Venezuelan threats to its neighbor highlights questions about Biden’s foreign and energy policies

Dec. 15, 2023.1/3

Less than two months since the Biden administration negotiated a deal with the socialist Venezuelangovernment that would ease sanctions blocking the country from selling its oil, ==election issues and tensions with Guyana threaten to unravel the agreement.

Venezuelan PresidentNicolas Maduro agreed to lift bans on opposition candidatesin the Venezuelan presidential elections, and by Nov. 30,Maduro was supposed to release political prisoners and “wrongfully detained” Americans.

Immediately after the agreementwas finalized, theVenezuelan supreme court suspendedthe presidential primary process for the party challenging Maduro. This week, theVenezuelan government ordered the arrest of people connected to oppositional presidentialnominee Maria Corina Machado’s campaign. And Venezuela may invade its neighbor, Guyana.

President Joe Biden’s energy policy has sidelined domestic oil and gas producers while negotiating with members of OPEC to increase their oil production. It’s a policy that the U.S. oil and gas industry has criticized as shifting petroleum operations to foreign countries with poor records on human rights, and low labor and environmental standards.

Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, said the developments in Venezuela over the past six weeks affirms that.

“The Administration must not have made their expectations clear on what constitutes fair elections. They apparently forgot to include the ‘don't annex your neighbor and take their oil’ clause,” Stewart told Just The News.

Disputed region

Essequibo is a region of Guyana bordering Venezuela, andit contains about two-thirds of Guyana's total territory and 13% of its total population. Essequibo has been a matter of dispute between the two countries for over a century, and international arbitration has granted authority over the territory to Guyana since the late 1800s, a ruling that’s been affirmed many times since.

Exxon located large reserves of oil in Guyana in 2015— approximately 11 billion barrels — and it became a cornerstone of the company’s long-term strategy. The merger of Chevron and Hess Corp. had a lot to do with Hess’ partnership in a massive Guyana offshore oil project.

Development of Guyana’s offshore oil fields has the potential to make Guyana a major oil-producing country, according to Bloomberg. On Sunday, Maduro held a referendum, and Venezuelan authoritiessay votersoverwhelmingly agreed that the country has a legitimate claim to the territory. (No voters, voted!)

Immediately following the vote,Maduro gaveExxonMobil and other producers operating in Essequibo90 days to stop their operations, and he ordered Venezuelan officials to start granting licenses to Venezuela’s state-owned companies.

(Another bungled shitfest from Bidan and Admin.)

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/venezuelas-claim-guyana-threatens-massive-oil-deposit-exxon-was-hoping-tap

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The dispute has drawn national attention, and a growing concern that Venezuela will invade Guyana. The U.S. Embassy in Guyana issued a statement Thursday that theGuyana Defense Force and U.S. Southern Command are conducting drills, including flight operations within Guyana.

“The U.S. will continue its commitment as Guyana’s trusted security partner and promoting regional cooperation and interoperability,” the embassy said.

Erik Prince, founder of the private U.S. military company Blackwater, told Just The Newsthat Maduro will try something. Whether that’s anall-out invasionisn’t certain.“They're gonna amp up the pressure, and if nothing else, it's negotiating with different tactics,” Prince said.

France 24 reported on Friday thatMaduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali agreed not to use force against one another "in any circumstances." Neither country, however, agree to settle their dispute over the Essequibo, leaving the matter unsettled.

Political distraction

With 304 billion barrels of proven reserves, Venezuela has plenty of its own oil to produce. After the Venezuelan supreme court suspended the primary election process of Maduro’s competitors, theU.S. began contemplating the prospect of reimposing sanctions. Hostilities towards its neighbors won’t make that prospect less likely.

Prince said he believesMaduro is trying to create a distraction from the upcoming election.

“The very strong showing by [oppositional presidential nominee] Maria Corina Machado spooked them. So they dust off 120, 130 year old land dispute to rally Venezuela attention towards that, instead of letting people focus on the corruption and just how far Venezuela has back slid under socialist rule,” Prince said.

On an episode this week of “Off The Leash With Erik Prince,” Prince said that Biden wanted to ease the sanctions against Venezuela becausehe’d failed to get OPEC to agree to a delay in production cuts and still needed to get inflation down. But hedoesn’t see the Biden administration doing much to stop Maduroshould the president take action against Guyana.

“I think they'll make all kinds of diplomatic amendments and noise. But if it comes down to it,there will be no credible application of power to deter Maduro,”Prince said in an interview, adding that it’s been an ongoing problem with U.S. foreign policy for the last three years.

The Biden administration, Prince said, has taken negotiation as its first tactic when it's dealing with adversaries of the U.S., whether that’s Iranian proxies, the Taliban or Hamas.

