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Forecast from NOAA today give Hurricane Agatha a 40 percent chance of reforming he Bay of Campeche within 5 days!

The growth of Iran's navy, especially its plans to build a naval port in Syria, concerns Israel. As Iran continues to fight to become a global superpower, the Islamic Republic’s flag may soon be flying halfway across the globe on warships sent to the Gulf of Mexico, Iran’s new Navy commander has announced. “Our fleet of warships will be sent to the Atlantic Ocean in the near future and will visit one of the friendly states in South America and the Gulf of Mexico,” Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi was quoted by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency as...

The Gulf of Mexico’s Paleogene play, also known as the Lower Tertiary, has been described as the scene of a 21st century “gold rush” for the energy industry. It also has been characterized as an innovation rush. Both are true. The Lower Tertiary is estimated to contain between 14 and 40 billion barrels of oil—worth as much as $2.4 trillion at $50-$60 per barrel. Compared with total recent U.S. reserve estimates of 29 billion barrels, the scale of this ultradeepwater frontier is tremendous. The size of the Lower Tertiary prize is huge, but so are its challenges: water depths of...

The oil giant is spending billions to tap new oil fields in deepwater far offshore. Take an up-close look at how it’s done. “You saw Jack? What was it like?” Jason Morehouse, 35, is wearing navy-blue coveralls. Around six feet tall, he has a buzzcut under his hardhat and a thick goatee that extends about two inches below his chin. At the moment he’s giving me a tour of Tahiti—not the Polynesian island, but a $2.7 billion Chevron oil production platform about 190 miles south of New Orleans. Tahiti sits in more than 4,000 feet of water and is a...

The government watchdog group Judicial Watch is suing the Treasury Department for records pertaining to the department’s decision to grant a Chinese government-backed company access to oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, a move that will benefit Obama donors. The Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) reached a “definitive agreement” with Nexen, Inc., a Canadian energy company, announced on July 23, 2012, to buy all of the company’s outstanding public shares. Nexen has holdings in the Gulf of Mexico and Canada, giving the Chinese government access to millions of barrels of Keystone XL and Gulf reserve oil. - See...

Oil companies are once again squaring off with government regulators in the Gulf of Mexico. This time, its Exxon Mobil. The giant oil company is fighting to retain leases for the Julia field, what could be the biggest oil discovery in the Gulf ever, or at least since BP’s Thunder Horse field in 1999. The problem: the government claims Exxon’s leases for the field have expired. The Obama administration has been cracking down on unused offshore leases, which cost the Treasury royalties, the Wall Street Journal reported. Exxon seems to believe getting an extension on the lease was just a...

Chevron Corp. has approved a $7.5 billion project to develop two deep-water fields in the outer rim of the Gulf of Mexico, marking one of the oil and gas industry's biggest investments ever in the U.S. offshore area and a big vote for the future of the region after the BP oil spill. The decision on the Jack and St. Malo fields, which comes seven years after the first discovery there, sets in motion a sweeping effort to design and build a massive floating city about 280 miles southwest of New Orleans that is expected to produce its first barrels...

Too Much Debt, Not Enough Oil By Byron King 07/26/10 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – I just returned from the 2010 Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver, B.C. This year’s theme, “Assault on Enterprise,” provided a fascinating context for a wide range of investment insights and recommendations. According to many of this year’s presenters, the assault on American enterprise is intensifying. Because the government has been overpromising, overcommitting and overspending for decades, it is hurtling toward a fiscal train wreck. The numbers have stopped adding up. Looking out, there’s NO WAY that most Western governments can ever pay their ongoing obligations or...

The economic damage from the BP Plc spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be dwarfed by the Obama administration’s moratorium on deep-water drilling, the chief executive officer of a New Orleans business group said. The six-month drilling ban, which the U.S. Interior Department revised today following lawsuits from local businesses, may affect as many as 24,000 jobs in Louisiana, Michael Hecht, president and CEO of economic-development group Greater New Orleans Inc., told a presidential commission today.

Local Lousiana housewife reporting on BP internal meetings; family are all commercial fishermen.

