Dr. Daniel Fine unexpectantly passed away Monday, September 26, 2022, at Aventura Hospital, Aventura Florida. Dan Fine was a great American patriot. Our nation lost a real hero at 88.
Daniel Fine predicted the end of nations. He predicted the Fall of the Soviet Union in the cold war in his seminal work Resource War in 3-D. This was a major assessment in the raw materials sector of U.S. national security and foreign policy. He redefined the Cold War. In a meeting with William De Clerk, then President of South Africa, Dr. Fine predicted that apartheid would fall. Dr. Fine helped win as well from the Yeltsin Government the contract for the second largest copper mine in the world, Udokan. Three American Presidents got to know Dr. Fine, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Joe Biden. Through interviews, tours of MIT, and campaign stops. He knew President Reagan in briefings and many of his administrative offices.
Daniel Irwin Fine came into the world on Tuesday, June 12, 1934, in New Jersey. The firstborn son of Bill and Eve Fine. He would see his future wife, Helen Fine, at nine years of age in a movie in Hudson NY. Not knowing her yet, as the most beautiful blonde girl in the movie. She became his wife for 65 years of marriage and the love of his life. Helen Fine passed away from Cancer on March 1, 2022. Daniel Fine was a proud soldier in the Army during the Korean Conflict. He used the GI Bill to pay for his college.
Returning to America, he attended Georgetown University. He was a Gold Key candidate and top of his class. His first degree was in Foreign Service.
He went on to the University of Florida to get his Ph.D. under the legendary Manning J. Dauer to study and teach political science. Dr. Fine became a pioneer in African studies and furthered greatly the civil rights movement in the south. Professor Clem Cottingham was a lifetime friend and leader in the civil rights movement. Professor Cottingham invited Daniel and the whole Fine family to write a study on African politics for the Ford Foundation while living in Nairobi, Kenya.
At Harvard University, he was honored by the University as a lifelong Harvard Fellow. At MIT he led the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute with Professor John Elliot and later Professor John Sadoway to create new educational/business technology ventures. While at MIT he published in the International Outlook of Busines Week. He wrote exclusively for the Washington Times; Midland Reporter Telegram, Engineering and Mining Journal, and the Farmington Daily Times. He spoke at Tuft’s Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy many times and had a room reserved in his honor. Daniel Fine authored, lastly, the state of New Mexico Energy Policy in effect today. Dan Fine’s actions transcended the times. He was sui generis. One of a kind. At the last, he heard the music of Wagner’s Rienzi
“The Golden orb your heart impressed.” Services previously held.
Published by The Washington Post on Nov. 13, 2022.
Dr. Dan Fine and T. Greg Merrion – The Energy Outlook Presentation – Video
Last week 4CED hosted energy thought leader Dr. Dan Fine who spoke on the topic of the future energy outlook under the Biden administration and implications for San Juan County. If you missed it, the meeting was recorded and is posted to the 4CED website.
The Full article in the Farmington Daily Times Energy Magazine (USA TODAY)
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With the OPEC-Russia meeting ahead, the price of oil is at a crossroad.
President Trump wants lower prices for gasoline at the pump and the Democratic Party wants a shortage to lift prices higher. This is the 2020 presidential election, to re-elect Trump or a create a Democratic left-center White House.
Is OPEC-Russia ready to sustain output cutbacks for $70 Brent Oil or continue revenue maximum against market share? Curiously, in the conversation at Vienna the Oxy purchase of Anadarko will resonate. Why? Oxy must now increase its export of oil to lower its debt (Warren Buffet and more) and prevent a serious management miscalculation of paying too much for Anadarko.
Permian Delaware shale, with new high volume pipelines completed soon, must find expanding import markets of l.5 million barrels of oil per day or the equivalent of OPEC-Russia resuming late 2016 output for export.
As this writer concludes this column for the The Farmington Daily Times’ Energy Magazine, which Is going on hiatus in San Juan County after this edition, there is no change in an outlook that dates back to the oil price crash of 2014-2016.
