For the US oil and gas industry, the budget proposal of President Barack Obama arrives in company with one bit of good news: Deep gouges stand almost no chance of surviving Congress.
To expressions of concern that the US faces, in one business leader's words, a "regulatory tsunami," President Barack Obama responds, "Not all regulations are bad."
As the international benchmark other crudes are priced against, "West Texas Intermediate is dead, long live North Sea Brent," said analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc. WTI's recent disconnect with other crude prices in the global market "is here to stay—for awhile," they predicted.
The White House followed through on US President Barack Obama's promise to eliminate oil and gas incentives and preferences with a fiscal 2012 federal budget request that would increase direct taxes on the industry by an estimate $3.472 billion next year and $43.612 billion over 10 years.
Democrats and Republicans quickly established their differing views as a US House subcommittee debated legislation designed to draft legislation to halt the US Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
The US Environmental Protection Agency can expect criticism when it hosts refiners at a listening session on Mar. 4 about its efforts to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Future oil and gas production from the deepwater and ultradeepwater Gulf of Mexico hinges on how US drilling policy and safety standards evolve following the April 2010 Macondo well blowout and subsequent oil spill, speakers said Feb. 11 at Rice University's Baker Institute.
Oil companies and drilling contractors are working together very closely to prevent any future oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, speakers said Feb. 11 during a forum at Rice University's Baker Institute about managing the risks of offshore oil exploration.
The global oil burden in 2010 was the second-highest following a major recession and could rise this year to levels close to those that have coincided in the past with marked economic slowdowns, warns the International Energy Agency in its latest monthly oil market report.
The computer networks of at least five international oil companies, containing bidding plans and other confidential data, have been penetrated by Chinese-based hackers, accord to a report issued by a US computer security firm.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) said the upgrader coke drums damaged in a fire on Jan. 6 at its Horizon oil sands facility in northern Alberta may resume operations in the second and third quarters.
Piracy in the Indian Ocean is rapidly getting out of control and is threatening to disrupt flows of oil to markets in the US and around the world, according to an oil shipping industry association.
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Hussain Al-Shahristani, who oversees energy for the government, said Kurdistan's production-sharing contracts (PSCs) with international oil companies (IOCs) must be turned into service contracts in order to be approved by the central government.
