Tom Fowler
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News Editor-Argus, Former @WSJ @FuelFixBlog @HoustonChron Bostonian pre-$ checkmark #oilnerd pater familias Tweets≠endorsements tom.fowler@argusmedia.com
Articles by Tom Fowler
Trump again threatens 6 April Iran power attack
Houston, 4 April (Argus) — US president Donald Trump on Saturday reiterated his threat to attack Iran’s electric power infrastructure if the country does not allow unfettered passage through the strait of Hormuz. In a social media post at 8am ET, Trump referenced his 26 March decision to hold off on the attacks until 6 April to allow purported negotiations to continue. There is little indication that the sides have come close to an agreement in the intervening days.
US DOJ launches criminal probe of Fed chair
Houston, 11 January (Argus) — The US Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, a move Powell said is motivated by the White House’s desire to dictate the bank’s policy decisions. In a statement posted online on Sunday, Powell said the Fed received grand jury subpoenas on 9 January threatening a criminal indictment for his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June about renovations to Fed office buildings.
How Rovanperä found his Finland-winning pace – DirtFish
Wow. I’m not really sure there’s a better way to start this Club DirtFish column. Just wow. That result from Rally Finland is something incredible, one I’m really happy and very proud of for the whole team. The top five is something, I understand, has only been done once before. Amazing. I think it’s fair to say it was a pretty amazing rally for all of our crews, but especially for Kalle [Rovanperä] and Jonne [Halttunen].
Key SARS-CoV-2 testing strategies implemented in the UK: rationale and impact
Future pandemics will occur, and the growth and increasing mobility of populations will likely shorten the time until the next one.1,2 As with many countries, the United Kingdom (UK) has a strategic approach for responding to pandemics.1 The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic provided knowledge that will help us to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.
Solutions for aging metal roofs: Pros and cons — AskARoofer
June 26, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. By Tom Fowler, Sentry Roofing. Metal roofs are known for their long lifespans, but they do eventually start aging. Here’s what to do when that starts happening! In the roofing industry, metal has been consistently growing in popularity due to its durability and long lifespan. However, this doesn’t mean that metal is infallible and as it ages, there will inevitably be damage and wear on the roof.
Sleeper frameworks for Pathogen X: surveillance, risk stratification, and the effectiveness and safety of therapeutic interventions
We have an ethical imperative to learn from recent influenza H1N1 and COVID-19 pandemics to better prepare for the next one. WHO has highlighted the need for surveillance frameworks that can be implemented across states. 1 Bergeri I Lewis HC Subissi L et al. Early epidemiological investigations: World Health Organization UNITY protocols provide a standardized and timely international investigation framework during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
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US commodity industries brace for fed shutdown
A halt to energy permitting on federal land, disruptions to agricultural and import data, and air travel delays are among the potential effects of a US federal government shutdown that could begin this weekend. President Joe Biden has used the last month to urge the US Congress to come up with an agreement to avert a shutdown, attacking "extreme" Republicans who so far have failed to agree among themselves on even a short-term plan to fund the government.
Cast Announced for Hope Has A Happy Meal By Tom Fowler at The Royal Court Theatre
Laura Checkley, Mary Malone, Amaka Okafor, Felix Scott and Nima Taleghani have been cast in Hope has a Happy Meal, written by Tom Fowler and directed by Royal Court Associate Lucy Morrison. It will run at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs from Saturday 3 June to Saturday 8 July 2023, with press night on Friday 9 June 2023 at 7pm.
Icahn Takes Stake in Oil Driller Transocean
Activist investor Carl Icahn has purchased a 1.6% share of offshore driller Transocean Ltd. and is aiming to increase his holdings to more than 3%, the company said late Sunday. Mr. Icahn told the company he is planning to acquire more than $682 million of stock in total, a threshold that he is required to report under U.S. antitrust laws, the company said in a statement and regulatory filings.
Authorities Can't Rule Out Foul Play in Quebec Town Train Blast
LAC MEGANTIC, Quebec—Canadian authorities on Sunday confirmed five deaths and said about 40 people remained missing after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire early Saturday, causing an explosion that destroyed dozens of buildings in this small town. A police spokesman on Sunday said several investigations were under way.
Genomic medicine: time for health-care transformation
Genomic medicine—the use of genetic information to inform medical care or predict risk of disease—is beginning to transform health care. The first human genome cost about US$3 billion to sequence. , 2 Davies SC Chief Medical Officer Annual Report 2016: generation genome. A whole human genome can now be sequenced for under $1000, and for even less it is possible to read targeted parts of the genome (panels) or the protein coding part (the exome).
BP Spill Saga Far From Over
The $7.8 billion oil spill settlement between BP PLC and thousands of residents and businesses along the Gulf of Mexico clears the way for what may become a far more expensive battle between the oil giant and the U.S. government.
