Free Republic

Despite the dire predictions of peak oil demand, which will is expected to arrive during the next decade as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy, international energy companies are investing heavily in fossil fuel exploration and production. One region which has caught the world by surprise and is attracting significant attention is the Guyana-Suriname Basin. A swathe of world-class discoveries by ExxonMobil in offshore Guyana sparked considerable interest in the Guyana-Suriname Basin, which after poor drilling results during the 1960s and 1970s saw it largely ignored by energy companies. Recent discoveries with estimated recoverable oil resources of more than...

South America is teetering on the edge of an armed conflict. #Venezuela argues that the #Esequibo region of #Guyana was unlawfully taken when the border was established over a century ago.

The United States said it will carry out military flights in Guyana on Thursday in a joint operation as the South American country faces soaring tensions with neighboring Venezuela over a contested oil-rich region. "In collaboration with the Guyana Defence Force, the U.S. Southern Command will conduct flight operations within Guyana on December 7," the American embassy in Guyana said in a statement, noting the flights are part of "routine engagement" to enhance a security partnership between the two countries.

The response by Israel to the October atrocities of Hamas seems to have roused the international Left into a furious frenzy. Widespread demonstrations supporting the Gazans’ slaughter continue on a daily basis in major cities around the world and, especially, on university campuses. The demonstrations feature thinly- or not-so-thinly-veiled calls for elimination of Israel as a state, and for violence against Jewish people. The demonstrators call the Jews every horrible thing they can think of, the very worst in their vocabulary being “settler colonialists.” Meanwhile, other comparable conflicts go on around the world without even a hint of interest from...

When Russia seized Crimea in March, it acquired not just the Crimean landmass but also a maritime zone more than three times its size with the rights to underwater resources potentially worth trillions of dollars. Russia portrayed the takeover as reclamation of its rightful territory, drawing no attention to the oil and gas rush that had recently been heating up in the Black Sea. But the move also extended Russia’s maritime boundaries, quietly giving Russia dominion over vast oil and gas reserves while dealing a crippling blow to Ukraine’s hopes for energy independence. Russia did so under an international accord...

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu skillfully “played” US President Donald Trump by plying him with inaccurate information, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson said. Netanyahu, who is fighting for his political life after close elections, was “a bit Machiavellian” and would share “misinformation” with the United States, according to Trump’s former top diplomat. […] “They did that with the president on a couple of occasions, to persuade him that ‘We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys.’ We later exposed it to the president so he understood, ‘You’ve been played,’” Tillerson said, according to the newspaper. […] Tillerson said he...

magine a state’s attorney general accepting staff who were paid by a foundation that was funded by an out of state billionaire who had financial and political interests he wanted advanced. These volunteer assistant attorneys general waste little time filing lawsuits against the billionaire’s adversaries in Minnesota. They pursue their actions knowing full well that even if they succeed, the only result will be higher prices for all Minnesotans. That’s exactly what is happening right now in the Minnesota attorney general’s office. Recently, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office filed a lawsuit against the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil, and...

The Big Three used the power they derive from investing other people’s money to force compliance with a radical political goal. A recent House Judiciary Committee report details how America’s largest financial institutions, colluding with climate activists, imposed radical environmental policies on the American economy, subverting both our self-government and free markets. It focuses on the successful effort to insert climate activist directors on the board of energy giant ExxonMobil. According to the report, there is “substantial evidence of a ‘climate cartel’ of financial institutions” including the “Big Three” asset managers (BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard), several massive state pension...

President-elect Donald Trump should keep the U.S. involved in global efforts to address climate change, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said Tuesday. Trump should try to bring a “common sense” approach to the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference and “continue to have the U.S. influence policy around the world,” Woods told CNBC Tuesday. Woods spoke from the climate conference, which kicked off this week in Baku, Azerbaijan. Exxon has plans to invest $20 billion through 2027 in carbon capture and storage technology, hydrogen fuel, and lithium mining in the U.S. for electric vehicle batteries. Woods told CNBC on Tuesday that...

The Supreme Court seemed to signal interest this week in taking up a challenge launched by Hawaii against big oil companies to hold them liable for climate change, and some Democrats are suggesting the high court is "captured" for the fossil fuel industry. The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Justice Department to weigh in on a petition to hear a lawsuit brought by the City of Honolulu against major fuel companies including Sunoco, Exxon and Chevron, claiming the companies’ products cause greenhouse gas emissions and global warming without warning consumers about the risks. The city employed a series of...

