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The Senate will start debate on Monday on a bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline as Republicans, who have made the project their first priority of the year, try to line up enough votes to overcome a potential veto by President Barack Obama. Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, a co-sponsor of the bill to approve TransCanada Corp's pipeline, has about 63 supporters, including all 54 Republicans. That is four short of the 67 needed to overcome an Obama veto. The White House has said the president would reject the bill if it reaches his desk. Hoeven said...

It was 2008 when TransCanada initially filed an application with the U.S. government to construct the multibillion-dollar Keystone XL pipeline to carry up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. Illinois Senator Barack Obama had just secured the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party. Hurricane Ike made landfall, Usain Bolt set world records at the summer Olympics, and the Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. More than six years and many significant historical events later, TransCanada still does not have approval to build an environmentally safe pipeline that would create jobs and...

Producers idled the most oil rigs in a single week since 1991, as a more than 50 percent fall in crude prices further impacted drilling. The number of rigs searching or drilling for oil fell by 61 to 1,421 while the number of rigs pursuing natural gas rose by one to 329, according to oil service company Baker Hughes’ weekly count. One miscellaneous rig was idled. The United States total rig count fell by 61 rigs to 1,750 from 1,811 in the prior week. The total rig count — a measure of both oil and gas rigs — declined by...

Saudi Arabia’s run at U.S. oil-company profits could inadvertently drive down costs in the shale oil patch, making the high-cost business more competitive, a Barclays analyst says. For now, though, U.S. oil producers and oil field service firms are expected to cut deep into the North American shale boom. Oil spending in the United States and Canada could fall by as much as $58 billion this year if petroleum prices remain at current low levels, according to a Barclays survey released Friday. That would be a 30 percent cut to last year’s estimated $196.1 billion in spending, largely driven by...

A recent analysis by Wood Mackenzie found that 1.6 percent, or 1.5 million barrels of oil per day (MMbopd), of global oil supply could be cash negative on an operating basis if Brent crude falls to $40/barrel. Wood Mackenzie’s analysis of 2,222 producing oil fields, which account for 75 million barrels per day of total liquids production, determined at three price points the impact on oil production and percentage of global supply which will turn cash negative. The firm concluded that producers would begin shutting in production at $40/bbl Brent crude or lower, to a point where a significant reduction...

Over 10,000 workers at Mexican oil services companies were laid off this week as state-run Pemex cut contracts in response to the global decline in oil prices- and more job cuts are expected. Most of the oil services companies affected are headquartered in Ciudad del Carmen, on the Bay of Campeche coast in the GOM, and were informed this week that their contracts with Pemex would not be renewed. Bloomberg quoted Gonzalo Hernandez, secretary at the Ciudad del Carmen Economic Development Chamber, as saying that job losses could increase to 50,000. Meanwhile, Managing director of Xperto Offshore, Stuart Hill, told...

Furnaces from Minnesota to Maine are running full-blast as frigid temperatures descend from the Arctic. But the natural-gas market is still ice cold. Prices for the fuel, used to heat half of U.S. homes, hit a more-than two-year low this week and are down 35% since mid-November. The arrival of freezing weather across most of the country hasn’t revived the market. Normally, plunging temperatures are a cue for traders to make bullish bets because the resulting spike in demand can deplete natural-gas supplies. Last February, prices jumped by more than 30% in a matter of days during one particularly severe...

Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government are still trying to resolve a dispute that for six months has kept a tanker full of Kurdish oil off the coast of Galveston and central questions of Kurdistan’s right to sell oil overseas in limbo. Iraqi officials struck an interim, temporary deal late last year allowing exports of oil produced in semi-autonomous Kurdistan if it went through Iraq’s state oil company. But that agreement didn’t cover the tanker United Kalavryta, anchored in the Gulf of Mexico since July, or other broader political and legal issues that could define Kurdistan’s independence. Those issues, which...

Mexican state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos said Thursday it has requested permission from the U.S. Commerce Department to import light crude to Mexico from the U.S., with the aim of improving output at its Mexican refineries. The significant increase of light crude production in the U.S. presents an opportunity to mix that oil with Mexican heavy crude, and thus boost refining efficiency in Mexico, the company known as Pemex said. Pemex anticipates that it could import up to 100,000 barrels a day of light crude and condensates under the proposal, which it calls a “swap.” America has a long-standing ban...

For years, big oil companies have been spending more money than they bring in. With oil prices down more than 50% since last June, that is becoming an ever trickier way to run their businesses. The cost of developing new fields has ballooned over the past decade, while investors have kept pressing for high dividends. The result: Companies have spent more on capital costs and mollifying investors than they reap in cash flow. Now, companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. , Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC must decide whether to risk future earnings by cutting developments, risk upsetting investors...