Reddy Ice Considers Filing for Bankruptcy
By Tom Fowler April 3, 2012 7:32 p.m. ET The once-solid business of selling bags of ice is melting in the wake of the recession. Dallas-based Reddy Ice Holdings Inc., the top packaged ice producer in the U.S. by revenue, said last week that it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The second-largest ice maker, Arctic Glacier Inc. of Winnipeg, Manitoba, filed for bankruptcy in February.
BP, Plaintiffs Reach Settlement in Gulf Oil Spill Case
BP PLC has agreed to a settlement with thousands of individuals and businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that the company estimates will cost it about $7.8 billion. The settlement, which must be approved by a judge before it goes into effect, will create two classes of claims: economic-loss claims and medical claims.
Two former presidents share many energy views
JENNIFER A. DLOUHY and TOM FOWLER , HOUSTON CHRONICLE Published 6:30 am CST, Saturday, March 12, 2011 Oil will be essential for fueling the U.S. for decades to come, but low-emission natural gas and improved efficiency will bridge the transition to cleaner alternative fuels, business leaders, two former presidents and energy analysts said Friday. Former President George W.
BP Sues EPA to Get New Contracts
BP PLC has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying the agency is abusing its discretion by continuing to bar the company from new government contracts following guilty pleas related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In a filing Monday in federal court in Houston, BP says it has lost out on billions of dollars of potential contracts, such as supplying fuel to the U.S. military, because the EPA refuses to lift the prohibition on new contracts first put in place in November 2012.
Drone Lifelines: Interview with Zipline’s Keenan Wyrobek |
Keenan Wyrobek is the co-founder of Zipline, a California company designing, building, and deploying drones that deliver life-saving medical supplies and blood to the most remote and difficult to access places on Earth. He has a background in helping develop several tech products and patents in robotics, and is now leading product and engineering for Zipline.
@HoustonFowler's Twitter Audit
Each audit takes a sample of up to 5000 (or more, if you subscribe to Pro) Twitter followers for a user and calculates a score for each follower. This score is based on number of tweets, date of the last tweet, and ratio of followers to friends. We use these scores to determine whether any given user is real or fake.
U.S. Oil-Production Rise Is Fastest Ever
U.S. oil production grew more in 2012 than in any year in the history of the domestic industry, which began in 1859, and is set to surge even more in 2013. Daily crude output averaged 6.4 million barrels a day last year, up a record 779,000 barrels a day from 2011 and hitting a 15-year high, according to the American Petroleum Institute, a trade...
Energy business is still at blockchain 0.0
Blockchain technology may be approaching the business mainstream as its most well-known application – cryptocurrency — made the July cover of Forbes magazine, but the application is still closer to the back page for the oil and gas sector. Billed as internet 3.0, blockchain is an electronic distributed ledger seen as a possible way to automate time-consuming, expensive and sometimes economically risky processes, such as verification, settlement and supply chain logistics for the commodity sector.
Proxy Adviser Advises Against Re-Election of Occidental Chairman
An influential proxy adviser said Occidental Petroleum Corp. shareholders shouldn't re-elect Executive Chairman Ray Irani or independent lead director Aziz Syriani at an annual meeting next month, arguing that the board they lead failed to manage the oil company's search for a new chief executive. The recommendation from Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. Thursday followed rising shareholder discontent about possible management...
Planned Pipelines to Rival Keystone XL
Two major energy companies are planning to build new pipelines that will move as much as 850,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada to refineries along the Gulf Coast by mid-2014, in the latest effort to cope with a surge of oil production in North America. The separate projects, planned by Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners LP and Enbridge Inc.
Another pipeline ensnared
What’s the biggest news in US energy infrastructure these days? Ask a 2nd grader. As I sat with my 7-year-old in the elementary school cafeteria one morning this week, one of her friends ran up with some shocking news: ‘bad guys’ are trying to build a pipeline that will leak chemicals into a river that Native Americans own! And with that, the Dakota Access pipeline construction project joins a growing list of mainstream energy boogeymen.
Quantum and Woody T1
parution 27 mai 2016• éditeur Bliss Comics• Public Ado / Adulte• Mots clés Aventure - Action, Fantastique - Etrange, Super-héros Les pires super-héros du monde Notre noteCHEF D'ŒUVRETRÈS BONBONBOF. MOYENBIDE ScénarioCHEF D'ŒUVRETRÈS BONBONBOF. MOYENBIDE dessinCHEF D'ŒUVRETRÈS BONBONBOF. MOYENBIDE ©Bliss Comics edition 2016 L'histoire : Derek Henderson est un brillant scientifique qui a deux fils. Le premier, Eric, est assez brillant et le second, Woody, a été adopté.
