JERA Expands U.S. Footprint With $1.5 Billion Haynesville Shale Acquisition
JERA Co. Inc., Japan’s largest...
JERA Co. Inc., Japan’s largest power generation company, announced plans to acquire full ownership of the South Mansfield shale gas asset in Louisiana’s Haynesville Basin through its U.S. subsidiary JERA Americas Inc., in a $1.5 billion deal with Williams and GEP Haynesville II. The acquisition underscores JERA’s growing role in the U.S. energy sector and strengthens its global LNG value chain.
The Haynesville acquisition includes assets currently producing more than 500 million cubic feet of gas per day (MMscfd) across 210 square kilometers, with 200 undeveloped drilling locations and established infrastructure for gathering and transportation. JERA plans to double total output to 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bscfd) through future investments, leveraging the asset’s proximity to the Gulf Coast’s LNG terminals and data center markets.
Founded in 2015 as a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power, JERA now supplies roughly one-third of Japan’s electricity. The company has pledged to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions across its global operations by 2050.
The federal government shutdown enters its 23rd day today,...
The federal government shutdown enters its 23rd day today, after becoming the second-longest funding lapse in modern history, eclipsing the 1995-96 shutdown during the Clinton administration.
The holdup continues to be over healthcare. The House last month passed a seven-week bill extending government funding at its current levels. Democrats seek an extension of COVID-era subsidies for healthcare plans, otherwise set to expire Dec. 31. More than 24 million people in the US are insured through the programs, with nearly 4 million expected to lose coverage if costs increase next year. Federal subsidies cost an estimated $1.8T in 2023, roughly 7% of the US’ gross domestic product.
The Senate failed to pass the House bill yesterday for the twelfth time. Tomorrow, federal workers will miss their first full paychecks; hundreds of thousands of employees received partial paychecks on Oct. 10.
The good news for Tesla: It sold a record number of cars last quarter as customers raced to get new EVs ahead of the expiration of a government tax credit, pushing its revenue up 12% from the same time last year to $28 billion. The bad news: Its costs soared too, leaving its profit 37% down compared to a year earlier. Nonetheless, Elon Musk looked toward the future, stressing to investors that he expects to build AI, humanoid robots, and fully self-driving cars. And despite the profit setback, Musk stressed that he should still get a new pay package that would give him $1 trillion and more control of the company, saying, “I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have, at least, influence over it.”
Meta cuts ~600 jobs in its AI unit. WhileAI jobs might seem like they should be the safest jobs out there, Meta is conducting mass layoffs in its AI unit even as it pours billions into the tech. But it’s not a sign the company is backing off on AI. Rather, Axios reports that Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t satisfied with its longstanding AI efforts, and has been reshaping its push by starting a new lab and luring talent from competitors with headline-making multimillion-dollar compensation packages. Reducing the size of the team will help get decisions made more efficiently, Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang—who was recently brought in himself through Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in his company—wrote in a memo to staff.
The entire East Wing of the White House is being demolished to make room for the $250 million ballroom President Trump wants to add, despite his earlier assurances that it wouldn’t “interfere with the current building.”
The US imposed sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies due to what the Treasury Department described as Russia’s “lack of serious commitment” to ending the war in Ukraine.
Warner Bros. Discovery has reportedly rejected three takeover offers from Paramount Skydance as it considers selling itself.
The Louvre reopened three days after thieves made off with some of France’s crown jewels worth an estimated $102 million in a brazen daylight heist. The Wall Street Journal reports that a security camera facing the wrong way allowed the robbery to happen.
Crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 1 million barrels during the week ending October 17, after gaining 3.5 million barrels in the week prior, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The increase brings commercial stockpiles to 422.8 million barrels according to government data, which is still 4% below the five-year average for this time of year.
For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported that inventories had contracted by 2.1 million barrels, after the week prior’s 300,000-barrel decrease. The most recent figures showed average daily gasoline production increasing to 9.6 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories decreased by another 1.5 million barrels, despite production increasing by 40,000 barrels daily to an average of 4.6 million barrels daily. Distillate inventories drew down by 4.5 million barrels in the week prior and are now 7% below the five-year average for this time of year.
Total products supplied over the last four weeks slipped to 20.5 million barrels per day, down 0.1% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.6 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied hovered 4.0 million barrels—up 0.2 percent year over year.
