Category Archives: Oil Industry

Bay Area gas prices: great for consumers, a threat to independent frackers

Haven’t filled up lately? Here’s how cheap Bay Area gas is

Vallejo Times-Herald, April 13, 2020

The price of gasoline continues to tumble because of the lack of demand worldwide, bringing Bay Area prices below $2.30 a gallon.

The average price nationwide is now $1.87 a gallon, according to AAA. That’s down from $2.30 a month ago and almost a dollar below the year-ago level of $2.82.

A handful of stations in Oklahoma and Wisconsin were charging below 80 cents a gallon last week.

In the Bay Area, the cheapest prices are in the East Bay: $2.29 at some Costcos and independent stations in Concord, Oakland and Union City, according to GasBuddy. The South Bay’s lows are around $2.35, and the Peninsula’s about 5 cents more.

Farther afield, $2.19 has been seen in Sacramento and Modesto, and prices below $2 were noted near Oroville and Folsom. Across the line in Reno, you can find $1.85.

In Hawaii, which has the nation’s most expensive gas, $2.35 is available in Honolulu but Kauai stations are still charging $3.60.

Of course, few drivers can take advantage of cheap gas because of the shelter-in-place orders. Cheap crude will continue to pose a serious threat to U.S. oil companies, especially independent frackers that piled on too much debt. Rystad Energy recently estimated that 140 US oil producers could file for bankruptcy this year if oil stays at $20 a barrel, followed by another 400 in 2021.

We will never back down from Benicia’s Big Oil bullies

By Roger Straw, March 4, 2020

Here in Benicia, Big Oil is already setting aside funds to stack our City Council in November.  See Valero PAC report shows $248,111 on hand to influence Benicia’s 2020 election.

As a followup to yesterday’s post, “Wave of oil money hits local Calif. climate candidates” – I am passing on a rather happy email from the California League of Conservation Voters (below).

Please consider supporting the CLCV.

We took on Big Oil and Won!

 

The results of the California Primary speak loud and clear: Californians chose the environment over Big Oil.

Even though Big Oil spent millions of dollars this primary, California voters rejected their best efforts and 95% of CLCV-endorsed candidates are moving on to the General Election in November!

Click here to join our movement, and support our work in the General Election >>>

Through our endorsements, our Environmental Scorecard, and joining forces with key partners in spending strategically in priority races, CLCV is on the front-lines, making sure environmental champions are heading to the November General Election.

Heading into the general election, Big Oil will amplify their efforts to stop our progress. We have a tough fight ahead of us in the fall, but we never back down from bullies – even if it means we are outspent by millions of dollars. Can you chip in today to make sure we can be just as effective come November?

In Solidarity,

Mary Creasman
CEO
California League of Conservation Voters

Wave of oil money hits local Calif. climate candidates

By Adam Aton, E&E News reporter Climatewire: Monday, March 2, 2020
Oil pump jacks are seen next to a strawberry field in Oxnard, Calif. Photo credit: Lucy Nicholson/REUTERS/Newscom
Oil pump jacks are seen next to a strawberry field in Oxnard, Calif., where climate change is a top issue in a race for the Ventura County Board of Supervisors. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters/Newscom

OXNARD, Calif. — The oil industry has turned an epicenter of climate change into one of its first 2020 battlegrounds.

And the election it’s targeting isn’t for president, Congress or even the California Statehouse. It’s more local than that.

Ventura County, California’s fastest-warming county and one of its top oil producers, is voting tomorrow for three of the five seats on its county Board of Supervisors.

With the power to deny oil permits, a majority on the board would give climate hawks a powerful weapon to use against one of the region’s heavyweight players. Greens have notched some wins recently — but now the industry is fighting back.

One oil company, California Resources Corp., a spinoff from Occidental Petroleum Corp., already has spent more than $800,000 — more than the opposing candidates have raised combined.

That has reshaped an election where 50-cent mailers are normally big-ticket items. This year, the oil-aligned candidates even have had ads air on cable news.

“They’ve spent so much money. I mean, we’re a little town. I see my face on CNN and MSNBC talking about what a corrupt politician I am,” said Oxnard Mayor Pro Tem Carmen Ramírez, who’s running for the county board with environmentalist backing.

The contest is an early test, too, for the forces already shaping the Democratic presidential primary, as well as races for Congress and the reelection campaign of President Trump. On one side are activists trying to mobilize voters with environmental issues. On the other side is money.

The outcome could be a harbinger for elections across the nation where energy and environment issues play big. California alone has several House seats where Democrats in 2018 leveraged climate and clean energy promises to knock off once-dominant Republicans.

Ventura Supervisor Kelly Long won in 2016 with the help of about $175,000 from the oil industry, flipping the seat Republican. She has more than double that oil money this time, as does Jess Herrera, a longshoreman and port commissioner who is also getting a six-figure oil money boost for his county board campaign.

Greens are using the big spending to try to galvanize their own voters and volunteers. It’s a tactic that could have more power in a political environment shaped by Trump. Unlike the 2016 race, activists say climate and campaign finance have mixed into a potent message this time around.

The election has turned into a referendum on Big Oil, said RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote and a candidate for the Democratic National Committee.

“It was hard [last time] to get a lot of Democrats to really care, other than on purely tribal, partisan [grounds],” said Miller, who lives in Ventura County.

“Now, the Dem messaging is really explicitly about a Big Oil, dark money super [political action committee]: Don’t let outside oil money buy this election.”

Ramírez’s campaign has countered the oil effort with ads on Spanish radio, press conferences with Democratic leaders and handwritten postcards to voters. The campaign has sent about 6,000 in the last month, said her campaign manager, Robert O’Riley.

