OIL
From the Washington Examiner, Daily on Energy:
SEISMIC TEST FOR ANWR: Interior’s Bureau of Land Management is considering an application for a company to do seismic oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to a proposal posted to the agency’s website Friday.
The Bureau will accept public comment on the proposal, filed by the Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation, a group representing members of an Alaskan native tribe, for two weeks before deciding whether to grant the permit. The permit would allow SAExploration, a Houston-based company that has declared bankruptcy, to do seismic testing through a portion of ANWR’s coastal plain beginning in January, a timeline that environmentalists consider rushed and politically-motivated to head off a potential policy change from Biden.
It would be the first oil exploration in ANWR since the 2017 Republican tax cut bill allowed oil and gas development in a 1.56 million-acre section of the long untouched refuge, known as the “1002 area,” where billions of barrels of oil are believed to lie beneath the coastal plain.
GAS
Natural gas viewed more positively than other fossil fuels across 20 global publics
Brian Kennedy, Alison Spencer AND Cary Fun, Pew Research Center, October 19, 2020
As governments around the world debate the mix of fossil fuel and renewable sources they use to meet their energy needs, public attitudes about natural gas are mostly positive, according to a recent international survey by Pew Research Center.
Majorities support expanding natural gas in most places; far fewer support expanding oil, coal
A median of 69% of adults across the 20 global publics favor expanding the use of natural gas, including about two-thirds or more in 16 of those places. The survey was conducted between October 2019 and March 2020 in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Russia and other places in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
MINING
Golden decade coming to Fort Knox Mine
Shane Lasley, North of 60 Mining News, October 23, 2020
A look at Kinross Gold Corp.’s newly optimized strategy for Fort Knox indicates that the iconic mine about 20 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska will be producing upwards of 400,000 ounces of gold per year for most of the coming decade. The global gold producer introduced its new plans for Fort Knox during an Oct. 20 presentation that provided a more in-depth look into its plan to increase companywide gold output by 500,000 oz/year by 2023. This production growth strategy, first mentioned by Kinross management in September, is forecast to boost the company’s annual gold output from 2.4 million oz this year to 2.7 million oz in 2022 and 2.9 million oz in 2023.
POLITICS
No, Really — Don’t Pay Attention to Early Voting Data
Sean Trende, Real Clear Politics, October 26, 2020
It’s that most wonderful time of year. After endless speculation, analysis, and hedging, we are tantalizingly close to having actual new election data to work with. Given this, it is a natural temptation for analysts to gravitate toward the one piece of hard data that we have in our possession: early voting numbers. Take, for example, this piece from Politico, claiming that the Democrats’ massive lead in early voting is a “warning flare.”
I have given my response on this matter before: Don’t try to divine election results from early voting returns. I made this point in 2016, when people were making the exact same arguments about Democrats’ chances off of similar data.
The problem today is the same as it was back then. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll summarize my basic argument from four years ago: Unless you somehow know what is going to happen on Election Day, this argument is useless. To take an extreme example: Democrats could turn out every one of their voters early, and Republicans could still win the election by turning out more on Election Day.