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Piracy is common off Nigeria and often linked to militants Pirates have seized a ship owned by a French company off the Nigerian coast, taking nine crew members hostage. The company - Bourbon - said the captain had assured them that all crew members were unharmed. Bourbon - which provides specialist boats for the oil and gas industry - said it was working to free the crew. The hostages are from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Indonesia. Piracy is common in Nigerian waters, often linked to militants targeting oil companies. Militants attack vessels and strip them of valuables, taking hostages for...

Barack Obama appears to have personally benefited from funds originating in Saddam Hussein's regime. It's a complicated connection, but one that deserves the consideration of Americans voters. Two similar figures, Nadhmi Auchi and Antoin S. "Tony" Rezko, served as the intermediaries. Both are Middle Eastern males of Catholic Christian heritage who left Baathist dictatorships for Western cities (Auchi from Iraq to London, Rezko from Syria to Chicago). Both became successful businessmen who hobnobbed with politicians and promoted Arab interests. Both have been convicted of taking kickbacks and both stand accused of other shady dealings. Auchi, born in 1937, is the...

More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress critical of oil companies have investments in the industry, according to a review of lawmakers’ financial assets. At least 14 Democratic members of the House and one senator have holdings ranging from several thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars in companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. or partnerships such as Schlumberger and Hornbeck Offshore Services. These lawmakers have accused oil companies for making record profits, manipulating prices, benefiting from unnecessary tax breaks and trying to gobble up federal lands. Democrats argue that their criticisms of the oil...

If didn't know better, I would think the Democrats are really trying to lose this election. First they offered up the cap and trade global warming bill in the Senate that was quickly withdrawn when they realized what a debacle they were creating for themselves. Then this week they planned to use a windfall profits tax to vilify the oil companies and distract the public from their negligence and malfeasance for failing to enact laws and make policies to encourage the production and distribution of the life-blood of the nation- oil. Congress has repeatedly failed to produce legislation to that would lead to more meaningful energy...

June 12, 2008Berkeley, California This gas thing is getting ridiculous, and I decided I wasn't going to sit idly by while the big oil companies and George Bush sucked every last cent out of my welfare checks. I called my friend and assistant, Scooter, over to discuss a plan to strike a blow against Big Oil. Scooter showed up with a bag of mushrooms and two bottles of Bailey's for what promised to be a marathon strategy session.In order to come up with an action plan (AP), we first needed to determine what our end objective (EO) was to be. Scooter and I were in...

Who owns 'Big Oil?' It's not who you think. A recent study finds that ownership of oil and natural gas company shares is made up of a broad cross section of Americans. "This study disproves the popular misconception that 'Big Oil' is owned by a small group of industry insiders. In reality, across the oil and natural gas industry only 1.5 percent of shares of public companies are owned by company executives," said study author Robert J. Shapiro, undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton. "The data show that ownership of industry shares is broadly middle class,...

Junk your SUV and buy an electric scooter. Recent claims by various OPEC leaders that the world has plenty of oil left are bunk, alleges Sadad Al-Husseini, a former top executive at Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company. Oil-producing countries are inflating the size of their oil reserves by as much as 300 billion barrels by padding supposedly proven reserves with “probable” reserves and tar and oil sands, according to Husseini. Such hypothetical reserves are “not delineated, not accessible and not available for production,” Husseini said at a recent energy conference in London. Oil production has now reached its...

NEW YORK - At least two major oil companies said late Wednesday they have agreed to settle lawsuits over the use of the gasoline additive MTBE, a potential carcinogen that has been found in drinking water. Representatives of Valero Energy Corp. and Chevron Corp. said they had joined the settlement, although a number of other oil companies are also named in a memo supporting the deal that was obtained by The Associated Press. The companies confirmed their involvement after The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site that several oil companies agreed to pay $423 million plus cleanup costs...

"We’re going to go right at OPEC," she said. "They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at," she told a crowd at a firehouse in Merrillville, IN. - Hillary Rodham Clinton (5 May 2008) From the palace of her delusional Shangri-La, Empress Clinton has decreed that OPEC can no longer exist as a cartel. It’s a good thing that the Sultan of...

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.—Archilochus (7th-century BC) Mark Penn might not be appearing before the cameras on Hillary's behalf nowadays, but bet that he is beavering away behind the scenes on his polling. And judging from Hillary's dogged [to mix an animal metaphor] performance on this morning's Today, it's obvious that Penn's turned up one big thing: Dem primary voters hate oil companies. Meredith Vieira gamely tried to get Clinton onto other subjects during her interview. But no matter the question, the answer was almost invariably the same: I Hate Big Oil. Since...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- We all want to live in a world that's clean, healthy and prosperous. We all want to hand that world off to our children in slightly better shape than we received it. No one, even the supposedly evil oil executive, has any reason to want anything different. But, for some reason, we find ourselves searching for villains. Surely they exist, but the endless quest to create them sometimes overwhelms our better judgment, whether intentional or not. Congress has picked "Big Oil" as their enemy of the week. These companies inexplicably put profits above people, ravaging the...