He added that Ramírez’s supporters were animated by the other side’s spending.

“It really backfired at them,” he said. “That’s a real, true grassroots effort that we have. … You dump a million dollars, and we gather in homes and buildings and write postcards to people.”

A California Resources spokesperson said the oil company is trying to defend jobs in the 20 fields it operates in the county.

“Recent policies of the County Board of Supervisors have hampered the ability of businesses in several industries, including ours, to invest locally and resulted in losses of good-paying jobs and local tax revenues,” the company’s communications director Rich Venn said in a statement.

“We support committees and candidates who understand the importance of sensible regulations that foster reliable and affordable in-state energy production and its economic, environmental and social value to our communities,” Venn added.

One oil and gas worker said the industry has operated in the area for a century without major problems — an assertion that others dispute. He added that all people in the industry care about the environment because they have to drink the water and breathe the air, too.

“I’m not going to harm myself for a paycheck,” said the worker, who only gave his name as Adam V. to protect himself from retaliation.

Oil industry decline

A homeless camp in Oxnard, Calif. Photo credit: Adam Aton/E&E News
A homeless camp in Oxnard is situated between a power plant and a Superfund site. Adam Aton/E&E News

Ventura County’s oil sector has been in decline for decades. In 2016 the county produced 7.7 million barrels of oil, a fraction of the 46 million it produced in 1958. Some wells operate under decades-old permits.

That industrial legacy is still visible in the offshore oil pads looming over Oxnard’s beaches and the pumpjacks churning among strawberry fields.

The U.S. Geological Survey last year reported contaminants like methane in the groundwater around Oxnard’s oil fields. The county board has set a moratorium on new wells around potable water sources pending further study. Supervisors also are considering a new setback requirement for oil projects, which could significantly restrict the areas where companies could drill.

Kim Marra Stephenson, the candidate challenging Long, says Ventura County needs to prepare for a decline in the oil industry similar to the downturn of coal.

She cited reporting by the Los Angeles Times and Center for Public Integrity that found that California Resources has 7,600 idle wells, with the average idle well producing nothing for 14 years. The company’s share price has tumbled, and the report estimated it faces $1 billion in cleanup costs on top of $5 billion in other debt maturing by 2022.

“They’re trying to hang on by a thread here in Ventura County. When they go bankrupt, I’m very, very concerned about who’s going to foot that [cleanup] bill and what’s going to happen to our workers,” Stephenson said.

“I’m not saying ban everything right now, but we’ve got to make this transition because it could be falling on us even if we don’t choose it.”

Ventura is also the fastest-warming county in the lower 48 states, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Its temperatures have risen by an average of 2.6 degrees Celsius. Worldwide averages are closer to 1 C of warming.

The rise in extreme heat hits hard in this heavily Latino area, where many people work on farms. The county also has seen a run of destructive wildfires, including the 2017-2018 Thomas Fire, one of the largest in state history.

That has made climate change a bread-and-butter issue for voters here, who might miss work if conditions are too smoky to work in the fields, said Lucas Zucker, policy and communications director for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy.

Mobilizing those Latino voters is a long-term project, he said. Organizers have to contend with people who move often, fear intimidation or have felt ignored by the government.

Zucker contrasted that approach to the tactics of California Resources, whose advertisements have attacked trips that Ramírez took to foreign countries — rather than boosting its own image as an oil company.

“For them, it’s kind of a slash-and-burn model,” he said. “They’re not even trying to build long-term support for industry. It’s really just about attack, attack, attack. … Whatever it takes to win the election, then we’ll figure everything else out later.”

Do you have a story to tell about living in a refinery community?

Major Public Health Community Meeting on Oil and Gas Rulemaking, March 9

Sunflower Alliance, February 22, 2020

The State of California is sponsoring a series of statewide meetings where members of the public can testify about the ways the oil industry affects our health and that of our communities.  One of these meetings is being held in Oakland (see when and where below).  We highly encourage everyone with a story to tell about oil industry impacts on you, your family and your neighborhood to come and testify.  We will have two minutes to speak our hearts and minds.

​​The meeting is sponsored by the Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM, formerly DOGGR) of the state’s Department of Conservation.  Although CalGEM specifically regulates oil and gas production (oil drilling), it will share public testimony from this meeting with other state regulatory agencies.

The new rulemaking that results will be based on this important public input, and will consider the best available science and data to inform new and strengthened ​protective state requirements.​

The Sunflower Alliance is making arrangements for free transportation from Rodeo and Richmond to the hearing.  If you need a ride, please let us know at action@sunflower-alliance.com .

See this Facebook post for a recording of the first public hearing in Bakersfield meeting on February 19.

A little more background:

AB345 (currently heading toward the state senate) and the Governor’s own plans require Public Health Rulemaking around the urgent call for 2,500-foot setbacks from oil and gas extraction sites.  The first step is this series of pre-rulemaking community meetings to gather public input.

When you testify about Bay Area oil industry impacts, please be sure to start with a strong statement of solidarity with those folks who are living near oil drilling sites, and express your support for setbacks and AB345.

If you can’t attend:

Written comments can be sent via email
to CalGEMRegulations@conservation.ca.gov
or by postal mail to—
Department of Conservation
801 K Street, MS 24-02
Sacramento, CA 95814
ATTN: Public Health near Oil Gas Rule-making

WHEN

Monday, March 9, 1-3 PM —Doors open at 12:30.  A rally outside is tentatively scheduled for noon.

WHERE

​Greenlining Institute
360 14th St., Oakland (near 12th St. BART)