American interests

Energy writer and analyst David Blackmon, author of “Energy Absurdities,” told Just The News thathe believes that Chinese interests may be playing a role in the conflict. After the agreement to lift sanctions was announced, China resumed purchasing oil from Venezuela, Reuters reported.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/venezuelas-claim-guyana-threatens-massive-oil-deposit-exxon-was-hoping-tap

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“It's a shame because Venezuela probably has more oil reserves than any country, certainly in the Western Hemisphere, but this is what socialists do,” Blackmon said.

He also believes that, because the Biden administration has an interest in keeping the oil flowing from Venezuela, it will act to protect those interests.

“The Biden administration is all in favor of putting more oil onto the global market, just as long as it doesn't come from the United States.I suspect we'll move to protect it,” Blackmon said.

On the “Off The Lease” episode, Prince said theoil companies operating in Guyana aren’t particularly concerned about the situationbecause it doesn’t matter to them which country issues them the oil and gas leases.

In an interview, Prince said that a Venezuelan invasion of Guyana could have significant ramifications for the globe if action isn’t taken. He said every country has to be responsible for what happens in its own borders, and he hopes the leaders of Guyana act smart in dealing with Venezuela.

“I think the diminution of American credibility and deterrence =•will have knock-on effects for almost a generation around the world,”== Prince said.

(PDJT has another massive WW problem to solve. I think the Bidan Admin is doing these things on purpose to keep the US entangled in wars etc.)

Natural gas expansion project to add more reliable energy to Texas grid

Dec. 15, 2023

On Thursday, a north Texas-based natural gas energy expansion project was announced to further strengthen the Texas grid. Gov. Greg Abbott, ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas, and Calpine Corporation CEO Thad Hill announced Calpine was expanding its natural gas production operations at its Freestone County Energy Center.

The center is a natural gas-fired combined-cycle facility located near Fairfield, Texas. It was the first facility Calpine built in the northern Texas Regional Entity market area and sells electricity to ERCOT, according to its website. The facility has a Bronze-level membership status in the Clean Texas Program, sponsored by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It was recognized as a leader in Texas for achieving significant environmental results, creating environmental awareness and protecting air, water and land resources in Texas.

The company’s expansion project will bring more than 300 new jobs to Freestone County and 425 megawatts of new, dispatchable generation to the Texas electrical grid, the governor announced at a press conference at Calpine’s Houston headquarters Thursday morning. The expansion is projected to generate an additional 7,000 megawatts of dispatchable generation, slated to come online in 2024.

“The bottom line is Texans need more electrical power,” Gov. Abbott said. “We have a collective responsibility to make sure that we provide the power and electricity to support our growing state by adding new, reliable power plants like this one from Calpine.

“ERCOT, PUC, and power generators are better prepared this winter than ever before because I signed over a dozen laws to ensure they have the tools and strategies needed to generate more power and make our grid more reliable and resilient.More than 4 million Texas homes lost power in February 2021 amid a massive winter storm that saw deaths in 25 counties.

The Freestone Energy Center expansion “will ensure that reliable power is available in Texas no matter the weather,” he said, thanking Calpine for choosing to expand its operations in Freestone County. They made the announcement after the legislature passed a bill, which Gov. Abbott signed into law this year to expand energy production. It also came after voters passed Proposition 7, to create a $5 billion Texas Energy Fund as part of a new constitutional amendment to expand energy production.

Gov. Abbott also discussed ongoing partnerships with energy companies at the press conference, explaining their efforts to bring more reliable, dispatchable power to Texans. He also described the measures the Public Utility Commission of Texas, Railroad Commission of Texas, andElectric Reliability Council of Texas have taken to ensure the Texas power grid is winterized, in compliance with legislative reforms implemented after the February freeze of 2021.

These measures include “requiring the most robust weatherization requirements in the nation,” he said, which involve additional on-sight inspections to ensure compliance with new regulations, identifying and mapping Texas’ critical energy infrastructure, implementing better coordination among state resources, personnel and operators, and incentivizing on-site redundant fuel supplies for dispatchable generation.

Calpine Corporation is the largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermalresources in the U.S. The Fortune 500 company based in Houston has commercial, industrial and residential retail operations in key competitive power markets and has 76 plants operating in 22 states, Canada and Mexico. These plants generate nearly 26,000 megawatts of capacity, enough to power approximately 20 million homes, according to the company’s website. Calpine Corporation is owned by a consortium of investors led by Energy Capital Partners, including Access Industries and theCanada Pension Plan Investment Board, according to its website.

The United States leads the world in geothermal electricity generation, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports. In 2018, the U.S. became the world’s leading producer of geothermal energy, producing 16.7 billion kWh of geothermal energy, NS Energy reported. In 2020, the U.S. was the world leader in cumulative installed geothermal capacity, according to Statista.

Texas produces more electricity than any other state, led by the Texas oil and natural gas industry. The industry broke records in every category in 2022, including leading the U.S. in oil and natural gas production and lowered emissions and ranking first in industry job growth, wages, payroll and Gross Regional Product nationwide.

https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/natural-gas-expansion-project-add-more-reliable-energy-texas-grid