A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday said Exxon Mobil can sue to bar a climate change proposal from an activist investor, in a case that has raised concerns about its future effect on shareholder resolutions. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman for the Northern District of Texas ruled that Exxon’s lawsuit can proceed against Boston-based Arjuna Capital, but dismissed the oil major’s claim against a second activist shareholder, Follow This, because the firm is based in the Netherlands. Exxon sued the two investors in January after they submitted a proposal to be tabled at the May 29 annual shareholder meeting...

The Venezuelan Navy illegally entered the waters of Guyana this weekend and forced a ship contracted by Exxon Mobil to conduct oil research in the area to vacate, The incident, which Guyanese authorities angrily denounced and vowed to bring to the attention of the United Nations, reignites a feud Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro began with the neighboring country in 2015, claiming as much as two-thirds of Guyana itself belonged to Venezuela. Guyana has repeatedly noted that Venezuela signed an agreement in 1899 on the territory in question and no disputes remain as to who owns that land. Exxon Mobil...

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is claiming two former cabinet members tried to recruit her to help undermine the president. In a recent interview, Haley said former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly confronted her in a closed-door meeting to enlist her in opposing President Trump. Haley will detail the alleged meeting in her soon to be released memoir, “With All Due Respect.” She said Kelly and Tillerson “confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate — they were trying to save the...

Exxon Mobil is buying Pioneer Natural Resources in an all-stock deal valued at $59.5 billion, its largest buyout since acquiring Mobil two decades ago, creating a colossal fracking operator in West Texas. Including debt, Exxon is committing about $64.5 billion to the acquisition, leaving no doubt of the Texas energy company’s commitment to fossil fuels as energy prices surge. Pioneer shareholders will receive 2.32 shares of Exxon for each Pioneer share they own. Exxon purchased XTO Energy in 2009 for approximately $36 billion. In the late 1990s, the merger between Exxon and Mobil was valued around $80 billion. The deal...

Deal could be sealed in coming days, though it is still possible there won’t be one ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Exxon Mobil is closing in on a deal to buy Pioneer Natural Resources PXD a blockbuster takeover that could be worth roughly $60 billion and reshape the U.S. oil industry. A deal could be sealed as soon as in the coming days, though it is still possible there won’t be one, people familiar with the matter said. After posting a record profit in 2022, Exxon has been flush with cash and exploring options that would push it deeper into West Texas shale. An...

MAGNOLIA, Ark.—Slipping a handgun into his belt, the mayor of this small town hopped out of his 1995 Ford pickup and went in search of further evidence of a new energy boom. On the other side of freshly painted gate, Mayor Parnell Vann pointed out a squat blue spire of valves, bolts and pressure gauges attached to a long-dormant well—a telltale sign someone means to bring it back to life. On the thick-wooded back roads, crisscrossing fields where oil drillers gave up long ago, Vann found two more similar wells that day. These days, companies in the area aren’t looking...

Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) is planning to build one of the world's largest lithium processing facilities in Arkansas, with a capacity to produce 75K-100K metric tons/year of lithium, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.At that scale, the plant's production would equate to ~15% of all finished lithium produced globally last year.The giant project could be built in stages, with modular trains constructed together or in separate locations near its future lithium production sites in south Arkansas, according to the report.Other companies including Standard Lithium (SLI) and Tetra Technologies (TTI) are planning to build capacity in the area.The Smackover formation, a geologic...

N'DJAMENA, March 23 (Reuters) - Chad has nationalized all the assets and rights including hydrocarbon permits and exploration and production authorisations that belonged to a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), the Central African nation's energy and hydrocarbons ministry said in a statement on Thursday. Exxon Mobil said in December that it had closed the sale of its operations Chad and Cameroon to London-listed Savannah Energy (SAVES.L) in a $407 million deal, but the Chadian government contested the agreement, saying the final terms were different from what Exxon Mobil had presented. It warned that it may ask courts to block Savannah's...

The Biden administration is suing Exxon Mobil after several “nooses” were found between 2016 and 2020 in a Louisiana-based plant.According to the EEOC lawsuit (Fox News), the oil giant failed to take enough action in dealing with reports of nooses being found by black employees.In one January 2020 incident, a Black employee at the facility discovered a noose at his worksite and reported it to management. According to the lawsuit, the company was aware of three similar incidents at the facility in the last several years, with a fifth incident reportedly occurring in December 2020.The EEOC claims that the company...

RUSH: I had this story yesterday and I didn’t get to it. It’s a Bloomberg story based on an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by James A. Baker and George Shultz. Now, these two guys date back to the Republican Reagan administration. They are considered Republican royalty. They are called even by the Drive-Bys, they have so much respect now, they’re called elder statesmen in the Republican Party. And according to the Drive-Bys, Democrats, the Republicans don’t have any statesmen, period, but these two guys have written an op-ed pushing a carbon tax. And they had a meeting with...