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Natural Gas Glut Isn’t Deterring Southwestern Energy

Across the giant Fayetteville shale gas field here, country roads that were clogged by truck traffic just a few years ago are empty again. Once aglow at night from the bright lights twinkling on drilling rigs, the roads are now dark under the starry Arkansas sky. Virtually all of the few remaining rig and frack crews belong to one survivor:Southwestern Energy, a stubborn believer in the future profitability of natural gas. “I’d rather have the gas to myself with no one following,” Steven Mueller, Southwestern’s chief executive, said last month as he watched his rig hands pull pipe and mud from a new natural gas well here in northern Arkansas.

U.S. Oil Prices Rise Off Multiyear Lows

Oil prices rallied Wednesday as traders closed out positions following a dramatic plunge in prices in recent months. Light, sweet crude for January delivery recently rose $2.12, or 3.8%, to $58.05 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after trading as low as $54.21 a barrel in early trading. Brent, the global benchmark, recently rose $2.43, or 4.1%, to $62.44 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

Here’s why oil companies should be a lot more profitable than they are

The 40 percent plunge in oil prices since July, when Brent crude peaked at $115 a barrel, is almost certainly good news for the world economy; but it is surely a crippling blow for oil producers. Oil prices below $70 certainly spell trouble for U.S. and Canadian shale and tar-sand producers and also for oil-exporting countries such asVenezuela, Nigeria, Mexico and Russia that depend on inflated oil revenues to finance government spending or pay foreign debts. On the other hand, the implications of lower oil prices for the biggest U.S. and European oil companies are more ambiguous and could even be positive.

NRG Seeks to Cut 90% of Its Carbon Emissions

NRG, which built a leading electricity business from coal and other conventional power plants, is aiming to reduce its carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050, the company said on Thursday. David Crane, the company’s chief executive, made the announcement at a ceremony breaking ground for the company’s new headquarters in Princeton, N.J., conceived as a green-energy showcase that will open in 2016.“The power industry is the biggest part of the problem of greenhouse gas emissions, but it has the potential to be an even bigger part of the solution,” Mr. Crane said in an interview before the announcement.

Mexico’s State-Owned Oil Giant, Pemex, Is in Uncharted Waters

The computer screens lining the bubblelike control room on this giant floating platform monitor pressure levels in a narrow shaft cut through bedrock to a reservoir of valuable natural gas three miles below sea level. For six months, an international team hired by a contractor for Petróleos Mexicanos, Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly, has been drilling an exploratory well here. Now, the work is nearly done. Drill pipes are stacked like sentries. An underwater robot has been pulled back up from the deep seafloor. A wireline sensor is gathering data to determine how much oil and gas lie below.

E.U. Approves Plan for New Nuclear Power Station in Britain

The European authorities on Wednesday approved construction of Britain’s first nuclear power station since the mid-1990s, in a ruling that could clear the way for other European countries to plan nuclear plants as part of their energy future. The decision, by the European Union’s competition regulator, removes one of the final obstacles for the plant, at Hinkley Point in southwest England, which would produce about 7 percent of Britain’s current power supply but would not start operating before 2023.