There is too much oil (over-supply) against world demand for it.
Exxon-XTO in the Permian is prepared for $40 per barrel, and to still add $82 billion value in the New Mexican Permian or the Delaware in the next 40 years.
However, along with Chevron, Oxy, EOG and Pioneer, it must have a market for the economic recovery of reserves estimated at nearly 47 billion barrels in the Permian Delaware Basin. They must export against OPEC-Russia production.
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The lifting cost of Saudi Aramco oil remains lower than Permian Shale. Saudi Aramco has sold debt (bonds) and 63% of its cash flow goes to its government? With oil demand slack and sluggish, and electric vehicles preparing for a 2024 market challenge both technically and politically (zero emissions).
While associated natural gas has partially become a free commodity from Permian Delaware producers, natural gas is up next, after coal, as a target for Green Energy. It should resemble oil on a smaller scale as price dependent entirely on exports in the form of LNG.
Will Persian Gulf, Australian, and Russian natural gas production roll backward in favor of American LNG? American exporters today cannot compete in a $5 per ton Asian LNG market.
Some San Juan Basin producers at the recent San Juan Basin Energy Conference openly discussed shifting capital spending
from natural gas to oil development.
This writer reaffirms his $50 average price for WTI oil in 2019 presented for the smaller independent producers at a briefing at Merrion Oil last December, but beginning early in 2020 forecasts a second half average of $38 per barrel .
In New Mexico, the Governor can adjust the Energy Transition Act basic law next February, but it should be a petroleum-revenue 30 day session without serious oil and gas organized opposition.
New Mexico is now a hybrid Green State with more exportable oil and gas than every OPEC country except Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and yet it will impose the most effective rules for methane capture.
No amount of ad hominem distraction against its policy and leadership will change this direction, and the nation could follow with the outcome of the national election next year.
Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy. The opinions expressed are his own.”
FARMINGTON, N.M., March 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — The San Juan Basin Energy Conference will be held Thursday, April 25th and Friday, April 26th at the Henderson Fine Arts Center at San Juan College in Farmington, NM. This two-day event will bring together the San Juan Basin’s top companies and industry experts to share views on the oil and gas industry and discuss plans for the future within the San Juan Basin. The conference will be kicked off on Wednesday, April 24thwith a dinner at the Courtyard by Marriott.
The San Juan Basin Energy Conference was founded to provide a forum for exchange of ideas regarding the development of the abundant energy resources found in the region. The theme of this year’s conference is “Looking to the Future”. A recent influx of dynamic oil and gas operators, bringing innovative applications of modern technology to the Gallup sandstone and the Mancos shale formations, promises to restore the San Juan Basin to its place as one of leading basins in the United States.
Regional producers continue to leverage their experiences to apply industry-best practices in efficient implementation of the recently-surging development. The San Juan Basin Energy Conference 2019, sponsored in part by Hilcorp, Whiptail Midstream, and LOGOS Resources II, LLC brings together the basin’s top companies and industry experts to share views on the industry and discuss plans for the future within the San Juan Basin.
Tickets and sponsorship information are available at sanjuanbasin2019.com. Ticket prices are $250/person and sponsorship prices range from $1,000–$10,000. Net proceeds will go to San Juan College’s research park, Four Corners Innovations, Inc.
FOUR CORNERS INNOVATIONS, INC. DOLORES SILSETH (505) 566-3402 SILSETHD@4CII.ORG
Spending has been sharply reduced as supply now dominates the A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) used by many commodity traders in oil.
The large or integrated oil companies have all the rigs of 2018 in place for 2019. This would make October the price peak of the latest boom or recovery in oil. Permian-Delaware Basin production would decline at least 500,000 barrels in 2019 to offset the supply glut and stabilize at $50 per barrel.
OPEC members, notably Saudi Arabia, need a fiscal price of oil of $85 per barrel to pay for government and social spending. But at $60 per barrel, cash flow will not make it.
