Free Republic

Energy: An oil company wants to invest its profits in clean-burning American natural gas. A Hungarian billionaire and a "green" politician want to stop it. This is the real Climate-gate scandal. While the greenies of the world united in Copenhagen to talk about the weather, emitting a Third World-country-size chunk of greenhouse gases to gather there, the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, was doing something about it. On Dec. 14, Exxon agreed to buy XTO Energy, a natural gas firm, in a deal valued at $41 billion. XTO is one of the leaders in something called "fracking" technology, in...

An out clause exists for Exxon in its merger with XTO Energy if Congress decides to regulate hydraulic fracturing, reported Russell Gold of the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog on Wednesday. Exxon will spend $41 billion to purchase XTO, an energy firm known for its expertise in natural gas drilling and production. XTO has invested heavily in the Marcellus Shale, a region in western New York and northern Pennsylvania which is home to large reservoirs of natural gas. However, obtaining this gas is difficult and requires the use of hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, in which thousands of gallons of...

Oil and natural-gas producer XTO Energy Inc. said it will buy closely held Hunt Petroleum Corp. for $4.19 billion in cash and stock, in a deal that highlights the changing of the guard in the U.S. oil patch. Hunt Petroleum, which traces its lineage to legendary wildcatter H.L. Hunt, is the largest in a series of private companies, many of them family-owned, that have sold to larger public companies in recent months. Large players are rushing to snap up assets in emerging oil and natural-gas fields, while small producers are seeking to cash in on holdings whose values have soared...