Texas: Wind Fails, Media Blames Natural Gas… Again

[rangerrebew]

Texas: Wind Fails, Media Blames Natural Gas… Again
3 hours ago
David Middleton
 

Guest “Just a bit outside!” by David Middleton

    Plunging Natural Gas Supply Shows Texas Still Not Ready for Cold
    By Gerson Freitas Jr, Francesca Maglione, and Sergio Chapa
    January 3, 2022, 12:06 PM CST Corrected January 6, 2022, 1:18 PM CST

    Texas’s natural gas industry had almost a year to prepare for last weekend’s cold blast and avoid another loss of production. But yet again, instruments froze, output plunged and companies spewed a miasma of pollutants into the atmosphere in a bid to keep operations stable.

    Though Saturday’s cold front wasn’t as severe as the February storm that killed hundreds and knocked out power to much of the state, nearly 1 million cubic feet of gas was burned or wasted due to weather-related shutdowns, according to filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. At the same time, production plunged to the lowest level since the last freeze, BloombergNEF data shows.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/01/08/texas-wind-fails-media-blames-natural-gas-again/

[roamer_1]

I hope all y'all stocked up on propane heaters and rerouted vulnerable piping...

Looks like a trend coming on...

[Joe Wooten]

Looks like the bean counters who currently run ALL electric utilities refused to spend money on heat tracing and insulation.

[Bigun]

Looks like the bean counters who currently run ALL electric utilities refused to spend money on heat tracing and insulation.

I hate to tell you this @Joe Wooten but it's not just electric utilities that the bean counters are running!  I crossed swords with them constantly for years  in oil and gas before I retired.

[Hoodat]

Reason #38 why we need global warming.

[Joe Wooten]

I hate to tell you this @Joe Wooten but it's not just electric utilities that the bean counters are running!  I crossed swords with them constantly for years  in oil and gas before I retired.

I just know the utility industry, but it does not surprise me that the money boys are running thingd in the oil biz too. When I started in 1979, we did our economic analyses over at least a 10 year period. By the 1980's it was 5, then by the 1990's, very little with over a 1 year to 18 month payback was ever approved...

[Hoodat]

I hate to tell you this @Joe Wooten but it's not just electric utilities that the bean counters are running!  I crossed swords with them constantly for years  in oil and gas before I retired.

My favorite bullshit phrase is 'sustainability'.  Because the idiots that keep repeating it don't give a damn about the sustainability of the business itself.  Thousands of workers will end up unemployed with no food on their tables, all in the name of 'sustainability'.

[Smokin Joe]

Overheard hundreds of times over 42 years in the Oil Patch:

"It isn't our fault your sh*t doesn't work!"

Put the blame where it belongs.

[Bigun]

My favorite bullshit phrase is 'sustainability'.  Because the idiots that keep repeating it don't give a damn about the sustainability of the business itself.  Thousands of workers will end up unemployed with no food on their tables, all in the name of 'sustainability'.

  Without a doubt!

[Bigun]

I just know the utility industry, but it does not surprise me that the money boys are running thingd in the oil biz too. When I started in 1979, we did our economic analyses over at least a 10 year period. By the 1980's it was 5, then by the 1990's, very little with over a 1 year to 18 month payback was ever approved...

I'm going back a few years with this story, but it is still as relevant today as it was then. I was on a jack up rig in the middle of the Arabian Sea trying to fish a tubing string that had failed (ended up coming out in eleven pieces) out of an oil well which, when online, paid all of our salaries but the boys in town (bean counters) kept calling me on the radio phone every hour wanting to know why I spent this nickel or bought that without proper approval. I finally got a belly full and cursed one of them out over the radio.  Next day I had to go to town and get my ass chewed by the general manager for using bad language over the radio telephone.  The bean counters involved were sent back to New York for more training.  And the fact that the only reason we were out there fishing in the first place (cheap ass tubing not of the correct specs for the environment it had been put into) never even came up until many days later.  That conversation got me in even deeper with the bean counting crew.

[Smokin Joe]

I'm going back a few years with this story, but it is still as relevant today as it was then. I was on a jack up rig in the middle of the Arabian Sea trying to fish a tubing string that had failed (ended up coming out in eleven pieces) out of an oil well which, when online, paid all of our salaries but the boys in town (bean counters) kept calling me on the radio phone every hour wanting to know why I spent this nickel or bought that without proper approval. I finally got a belly full and cursed one of them out over the radio.  Next day I had to go to town and get my ass chewed by the general manager for using bad language over the radio telephone.  The bean counters involved were sent back to New York for more training.  And the fact that the only reason we were out there fishing in the first place (cheap ass tubing not of the correct specs for the environment it had been put into) never even came up until many days later.  That conversation got me in even deeper with the bean counting crew.

Some things, it takes what it takes. Go cheap, and you'll regret it. Ask the outfits that bought Chinese tubulars...

[Hoodat]

.  .  .  And the fact that the only reason we were out there fishing in the first place (cheap ass tubing not of the correct specs for the environment it had been put into) never even came up until many days later.

Somewhere in that big corporation, a piece of paper exists with the signature of the person who signed off on that out-of-spec cheap-ass tubing.  And does anyone EVER go back and identify the person who made that signature and hold that person accountable?  Hell no.  That person has been promoted at least three times since then.

I saw it all the time on a platform.  Machinery that was never once even turned on had been signed off as being commissioned.  And when it finally came time to use it for the first time, all the higher-ups pointed their fingers at us when it failed.

For people so worried about spending a nickel here and a nickel there, their own mismanagement cost tens of millions of dollars.

[Bigun]

Some things, it takes what it takes. Go cheap, and you'll regret it. Ask the outfits that bought Chinese tubulars...

In this case it happened to be Japanese (Satsuma) tubulars and there were ten other wells in that field with it installed.  We wound up with about 115K feet of the stuff but it wasn't a total loss. It did make great wheel stops around buildings and other such things.

[Bigun]

Somewhere in that big corporation, a piece of paper exists with the signature of the person who signed off on that out-of-spec cheap-ass tubing.  And does anyone EVER go back and identify the person who made that signature and hold that person accountable?  Hell no.  That person has been promoted at least three times since then.

I saw it all the time on a platform.  Machinery that was never once even turned on had been signed off as being commissioned.  And when it finally came time to use it for the first time, all the higher-ups pointed their fingers at us when it failed.

For people so worried about spending a nickel here and a nickel there, their own mismanagement cost tens of millions of dollars.

In this case it was purchasing guys who couldn't figure out why they needed to spend $500K for stuff they could get elsewhere for $300K.