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The Trump administration moved Thursday to give oil and gas companies more flexibility in meeting safety requirements imposed after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed nearly a dozen people and was the worst offshore oil disaster in U.S. history. The revised rules, which govern safety standards at offshore wells, come as the administration pushes to expand drilling off the U.S. coast, although court challenges and opposition from many coastal states have slowed its efforts. The new safety changes were sought by the industry but fiercely challenged by environmentalists. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in a statement the administration...

Contrary to their own scientific intuition, Cornell researchers found that the body size of intertidal oysters didn’t change after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This offers evidence that either the mollusks recovered rapidly or that the accident lacked the severity to affect growth. After the initial explosion April 20, 2010, which sank the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible rig, about 3.2 million barrels of oil poured into the northern Gulf of Mexico until the well was capped July 15. The scientists believe that the travel distance of the oil gave it time to degrade, and bacterial...

Translated from Russian: The magazine apparently organized a photo shoot on the shores of the White Sea for the Mercedes-Benz GL450, a full-size sports utility vehicle, and didn’t realize it had captured the stealthy submarine cruising on the surface of the water in the background. The vessel, nicknamed, “Losharik” after a children’s movie, is part of the Russian navy’s Northern Fleet. The magazine image of Losharika may be the highest-quality open source photo of the boat to date. Filmed nuclear submarine was deep station AC-12 project 10831. The boat is the last of deep-built nuclear power stations, is part of...

The state of Florida on Saturday filed a lawsuit against BP and Halliburton over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The suit argues that Florida is entitled to the revenues it lost because of the spill. These include a long list of lost taxes -- sales, corporate, cigarette, liquor -- and other forms of revenue...

WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) -- Washington has given Petrobras America Inc. permission to start oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, a regulator said. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement gave Petrobras approval to use a floating production storage offloading facility at its Cascade-Chinook project in the Gulf of Mexico. The approval marks the first time FPSO technology will be used in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The oil and gas project is about 165 miles off the coast of Louisiana in 8,200 feet of water. The FPSO has a production capacity of...

The cleanup technique used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico actually made the spilled oil more than 50 times more toxic than doing nothing, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico. The findings were published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

(NewsCore) - Eyeless shrimp, fish with oozing sores and other mutant creatures found in the Gulf of Mexico are raising concerns over lingering effects of the BP oil spill. On April 20, 2010, an explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf, in the worst offshore oil spill in US history. Two years later, scientists and commercial fishers alike are finding shrimp, crab and fish that they believe have been deformed by the chemicals unleashed in the spill, according to an extensive report by Al Jazeera English.

BP won approval from the Interior Department to drill its first exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico since the blowout of its Macondo well a year and a half ago touched off the country’s worst offshore environmental disaster. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said that BP met more stringent safety requirements devised by the federal government in the aftermath of the disaster. The company also planned to follow even tougher voluntary standards that exceeded the government’s rules. “This permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer, and containment capability reviews,” said bureau director Michael...

What cost have we paid for the president’s permitorium on new lease auctions (only just ended this summer) and drilling permit approvals which are still well below the levels we need? Unlike many rhetorical questions, this is one which we will eventually learn the answer to. A piece of the puzzle fell into place this week when Chevron, finally getting back to work after long delays, announced the discovery of another, potentially significant US energy deposit in the gulf. SAN RAMON, Calif., Sept. 6, 2011 – Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) today announced a new oil discovery at the Moccasin prospect...

In the next week, how many times will you hear that the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil spill was the worst environmental catastrophe in American history? This assessment was plausible when first uttered by President Obama almost a year ago, but now it’s clear that the worst never happened. The Deepwater spill has largely disappeared — dispersed, evaporated, and eaten by bacteria. Its impact on sea life appears minimal. Yet politicians, activists, trial lawyers, and environmental journalists persist in perpetuating this myth. Why? Pinning disasters on the environmental lobby’s hobby horse du jour defines the battlespace, increases the power of...