Its new public relations-lobbying in the U.S will require Sovereign Wealth Fund borrowing at market rates, which will be higher mainly because of U.S Senate sanctions over the murder of a Saudi journalist writing for the Washington Post.
This writer forecast a 2019 $50 per barrel average price of oil when prices fell to $43.00 last month.
At the same time, many small and independent producers have break-even at $50 with high-interest debt!
There are Chapter 11 bankruptcies valued at $140 billion from the Panhandle in Texas to the San Juan Basin that resulted from the OPEC -Saudi Arabian price and market share war of 2014-2016 against Southwestern small/independent shale and tight sands producers who now want reparations or damages.
This could hold up financial public relations as state courts hear from local energy banks and their Chapter 11 or equivalent clients.
Saudi Aramco is looking at American LNG investment in the Gulf Coast.
But that would compete against Russian Gazprom export pipeline gas to the European market.
This would confront Russia with Saudi Arabian conflict and threaten Russian-Saudi Arabian accord in OPEC.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico has announced a target of 50 percent renewable energy in 10 years. Electricity rate payers would bear the cost. She also placed New Mexico in the Climate Change Treaty Camp. However, if the Democratic Party wins the White House in 2020 there is no doubt that Washington will follow Santa Fe and our new governor.
In the meantime, the new Secretary of Energy Minerals and Natural Resources, Sarah Cottrell Probst, is a world expert in carbon tax architecture to mitigate global warming.
And there could be trade-offs with the super-majors in the Permian-Delaware basins.
The new Administration is expected to create a new energy policy that will replace the effort of ex- Governor Martinez. One issue that did not appear in 2015 was well-density.
The current company-state conflict centers around increased density because of down-spacing in the sub-surface. The opposition is beyond this specific technical capability: it is about more production of oil and carbon in relation to climate change.
What happens in New Mexico will have an impact on regulations in other states and, later, in national energy policy.
This column is an independent analysis by Dr. Daniel Fine, who is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
The article can be found here-> https://www.daily-times.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/06/24/fine-oil-before-and-after-november-election/699460002/ The Trump Administration is moving towards less royalty rates on Federal land leases, less Bureau of Land Management discretion on Environmental Protection Act obstruction on the Application for Petroleum Drilling process, less coal and nuclear power generation decline, and less oil supply confidence in OPEC-Russia world price management.
This is the thrust of the signature world energy domination policy of Secretary Ryan Zinke for the last 16 months. It accounts for the action of OPEC-Russia 10 days ago. Saudi Arabia led OPEC to increase oil production to respond to President Donald Trump, but averted a price shock with gradualism. More output from OPEC offers increased revenue in the very short term.
It now faces an election to decide majority party control of Congress. Should the Democratic Party win at least in the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump will be set back on energy policy and its action realization. He will be forced to use executive power narrowly.
The Democratic Party will prepare for 2020 and the foreclosure of Trump-Zinke on world energy domination through an American petroleum system and public land dispensation.
What will the Democratic Party control of energy in Washington and Santa Fe look like?
Imported oil is consistent with a resumption of climate change energy policy which is less carbon in the economy and more renewables as the alternative.
World investment flows are putting solar and wind ahead of oil and gas for the first time. Electric cars are now one to every six in sales in California and soon in Europe, displacing diesel engines.
The Democratic Party in Washington in 2020 will no doubt align with the European Union in Climate Change with a roll-back of the Trump Administration regulatory reform.
Methane, public land access, a return of BLM dominance, along with tax and infrastructure incentives can be expected. Battery charging technology and its placement capacity expansion on the Interstates will promote the market for electric vehicles. New issues restricting unitization, spacing and density of oil and gas wells should appear on state and Federal land.
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In Santa Fe, the current Martinez energy policy and plan (2015) would be rejected in favor of a new Democratic Governor’s choice to start over in 2019. It should be like Colorado’s energy policy but with strong regulatory hydraulic fracturing intervention and fresh water use conservation emphasis.
The oil and gas industry concentration on the Delaware, Permian, Williston (along with the Bakken Formation), Eagle Ford basins along with the Marcellus in natural gas will double up at heavier entry cost and consolidation.
