Posts
Friday, August 30, 2013
Writers: Short stories, Dramatic Fiction Wanted (Los Angeles)
Reply to: dqr44-3682099655@job.craigslist.org [?]
Oil seeks to develop national grasslands
Workers tend to a wellhead during a hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. gas well outside Rifle, in western Colorado. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)BRIGGSDALE, Colo. — To understand why birders from across the world rave about the Pawnee National Grasslands, you have to get off Colorado Highway 14 and set off through the prairie on foot.
Colorado is known for its mountains, but its state bird, the lark bunting, is a denizen of the plains and a species common on the Pawnee National Grasslands that you’ll see up close only if you get out of your car.
“Just look at this cottonwood bottom,” conservationist Jeremy Nichols said, walking along a grassy trail at the Crow Valley Recreation Area replete with birdsong and quaking plains cottonwoods. “You don’t see this unless you get off the highway.”
Nichols is the climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians, one of the few environmental groups to turn attention to the protection of the Pawnee National Grasslands after the U.S. Forest Service announced in April that it is conducting an environmental impact study of oil and gas development in the national grasslands between Fort Collins and Sterling.
“The mountains often overshadow the plains, literally and figuratively, but we think that if people understood what’s at stake here, and saw the importance of the Pawnee, that they would understand why this should be a priority,” Nichols said.
What’s at stake is a jumble of parcels of publicly owned prairie totaling about 192,000 acres scattered among large tracts of private and state land fully open for oil and gas development. The public grasslands include the Pawnee Buttes and expansive pronghorn and bird habitat known throughout the region as some of the best in the West.
But the national grasslands sit atop one of the largest shale oil and gas plays in the region, and energy companies are looking to the public grasslands for new drilling sites.
“I was shocked how much development was going on at the time,” said Fort Collins resident John Trone, who visited the Pawnee Buttes last week with his sons. “Soon as I hit dirt roads, it’s like I hit an industrial park.”
When the Forest Service last updated its management plan for the grasslands in 1997, it estimated that 25 oil and gas wells would be drilled through 2012, with only 10 of them actually producing oil and gas.
Today, there are 1,884 state-approved oil and gas wells on public and private land existing within all of the township and range survey sections that include parcels of national grasslands, according to a Coloradoan analysis of Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data. Some of those wells are permitted but haven’t been drilled yet. Others were drilled, fracked and are producing oil and gas. Many more were drilled, came up dry and were abandoned.
Of the wells in the area, 214 are producing oil and gas and 71 are listed as being drilled, COGCC data show. About 63 of the wells within the national grasslands boundary are on public land, 18 of which have been drilled since the management plan was last updated in 1997, according to the Forest Service.
Some of the wells are near the Pawnee Buttes, northeast Colorado’s most iconic landmarks. Divided between public and private ownership, the buttes are open for development on private land, but off-limits to drillers on public land.
The Forest Service had no say in whether the buttes themselves could be drilled for oil in 2012 after a Texas company proposed to drill directly beneath them from a site on private land less than a mile away.
The company, Carrizo Oil and Gas, later reconsidered the plan and moved the drilling site farther from the buttes.
The Forest Service’s environmental study, a draft of which is delayed and due to be published sometime this winter, will update the Pawnee’s 15-year-old grasslands management plan to account for all the new interest in drilling on the public grasslands. It will determine how much more oil and gas development will be allowed on the grasslands and add certain restrictions on drilling that will minimize its effect on the prairie.
The original proposal, or “scoping,” for the environmental study generated between 2,300 and 2,800 public comments before the study even began, Forest Service spokeswoman Reghan Cloudman said.
The oil and gas industry is asking the Forest Service to keep as much of the Pawnee National Grasslands as possible open for drilling and fracking.
The Forest Service should prepare for the “fullest development of natural gas and oil resources” in the national grasslands, wrote Andrew Casper of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, or COGA; Spencer Kimball of the Western Energy Alliance; and Claire Moseley of the industry group Public Lands Advocacy in a May letter to the Forest Service.
“Oil and gas development and production activities provide many positive socioeconomic impacts to the area, which are expected to increase in coming years,” the groups said.
But environmentalists are urging the Forest Service to keep drilling rigs off the national grasslands.
WildEarth Guardians will ask the Forest Service to withdraw public land within the national grasslands boundary from future federal oil and gas leasing and ban fracking there.
“Industry has enough of this grassland, and we feel that it’s time for the Forest Service to start prioritizing protection of this unique landscape from the demands of drillers,” Nichols said.
