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In a move that once again isn't exactly shocking, Halliburton Co. has been engaging in much more serious layoffs than they initially planned on back in February. Back in the early part of the year -- when energy analysts were confidently predicting oil prices would rebound in no time at all -- Halliburton still battened down the hatches, announcing plans for about 6,500 layoffs. Since then the analysts have for the most part gotten increasingly dour with their predictions, oil prices have stayed around $50 a barrel and Halliburton has actually laid off about 10 percent of its workforce in...

Baker Hughes Inc., one of the world's largest oil and gas service companies, said it will increase job cuts worldwide to 10,500, or about 17 percent of its total workforce. The Houston-based company said the cuts are necessary in order to weather a crash in North American drilling prompted by low oil prices. Baker Hughes announced the additional cuts Tuesday (April 21) after reporting a $32 million loss for the first quarter this year. The company's first-quarter revenue was down 20 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Earlier this year, Baker Hughes said it planned to cut...

Financial markets underpinning the U.S. shale boom have emerged as the world’s de facto regulator of global oil production, taking over from the Saudi Arabia-led cartel that effectively abdicated its decades-old role in November, a top IHS researcher said Monday. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries “is not what it used to be; it’s no longer the balancer of the oil market,” said Jim Burkhard, chief researcher of global oil markets for IHS, during a panel on the first day of the week-long IHS Energy CERAWeek conference at the Hilton Americas-Houston. For a generation, Burkhard said, OPEC could influence...

When oil prices recover—and plenty of analysts think the climb back up will start soon—Canada’s western frontier of Saskatchewan and neighboring Alberta will ‘still have the edge’, according to a report from TD Economics. Depressed oil prices may have skewed the view from Canada’s oil-producing west, but this will be one of the better places to bet on the oil rebound. Saskatchewan remains the last highly accessible onshore North American oil frontier and it is home to part of the prolific Williston Basin. And as the industry gears up for the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference (WBPC) on 28 April, the...

Oil executives have been making headlines recently, due to large purchases of their own company’s stock. In fact, insider buying in the oil industry is higher than any other industry, except the machinery industry. Who’s buying? Major insider purchases for the month of March were made by Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) and Diamond Offshore Drilling (NYSE: DO). Diamond Offshore Drilling’s CEO, Corp Loews, purchased 685,373 shares on the open market, and Rich Kinder, CEO of Kinder Morgan, purchased 100,000 shares of Kinder Morgan. In March, Rich Kinder and Corp Loews weren’t the only executives buying company stock. The Director of...

The dam is about to burst in the Northeast. The question is who will drown in the coming flood of natural gas? BTU Analytics is currently tracking 42 Bcf/d of Northeast projects coming online through 2018. Of that capacity, 14.6 Bcf/d will help carry gas out of the region. Some of the most notable of these projects are Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline at 3.25 Bcf/d, Spectra’s Nexus Pipeline at 1.5 Bcf/d, and a series of REX Pipeline expansions bringing the pipe’s total east to west capacity to 2.6 Bcf/d. Infrastructure constraints in the Marcellus and Utica have been the norm...

If you or I lived rent free for five years in an apartment in pricey Washington, DC, we would have to pay income taxes on the value of the rent on the place. But apparently not Rahm Emanuel. The wonderful Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times writes: We already knew that BP and its folks were significant contributors to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama's 2007-08 campaign. Now, we learn the details of a connection of Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man and ex-Windy City political machine go-fer. Shortly...

The largest oil and gas companies are employing different strategies to weather the downturn and plan for the future. Each strategy has its risks, and not all may work out. Which companies will emerge stronger after an oil price rebound and which will fall further behind because of bad decisions? There are different ways to play a down cycle. With oil prices half of what they were in 2014, revenues are significantly lower for everyone across the board. As a result, the oil industry has collectively implemented an estimated $114 billion in spending cuts. But oil executives are also trying...

