American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2017 - 115

Author and journalist Robert
Bryce (left) pauses with OOGA
Chairman Jim Aslanides during
the association's winter meeting keynote luncheon, March
10 in Columbus, Oh. Bryce told
OOGA that the idea wind energy could supplant natural
gas was "one of the biggest
lies of the modern age."

He said Ponderosa projected gas prices
would average $3.50 an Mcf in 2017 and
'18, and $3.25 an Mcf in 2019 and '20.
But he added, "As soon as demand picks
up, the gas price is going to have to jump
fairly significantly. There is a high likelihood of gas going over $4.00 by July or
the first part of August, but it won't last
because the higher prices coupled with
what ultimately will be $55-plus crude
will drive enough incremental production
into the market that gas prices will come
back down.
"It is going to be very difficult to keep
long-term gas prices above $4.00," Bennett
concluded. "I think that are going to fluctuate between $3.50 and $4.00, depending
on how strong global demand is."
Wind Energy Backlash
For all the headlines about communities
wanting to ban hydraulic fracturing, reflected OOGA keynoter Robert Bryce, a
senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
for Policy Research, "The great untold
story is the number of communities that

are fighting the wind industry. Over the
past two years, roughly 120 government
entities in two dozen states have attempted
to reject or restrict wind energy."
The reasons are obvious, Bryce suggested: noise from wind turbines and red,
blinking lights on towers 400-500 feet
high. "Folks value their property," he
mused. "They moved to the countryside
to be away from industrial development."
As an example of wind energy backlash, Bryce pointed to Vermont, home to
Bernie Sanders, whose presidential energy
platform called for 100 percent renewable
energy. He said two Democratic state
senators in Vermont had a bill to ban
new wind projects, and the Public Service
Board had introduced a rule to do basically
the same thing.
Yet, ironically, "On Nov. 8, Hillary
Clinton beat Donald Trump by 29 points
in Vermont," Bryce revealed. "That same
day, Vermont voters elected Phil Scott,
an anti-wind Republican (as governor)
over a pro-wind Democrat by nine points."
New York and California both have
mandated 50 percent renewable energy
by 2030, yet three New York counties
oppose a 200 megawatt wind project for
the shore of Lake Ontario, Bryce reported,
and in 2015, the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors unanimously passed
an ordinance prohibiting wind turbines.
"Yet we continue to hear this drumbeat,
'We have to go all renewables,'" Bryce
lamented. "It isn't going to happen. This
idea that clean energy is going to supplant
large quantities of hydrocarbons is fiction.
Land use is going to be the key issue for
renewables, and we are just starting to
see it play out."
❒

Coming In May
America can produce a lot of crude oil at
prices above $60 a barrel, guest speaker
Porter Bennett, president and chief executive officer of Ponderosa Advisors LLC,
tells the Ohio Oil & Gas Association's
winter meeting, March 10 in Columbus.

Special reports outline best practices for optimizing compression efficiency in liquids-rich resource plays
with dynamic production conditions.

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2017

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