Republicans teach Americans to believe. Democrats teach Americans to hate. The Republican impulse is found in the inherent faith and hope of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The Democrat impulse is found in the essential envy and anger of Marxism. Like the oil companies. In the face of rising gasoline and diesel costs, Democrats in the Congress want Americans to hate the oil companies. In hearings this week, the CEOs of several oil companies were vilified by Democrats in Congress who used the proceedings as a chance to prance and preen for the television cameras. The gist and thrust...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The American Automobile Association of California said some drivers are now paying up to $5 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. Crude oil prices hit an all-time high Wednesday, above $98 a barrel and analysts said with worldwide oil demand rising -- it is still not clear just how high prices will go. In Salinas, AAA recorded an average of $3.39 per gallon. Santa Cruz is at an average of $3.37 per gallon. KSBW checked and found gas in Gorda, south of Big Sur, is even higher. Drivers there are paying $5 for gas. Over the past...

News Analysis What’s America’s energy IQ? “Not as high as it should be,” Dr. John Felmy told the Boca Raton News. “In fact, we were very surprised at how much confusion and misinformation was revealed by the survey.” There’s been a survey? What survey? Dr. Felmy smiles – the smile of a man who’s warming to his subject. The survey, conducted for the American Petroleum Institute (API) by well-known public opinion surveyors, Harris Interactive, shows that “most U.S. adults have a fundamental lack of knowledge regarding energy demand and supplies and the role of America's oil and natural gas companies,”...

by Mark Finkelstein September 14, 2006 - 18:19 When Ben Cardin, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland, appeared on this afternoon's Hardball, host Chris Matthews played a Cardin TV ad, most of which was taken up by Cardin informing voters that: "I always try to do what's right, what's in the best interest of Maryland families: taking on the drug companies, the oil companies, the insurance companies." Let's first note Cardin's daring admission that he tries to do 'what's right.' Controversial stuff. Actually, come to think of the track record of Maryland politicians when it comes to obeying...

The army has decided to end a controversial multibillion-dollar contract with Halliburton, the oil services company, to provide logistics support to US forces in Iraq. Under a new contracting scheme, to be launched late this year, three contractors will be used for the army's contracted logistics work, such as providing meals, washing clothes, transporting fuel and delivering mail. An additional contract will be awarded to a single company to manage the workload. Army officials said the change would improve planning and accountability, and provide better contingency options if one contractor performed poorly. But the shift comes amid charges from government...

Royal Dutch Shell, the world's top marketer of biofuels, considers using food crops to make biofuels "morally inappropriate" as long as there are people in the world who are starving, an executive said on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT click here Eric G Holthusen, Fuels Technology Manager Asia/Pacific, said the company's research unit, Shell Global Solutions, has developed alternative fuels from renewable resources that use wood chips and plant waste rather than food crops that are typically used to make the fuels. Holthusen said his company's participation in marketing biofuels extracted from food was driven by economics or legislation. "If we have the...

In 1996 a number of EV-1 electric cars began appearing on California's highways. The General Motors-produced vehicle was fast, ran quietly, produced no polluting exhaust and it ran without gasoline and then, suddenly, it was gone. The documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, from producer Dean Devlin and filmmaker Chris Paine, chronicles the life and mysterious death of the groundbreaking vehicle, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business. Filmmakers make the case that the death of the EV-1 was, in fact, a murder. They claim to show that...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Natural-gas futures closed under $5 per million British thermal units Thursday for the first time in 16 months after a government report pegged inventories of the commodity at more than 2 trillion cubic feet, spurring market concerns over a potential supply glut. "In an average year, we usually don't see 2 [trillion cubic feet] in storage until July," said Ben Smith, a managing partner at First Enercast Financial. "We are almost two months early this year." June natural-gas futures traded as low as $5.86 per million British thermal units, its weakest levels since late Jan. 2005....

I am writing this letter in answer to article concerning high gas prices, in the May 3 edition of the Calvert Independent. In addressing the high gasoline prices, I am not surprised to see the slant, or “spin,” that the greedy oil companies are the blame for the high prices. It never fails to amaze me when liberal minds continually spout the talking points spewed forth daily by the media. Why are gasoline prices high? Who is to blame? First, we have the onerous fuel blend regulations of the Carol Browner EPA of 1997, creating nearly 30 fuel blends nationwide....

The U. S. Congress is making noise again, this time in regard to high gasoline prices. But their concern is insincere. Just look at the huge smile on the face of Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) when he warns us about the possibility of $4.00 per gallon gasoline. The Democrats and some liberal Republicans charge "price gouging." Even Bill O'Reilly has jumped on the "gouging" bandwagon. This shows that they do not understand economics. I'm as upset about high gasoline prices as anyone else is. But let's put the blame where it's due. The oil companies do not control the price...