..... Obama's approval rating is shifting back toward positive territory, as the public's take on the economy hits a new high mark for Obama's tenure, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. For the first time since May of 2013, more Americans polled say they have a positive impression of how Obama is handling the presidency than a negative one: 48% approve of the way Obama is handling his job, while 47% disapprove.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow on Monday where the issue of Middle East peace talks will be raised, Russian authorities announced Thursday. “The two leaders will hold talks concerning key aspects of Russian-Palestinian relations and their future, with particular attention on the trade, economy and humanitarian sectors,” the Kremlin said in a statement according to AFP. There will also be “an exchange of ideas on the process of Israeli-Palestinian talks and other problematic regional situations,” the statement continued, adding that North Africa would also be on the agenda. …

OPEC has been the most talked about international organization among investors, analysts and international political lobbies in the last few months.  When OPEC speaks, the world listens in rapt attention as it accounts for nearly 40 % of the world's total crude output. With its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, one of the mandates of 12- member OPEC is to "ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers, and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry." (Source: opec.org).  However, OPEC...

Russia is considering soon giving Greece funds based on future profits Athens would earn from shipping Russian gas to Europe as part of an extension of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project, a Greek government official said. Plans for the pipeline taking Russian gas from Turkey to Europe via Greece would be linked to lower Russian gas prices, the official added. Greece would pay back the Russian prepayment after the pipeline started operating, the official said.

Spearheaded by the Senators from Washington_State, legislation just introduced in the United States Senate will finally address the rash of crude oil train wrecks and explosions that have skyrocketed over the last two years in parallel with the steep rise in the amount of crude oil transported by rail. Oil production is at an all-time high in America, great for our economy and energy independence, but bad for the people and places that lie along the shipping routes. Just since February, there have been four fiery derailments of crude oil trains in North America and many more simple spills. More...

ROSWELL – Gasoline prices in New Mexico could drop to as low as $1.60 a gallon this year as the United States and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries engage in an outgoing crude oil price war, an expert told the New Mexico Landmen’s Association on March 27. Dr. Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, said at the landmen’s association’s monthly meeting recently that crude oil storage in the United States is at a near maximum, meaning it will be some time before crude oil prices...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is the only major Republican likely 2016 presidential candidate who hasn't weighed in on the controversy over Indiana's "religious freedom" law that erupted this week — and his explanation for avoiding the issue is questionable.

Energy: New federal regulations on fracking on public land ignore a study documenting that methane found in well water is unrelated to the location of hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells. When the Obama administration recently released its new regulations on fracking — regulations that it said were needed to keep up with the advance and success of the decades-old technology to meet public safety needs — the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy Alliance immediately filed suit, saying that the new regs were based on "unsubstantiated concerns" that lacked any scientific basis. "Hydraulic fracturing has been conducted...

It’s not even 8 a.m. and rush hour is on in northwestern New Mexico. Dozens of big white trucks and water tankers, neon flags flying, head north to the gas patch. I’m driving south, through Aztec, and as I pass the retro-orange A&W on the edge of town, I pull up alongside a drilling rig. The thing’s huge, too huge, it seems, to be rolling along the same road as my little Nissan. Yet the strange, rolling infrastructure has been a familiar site around here for decades — back in 1948, when a UFO purportedly crashed out on a nearby...

WTI crude fell below the earlier lows near $48.50 and down to $48.23 as reports reveal that once the deal is completed (presumably on June 30) all oil and banking sanctions against Iran will be lifted.

This afternoon, Fact Check.org produced a fact-check that ostensibly criticizes U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) for his contention that there has never been an instance of ground water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing. Of course, this piece isn’t really about Inhofe at all; but before we get into that, we can’t help but wonder why they are fact-checking Inhofe and not former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson … or Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz … or Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell — all of whom have said exactly the same thing. Rather than a “fact-check,” it reads more like an advocacy...

Myles Udland March 30, 2015The crash in oil prices is hammering the Texas economy. The latest manufacturing outlook index from the Dallas Fed plunged again in March, to -17.4 from -11.2 in February, indicating deteriorating business conditions in the state. Expectations were for the index to show a reading of -9. But the most important part of this report is the commentary from Texas business leaders, who have given an on-the-ground picture of how the decline in oil prices is affecting one of the country's economies most driven by oil. In March the tune didn't change, as it sounds as...