining News: Usibelli thrives on coal exports in 2009 01/17/2010
Miner anticipates continued strength in overseas sales in 2010; groups file suit to curb alleged 'Clean Water Act' violations
Increased interest in Alaska coal from buyers in Asia and Chile boosted exports from the Usibelli Coal Mine to record levels in 2009. According to Steve Denton, vice president for business developmen...

Greening of Oil magazine launches 01/17/2010
Anchorage-based Petroleum News has launched a new, international online magazine at www.greeningofoil.com. Greening of Oil is a science-based publication that tracks the environmental footprint of fos...

Canada's upstream on upswing; '09 drilling licenses down 47% 01/17/2010
With Canadian government land sales slumping to a 17-year low and average natural gas prices at their lowest point in the past decade, it was no surprise that cash-squeezed producers slashed their dri...

Ho-ho-hold the holidays 01/10/2010
Proponents of Mackenzie gas have tight deadline to respond to 679-page report
It landed Dec. 30 with a thud on desks in the high-rise petroleum towers of downtown Calgary, spoiling whatever hopes employees working on the Mackenzie Gas Project might have had to put their feet up...

Assuring your approval 01/10/2010
Modern permitting involves doing due diligence, proving sustainable benefits
There was a time when people tended to view permitting as simply a question of obtaining government agency approval for certain specific actions planned for a project. But that's no longer a viable ap...

Industry revival on Canada's horizon 01/03/2010
Firming of commodity prices points to resumption of oil sands growth; natural gas expected to remain weak; consolidation predicted
One of the strongest oil patch forecasts for 2010 has come from a leading Canadian law firm, which is counting on an industry revival as commodity prices strengthen, opening up the investment taps in...

Gas could be answer in warming fight 01/03/2010
Utilities looking at natural gas because it emits half as much carbon as coal when burned to generate same amount of electricity
An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under ou...

Mining News: Panel seeks staking ban for most of Peel 12/20/2009
Mining group worries recommendations will lock up valuable resources; start anti-mining trend in Yukon's other mineral-rich areas
A review panel has recommended that most of the Peel River watershed region in northeast Yukon Territory be withdrawn from industrial use, including mineral resource development. In long-awaited reco...

Planning for different power outcomes 12/20/2009
In developing an integrated resource plan for power generation and transmission in the Alaska Railbelt, consultancy firm Black and Veatch evaluated four possible future power scenarios, Kevin Harper, Bl...

EIA expects $76 per barrel this winter 12/20/2009
Henry Hub natural gas spot price projected at $3.95 per thousand cubic feet this year, $4.62 in 2010; US natural gas consumption down
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Dec. 8 in its Short-Term Energy Outlook that it expects the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil to average $76 from October through March, with a...

What chance now for North Slope LNG? 12/20/2009
World market is growing fast but North Slope gas would need to compete on cost with massive new supplies close to tidewater
Few subjects raise the temperature more in a room full of Alaskans on a cold winter night than the perennial debate about exporting North Slope gas in a pipeline through Canada versus exporting the ga...

Power for the future 12/20/2009
AEA publishes draft integrated resource plan for Alaska Railbelt electricity
The Alaska Energy Authority has published a draft regional integrated resource plan that presents options and recommendations for the future of electricity power generation, transmission and demand ma...

Exxon seeks new life 12/20/2009
Bets heavily on unconventional gas as fuel of choice by 2030 in takeover of XTO
The tipoff was there for anyone caring to pay attention when ExxonMobil declared on Dec. 8 that natural gas would be the fuel of choice in the United States by 2030, shunting aside coal and oil. Less...

Canada makes 'absolute' shift 12/13/2009
The Canadian government has entered the Copenhagen climate change summit hinting that it may be ready to make a fundamental course correction in its environmental policy by imposing absolute emission...

Parnell budgets Umiat road permitting 12/13/2009
Proposes $8 million line item in FY 2011 budget for permitting an all-season road; claims lack of infrastructure holding up development
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell is planning to include $8 million in his fiscal year 2011 budget for the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to permit a road to Umiat. A road to Umiat, a stag...

Remote basin exploration moves forward 12/13/2009
Independent Trio Petroleum plans to drill first well in Selawik basin in late 2010, permitting for both oil and gas
A Bakersfield, Calif., independent is preparing to drill an oil and gas well next year in one of North America's last unexplored basins - northwest Alaska's Selawik basin, in more recent years referre...

Alberta touts carbon capture prospects 12/13/2009
The Alberta government may not be putting all of its climate-change strategies in one basket, but it's coming close as it pursues recognition as a world leader in advancing carbon capture and storage...

State reverses Holitna license decision 12/13/2009
Overturning a 2006 decision, DNR finds that a gas exploration license in Southwest Alaska is in the best interest of the state
Alaska officials have again decided that an exploration license in the Holitna basin is in the best interests of the state, returning in a 2005 ruling that had previously been overturned. In a decisi...

ExxonMobil expects rising energy demand 12/13/2009
Asia's amazing growth over the last decade or so is likely to continue after a brief speed bump for the 2009 recession. That's the conclusion of ExxonMobil's newly released "Outlook for Energy: A View...

LNG bulls running again 12/13/2009
Huge Asian contracts suggest confidence region's long-term expansion won't slow
Gloom and doom about Asia's long-term demand for liquefied natural gas are evaporating about as fast as the fuel itself does at room temperature. Big money deals are being signed between utilities and...

Unintended consequences? 12/13/2009
Balash: Without exemption cap-and-trade scheme could sink NS gas line
Without some form of exemption for the planned gas treatment plant at the Prudhoe Bay end of a future gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope, current climate change legislation working its way through...

Harper, Stelmach feel the green heat 12/06/2009
Prime minister decides against boycotting Copenhagen summit; Alberta premier ready to accept climate-change goals in step with US
There is talk of a re-branding of the two Canadian political leaders - Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach - seen as the least supportive of cap-and-trade systems as part of...

Projecting the jobs 11/29/2009
AEDC CEO Bill Popp works with Petroleum News and Mining News on new project forecast
Like one of Scrooge's Christmas apparitions, a ghost of Alaska's future could portend doom, or could just prove to be a warning of the consequences of not taking appropriate action. And from the persp...

NPR-A lease sale set for August; both northeast, northwest tracts 11/29/2009
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Nov. 24 that the Bureau of Land Management will hold a National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska oil and gas lease sale on Aug. 11, 2010. The sale will include tr...