Questia again cuts its workforce 50%
Questia Media cut its workforce in half last week, reducing the number of employees to just 68 because of lower than expected demand for its online library and research service. This is the second round of layoffs at the Houston firm, which laid off 140 out of 280 employees in May. The firm is cutting back because relatively few high school and college students have been willing to make monthly payments for the service, said spokeswoman Ann Brimberry, adding that the weak economy played a part.
Exxon Earnings: Profit Falls 57% on Lower Revenue, Year-Earlier Gains
Exxon Mobil Corp. said its second-quarter profit fell 57% from the year-earlier period, when asset sales and tax breaks helped drive earnings to a record high. The oil-and-gas producer on Thursday reported profit of $6.9 billion, or $1.55 a share, compared with $15.9 billion, or $3.41 a share, a year ago. Analysts had been expecting a per-share profit of $1.90. Revenue decreased 16% to $106.5 billion. The year-earlier...
BP Says Spill Fund Is Running on Fumes
LONDON—BP PLC said Tuesday it has allocated nearly all of a $20 billion compensation fund for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, raising fears that the still-mounting costs of the spill may take a bigger-than-expected bite out of future profits. BP set up the fund in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, before the process of compensating victims began in earnest. It reassured investors at the time, but on Tuesday the company...
Exxon and Chevron Miss Out on U.S. Oil Boom
The U.S. is pumping more oil and natural gas than it has in decades, but the boom hasn't been enough to prop up the sagging output of America's two biggest energy producers, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. The oil giants are spending unprecedented billions of dollars to find and extract petroleum, hunting in harder rocks, deeper underground and farther offshore. Even so, Exxon and Chevron are tapping less oil and gas than...
President Obama Details Sweeping Climate Policies
A far-reaching plan to fight climate change detailed by President Barack Obama on Tuesday would profoundly reshape the way the U.S. produces and consumes electricity, though the resistance it is sure to encounter promises to sow uncertainty for an industry already buffeted by shifting rules and economics.
Occidental Faces a New Fight At the Top
Major shareholders of Occidental Petroleum Corp. are taking sides in an executive-suite drama that has split the energy producer into camps supporting either the chairman or chief executive. The divide comes just two years after the chairman, 78-year-old Ray Irani, left the CEO job over questions about his pay. Now he is trying to push out his successor, according to investors and people familiar with the company's operations. ...
Oil Spills Mount on Tracks
A Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. train carrying crude oil to Chicago derailed in western Minnesota on Wednesday and spilled up to 714 barrels, state officials said, the biggest recent accident in a growing number of railroad leaks of crude. As energy companies have turned to trains to move crude from booming North American oil fields not adequately served by pipelines, such railroad-related incidents have risen sharply in the past few...
Exxon Posts Flat Profit on Declining Production
Exxon Mobil Corp.'s first-quarter profit rose slightly compared to last year but its production of oil and natural gas fell, as the energy giant continued to struggle in a world where large oil-and-gas fields are harder to find. The Irving, Texas, energy company's oil and natural gas production dropped for the seventh consecutive quarter on a year-over-year basis, falling 3.5% from the same period last year, to 4.4 million barrels of...
Chesapeake Names Operating Chief Dixon Acting CEO
Chesapeake Energy Corp. named Chief Operating Officer Steven C. Dixon acting chief executive as it continues searching for a permanent replacement for the departing Aubrey K. McClendon, the company said on late Friday. Mr. Dixon will run the natural-gas producer in concert with Chief Financial Officer Domenic J. Dell'Osso and Chairman Archie W....
Enron Ex-CEO Skilling Could See Shorter Sentence
After more than six years behind bars, former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling may be closer than ever to exiting a Colorado federal prison earlier than expected. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a notice to former Enron employees, shareholders and other victims saying it was considering entering into an agreement with Mr. Skilling, who is waiting for a court-ordered resentencing, "to resolve certain...
Occidental CEO to Stay Through 2014
In a surprise turnabout, Occidental Petroleum Corp. on Monday reversed plans to immediately replace Chief Executive Steve Chazen, giving in to investor pressure less than a week before its annual meeting. The fourth-largest U.S. oil-and-gas company by market value said Mr. Chazen would remain in his post through the end of 2014 and Executive Chairman Ray Irani, a former CEO who still exerts considerable influence at the company, would...
Conoco Suspends Arctic Drilling Plans
ConocoPhillips Wednesday suspended plans to drill for oil in the waters off of Alaska's northern coast in 2014, blaming unclear federal regulations for Arctic Ocean drilling. The announcement is another setback for the energy industry's plans to explore the U.S. Arctic ocean, thought to contain huge amounts of oil. Royal Dutch Shell PLC called off its 2013 Alaskan drilling program after two of its Arctic Ocean rigs were damaged, one...