Federal study confirms microbes have eaten most of the Gulf Oil Spill A study by researchers from Texas A&M and University of California in Santa Barbara have found that all of the methane gas released from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been consumed by tiny microbes. Methane gas amounts 100,000 times higher than normal at the time of their release have completely disappeared after only 120 days. Some scientists had raised concerns that dissolved methane and other oil residue would continue to plague the Gulf for years or even decades. This is turning out not...

Mindful not to waste a perfectly good crisis, the Obama White House and influential congressional Democrats have seized the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster to assert a continuing stranglehold control over offshore drilling operations. On Dec. 1 Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's seven-year extended prohibition on new oil and gas development off the Florida and eastern Atlantic coasts is once again adding enormous penalties to our already ailing economy and employment market. Costs include many thousands of lost high-skilled job opportunities, increased energy and product prices, more industry relocations overseas and greater dependence upon foreign oil imports. The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil &...

The Obama administration on Tuesday plans to announce that it is lifting the moratorium on deep-water oil drilling, after putting in place new rules intended to tighten safety. President Obama imposed the moratorium after the blowout of a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 led to the largest maritime oil spill in American history. But the White House has come under intense pressure from the industry and from regional officials and businesses that have complained about the economic impact. “The process is coming to its natural end,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told reporters...

The New York Times devoted a big chunk of its front page one day last week to noting that much of the spilled BP Deepwater Horizon oil has "dissipated." Most of it, in fact. And to scant noticeable ill-effect -- at least so far -- relative to the apocalyptic rhetoric attending weeks of televised video footage that showed oil rushing from the ocean floor. It's not clear how much oil actually spilled; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute expert Dr. Judy McDowell estimates that between 96 million and 184 million gallons made its way into the Gulf before the leak was capped...

"In the chaotic aftermath of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a poorly orchestrated effort to knock down the towering blaze may have inadvertently led to the sinking of the platform, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and shared with ABC News. As part of an ongoing government investigation, Coast Guard officials are trying to reconstruct the initial response to the rig explosion that unleashed one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. One concern surrounds the use of briny seawater instead of fire-retardant foam to drench the rig. The Coast...

The damage inflicted by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill keeps on growing as it is now claiming young children among its innocent 'victims.' Faith-based organizations and bureaucrats are rushing to help limit the psychological damage that the disaster has wreaked on youngsters who are said to be exhibiting "behavioral changes" due to stress and anxiety, but it seems federal funds are being improperly used by Florida officials to pay for a portion of the mental 'relief' efforts. Beginning this week, children in grades K-6 who have shown signs of emotional stress and anxiety due to the oil spill are...

Droshky project in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico has started production. Located about 160 miles southwest of New Orleans, Droshky is expected to produce approximately 50,000 net barrels of oil per day at its peak, consisting of approximately 45,000 barrels per day of liquid hydrocarbons and 30 million cubic feet per day of natural gas.

Spanish firm plans exploratory drilling Florida Keys residents may be breathing a collective sigh of relief now that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has been capped, but the threat of oil reaching local shores is far from over, as there is a new threat looming. A foreign oil company plans to drill off Cuba, just 60 miles south of Key West, the Wall Street Journal has quoted Repsol spokeswoman Maria Ritter as saying. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson in May sent President Barack Obama a letter stating he was "greatly concerned by reports that Spanish oil giant Repsol has contracted with...

Politics: The Export-Import Bank wanted to stop the export of U.S. coal-mining equipment to India. But it seems coal isn't so bad, and green isn't all that special, when the re-election of a senator is affected. President Obama journeyed to Wisconsin last Wednesday ostensibly to tout the success of his failed stimulus package(s). On the same day, the Ex-Im Bank announced it was reconsidering a denied loan guarantee affecting a Milwaukee-based company that sought to export coal-mining equipment to India. A coincidence? We think not. Wisconsin is in play in November and so is the Senate seat held by incumbent...

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been designated the lead state agency for responding to potential impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill along Florida’s shoreline. This website will serve as the primary location for updates and information on response actions and impacts to the state of Florida. On Tuesday, April 20, 2010 an offshore oil drilling platform, Deepwater Horizon, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana. The rig, owned by Transocean Ltd, was under contract to BP. Submerged at the bottom of the Gulf, the rig continues to discharge in the range of 35,000 to 60,000...