Public land on the mostly privately-owned Great Plains is rare, and it’s reasonable for the federal government to protect nearly 200,000 acres of it in a county where more than 20,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled, he said.
In Colorado, the mountains and the desert often attract the most attention from tourists, conservationists and people eager to spend their free time outdoors.
But advocates for the grasslands say state and federal governments are too eager to develop an area often seen as unimportant for anything but mineral extraction and grazing.
“The shortgrass prairie is one of the most overlooked ecosystems in the world,” said Judy Enderle, director of the Prairie Preservation Alliance. “It’s regrettable, and I don’t know that once it’s gone that a lot of people will realize or even care.”
Environmental groups, often eager to focus on protecting high-profile areas of Colorado’s mountains, have overlooked the grasslands, too, Nichols said.
“The Pawnee does not have enough advocates,” he said. “WildEarth Guardians is weighing in on this (Forest Service environmental study) process. We’re doing what we can right now to spread the word about it, to get other groups engaged, to tell the story of the Pawnee so people can understand what’s going on here and how to make a difference.”
Ed Butterfield, the former director of the Audubon Society’s Grasslands Institute in the 1970s and ’80s, and a former Denver science teacher, is one of the people who have been telling the story of the Pawnee grasslands and calling for their preservation for decades.
“What is Colorado known for?” Butterfield said. “Mountains. In reality, the mountains are an island in a sea of grass.”
The Pawnee National Grasslands offer visitors the chance to watch a plethora of birds and other animals in the solitude of the Great Plains, he said.
“Where do you go to see the Colorado state bird?” he said. “Where do you go to see chestnut-collared longspurs and plover? You go to the Pawnee.”
But the industry insists that won’t be lost when the grasslands are drilled and fracked to the fullest extent.
“The U.S. Forest Service should consider that the impacts of development are indeed temporary when developing vital energy resources, and should balance that fact with the erroneous public perception that once the land is developed, it is ‘lost’ forever,” Kimball, Casper and Moseley told the Forest Service.
Once the life of an oil and gas well has ended, it is plugged and abandoned, and any disturbance to the land is hardly noticeable, they said.
CNC Operator / Deburr Hand (Valencia, California)
Please only apply if minimums are met.
Must meet minimum requirements to be considered.
CNC Machine Operator / Deburr Hand
Experience working with all types of metal
2 years experience or more
Ability to lift 60 lbs pounds plus
Ability to Perform routine operation, including start-up and shutdown, load raw materials into bar feeder and make necessary adjustments while maintaining minimal machine downtime.
Ability to interpret and understand technical drawings and inspect parts.
Ability to complete simple arithmetic calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Ability to work any shift.
Must be able to communicate and read English
Energy rigs in U.S. slide to lowest level in two months
Oil and gas rigs in the U.S. tumbled to the lowest level in two months as energy producers used drilling efficiencies to cut the time it takes to bore wells, weakening demand for more equipment.
The total count fell by 11 to 1,748, the lowest since April 5, Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI)’s website shows. Oil rigs dropped by 15 to 1,390, a nine-week low, the Houston-based field services company said on its website. Gas rigs rose for the first time in six weeks, gaining four to 353.
A resurgence in U.S. gas and oil output, driven largely by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, helped the nation meet 89 percent of its energy needs in March, the highest monthly rate since April 1986, Energy Information Administration data show. Soaring supplies and more efficient techniques such as pad drilling have driven the energy rig count down from more than 2,000 in early 2012.
“You’re seeing a little bit more rig efficiency, more directional rigs for gas and some normal weekly variation,” James Williams, president of energy consulting company WTRG Economics in London, Arkansas, said by telephone. “At current prices, it’s always surprising to see any increase of any sort in natural gas drilling.”
Natural gas for August delivery settled at $3.565 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 31 percent from a year ago.
Pad Drilling
Exploration and production companies in the U.S. were expected to cut capital expenditures by 2.1 percent this quarter from a year ago “driven by a focus on pad drilling and cost cutting, as well as lower levels of natural gas drilling,” according to a Bloomberg Industries analysis released yesterday.
Producers use pad drilling to add multiple wells on a single site with rigs that are more mobile and can bore into the ground at different angles. Directional rigs targeting gas rose by seven this week to 70, the highest count since December, while horizontal and vertical rigs focused on gas plays fell.
“The directional rigs in gas make some sense,” Williams said. “That is a move for efficiency.”
U.S. gas stockpiles rose 95 billion cubic feet in the week ended June 21 to 2.533 trillion cubic feet, 17.1 percent below a year earlier, the EIA, the Energy Department’s statistical arm, said yesterday. Supply gains have topped five-year averages for four straight weeks as mild weather reduced demand.
