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It was a positive week for the Permian Basin rig count. The nation’s most-active basin added three rigs for a total of 137. Its most-active county, Midland, added two to the tally for a total of 23 rigs, according to weekly rotary rig count data released Friday by Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes. The Permian saw several counties with renewed activity, including Cochran, Schleicher and Dawson. Lynn was the only county that ceased all activity. For active areas in the Permian, there were 24 rigs in District 7C, up two; 89 in District 8, up one; eight in District...

Last quarter, over 86% of energy sector operating profits were used to cover the interest payments on debt. U.S. energy sector (XLE) is facing $370 billion of debt, a number that has more than doubled in the past decade. But even as oil rebounds off 13-year lows, many energy companies are struggling to stay afloat. To simply make the interest payments on the debt, energy companies shelled out $16.7 billion last year—about half of their total operating profit, according to data compiled by FactSet and Yahoo Finance. The figures from the past quarter are increasingly grim: over 86% of energy...

Situation in Nigeria For a country that produced nearly 2.4 million barrels of oil (NYSEARCA:USO) per day just a few months ago, Nigeria is facing some really serious issues. A militant group called the Niger Delta has disrupted the country's 2.4 million b/d of production by blowing up pipelines, hassling producers, and threatening to destroy additional oil producing facilities. As a result, Nigeria's oil production has fallen from 2.4 million b/d to 1.4 million b/d and further pressuring a growing nation more and more reliant on its oil as revenue. Nigeria is a fast growing country. Its economy is the...

A site run by Denbury Onshore LLC in southwestern North Dakota has spilled more than 120,000 gallons of oil and wastewater into pastureland after a mechanical failure. Some estimated 17,000 gallons of oil and 105,000 gallons of drilling wastewater containing saltwater and chemicals leaked into pastureland near the city of Marmarth when a tank sensor failed, news agencies quoted state regulators as saying. The tank overflowed on Wednesday, and by Friday, workers were excavating the affected pastureland, which is being equated to the size of a football field.

The host of a local North Dakota news show told viewers Friday that the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency “should freak people out” because she will badly damage the state’s economy by going after fracking, which will hurt the oil and gas industry and cost jobs. Chris Berg, the anchor of 6:30 Point of View, a show on CBS affiliate KXJB Valley News Live, discussed North Dakota’s economic struggles as Clinton’s husband, Bill, was in Fargo, North Dakota for a campaign rally. Berg explained that the North Dakota Office of Management and Budget released a revenue report on Friday...

Some Panhandle producers are announcing a proposal to try to limit oil imports to attempt to boost the American oil industry. So, how much are we importing now and why, if we can produce all we need domestically? Dr. Daniel Fine, associate director for New Mexico Energy Policy, is helping lead the effort and recently spoke with KXDJ’s Chris Samples. “How much? It is increasing,” said Dr. Fine.

This election season has created an unprecedented alliance between the environmental Left and the anti-free market movement. The result is a well-funded juggernaut adept at conducting coordinated and sophisticated assaults on American businesses while attempting to influence crucial elections. Their goals are nothing short of shuttering our American manufacturing industry, halting the production of affordable energy and placing a ruling clique of radicals in office.One such tactic focuses on intimidating universities and other institutions into divesting their financial holdings of fossil fuel investments. Activists behind this campaign talk candidly about how they hope to “revoke the social license” of energy...

It was around noon when a food truck rolled up to a Venezuelan state-subsidized supermarket in the town of Guarenas just east of the capital. But, to the fury of the long line of people waiting out front, the cargo wasn't unloaded. Instead soldiers took it away. "We want food!" the crowd roared in protest, to no avail. Some tried to run after the truck. Under the state of emergency imposed by President Nicolas Maduro, the military, along with government-organized civilian committees, ensures that food packets are delivered door-to-door in order to -- as officials say -- cut out black...

In the second part of the year, Delta Air Lines aims to boost its fares as it faces rising fuel costs and barriers to revenue. Delta Air Lines presented its investors some new strategies for the second part of the year that will trim its capacity growth plan—a plan that eventually could end with higher fare prices. According to Delta, it hopes to become “the first network carrier to return to positive unit revenue growth later this year.”