This process, however, promises San Juan Basin natural gas higher prices. New exploration and production on public land would be minimal and legally challenged.
New off-shore U.S oil would be closed with “national monument” type public law.
The Democratic Party has no conservative business Democratic faction to offset the impact on American oil and gas as an industry.
In New Mexico, county leaders from San Juan, Eddy and Lea will continue to argue on the basis of statewide revenue. The Democratic Party in Santa Fe must demonstrate economic development through diversity while oil and gas is politically isolated.
With Canadian imports and even Russian gas in Boston harbor in very cold and snow-storm winters, the East Coast can return to the way it was before Trump on foreign oil imports – America no longer “First.”
The West Coast without refineries and wired power from natural gas is already there in Democratic Party dominance and declining combustion engines.
Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
Among some speakers at the 2018 Four Corners Oil and Gas Conference last month in Farmington there were evasive positions on the future of OPEC. Also, previous online or media positions of “free trade” were muted to be popular with the oil, gas and equipment operators who made up those in attendance.
There is no “free trade” with OPEC as a cartel, either with assigned member production quotas or with the current maximization of revenue strategy led by Saudi Arabia. If you hear free traders saddling up with current higher prices and OPEC, run for cover.
On Thanksgiving 2014, OPEC and Saudi Arabia refused to reduce oil production volume and entered a market share offensive against non-OPEC high cost oil producers in shale and tight sands.
This was a glut, or oversupply, of world oil but it was a chance to put San Juan oil just then — with rising production in the Gallup Sand — out of business. This was only reversed through the Algiers Meeting and agreement among OPEC members by cartel anti-free trade supply and demand manipulation.
President Trump captured this with his position that something was “artificial” about the price and supply of OPEC oil. Internal changes in the ruling House of Saudi Arabia, coupled with its power over OPEC, raised the price of world oil at least temporarily within the historic cycle of the industry.
Some Republicans oppose Trump and published or spoke against his opposition to OPEC. which is also connected to higher oil prices for consumers who might be voters. OPEC members had no problem with a hypocritical response to let the market work. Not only is there no free market making oil prices, but oil and gas operators do not make markets any longer. Commodity traders have replaced them since the 1980s.
Only three years ago, when OPEC/Saudi Arabia had deviated from its role of supporting the world price of oil through supply volume strategy, Harold Hamm of Continental Resources called for smashing OPEC to protect independent and non-super major producers in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and North Dakota.
At the Expo, this writer traced current OPEC oil price support to the fall of Venezuela as a producer.
Less Venezuela barrels in OPEC production protects other members, and now, Russia, from real cutbacks. Among American conservatives who believe there are free markets for oil, very little understanding of world petroleum economics and history exists.
What happens to OPEC supply and demand management when Saudi Aramco floats its shares on stock markets and reached its target of an intake of 100 billion dollars? Are New Mexico and Southwest producers preparing planning price scenarios similar to world producers for oil prices next year or in 2020? What would Washington do in a second downturn with the oil prices “awry” again?
In a free trade world, nothing.
On natural gas prices that afternoon, there was a sense of how low the San Juan discount to Cushing could go and adaptation in taking some producing gas wells out of production.
Late that afternoon, after New Mexico Secretary of Energy Ken McQueen spoke of his work on the Governor’s Initiative of cost-cutting via state regulatory access and permitting on Federal land, I concluded that the San Juan Basin still has too much natural gas too fail.
And what happened to the big banks 10 years ago?
And General Motors?
Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
“For a week in March, Houston was the site of a world assembly of oil producers engaged in an OPEC-Russia dialogue with American shale or light tight oil producers on supply and — indirectly — price.
OPEC and Saudi Arabia pitched a market information offensive.
Put simply, American oil producers should cut-back or stabilize output in a “family” arrangement to avoid an expansion of supply that threatens the price of world oil.