Oil Output
U.S. oil output gained 1.9 percent to 7.26 million barrels a day last week, EIA data show. Production reached 7.37 million barrels a day in the week ended May 3, the most since 1992. Stockpiles climbed 18,000 barrels to 394.1 million, according to the EIA.
Crude for August delivery fell 49 cents to $96.56 a barrel today on the Nymex, up 24 percent in the past year.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC), an independent oil and gas producer, will increase its U.S. onshore production by 10 percent to 570,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, according to a presentation the company made at the Global Hunter Securities Energy Conference in Chicago June 26.
“And what’s stunning about it is we’re able to do this with 45 rigs,” John Colglazier, vice president of investor relations for the Woodlands, Texas-based company, said at the conference. “It’s extraordinarily capital-efficient.”
Should gas recover to $4.50, Anadarko has “tens of thousands of identified drilling locations” to invest in, Colglazier said.
‘Increased Efficiency’
Gas wells are more competitive against oil wells than they were two years ago, Biliana Pehlivanova, an analyst for Barclays Plc (BARC)’s investment-banking unit in New York, said in a research note June 25.
“Only the best gas wells are drilled today, and those have benefited from an increasing efficiency of drilling,” Pehlivanova said. “In contrast, as oil-directed drilling has accelerated, the economics of the marginal oil wells that are being drilled currently are worse than the economics of the marginal oil wells drilled two years ago.”
At current oil and gas prices, Barclays’s proxy wet and dry gas wells in the Marcellus formation of the eastern U.S. “compete favorably” with a proxy marginal oil well in North Dakota’s Bakken play, she said.
Senior Accountant (West LA/Culver City)
Applicant must demonstrate:
* Familiarity with MSWord, QuickBooks, Outlook, and Excel.
* In-depth knowledge of A/R, A/P, Payroll processing, and General Ledger
* Pro-active attitude, ability to work under pressure, multi-task, with a desire to succeed and grow
* Knowledge of construction accounting procedures (desirable but not required)
To be considered, a current resume must be attached to your e-mail response.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Posting ID: 3682105107
Well Test Operator - Weir Seaboard - Williston, ND
Job Description Use care and attention when operating equipment, handling materials, operating company vehicles, ensure that equipment, materials, company vehicles, etc, are utilized in an efficient and cost effective manner. Seek and identify opportunities to improve processes, reduce waste and reduce company costs on a continuous basis. Perform job specifications in accordance to project specifications; operational, QHSE and SOPs
Including but not limited to:
May be required to work as a field supervisor in certain situations. Function as lead-man during rig up of equipment and operation of equipment. Coordinate and participate in installation of unit or system to be tested, including rig up and rig down of all test equipment, and indicating instruments. Operate controls to subject test systems within safe parameters of the designed equipment Monitor controls and instruments and record test data for engineer/clients use. Recommend changes in test methods or equipment. Help get equipment ready and load out with very little direction from job Supervisor, ensure to utilize load out sheet. Ensure you are equipped with all required personal protective equipment (PPE) and clothing (steel toed work boots, FR (Fire Retardant) coveralls, hard hat, safety glasses, gloves and hearing protection Arrive punctually and be prepared to work for the duration of shift Perform rig-in duties as assigned by the Job Supervisor Perform a shift change safety meeting, hand over and walk around with the cross shift Perform maintenance and repair work as assigned by the Job Supervisor Consult with the Job Supervisor before proceeding with jobs for which instruction or proper training has not been provided Learn and perform data collection as directed by the Job Supervisor or company representative for accurate reporting. Learn and perform troubleshooting of daily operations Report all incidents, accidents and unsafe working environments to the Job Supervisor Maintain open, professional communications with all crewmembers and company representatives Perform all work in accordance to standard operating procedures (SOP) and ensure compliance to government, industry and company laws, regulations and policies Participate fully in all required QHSE training (Employee Development System Learning Plan Attend and actively participate in all required safety meetings Available on 24 hour call, and prepared for work when on call Thoroughly learn the job and become familiar with the jobs of those around, in order to understand how individual actions may affect the safety of others May be required to work offshore on drilling rig or production platform. Know and understand Weir Seaboard Quality Policy and comply with all requirements of the Quality Systems Manual, Operating and Technical Procedures and Workplace Instructions. Must understand and comply with all safety rules and company policies of Weir Seaboard. Work assignments carried out to the highest quality level. Perform various other duties and activities as assigned by supervisor within the physical constraints of the job. Continually prove competence to the Level 1 Well Testing Competency Begin Level 2 competency for Well Testing Qualifications SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE:
1+ years experience Good knowledge of well testing procedures Good mechanical knowledge Good written and oral communication skills
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
ANY SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS:
The physical ability to immediately respond to emergency situations. Additional Information Please visit https://jobs-weiroilandgas.icims.com/jobs/5268/2013-5268/job to apply.
