Given the concern they profess for energy security, Democrats in the US Congress—including the two seeking their party’s presidential nomination—should act thoughtfully rather than scornfully on international trade.
Growing demand for middle distillate fuels in Asia and Europe has created a world shortage that can only be resolved by processing more crude to produce these straight-run products.
The Iranian oil and gas industry approaches its 100th anniversary bloated, corrupt, and nearly bankrupt, managing four times the employees but two-thirds the oil production it had before the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79.
Democrats and Republicans at an Apr. 24 US House committee hearing on continuing oil purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when prices are breaking records disagreed on which government policies send the wrong signals to markets.
US President George W. Bush urged Congress to send a positive signal to world energy markets by removing obstacles to more domestic oil and gas production.
Truckers drove around the National Mall in Washington, DC, on Apr. 28, blowing the horns on their rigs and shouting through bullhorns before an afternoon rally to protest record-high diesel fuel prices.
Climate change legislation headed for debate on the US Senate floor in early June would significantly reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions but also could dramatically increase natural gas prices, the US Energy Information Administration said Apr. 29.
The US and Mexico are becoming more aware of the potential for disputes over deepwater Gulf of Mexico oil resources, experts agreed at an Apr. 23 forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Mexico has agreed to talks with a rebel group that last year claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on oil and gas installations that severely dented the country’s economy.
Mexico will reduce its crude oil exports to the US by an average of 184,000 b/d throughout 2008, a situation that could continue for 2 years longer, reported a Mexican media outlet.
The regulation of future LNG terminals will play a commanding role in the European Union’s ability to attract LNG imports, reported an independent group of energy experts established by France’s Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).
In its BC-10 integrated field development off Brazil, Shell is using new subsea technologies that incorporate caisson separation with electric submersible pumps, surface BOP with slim riser, and high-power umbilicals.
Floating production systems continue to grow in number as the oil and gas industry finds fields that without these systems would not be technically or commercially feasible to develop.
To date the heavy-lift system, deployed for the first time in June 2007, has recovered six hurricane-toppled platform topsides from the Gulf of Mexico and is contracted to retrieve several more.
Winter 2007-08 in the US was colder than any winter since 2002-03 and total heating degree days in the Northeast and upper Midwest were nearly equal to their 30-year averages.
Medgaz will begin offshore pipelay of the 210 km, Algerian-European natural gas pipeline bearing its name in May 2008, using a combination of S-lay and J-lay techniques.
