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At the beginning of this week, oil major Shell announced that it will indefinitely postpone (read: completely abandon) its Arctic drilling operations in the Chukchi Sea offshore Alaska. The company stated: "Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future. This decision reflects both the Burger J well result, the high costs associated with the project and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska." This retreat will result in Shell losing its $7 billion investment, a bitter pill to swallow for the oil major. While Shell and many others have given up...

Along with oil prices and the rig count, the issuance of new drilling permits has dropped off dramatically in the last 12 months, according to numbers from the Texas Railroad Commission report of 864 permits issued in August. The commission, which regulates oil and gas activity in the state, said in a release that the issuance of drilling permits declined 65 percent year-over-year in August 2015. Among the 864 permits, the breakdown for August this year included 222 oil wells; 59 for gas; 518 for oil or gas; 54 injection wells and 11 other permits. Total well completions for 2015...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s long-awaited report on fracking dismayed liberal green groups Thursday while pleasing the oil and gas industry — the latest episode in both sides’ fraught relationship with President Barack Obama. The study, more than four years in the making, said the EPA has found no signs of “widespread, systemic” drinking water pollution from hydraulic fracturing. That conclusion dramatically runs afoul of one of the great green crusades of the past half-decade, which has portrayed the oil- and gas-extraction technique as a creator of fouled drinking water wells and flame-shooting faucets. The report also jibes with Obama’s global...

Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to follow its longstanding policy of propping up oil prices means North Carolina might have to wait for offshore energy exploration. That’s the assessment of Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy and project leader of a group developing New Mexico’s state energy policy. Fine described a Saudi-led oil “price war” during a presentation to the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society. In the video clip below, Fine explained how falling oil prices tied to Saudi Arabia’s new policy affect North Carolina’s energy options.

Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells.The state’s energy and environment cabinet introduced a website detailing the evidence behind that conclusion Tuesday, including links to expert studies of Oklahoma’s quakes. The site includes an interactive map that plots not only earthquake locations, but also the sites of more than 3,000 active wastewater-injection wells.The website coincided with a statement by the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey that it “considers it very likely” that...

The U.S. energy industry dramatically increased the pace at which it’s slowing activity, laying down 42 oil rigs this week after several weeks of more conservative numbers. There are 760 oil rigs operating in the U.S. currently, down from 802 last week, according to data published Friday by oil field services company Baker Hughes. The decline was the largest one-week drop in the count in a month. Last week, the oil rig count fell by just 11, and the week before it was down by 12. Those were the smallest week-over-week declines in 2015 and may have suggested the oil...

Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell has become a hero to the global warming movement with his anti-oil comments. The mayor has said, “Our planet is sick and it is we who have infected it.” In a January speech, Heartwell called for an end to hydraulic fracturing (commonly known as “fracking”) and said he would ask the county and governor to do the same. However, Heartwell appears to have no problem with taking money collected from oil companies for using hydraulic fracturing when drilling on state land to fund city government spending. MLive reported that Grand Rapids plans to request a...

President Obama will open parts of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans to new oil and gas drilling under a plan unveiled Tuesday. The Interior Department's five-year lease plan would allow drilling in three areas off the coast of Alaska and one in a portion of the Atlantic for the first time in nearly four decades. The dramatic shift in policy comes as gas prices are at new lows and as Obama has sought to burnish his legacy as a president who has worked to stop climate change. The plan angered green groups who have supported Obama's decision to restrict other...

President Obama announced Sunday that he’ll use his executive authority to designate 12 million acres in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness, walling it off from resource development. This abrogates a 1980 deal in which Congress specifically set aside some of this acreage for future oil and gas exploration. It’s also a slap at the new Republican Congress, where Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been corralling bipartisan support for more Arctic drilling.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama released an anti-oil drilling environmental video shot aboard Air Force One–an aircraft that has a 53,611 gallon fuel capacity. The video, which shows Obama aboard Air Force One, is interspersed with scenes of arctic animals and wildlife landscapes, reports National Public Radio (NPR). It’s all part of Obama’s ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) newly proposed plan to ban roads, permanent structures, vehicles, drilling, and mining on 12.28 million acres in ANWR. On Saturday, Obama flew Air Force One over 8,000+ miles to India to discuss global warming and other issues.