All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
Weir Seaboard - 3 days ago - save job - block
Skilled Kitchen and Bath Remodeling (Los Angeles and Ventura Counties)
Posting ID: 3682016317Posted: 2013-03-14, 7:50PM PDTEdited: 2013-03-14, 7:50PM PDTemail to a friendSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.
Call Center Supervisor (Van Nuys)
This is full time position that requires supervisory experience.
Duties may include but are not limited to
- Hiring and firing
- Training/coaching
- Staff Scheduling
- Discipline and terminating
Requirements
- Exceptional customer service skills
- Supervisory experience
- Familiarity with consumer credit reports
- Good computer skills
- Competent in both written and oral communication
- Knowledge of tenant law helpful but not essential
Benefits
- Paid holidays
- Health insurance
- Dental & vision
- 401K pension plan
- Profit sharing
To be considered for this position please email your resume along with your desired salary.
Posting ID: 3681920944Posted: 2013-03-14, 6:43PM PDTEdited: 2013-03-14, 6:47PM PDTemail to a friendGas exporters to defend pricing as courts reject oil link
The sun shines over a Range Resources well site in Washington, Pa. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)The world’s biggest natural gas exporters will seek to defend linking prices to the cost of oil even after courts ruled they overcharged customers and rising output from the U.S. to Australia challenges their dominance.
Tying gas costs to oil will dominate “in the long-term” as the system provides visibility and transparency for buyers, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum said before its second summit of heads of state today in Moscow. RWE AG (RWE) said June 27 an arbitration court ruled that Germany’s second-largest utility had paid Russia’s OAO Gazprom (GAZP) too much since May 2010 and forced the group’s biggest producer to add links to market prices in its formula.
Utilities are challenging the 40-year-old system after European market prices slumped below oil-linked contracts as the debt crisis cut demand for energy. State-controlled Gazprom has earmarked as much as 200 billion rubles ($6 billion) for potential rebates to European utilities this year. The estimate is higher than the 114 billion rubles set aside in 2012 and enough to meet all necessary payments, Chief Financial Officer Andrey Kruglov said June 27 in Moscow.
“This could well be the tipping point that ushers in a new commercial era for European gas,” Trevor Sikorski, an analyst at Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said June 28 by e-mail. “If so, the impact will be felt wider than Europe, with Asian customers looking longingly at European and U.S. hub prices, and seeing that commercial arbitration might be one way of lessening the burden.”
Sonatrach, RasGas
Electricite de France SA, Europe’s biggest power producer, in April obtained lower gas prices for its Italian unit Edison SpA through arbitration with Sonatrach of Algeria, Europe’s third-biggest supplier after Russia and Norway. Qatar’s Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co. has also lost an arbitration case related to oil-linked pricing.
The RWE ruling “creates a precedent for the rest of Europe and should put an end to 40 years of oil-indexation history,” Alberto Gandolfi, an analyst at UBS AG in London, said in a June 28 note. About 85 percent of the euro area’s gas purchases rests on oil indexation and moving to traded prices for the fuel will save the region 12 billion euros ($15.6 billion) a year, according to the Zurich-based bank.
Gazprom may compensate RWE 1 billion euros, Der Spiegel reported yesterday. Alexey Miller, chief executive officer of the Moscow-based exporter, declined to comment on June 28 on commercial details of the arbitration. The ruling won’t put pressure on the company’s European contracts, he said.
“This goes further than Gazprom, any seller with a long term oil-linked price contract must now fear that the chances of an arbitral tribunal upholding this mechanism are severely reduced, this is a very big deal for Sonatrach as well,” Jonathan Stern, founder of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said by e-mail on June 28.
‘Find Consensus’
Today’s meeting, hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, will be attended by the presidents of Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, Iran and Venezuela and the prime minister of Libya as well as representatives from the other members, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Trinidad & Tobago, Yuri Ushakov, the foreign policy adviser to Putin, told reporters in Moscow on June 28.
“Members have a window of opportunity to at least reshape the discussion, setting its own argumentation against the argumentation of the buyers,” Tatiana Mitrova, head of oil and gas development at the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said June 26 by e-mail. “But it will strongly depend on the ability of the GECF members to find consensus and to work in a collaborative way, which they failed to do so far.”
