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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...

Sales of leases on 8.1 million acres of federal oil and gas parcels — an area larger than Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined — are on hold because of worries that drilling could harm greater sage grouse... the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s delay on the parcels underscores just how much is at stake for an industry that finds its future inextricably intertwined with a bird once known primarily for its elaborate mating display. The grouse’s huge range, covering portions of 11 states and an area more than four times as big as New England, includes vast oil, gas and...

Nationally averaged gas prices ticked down a little lower today -- yet again -- to $2.75 per gallon. They're now more than 50 cents lower than they were a year ago. So no wonder, at a time like this, the murmur is growing: Maybe Congress ought to think about raising the national gasoline tax. It was last raised, in the year 1993, to 18.4 cents per gallon. That's over 20 years ago, and gas prices at the time were close to the now unimaginable $1.00 per gallon mark. Yet the amount of the gas tax was fixed and not tied...

An Oncue Express station in Oklahoma City was selling the motor fuel for $1.99 a gallon Wednesday, becoming the first one to drop below $2 in the U.S. since July 30, 2010, Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy Organization Inc., said by email from Chicago. "We knew when we saw crude oil prices drop last week that we'd break the $2 threshold pretty soon, but we didn't know if it would happen in South Carolina, Texas, Missouri or Oklahoma," said DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for Gasbuddy. "Today's national average, $2.74, now makes the current price we pay a...

In a chilling 2010 column, Paul Krugman declared: “peak oil has arrived.” So it’s really not surprising that the national average for a gallon of gas has fallen to $2.77 this week – in 10 states it was under $2.60 – and analysts predict we’re going to dip below the two-dollar mark soon. U.S. oil is down to $75 a barrel, a drop of more than $30 from the 52-week high. Meanwhile, the Institute for Energy Research estimates that we have enough natural gas in the U.S. to meet electricity needs for around 575 years at current fuel demand and...

Linette Lopez November 28, 2014In a passionate speech on Thursday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro vowed that he would not rest until oil prices were back to "where they should be," reports Venezuelan paper, El Universal. For Maduro's purposes, that's at about $100 a barrel. "We will maintain the depth and rhythm of our investments into society," Maduro said speaking at a military celebration. "The best response in the face of obstacles is to come together in work, in struggle — it is to have discipline. On Thursday OPEC leaders agreed not to reduce global oil output, thereby increasing the price...

When it takes up to four million pounds of sand to frack a single well, it’s no wonder that demand is outpacing supply and frack sand producers are becoming the biggest behind-the-scenes beneficiaries of the American oil and gas boom. Demand is exploding for “frac sand”--a durable, high-purity quartz sand used to help produce petroleum fluids and prop up man-made fractures in shale rock formations through which oil and gas flows—turning this segment into the top driver of value in the shale revolution. “One of the major players in Eagle Ford is saying they’re short 6 million tons of 100...

A West Boca gas station owner set up cameras to catch six people trying to steal more than 900 gallons of fuel on Friday, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff's arrest report. The owner of the Chevron station in the 11000 block of West Palmetto Park Road told deputies that gas had been stolen for the past few nights, leading him to set up the surveillance.

Delays of the Keystone XL pipeline are providing little obstacle to Western Canadian oil producers getting their crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast, with shipments set to more than double next year. The volume of Canadian crude processed at Gulf Coast refineries could climb to more than 400,000 barrels a day in 2015 from 208,000 in August, according to Jackie Forrest, vice president of Calgary-based ARC Financial Corp. The increase comes as Enbridge Inc.’s Flanagan South and an expanded Seaway pipeline raise their capacity to ship oil by as much as 450,000 barrels a day. Canadian exports to the Gulf...

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.

BEIJING – The leaders of China and Russia have signed agreements to boost their energy cooperation, including an understanding to develop a second major route to supply the Chinese side with Russian natural gas following an initial $400 billion deal in May.

For Oregonians who care about the cost of driving, the most significant development Tuesday might prove to be the upset of incumbent Republican state Sen. Betsy Close by Democrat Sara Gelser in District 8, which covers parts of Albany and Corvallis. Even before the Senate seat switcheroo, lawmakers were likely to consider a road-funding package during the 2015 session. Now, Oregonians may have to swallow two pieces of legislation that will raise the cost of commuting, shopping and everything else people do with their cars.

Even as it fills the railroads of the Upper Midwest with oil tank cars, the Bakken has allowed its natural gas riches to languish. Less profitable than oil and more difficult to transport, natural gas has been so secondary in North Dakota that drillers still burn off more than a fourth of what rises from the ground. In satellite pictures, the flames sprawl across the Williston basin, lighting it up like a giant suburb. A quiet transformation is underway, however, as the state bids to turn natural gas into a native business and drive down flaring. A growing network of...

When Don Sage of Concord, N.H., learned his electric bill could rise by as much as $40 a month he got flustered. He and his wife make do on a bit less than $30,000 a year in Social Security payments, and they pay close attention to their electric bills. "When the invoice comes in the mail to get paid, I have a target amount that we can fluctuate up or down, based on our fixed budget," Sage says. "They don't need my permission to hike up their rates, but the fact is we're the ones that are paying these increases."...

Ukraine, Russia and the European Union signed a deal on Thursday that will see Moscow resume vital supplies of gas to its ex-Soviet neighbor over the winter in return for payments funded in part by Kiev's Western creditors. After several failed rounds of talks in recent weeks as conflict rumbles on despite a ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, the accord also eases concerns that a new "gas war" could disrupt winter supplies if energy to EU states, notably through pipelines shut down across Ukraine since June. With overnight temperatures already nudging below freezing in Ukraine, European Commission President...

Crude oil prices have dropped below $80 a barrel, down more than 20 percent just since June, meaning price estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) have been far too pessimistic. And these low prices — and the fear that they could go even lower — are making a number of oil industry people increasingly nervous, with some prediciting that the prices are getting so low that oil companies are going to stop new drilling and even cut back on production from already drilled wells. On October 7, the EIA estimated that prices for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude...

Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace officer: Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge. Elected law enforcement officers from Nephi to Blanding call him an arrogant and dishonest bully who has little regard for local authority and dodges accountability, derailing a collaborative approach to police work on the state’s federal lands. Love reportedly just laughed when Garfield County Sheriff James "Danny" Perkins relayed ranchers’ complaints about federal officers removing plastic feed tubs from the range and threatening the ranchers with litter citations. He drew early controversy during...

Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the...

NBC reporter Dana Lewis reporting live video from newly discovered PLO terrorist training camp that was discovered in Iraq. It has obstacle course, shooting range, pretty much looks like one of the familiar AlQaeda terrorist training camps. Dana Lewis also reports that this camp is close to the infamous pesticide site and that there are some of the same French pesticide drums (not the others suspected of containing the CW "Cocktail" mixture) at the PLO camp along with gas masks and chemical suits. They're not sure what to make of it and the officer in charge was hesitant to say...