Gas prices are soaring again, and are expected to surpass last September’s high of $3.07 a gallon after Hurricane Katrina. Yet this time, there is no Hurricane Katrina to provide an obvious reason why. Both Republicans and Democrats are blaming the oil companies. Bush and Congressional Democrats are calling for a repeal of tax breaks to oil companies. Politically, attacking the oil companies while gas prices are high is fairly safe, because many people already view them as faceless corporate entities that trash the environment while emptying their pocketbooks. In reality, this criticism is shortsighted because the oil companies are...

<p>Arizona's comprehensive investigation into that state's high fuel prices after Hurricane Katrina concludes that while there was "profiteering" at all levels of the oil industry, nothing illegal took place.</p> <p>Washington's attorney general's office said in a report last week that its more recent investigation of today's high prices "has not found any evidence so far of illegal activity among gasoline retailers or producers in Washington."</p>

April 28, 2006 Berkeley, California This week's three dollar-a-gallon gasoline forced us to get rid of Scooter's old gas-hog Ford Taurus for something more efficient. All our friends and many Hollywood celebrities are driving Toyota Priuses now, so that's what Scooter wanted. He's very ecologically sensitive and had been wanting some "earth-friendly" wheels for a long time. After selling some items for Pepe recently, he finally had enough cash for a down payment on a good used car. While sampling Pepe's latest, we went online and carefully researched prices on used Priuses and the trade-in value of the Taurus. It...

And if the federal and state government eliminate gasoline taxes, the price will drop further to $2.50 per gallon, in some states (to $2.61 in my state).

Alternative energy researchers are hoping that California voters get a chance to act on their rage against oil companies at the ballot box in November--and alternative energy companies are pointing to the initiative as the boost needed to get the industry off the ground. However, critics of a new initiative effort say the main beneficiaries would be the venture capitalists behind the campaign. The group Californians for Clean Alternative Energy is gathering signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot that would impose a tax on oil production in California. The Clean Alternative Energy Act would place a tax...

"I don't blame Exxon for making the profits ... it's a busines; it's owned by pensioners and widows and retirees. It's fine if they get the money because it's going back to the American stockholders." So said Ben Stein, Economist, author of "Yes, You Can Become a Successful Income Investor! Reaching for Yield in Today's Market," actor and former Nixon speechwriter on "Your World with Neil Cavuto." "The amount of profit on each gallon of gasoline is between six and eight cents. If you cut out all the profit so that Exxon/Mobil went out of business, and Conoco went out...

To begin at somewhere near the end, I am at a gas station in the small town of Calimesa in the high desert between Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage. It's late at night, maybe 10 p.m., and it's cold. My wife and I are getting gasoline to put in our old Caddy and complete the drive home to make sure our son goes to school tomorrow. As I pay the kindly attendant, George, a man who actually greets me, checks the oil, and pats our dogs, my head is spinning and it's spitting out thoughts like a mad laser printer....

WASHINGTON - The chiefs of five major oil companies defended the industry's huge profits Wednesday at a Senate hearing where lawmakers said they should explain prices and assure people they're not being gouged. There is a "growing suspicion that oil companies are taking unfair advantage," Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., said as the hearing opened in a packed Senate committee room. "The oil companies owe the country an explanation," he said. Lee Raymond, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., said he recognizes that high gasoline prices "have put a strain on Americans' household budgets" but he defended his...

It is my considered opinion, backed by 37 years of radio yammering, that 98.4% of the people in this country who use the word “fascist” have no idea what the word actually means. Ditto for “Nazi.” Being in a helpful mood I embark here on an educational effort so that some of us might actually recognize fascism when it truly does rear it’s ugly head, as it did this week from the mouth of Senator Charles Grassley (R- IA), the chairman of Senate Finance Committee. Grassley has apparently decided that free enterprise no longer works for America. (The truth here...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amid record-high earnings from oil companies, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Thursday ordered a Senate hearing with testimony from major oil company executives on why energy prices are high. The unexpected announcement by the chamber's top Republican showed the growing political pressure as American consumers brace for higher winter heating costs at the same time energy companies are reporting fat profits. "If there are those who abuse the free enterprise system to advantage themselves and their businesses at the expense of all Americans, they ought to be exposed, and they ought to be ashamed," Frist said...

Larry Schweiger, President of the National Wildlife Federation, has e-mailed supporters that Sarah James, spokesperson for the Gwich'in tribe of native Alaskans, is in Washington to tell Congress the "truth" about proposed oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and will stay there until Congress votes. Gwich'in objections to drilling have been the centerpiece of environmentalist opposition for years. It's a compelling story. A poor Alaskan native tribe, calling itself "the Caribou people," fights desperately to save the Porcupine Caribou herd, which roams the region, providing the tribe's sustenance. But that is not the whole story; it is...