Shell has said it has begun work to repair a fault in a flowline that has resulted in around 2,000 barrels worth of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. More than 88,000 gallons of oily-water mixture has been released from the Glider Field, a group of four underwater oil wells located around 97 miles south of Port Fourchon in Louisiana. The company said it suspects a line connecting these wells to a Shell platform leaked oil on Thursday, creating a 13 mile-wide slick on the surface of the water. Shell said the oil is not expected to reach the shoreline and...

As pure desperation has set in, crime has becomes inevitable. A man accused of mugging people in the streets of Caracas was surrounded by a mob of onlookers, beaten and set on fire, who published a pixeled-out but still graphic video of the man burning as mob justice is now the supreme arbiter of who lives and who dies: "Roberto Fuentes Bernal, 42, was reportedly caught trying to mug passersby in the Venezuelan capital and before police arrived at the scene, the crowd took the law into their own hands." The video can be seen here. Now, in the latest...

Saudi Arabia's credit rating has been downgraded by Moody's because of the long and deep slump in oil prices. Moody's Investors Service said Saturday that it also downgraded Gulf oil producers Bahrain and Oman. It left ratings unchanged for other Gulf states including Kuwait and Qatar. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter. Moody's cut the country's long-term issuer rating one notch to A1 from Aa3 after a review that began in March.

Fire feeds on oil: In the world of eco-terrorism, Islamic terrorism, it doesn't make much difference: Pitch western civilization backward a thousand years into another dark age A number of seemingly disparate variables are influencing the world’s volatile equation of oil and fire, needing just a spark to ignite a conflagration. And one of huge proportions has been blazing well to the north of us in Alberta, consuming the tinder dry landscape surrounding Ft. McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil sands development. Initial cause of the fire is yet undetermined, investigators employing drones to examine the hundreds of square miles...

Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has asked one of America's most ardent drilling advocates and climate change skeptics to help him draft his energy policy. U.S. Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota - a major oil drilling state - is writing a white paper on energy policy for the New York billionaire, Cramer and sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Cramer was also among a group of Trump advisers who recently met with lawmakers from western energy states, who hope Trump will open more federal land for drilling, a lawmaker who took part in the meeting said. Cramer...

Oil and gas industry groups on Thursday sued federal agencies over revisions to land management plans in Colorado and other western states to protect the greater sage-grouse. The Western Energy Alliance and the North Dakota Petroleum Council filed the suit in North Dakota, saying the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service failed to follow proper procedures for public involvement in adopting the land use plan amendments. They also say the plans ignore sound science and will hurt western economies. Plan revisions being challenged include ones in northwest Colorado, where greater sage-grouse habitat substantially overlaps with oil and gas...

Crude oil futures rose 3.5 percent in mid-afternoon trading on Wednesday, following official data earlier in the day showing a 3.4-million drop in crude inventories and a fall in crude output to 8.8 million barrels per day, the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2014. June deliveries of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) were up US$1.57, or 3.5 percent, settling at US$46.23 per barrel on the New York exchange. This jump is higher than any closing price the commodity has seen since November of last year.

It might not be a great time to start offshore drilling, with oil prices as depressed as they are, but it might just be a great time to buy an offshore drilling rig for a cut-rate price—in fact, you might be able to get one for only one tenth of what they cost in 2011. This is the cost coup recently pulled off by Ocean Rig, a company controlled by shipping billionaire George Economou, who has landed a drillship—the Cerrado—for only US$65 million at auction, which represents less than 10 percent of the estimated price when it was built over...

Shell has evacuated nearly 100 essential oil personnel from a major production facility in the Niger Delta, following a series of attacks from a newly formed militant group that has vowed to renew the fight abandoned after a 2009 amnesty deal. Some 98 Shell personnel were airlifted from the Shell-operated Eja Oml 79 oil production facility in the Niger Delta over the weekend, bringing into question the facility’s 90,000 barrel-per-day production capacity. The facility is run by Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Corporation). The evacuations come after militants of the Niger Delta Avengers attacked an offline oil platform...

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The Panhandle Producers and Royalty Owners Association in partnership with other oil and natural gas supporters launched a grassroots campaign this week aimed at limiting foreign imports of oil. The plan, which was unveiled at forums in Amarillo, Texas, and Artesia, N.M., calls for import quotas that would be established during the first 90 days of the country’s next President’s administration. Mexican and Canadian imports would be exempt. “American oil is competing against a cartel of government operators which has a stated initiative of driving an American industry out of business,” said Tom Cambridge, a Panhandle producer and campaign supporter....