Carbon capture technology has yet to be demonstrated on an industrial scale, but a joint venture of the Norwegian government, Statoil, Sasol, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC is intended to help change that through a technology testing center now under construction.
US gas producers have good reasons to crave market expansion but no reason to support growth accelerated by government. They should oppose legislation extending tax breaks for natural gas vehicles (NGVs).
Libya's Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem is reported to have fled the country, becoming one of the highest profile figures to abandon the government of Moammar Gadhafi since fighting erupted in February.
Yemen's oil minister said his country is on the brink of an imminent economic collapse due to recurrent bomb attacks on oil pipelines and ongoing social unrest.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he temporarily will oversee the country's oil portfolio following his earlier dismissal of Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi.
Last week, Hussain Al-Shahristani, Iraq's deputy prime minister for energy, said his country's development plans for oil fields are proceeding "normally" and even faster than contracted.
Democrats on the US Senate Finance Committee accused executives from five major oil companies of being badly out of touch with the American people for not being willing to surrender tax deductions in an effort to reduce the federal budget deficit.
The US Senate refused to invoke cloture and effectively killed S. 940, Robert Menendez's (D-NJ) bill that would have denied the five largest US oil companies use of the foreign tax credit's dual capacity provision, the US manufacturers' tax deduction, the intangible drilling cost deduction, the percentage depletion allowance, and the tertiary injectant expense deduction.
Three days of blatant political posturing by the Obama administration and several US Senate Democrats left Charles T. Drevna wondering how much more time must pass before those politicians are ready to have an adult conversation with the oil and gas industry.
The US House of Representative approved a bill on May 11 that would require the US Interior secretary to act on offshore drilling permit applications within 30 days.
US President Barack Obama's administration would like Congress to amend the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act to allow federal onshore oil and gas leases of less than 10 years in length, Department of the Interior Sec. Ken Salazar said on May 17.
In its latest monthly oil market report, the International Energy Agency revised downward its forecast for 2011 global oil product demand growth as a result of persistent high prices and weaker projections for economic growth in the developed countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