When a massive truck slams on the brakes to avoid a crash, it takes awhile for it to get back up to highway speed again. That, in essence, is the problem oil companies will face when they want to increase production if supplies start to fall short. The selloff in crude oil has put drilling on hold. Unless more drilling resumes soon, a surplus of 1 million barrels a day will be exhausted. John Hofmeister, a former president at Royal Dutch Shell , predicts that will happen by the summer and will send prices up to $80 a barrel. "When that cost correction...

The White HouseÂ’s Troll Fest, 2015 continues apace. In fact, if you are getting the impression by now that the Obama administration has no higher priority than provoking fights with Republicans, youÂ’re probably right. On Sunday, the White House leaked a proposal to The Washington Post in which the administration revealed plans to make the 1.4 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and parts of the Arctic Ocean off limits to drilling. Some of this can be accomplished via new regulations administered by the Department of the Interior, but not entirely. They have also proposed additional restrictions on oil...

#1 It is being projected that the U.S. oil rig count will decline by 15 percent in the first quarter of 2015 alone. And when there are less rigs operating, less workers are needed so people get fired. #2 Last week, 55 more oil rigs shut down. That was the largest single week decline in the United States in 24 years. #3 Oilfield services provider Baker Hughes has announced that it plans to lay off 7,000 workers. #4 Schlumberger, a big player in the energy industry, has announced plans to get rid of 9,000 workers. #5 Suncor Energy is eliminating...

<p>President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he's removing more than 52,000 square miles of waters off Alaska's coast from consideration for oil and gas exploration or drilling.</p> <p>The president said in a video announcement that Bristol Bay and nearby waters, covering an area roughly the size of Florida, would be withdrawn from consideration for petroleum leases. He called Bristol Bay one of the country's great natural resources and a massive economic engine.</p>

"It means that anyone who tells you we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they’re talking about – or isn’t telling you the truth. The United States consumes more than a fifth of the world’s oil. But we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves. That means we can’t just rely on fossil fuels from the last century. "

Gasoline prices are plummeting as U.S. oil production from shale formations booms, reaching more than nine million barrels per day through Nov. 28. Gasoline is now hitting four-year lows and oil prices are hitting five-year lows. But it was just two years ago that President Obama said “we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices” in a speech bashing Republican calls for more drilling. “And you can bet that since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas,” Obama continued. “I’ll save you the suspense: Step one is drill, step two is...

Colorado's growth in crude oil reserves ranked third behind North Dakota and Texas in the latest survey of the amount of oil buried in fields across the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Nationally, crude oil reserves — oil that can be pumped from the ground under current economic conditions using existing technology — grew by 9 percent, or 3.1 billion barrels, in 2013 compared to 2012, the federal agency said. It's the fifth year in a row the U.S. oil reserves have grown, the EIA said, evidence that the proliferation of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing...

Federal wildlife officials have granted protection to the Gunnison sage grouse, a move that could to bring restrictions on oil and gas drilling and other land uses to preserve the bird's habitat in Colorado and Utah. ... They're related to the greater sage grouse, which is at the center of a separate and larger debate over federal protection across 11 Western states.

I am trying to find the photo taken in the 80's about Teddy's offshore drilling. Funny how I can't find it on google. Any have the link to the pic? Here is the story behind it from Rush: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2007/08/03/luke_sissyfag_howell_heflin_womb_to_the_tomb RUSH: What happened was -- this is back in the late eighties, I think -- Senator Kennedy is vacationing off the coast of the south of France and he's got a young nubile, very limber and flexible young woman with him, scantily clad in a nice bikini. We know this because paparazzi were taking pictures from neighboring boats, and the New...

The US drilling rig count declined 12 units to settle at 1,918 rigs working during the week ended Oct. 17, Baker Hughes Inc. reported. BHI’s average US onshore rig count for the third quarter totaled 1,842 units, up 46 from the second quarter and up 133 from third-quarter 2013. The US onshore well count for the third quarter totaled 9,566, up 110 from the second quarter and up 491 from third-quarter 2013. Average US onshore drilling efficiencies dropped to 5.19, primarily caused by fewer wells/rig being generated in the Permian during the quarter, BHI indicated. The Permian accounted for 54%...