The Energy Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy has released the oil import numbers for April 2012 and our addiction to OPEC oil has not abated.

According to the EIA, we imported 316 million barrels of oil in the month at a total cost of $37.8 Billion. That represented 56 percent of our total oil use for the month and brought to total for the year to 1.28 billion barrels at a cost of $154 billion.

At this rate we will spend nearly a half trillion dollars to import oil in 2012 despite President Obama’s State of the Union Address call for a concerted effort to utilize domestic resources.

– The Pickens Team

T. Boone Pickens is the subject of a major article written by the Executive Director of the Arkansas Trucking Association.

In the piece the author, Lane C. Kidd, writes about Boone’s dedication to the Pickens Plan which would allow the United States to “regain control of the world’s wealth and economic power, something that would ‘change the dynamics of the world.’”

The article recounts Boone’s spending some $100 million of his own money to promote the concept of getting away from our dependence on OPEC oil which “is sapping the nation’s wealth and productivity.”

Kidd quotes Pickens as saying “Trucking consumes half of the five million barrels we buy from OPEC each day” and so he is aiming his considerable ammunition at the trucking industry and the Congress.

Because of the price differential between natural gas and diesel – about $1.50 per gallon – Pickens says

“I’ve talked to trucking guys whose companies consume 100 million gallons of fuel a year and they see very quickly how they can save a dollar and a half a gallon. It doesn’t take but about a second for them to see that’s a hundred and fifty million dollars.”

This is the first of two parts, the second part will be published soon.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

– The Pickens Team

T. Boone Pickens has enthusiastically endorsed what the Raleigh News-Observer called a “sweeping legislative package that would reshape the state’s political landscape with new boards, task forces and a smorgasbord of requirements.

The package includes requirements for the state to purchase vehicles that run on natural gas and, according to Pickens, is an “aggressive move to move the state’s school buses off OPEC oil/diesel/gasoline and onto domestic natural gas.”

One of the bills would permit hydraulic fracturing or fracking as a method of recovering natural gas safely and efficiently. That bill, “known as the Clean Energy and Economic Security Act, would legalize the practice within about two years” and passed on Wednesday.

To read the full article, click HERE.

– The Pickens Team

Self-help guru Tony Robbins appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan program and listed energy as the number one issue facing America. He went on to say that Boone Pickens’ plan to convert eight million heavy duty trucks to run on domestic natural gas would “wipe out about 60 percent of our need for foreign oil.”

From the NY Times Webpage:

On Tuesday, Frito-Lay announced it would add 67 trucks that would run on compressed natural gas, known as CNG, to its fleet. Eventually, the company said, a majority of its longer-range vehicles would run on CNG, as well as liquefied natural gas for longer-distance hauls.

The CNG-powered trucks would save the equivalent of $2.50 a gallon compared with diesel at current prices, as well as reduce greenhouse emissions by 23 percent when compared with diesel rigs, the company said. Currently, 18 trucks burning natural gas in 8.9-liter Cummins Westport engines are undergoing a pilot test.

To read the entire article by Jim Motavalli click HERE

– The Pickens Team

In an interview on CNBC the chairman of Federal Express, Frederick Smith, and the former vice chair of GM, Robert Lutz, talked about the need to wean Americans from their dependence on OPEC oil.

Smith said, “There is no free market for oil. It’s controlled by a cartel, OPEC. They own 80 percent to 90 percent of the reserves in the world. They produce about 42 percent.”

He said too many Republicans in Congress hear the word “alternative” and immediately think it’s an Administration effort.
“This isn’t about liberal programs and changing society. This is about energy conservation and national security by getting us off of imported oil,” Smith said.

Lutz, in the same interview, said he “all for ‘drill, baby, drill’ and the vision of the U.S. potentially becoming self-sufficient in petroleum and gas production. It is a dream that we fully support.”

To read the CNBC report of the interview, click HERE.

– The Pickens Team

The Energy Information Agency has reported that in March the United States imported 332 million barrels of oil at a cost of $41.6 billion or nearly a million dollars per minute.

Since President Obama called for an “all of the above” energy policy in his State of the Union address in January, we have imported 827 million barrels of oil at a cost of about $102 billion.

The U.S. Congress has not taken seriously our continued dependence on OPEC for our oil even though we have domestic natural gas reserves that will last more than 100 years.