The world's oil and gas exploration companies are expected to cut capital expenditures 17 percent this year as a deep slump in crude oil prices takes a toll on budgets... The survey, based on an average oil price of $70 per barrel, estimates that global exploration and production expenditures will slide 17 percent to $571 billion. If oil prices average $60 per barrel, spending should drop by 30 percent to 35 percent, according to the survey of 476 oil companies. ...under $50 per barrel on Wednesday... North American spending is forecast to drop by 22 percent...

Even the most technologically advanced drilling rigs are finding less work as oil prices crash. Oklahoma oil driller Helmerich & Payne expects 40 to 50 of its souped-up drilling machines to come off the market over the next few weeks, after 11 of those models went idle in the past month, it said in an investor presentation Tuesday. The firm added it has seen spot prices for its so-called FlexRig units fall 10 percent, and some oil companies are dropping out of contracts early. It’s a marked decline for rigs that had emerged in recent years better equipped than old...

Across the country, retail prices for regular grade gasoline reached the lowest levels in four years primarily as a result of falling crude prices in the second half of 2014. As of December 12, the weekly retail price for regular gasoline in each city for which EIA collects data was below $3.00 per gallon (gal) for the first time since February 2010. Each city recorded its lowest 2014 gasoline price on the last Monday of the year. Each Monday, EIA collects and publishes data on retail gasoline and diesel fuel prices for multiple locations across the country. Retail gasoline prices...

Oil market oversupply may last months or even years, but prices could recover if non-OPEC producers "act rationally", the United Arab Emirates (UAE) oil minister said in remarks published on Wednesday. The comment by Suhail bin Mohammed al-Mazrouei in an interview with The National daily echoed recent calls by core Gulf Arab OPEC members such as Saudi Arabia that non-OPEC producers should curb planned increases in output to help prop up sagging prices. "We are experiencing an obvious oversupply in the market that needs time to be absorbed," he was quoted as saying. "Depending on the actual production growth from...

...the oil-service stocks started to slide. I called the analysts and nobody had a good explanation why. Oil demand was still growing, driven by Asian economies that were expanding at a 7% annual rate. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries still seemed to have a stranglehold on oil prices, as U.S. crude production, which peaked at around 10 million barrels a day, was down to below 6.5 million barrels a day and falling steadily. By 1998 Asia’s demand had shrunk by 350,000 barrels a day amid a growing financial crisis that should sound familiar to anybody today. Economies stumbled...

President Barack Obama will veto the Keystone XL bill if Congress passes a measure green-lighting the oil pipeline, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced on Tuesday. Newly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline project as the first of the new Congress. The bill has some bipartisan support, but environmentalists and progressives have heavily lobbied the White House to oppose the pipeline.... Earnest added that the White House reviewed the text of the bill to authorize the pipeline on Monday....

As a test of wills between OPEC nations and U.S. shale drillers fuels a global oil market slump, a brewing battle between Canadian and Saudi Arabia heavy crudes for America's Gulf Coast refinery market threatens to drive prices even lower. While the stand-off between the oil cartel and U.S. producers of light, sweet shale oil has captured the limelight in recent months, the clash over heavier grades - playing out in the shadowy, opaque physical market - may put even more pressure on global prices that have halved since mid-2014. Two factors will come into play over the next few...

Crude oil prices fell sharply in the fourth quarter of 2014 as robust global production exceeded demand. After reaching monthly peaks of $112 per barrel (bbl) and $105/bbl in June, crude oil benchmarks Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell to $62/bbl and $59/bbl in December, respectively. Brent prices fell below the five-year average in early September and slipped well below the five-year range in November and December. WTI prices have been below the five-year average since early October and below the five year-range since early November. U.S. highlights - Domestic crude oil production increased 1.2 million barrels per day...

Oil traders are well aware of the supply glut but oil producers seem largely oblivious. With West Texas Intermediate crude breaching the $50 US a barrel threshold for the first time since April 2009 on Monday, the collapse in the price of oil that began last June resumed after the Christmas holiday and set the stage for continued volatility in 2015. Despite forecasts for lower drilling activity and oilsands investment in the year ahead after a 50 per cent decline in oil prices in six months, Canada is one of a number of the worldÂ’s largest producers pumping record volumes...

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States fell by 17 this week, as energy companies facing lower crude prices reduced the rig count for the fourth straight week, data from oil services firm Baker Hughes showed on Monday. The oil rig count dropped to 1,482 in the week to Jan. 2, its lowest level since March, the data showed. The number of oil rigs has declined in nine of the last 12 weeks since hitting a record high of 1,609 in mid-October. The number of rigs remains up more than 100 from the same time last...