But there is no U.S. Oil Company (government owned) in America, unlike all members plus Russia which are state companies. Russia is a mix. OPEC members are a price-setting cartel. So, a restaurant in Houston was selected as the site for an elite dinner of OPEC and American shale oil operators.
Platitudes and generalizations dominated the American-initiated conversation, because anything more would be in violation of U.S. anti-trust laws.
Saudi Arabia, consistent with its effort to sell shares in itself in an Initial Public Offering (forthcoming), emphasized there was enough future world demand to satisfy the Americans as well as OPEC.
This was 1.5 percent growth per year for the next decade or two. Almost silence, however, on Saudi Aramco’s capacity expansion of another l.5 million barrels per day as “spare capacity.”
Does the future demand short term or long term offer support for an unspeakable and unenforceable supply agreement that involves enough for all? Will American shale producers in the Permian exclude themselves from capturing any growth of demand?
Devon, no longer in the San Juan Basin, but dominant in Oklahoma, is going for double-digit production increases yearly and is increasing its dividend to shareholders who might otherwise be attracted to the idea of drilling and completing less to prop up the price per barrel.
The Houston dinner failed, as a half a dozen companies did not show up in compliance with legal restrictions. It failed to persuade the America shale industry to act with OPEC’s oil supply and price management as a “family” and not as a law-breaking cartel.
Less than a week later, Iran signaled that it would not renew the production cut that has removed 1.8 million OPEC barrels of oil from the world and increased prices.
Saudi Arabia was projecting a forecast that a tight market for oil is ahead this year or next as oil projects will not replace wells while demand is strong.
Few were sold on this forecast since shale oil well completions are effectively responsive to price signals with well completions compared to conventional replacement-based on prior oil field investment.
Oil traders are largely unconvinced or agnostic listening in to the Houston contradictions. Most will watch Iran in late May as a sell signal in the making of algorithms.
The Trump Administration on steel tariffs takes the Obama Administration’s failure to do so as a starting point. It was Secretary of the Treasury Lew under Obama who made the case for tariffs during his many visits to Beijing. He would accuse China of promoting an overcapacity of steel production for export and consequent flooding of the American market and the United States with cheap steel.
The Chinese no doubt listened politely to the words but did not anticipate action. They followed a strategy of export price advantage for driving American-owned and operated steel out of business.
Action was taken last month by President Donald Trump. And yet nothing in the customary reaction against Trump recalled that President George W. Bush declared sanctions against Chinese Steel export dumping over 10 years ago, which lasted 18 months, and is credited for an American steel innovation-led comeback.
National security requires American made high-quality steel not only for defense and defense-industrial capability, but also for the complex steel in San Juan and Permian natural gas and steel pipelines.
What is needed is metallurgy for manufacturing and equipment for continuous casting, cooling, rolling and welding. There is only one plant left in the United States that has some capacity for high strength pipeline steel (API X70 and X80).
The oil and gas industry in the San Juan Basin should not depend on imports from a non-continental foreign source as a matter of national security.
China already dominates the American market (oil and gas) for steel valves. There is vulnerability if China follows its rare earth history.
First, it lowered prices via exports. Second, with this weapon, American rare earth domestic production failed and China bought the technology and transferred it to China. Third, China raises prices for American users of rare earths.
The North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations continue with more confidence that fuels (natural gas) will be exempt from negative outcomes. The exemption for Canada and Mexico from steel and aluminum tariffs based on a no-threat-to-national-security finding and continental sources, suggests understanding that trade in fuels will not be restricted.
Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
For a week in March, Houston was the site of a world assembly of oil producers engaged in an OPEC-Russia dialogue with American shale or light tight oil producers on supply and — indirectly — price.
OPEC and Saudi Arabia pitched a market information offensive.
Put simply, American oil producers should cut-back or stabilize output in a “family” arrangement to avoid an expansion of supply that threatens the price of world oil.
But there is no U.S. Oil Company (government owned) in America, unlike all members plus Russia which are state companies. Russia is a mix. OPEC members are a price-setting cartel. So, a restaurant in Houston was selected as the site for an elite dinner of OPEC and American shale oil operators.