As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and...

Obama has refused to waive the Jones Act. His Administration keeps putting the blame on the Coast Guard who puts the blame on others for not requesting the Jones Act be waived. Yet a simple Executive Order signed by Obama could waive the Jones Act in about 3 minutes, less time than it takes Obama to set up a tee on the golf course. The Gulf is in dire need of all the help it can get. When foreign entities with better expertise and equipment in oil spills offer to help, why is Obama refusing? While Obama dithers in his...

Commentary: Current devices good for data capture; limited on heavier tasksSAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- From the Florida Gulf coast to Monterey Bay, crews of scientific teams have been sending boats equipped with sea-faring robots to gather data from various points around the Gulf of Mexico from BP PLC's disastrous oil spill. These small, autonomous robots are in addition to the big, remote-controlled industrial robots used by BP in its efforts to try to stanch the gushing oil well 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface. The smaller bots, known as gliders, are slowly prowling in the Gulf, gathering data for groups...

MAP OF THE DAY: Tropical Storm Agatha Kills Over 100, And It's Heading For The Gulf Of Mexico Joe Weisenthal Jun. 1, 2010, 8:31 AM The NOAA has predicted a very active hurricane season this year, and the oil disaster in the Gulf only heightens the concern. Things are getting off to a bad start. This weekend, Tropical Depression Agatha killed over 100 in Central America. And look, it's heading through the Gulf of Mexico. Map via MonkeyFister.[snip]

James R. “Jim Bob” Moffett could have retired years ago with his legend fully intact. Today, however, in the twilight of a long, storied and sometimes controversial career, the 71-year-old oil and mining executive is taking what amounts to a victory lap. Moffett, co-chairman of New Orleans' McMoRan Exploration Co., is riding high again after the recent discovery of a major natural gas field in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, touted as the biggest there in decades. Called Davy Jones, the discovery is significant for more than its size: It is in an ancient layer of sediment...

The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast. Offshore oil production makes economic sense. It creates jobs and helps fulfill America's vast energy needs. It contributes to the gross domestic product and does not increase the trade deficit. Higher oil supply helps keep...

The Director of Minerals Management Service, Liz Birnbaum, will participate in the Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 213 in New Orleans on March 17. She will open the Federal oil and gas lease sale at 9 a.m. CDT at the Louisiana Superdome with brief remarks. Following the bid reading, she will hold a media availability to discuss the results of the sale. The sale, held by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS), encompasses 6,958 unleased blocks covering more than 36.9 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Approximately 4.1 million unleased acres in the "181...

Oil production could grow by more than 50 percent in the Gulf of Mexico over the next decade if the industry keeps digging deeper to tap resources, the federal agency that oversees oil and gas activity off the nation's coastlines said Tuesday. "With the continued interest and activity in the deep- water area of the Gulf, we anticipate that oil and gas production will continue to be strong, with a large portion of the production coming from the projects in deeper water depths," Lars Herbst, acting regional director of the Gulf for the Minerals Management Service, said at the Offshore...

The shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, once a hotbed for natural gas exploration, are starting to look a little empty. In recent months, dozens of jack-up drilling rigs, which sit atop retractable legs that stand on the seafloor, have shipped out of the area. Left behind is the lowest number of the rigs seen in the Gulf in 28 years. The rigs, which generally operate in 400 feet of water or less, are leaving for more favorable contracts in the Middle East, West Africa and Latin America, where rig supplies are tight and demand is high. The decision...

Havana, Mar 22 (Prensa Latina) Cuban and foreign experts highlighted on Wednesday the importance of the Gulf of Mexico as a regional oil area of potential economic interest. This thesis was put forward by experts from Mexico, Cuba and Canada during the 1st Congress on Oil and Gas, currently in session in the Havana Convention Center. Speaking before delegates from 19 countries, Mexican Emilio Miranda explained that only the external limits of the Gulf have been systematically explored in its coastal plain and continental platform so far. Also Mexicans Arturo Arvate and Felipe Ortuno, and Cuban Mario Ramirez agreed that...