The Senate recently voted on the major elements of the NAT GAS Act and it got 51 votes for and 47 against. However, due to Senate rules it needed 60 votes to pass. The House has yet to bring the measure to the floor.

– The Pickens Team

April 5, 2012 American Public Gas Association (APGA) sent a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Energy Committee, House Energy and Commerce Committee and House Natural Resources Committee urging them to support the New Alternative to Give Americans Solutions Act (NAT GAS Act) in response to the recent and dramatic increase in gasoline prices.

Bert Kalisch, President and CEO of APGA said, “The recent increase in the price of gasoline to a national average of $3.91 has sent shockwaves throughout the economy. Once again, consumers have been hit with a veritable tax increase in the form of inflated energy prices which is reducing their purchasing power and spending, causing financial markets to tumble, and inhibiting economic growth in the midst of a nascent recovery.”

Kalisch went on to note that by passing the NAT GAS Act and adopting natural gas vehicles (NGVs) consumers, “could save $1-$2 per gallon (and possibly more) by filling up with natural gas produced right here in the U.S. In so doing, U.S. consumers and businesses would save billions of dollars which could be spent on other necessities or new job-creating investments.”

Kalisch concluded stating that the NAT GAS Act will improve our national security by promoting vehicles which obviate the need for imported oil and would, “finally send the policy signal that the U.S. will no longer be captive to geopolitical events around the globe, but will begin the journey towards energy independence.”

– The Pickens Team

At a symposium sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, T. Boone Pickens and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell discussed natural gas as a “game changer.” Pennsylvania is essentially ground zero for the Marcellus Shale which contains one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves.

To read the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the discussion, click HERE

– The Pickens Team

T. Boone Pickens was a guest on CNBC’s “Fast Money” program Wednesday afternoon and said, according to the show’s website, that “The best energy bet for the United States amid rising crude prices might lay in natural gas.”
Pickens went on to say,

“There are 8½ million 18-wheelers in the United States. That’s 2½ million barrels of oil a day. So that cuts OPEC in half if you had all the 18-wheelers. Is there any obstacle from that happening? Not that I know of because the fuel is so cheap.”

With both domestic and Brent crude prices rising in the face of geopolitical uncertainty in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Pickens used an example from the 1970’s to show how quickly this could happen.

“OK, go back to ‘72 when we switched from gasoline to diesel for our heavy-duty trucks. Well, what was that all about? Price. Diesel was cheap. How long did it take to accomplish it? Five years.

“You’re exactly at the same crossroads today. I don’t see any obstacles in front of it.”

Watch the clip here.

T. Boone Pickens was on CNBC’s Squawkbox program this morning to discuss President Obama’s call yesterday to increase the use of natural gas as a principal transportation fuel in the United States.

Pickens, who announced the formation of The Pickens Plan on Squawkbox in the summer of 2008, said that the President now agreed with him that utilizing domestic resources was the only way to significantly reduce our dependence on OPEC oil and the only domestic resource to do that was to move heavy-duty trucks and fleet vehicles from imported diesel to domestic natural gas.

Watch below.

As evidence of the bipartisan support for using domestic natural gas as a principal transportation fuel for heavy trucks and other fleet vehicles, Senators Richard Menendez (D-NJ) and Richard Burr (R-NC) jointly issued a statement supporting President Obama’s call for more investment in natural gas vehicles.

Menendez and Burr are co-authors of the NAT GAS Act of 2011.

Menendez stated:

“Our bipartisan bill will create jobs and lower transportation costs and do so without adding one dime to the deficit. This is exactly the kind of bipartisan proposal we should be able to pass, even in an election year.”

Burr added:

“Natural gas represents a way to boost our nation’s energy security and help free us from our over-reliance on foreign oil, and I am pleased to hear that the President is committed to working with us on this effort.”

President Obama Las Vegas, NV. The Las Vegas Revew-Journal summarized his remarks this way:

In a visit to a UPS facility this morning, President Barack Obama praised the shipping company for “leading by example” in converting its long-haul trucks to use liquefied natural gas instead of diesel fuel

To read the entire release by Senators Burr and Menendez, including a summary of the NAT GAS Act, click HERE.

– The Pickens Team

This op-ed by John Podesta and Tom Steyer appeared in the Wall Street Journal 1/24/2012

In the hubbub around the president’s decision not to approve the proposed Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and the United States, Americans missed the big picture. While conservatives have been fighting to build a pipeline to import more foreign oil and deepen U.S. dependence, the U.S. is poised to transform its energy portfolio by developing domestic resources—renewable and mineral—that will let it become a net exporter of clean energy and energy technology in this decade.

