Natural Gas News – August 9, 2018

Natural Gas News – August 9, 2018

With Threatened Gas Tariff, China Wields a Potent Long-Term Weapon

US News reported: Companies across the U.S. oil and gas sector are poised to feel the pain if China’s threat of a 25 percent tariff on American liquefied natural gas stays in place and the countries’ leaders fail to halt their escalating trade war. The threat marked the latest development in the spat, with Beijing taking aim at one of President Donald Trump’s key bases of support – and one of the country’s economic engines – in response to Trump’s decision to hike tariffs on Chinese goods from 10 to 25 percent. But it will take months – and perhaps a year or longer – before the pain is truly felt, perhaps enough time for both sides to find rapprochement. If it takes effect, the move would essentially lock out the world’s largest producer of natural gas from the world’s single biggest and fastest-growing market for the product, threatening to undercut the Trump administration’s high-profile drive to remake U.S. foreign policy – and project American power – by wielding the country’s surging oil and gas production.

Pacific Standard reports: After one of its natural gas storage wells blew out and caused the biggest methane leak in United States history, the Southern California Gas Company has agreed to pay $119.5 million to settle city, county, and state claims against it, the Los Angeles Times reports. SoCal Gas has already paid $4 million, and agreed to pay another $8.5 million, in other settlements related to the disaster. The leak began in October of 2015, in SoCal Gas’ Aliso Canyon gas field. It took the company almost four months to stop the outpouring of natural gas, during which time an estimated 109,000 metric tons of methane were released into the atmosphere.