Trading Jump
Global gas trade will jump 30 percent in the six years through 2018, led by soaring Australian exports and boosted by North American LNG shipments at the end of the period, according to the International Energy Agency. That will increase pressure on exporters to revise the system of linking long-term supply contracts to oil as the gap between the two fuels persists.
Next-month U.K. gas, a European benchmark, was on average $1.75 per million British thermal units cheaper than Russian fuel at the German border in the year through May, according to Bloomberg calculations based on prices from ICE Futures Europe and the International Monetary Fund.
The GECF, which evolved at the start of this century, said at a summit in November 2011 that they should cooperate to increase prices and boost supply. The group hasn’t been as effective as the 53-year-old Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which meets twice a year to tweak crude-oil output quotas with the aim of influencing prices.
Mirroring OPEC
“While the GECF countries are very important to the global gas community, more major suppliers means the ability to control price and volume is diminished,” Graham Freedman, senior analyst for European gas and power at Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. in London, said June 26 by e-mail. “This is similar to OPEC, where non-OPEC production, particularly from Russia and the U.S. is reducing the influence that OPEC has on oil pricing.”
The GECF, which links 13 members that together hold about 60 percent of global gas reserves, will also discuss increasing competition from coal in Europe, Secretary-General Leonid Bokhanovsky told reporters on June 28 in Moscow.
Nations outside the group are set to increase output at a faster rate than most GECF members. Australian gas production will rise 156 percent in the six years to 2018 to 141 billion cubic meters a year, making it the world’s fourth-biggest supplier after the U.S., Russia and Qatar, the Paris-based IEA said June 20.
Russian Power
Meanwhile, LNG shipments from many Middle Eastern, Latin American and Asian exporters will decline, according to the IEA. Angola last month supplied its first LNG with the start of a liquefaction plant with capacity of 5.2 million tons a year.
“I think the GECF will try to consolidate its position in order to be prepared for the newcomers,” Mitrova said.
Putin is seeking to assert the nation’s influence on the global gas market by expanding exports to Asia and supporting new LNG projects. He said in February he favors partial removal of Gazprom’s monopoly on exports in a bid to raise Russia’s share of the LNG market.
While Russia accounts for 26 percent of cross-border pipeline trade, its LNG volumes accounted for 4.5 percent of the total market last year, according to BP Plc (BP/)’s Statistical Review.
“GECF has no power but Russia has and will continue to have a market power in gas,” Thierry Bros, an analyst at Societe Generale SA in Paris, said June 26 by e-mail. “Gazprom is facing some challenges but also has plenty of opportunities, such as Asian gas demand.”
Dental Receptionist (Glendale, CA)
Posting ID: 3682074724Posted: 2013-03-14, 8:35PM PDTEdited: 2013-03-14, 8:35PM PDTemail to a friendSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.
Truck Driver Warehouse Operations - Halliburton - Beeville, TX
Why Halliburton? How about global opportunities, interesting work within small cohesive teams, extensive training, and the opportunity to take your career wherever you want it to GO, with all the support and stability of a truly global organization. With more than 60,000 employees in approximately 80 countries, Halliburton is one of the largest and most respected energy services companies in the industry. Since 1919, our customers have relied on our industry-leading technologies, scientific expertise and, most importantly, our knowledgeable and experienced professionals to help them meet the world's demand for energy. Whether you are a new graduate seeking your first job, or an experienced professional looking to make a career change, we have fantastic opportunities across our organization. Are you ready to GO?
Deliver the goods. Drive toward success.
Deliver the goods. Drive toward success.
Put your hands on the wheel and drive yourself into a rewarding position as a Halliburton stockpoint (warehouse) truck driver. Operate our company vehicles to deliver quality service, world-class safety and industry standard-setting efficiency. Transport equipment and materials to and from internal and external customers. Load and unload vehicles. Complete all driver DOT / Regulatory paperwork required for each trip Help set up rig tanks and rig up equipment when necessary. Keep the rig tidy and get ready to roll in the great outdoors.
Minimum requirements for the job include a high school diploma and a Commercial Driver's License with HazMat endorsement license.
Due to this being a DOT position, a Class A CDL is required.
Hazmat and Tanker endorsements are preferred.
Halliburton is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
Halliburton - 1 day ago - save job - block PCT
DSI Renal Inc. - Beeville, TX
DSI Renal Inc. - 4 days ago
12M Firefighter
National Guard - Fort Chaffee, AR
National Guard - 13 days ago
Drill Bit Fabricator
Halliburton - Conroe, TX
Halliburton - 2 days ago
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)