There is good news and bad news about gasoline. First the good news.... Gasoline could be given away with technology already available. The bad news is that the oil companies will not allow it. Check out this link Oil independence It will open your eyes as to a process that will allow the United States to get out of the Middle east, give us energy independence and allow us to say to the rest of the world stick your oil up your greedy little cans. The only problem with this is the oil companies are in cahoots with the government...

NEW YORK Apr 14, 2005 — Four more people were charged Thursday in the scandal in the U.N. oil-for-food program, including a Texas oil executive and a South Korean businessman who was at the center of a 1970s corruption case involving Congress. ~snip~U.S. Attorney David Kelley called the new charges "two more pieces in the oil-for-food puzzle" and said the investigation is not over. ~snip~One of the indictments announced Thursday charges a Texas oil company owner and two oil traders with paying millions in secret kickbacks to Saddam's regime to secure oil deals, thus cheating the program out of money...

We’ve all been had. The bottom has long since fallen out of the key group that master-minded the Kyoto Protocol credit scheme, but nobody seemed to have joined the dots. It all began with the flight of Canadian Maurice Strong’s Earth Council from Costa Rica as noted by the National Post’s Peter Foster in May, 2004. With no fanfare, the Earth Council landed in CH2M Hill’s Consumer Road Toronto office towers. The Costa Rican government has been pursuing the Earth Council for payment of U.S.$1.65 million, for the wrongful sale of a tract of land it imprudently donated to the...

With gas prices higher than ever, and economists speculating that things are only going to get worse before they get better, it's not surprising that average Americans want to know why saying "fill 'er up" at the pumps these days may result in them being forced to sell a kidney on eBay in order to pay for it. While several factors come into play, the current price of crude oil, which is now around $50 a barrel, accounts for roughly half of the total cost of gasoline to consumers. About a quarter of the price we pay can be attributed...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iraq called Friday for a widening of the investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food program and demanded the immediate return of money in the U.N. account that paid for administration of the humanitarian relief effort. Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie also reiterated the government's demand that the United Nations stop using oil-for-food money to pay for the independent investigation into the program led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. "It is outrageous that Iraqi funds were mismanaged and then we have to pay for finding out about the mismanagement," he told a news conference a...

Paul Volcker was picked by U.N. Sec retary-General Kofi Annan to head an "independent" panel to investi gate the Oil-for-Food scandal ostensibly because of the former Federal Reserve chairman's international credibility. But credibility, like fame, can be fleeting — and Volcker's is fading fast. [snip] As Fox News Channel's Jonathan Hunt reported yesterday, Volcker is smack in the middle of the interlocking global corporations that appear to lie at the very heart of the scandal. Proceed slowly; it's complicated: [snip] * Volcker, along with a close friend named Paul Desmarais, Sr., sits on the advisory council of a Canadian...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Back when federal lawmakers legally could be paid for speaking to outside groups, John Kerry collected more than $120,000 in fees from interests as diverse as big oil, tobacco, the liquor lobby and unions, records show. Between 1985 and 1990, Kerry's first five years in the Senate from Massachusetts, he pocketed annual amounts slightly under the limits for speaking fees set by Congress. Unlike many colleagues, he donated a speaking fee to charity only once, according to annual financial disclosure reports reviewed by The Associated Press. One of the companies to pay Kerry $1,000 for a speech...

The FBI has warned energy companies about unconfirmed allegiations that Islamic militants, as of Mid-April were targeting U.S. petroleum terminals, pipelines, refineries and ships.The warning says there are indications that extremists are actively seeking detailed information on the operations of U.S. oil companies and considering the impact that disruptions could have on the nations economy. 2253 GMT

The Anti-Capitalist, Radical Environmentalists are Coming to Texas What: Join us in Dallas on May 28 and 29, 2002, to rally for capitalism, democracy and the American way of life. A major international movement by radical "green" socialists is coming to Dallas Texas. Their goal: shut down Exxon/Mobil and other free market corporations. The "thugs" are just uneducated radicals but the leaders of the movement know that in order to have no competition for their "green" fuel, U.S. companies must be shut down. They have been successful abroad and are moving their game plan to the U.S. These are the...

As soon as the campaign-finance-reform bill won final passage last week, it became fashionable to dismiss it as too weak to clean up the money game. But if President Bush signs the bill, as he says he will, and if it survives a court challenge, it will put a damper on at least one type of feeding frenzy: soft-money bacchanals like the one last May, when 3,000 gathered at the D.C. Armory for a black-tie gala honoring the new President. In his speech, George W. Bush noted Washington's "many temptations," one of which is its money culture, and said he...