Under President Obama’s leadership, we appear to be at the beginning of a domestic gas and oil boom. After a four-decade decline in oil production, the U.S. is now producing more than half of our oil domestically. This can free us from our addiction to foreign-sourced barrels, particularly if we utilize our dramatically larger and cheaper natural gas reserves. Natural gas now costs the equivalent of less than $15 per barrel, versus the $100-plus barrels we import from the Middle East.

There are critical environmental questions associated with developing these resources, particularly concerning methane leakage and water pollution. Yet as long as we ensure high regulatory standards and stay away from the riskiest and most polluting of these activities, we can safely assemble a collection of lower-carbon, affordable and abundant domestic-energy assets that will dramatically improve our economy and our environment. Under President Obama’s watch, increased domestic production from developing these reserves has already created 75,000 new gas and oil-production jobs since 2009. And we have much further to go.

At the same time, the U.S. is well on its way to becoming a global clean-energy leader. America is the largest clean-energy investor, after reclaiming this title from China last year. Our companies make over 75% of all venture investments in clean technologies world-wide. Overall, because of U.S. public and private investments in clean energy—including renewables, efficiency, transportation and infrastructure—the clean economy grew by 8.3% from 2008 to 2009, even during the depths of the recession.

Expanding these clean-energy investments is good economics. Several technologies, such as solar power, are already cost-competitive with fossil fuels, even without considering the health and other costs of pollution. And they will help preserve and expand America’s middle class, because energy investments are a particularly effective method of “insourcing” manufacturing jobs, which in turn spur jobs in invention, installation and maintenance.

Such jobs provide a strong middle-class income to workers who have technical skills beyond high school but who lack a four-year college degree. What’s more, U.S. clean-energy investment shows moral leadership, as we combine our advanced energy strategies with strong safeguards to protect our citizens and our planet from polluters and the worst impacts of global warming.

Our clean-technology edge is due in no small part to the business community’s overwhelming response to specific policy tools—from government investment in research and development to targeted tax incentives to spur renewable energy manufacturing and installation. For instance, the Production Tax Credit, first passed in 1992, has generated massive amounts of new growth in the wind industry, a sector employing 85,000 Americans. But each time Congress allows this credit to expire after a mere two years, investment grinds to a halt, giving our global competitors the advantage in innovation, manufacturing and installation. The Production Tax Credit is set to expire again this year.

If we want to cement our status as a leader in the global marketplace, we must extend clean-energy programs like the Production Tax Credit and revive the Manufacturing Tax Credit, which helps factories retool for the clean-tech sector. Such programs will give clean-energy entrepreneurs the assurance they need to invest and expand their businesses.

The leadership that Americans are asking for is within our reach. Our economy can go from being weighed down by oil imports to soaring ahead, powered increasingly by domestically produced clean energy, and energy services and technology. The Obama administration has taken a smart approach, but Congress must now work with the president to secure our leadership position going forward.

Mr. Steyer is the founder of Farallon Capital Management LLC. Mr. Podesta, a former White House chief of staff for President Clinton, is chairman of the Center for American Progress.

T. Boone Pickens was the guest host on CNBC’s popular business program “Squawk Box” this morning.

Among the items Boone discussed was the Pickens Plan, our vast domestic supplies of natural gas, and the introduction of the NAT GAS Act (S. 1863) in the Senate this week.

At the conclusion of the hour, Boone was asked to sum up his thinking about oil and natural gas.

Speaking about OPEC oil supplies he pointed out that King Abdullah of Sauda Arabia is in his late 80’s and not in good health. The Saudis produce 9.7 million barrels of oil per day and if “Saudi production starts to get squishy, the price of oil will shoot up and we may be looking at $300 to $500 a barrel.”

Boone also pointed out the amount of money it costs Americans to protect OPEC oil - the Fifth Fleet and divisions of ground troops should be added into the total cost which, “If you go back and look at all the costs for the last ten years, it’s more like 7 trillion counting army, navy, marines and everything else.”

He concluded by saying the “Pickens Plan is just one small step to energy security and energy independence. It isn’t going to solve the problem, but you have got to start in the direction of a solution, not just sit here and import more and more OPEC oil.”

“You could solve the problem. You could do it in five years and jobs would be a big part of it,” Pickens said.