Gas-Well Blowout Revives Doubts on Drilling Safety
A drilling rig continued burning out of control in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, raising questions about safety improvements that were supposed to follow the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The rig, owned by Houston-based Hercules Offshore, has been unmanned since Tuesday morning, when a natural-gas well that it was drilling blew out, enveloping the rig in a cloud of gas that ignited late Tuesday night. The crew tried to...
Ex-Enron CEO Skilling's Sentence Cut to 14 Years
HOUSTON—A federal judge reduced the prison sentence of former Enron Corp. Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling to 14 years here on Friday, which could allow him to be free by the end of the decade or earlier. Mr. Skilling, 59 years old, was convicted in 2006 of lying to investors about Enron's financial health and sentenced to 24 years in prison. The reduced sentence came at the bottom of the range recommended by prosecutors after a deal...
Interview with Former Google Executive and AliveCor CEO Vic Gundotra |
March 16th, 2016 Tom Fowler Cardiology, Exclusive Prior to joining AliveCor Vic Gundotra served as Senior Vice President reporting to Google’s CEO Larry Page. He wore multiple hats managing roles ranging from mobile application development to social initiatives. Before working at Google, Vic had already spent 15 years in the software world while at Microsoft.
ExxonMobil’s TMI issue
With and some $30bn of its own shares held in treasury, ExxonMobil has the dry powder to purchase just about any oil and gas company in the world. From Anadarko to Devon to even BP, the regular rumblings of an acquisition bid are rarely dismissed completely for one reason – ExxonMobil has the resources to do it.
Tough talk or a cry for help?
Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi’s message to the horde of energy executives and journalists gathered in Houston this week is being portrayed by some as a dose of cold, hard reality from the world’s largest crude producer. High-cost producers “must find a way to lower their costs, borrow cash or liquidate”, Naimi said during his speech at the annual IHS CeraWeek gathering.
Lifting the US crude ban
There’s a narrative of inevitability that supporters of ending US restrictions on crude exports are touting these days. It goes like this: A string of events is steadily building momentum for the end of the ban. Last year, the US Department of Commerce began allowing the export of lightly processed condensate, providing an outlet for millions of barrels of Eagle Ford crude since. Next, the Obama administration allowed for crude swaps between the US and Mexico, another step toward opening the taps.
Clearing Up the Confusion Between NEMA and IEC Contactors
Standards are supposed to make life easier for control panel builders, by guiding the way to which products they can safely incorporate into their designs and panels. But sometimes they can also cause confusion, such as when two standards address the same type of product.
When disaster becomes mundane
Stop me if you heard this one: A train carrying a load of crude derails and bursts into flames. It’s a story line that’s sadly become routine of late, although images of smoke and flames leaping skyward are enticing fodder for network television news. The BNSF derailment near Heimdal, North Dakota last week was the 5th so far this year and the 12th since the deadly Lac Megantic accident in July 2013 killed 47 in Quebec.
"Houston, we have a spot market"
Houston has long been the US capital for the oil and gas industry, a place where office towers full of geologists, accountants and engineers look out on a horizon dotted with refineries and storage terminals. The Houston Ship Channel has been one of the world’s largest hubs for refining, where crude flows in via pipeline and ship, and tankers stream out laden with refined products. Despite all the activity, there hasn’t been a widely traded crude oil spot market in Houston in decades.
Midstream merger mania just getting started
The 60pc collapse in crude prices has kicked-off what’s expected to be a busy period in energy mergers and acquisitions. In October Enterprise Products Partners said it would acquire Oiltanking Partners in a $6bn deal that would combine two major operators of crude storage and pipelines on the US Gulf coast. In November Halliburton said it would acquire energy services rival Baker Hughes for $37bn, a reaction to what was then a more modest price drop.
Echoes of the boom
The crude price crash has producers scrambling and lawmakers planning, but from Cushing to the Atlantic coast the US oil production boom still echoes loud and clear. A flood of US oil may once again be flowing to that key storage and pricing hub in Oklahoma thanks to new pipeline construction, setting up a repeat of the glut that widened the Brent/WTI spread to as much as $20/bl.
Camera+ ~ photo by HoustonFowler
taken with Camera+ 5.1 on an Apple iPhone 5c About to see the movie with KidNo.1, Are these your images? Want to delete them? Log in with Twitter
Camera+ ~ photo by HoustonFowler
taken with Camera+ 5.1 on an Apple iPhone 5c KidNo1. insists we stay to hear the reading of the whole Declaration of Independence. Are these your images? Want to delete them? Log in with Twitter
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