Platitudes and generalizations dominated the American-initiated conversation, because anything more would be in violation of U.S. anti-trust laws.
Saudi Arabia, consistent with its effort to sell shares in itself in an Initial Public Offering (forthcoming), emphasized there was enough future world demand to satisfy the Americans as well as OPEC.
This was 1.5 percent growth per year for the next decade or two. Almost silence, however, on Saudi Aramco’s capacity expansion of another l.5 million barrels per day as “spare capacity.”
Does the future demand short term or long term offer support for an unspeakable and unenforceable supply agreement that involves enough for all? Will American shale producers in the Permian exclude themselves from capturing any growth of demand?
Devon, no longer in the San Juan Basin, but dominant in Oklahoma, is going for double-digit production increases yearly and is increasing its dividend to shareholders who might otherwise be attracted to the idea of drilling and completing less to prop up the price per barrel.
The Houston dinner failed, as a half a dozen companies did not show up in compliance with legal restrictions. It failed to persuade the America shale industry to act with OPEC’s oil supply and price management as a “family” and not as a law-breaking cartel.
Less than a week later, Iran signaled that it would not renew the production cut that has removed 1.8 million OPEC barrels of oil from the world and increased prices.
Saudi Arabia was projecting a forecast that a tight market for oil is ahead this year or next as oil projects will not replace wells while demand is strong.
Few were sold on this forecast since shale oil well completions are effectively responsive to price signals with well completions compared to conventional replacement-based on prior oil field investment.
Oil traders are largely unconvinced or agnostic listening in to the Houston contradictions. Most will watch Iran in late May as a sell signal in the making of algorithms.
The Trump Administration on steel tariffs takes the Obama Administration’s failure to do so as a starting point. It was Secretary of the Treasury Lew under Obama who made the case for tariffs during his many visits to Beijing. He would accuse China of promoting an overcapacity of steel production for export and consequent flooding of the American market and the United States with cheap steel.
The Chinese no doubt listened politely to the words but did not anticipate action. They followed a strategy of export price advantage for driving American-owned and operated steel out of business.
Action was taken last month by President Donald Trump. And yet nothing in the customary reaction against Trump recalled that President George W. Bush declared sanctions against Chinese Steel export dumping over 10 years ago, which lasted 18 months, and is credited for an American steel innovation-led comeback.
National security requires American made high-quality steel not only for defense and defense-industrial capability, but also for the complex steel in San Juan and Permian natural gas and steel pipelines.
What is needed is metallurgy for manufacturing and equipment for continuous casting, cooling, rolling and welding. There is only one plant left in the United States that has some capacity for high strength pipeline steel (API X70 and X80).
The oil and gas industry in the San Juan Basin should not depend on imports from a non-continental foreign source as a matter of national security.
China already dominates the American market (oil and gas) for steel valves. There is vulnerability if China follows its rare earth history.
First, it lowered prices via exports. Second, with this weapon, American rare earth domestic production failed and China bought the technology and transferred it to China. Third, China raises prices for American users of rare earths.
The North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations continue with more confidence that fuels (natural gas) will be exempt from negative outcomes. The exemption for Canada and Mexico from steel and aluminum tariffs based on a no-threat-to-national-security finding and continental sources, suggests understanding that trade in fuels will not be restricted.”
Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
Last year, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress of the Trump Administration’s intent to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). After several rounds of negotiation among the United States, Canada, and Mexico, many critical issues remain unresolved.
Opportunities abound for negotiating a better NAFTA. As the Trump Administration pushes for modernization, one commonsense policy area that should be preserved and improved is energy. Canada and Mexico are two of America’s most important trade partners in energy markets. The Trump Administration should build off that success. Strengthening the integration of energy markets among the three countries will unleash the massive amount of energy abundance in North America.
Join us as we hear from experts on how enhancing energy trade with Canada and Mexico will result in more jobs and affordable power for American households and help achieve the Trump Administration’s goal of energy dominance.
Geopolitics, Resource WAR 