News
May 15, 2013
Oil tanker trade grows fastest in a decade
Oil tanker trade is growing at its fastest rate in a decade as the boom in US production forces exporters that in the past supplied the American market to seek new customers further afield.
May 15, 2013
IEA: North American oil to dominate world supply growth
North American oil production will dominate world-wide supply growth over the next five years, the International Energy Agency predicted Tuesday, the result of growing production from "fracking" and other technologies that access once-inaccessible reserves.
It is a shift that few predicted five years ago, and will come at the expense of producers like members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that have for years dominated the industry.
May 15, 2013
New fracking rules seen favoring drillers
Federal officials are set to release proposed standards for hydraulic fracturing on government land as soon as this week, with both industry and environmentalists saying the rules are likely to be less onerous for drillers.
The proposal from the Bureau of Land Management would establish the first-ever national regulations on federal lands for fracking, in which water, chemicals and sand are shot underground to free oil or gas from rock. A draft rule last year was so heavily criticized by companies and Republicans in Congress that the agency, part of the Interior Department, went back to the drawing board.
May 06, 2013
U.S. crude oil exports rise sharply
US crude oil exports are flowing at the fastest rate in more than a decade in the latest sign of how the shale revolution is redrawing the world energy map.
May 06, 2013
Interior Department boosts estimates of oil and gas resources in North Dakota
A federal reassessment of oil-and-gas resources in North Dakota found the state holds twice as much shale oil — and three times as much gas — than was previously estimated.
Technological advancements have made the unconventional fossil fuels in North Dakota’s Three Forks formation “technically recoverable,” the Interior Department's United States Geological Survey (USGS) announced Tuesday.
And by rolling Three Forks into the Bakken shale formation, the region that spans North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana could now produce 7.4 billion barrels of oil, 6.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 0.53 billion barrels of natural gas liquids.
May 06, 2013
Obama backs rise in U.S. gas exports
The Obama administration has signaled support for more plants to export liquefied natural gas, as the US embraces its surging energy production as a key new element of its national security policy.
May 06, 2013
House to vote on Keystone XL bill in May
The House will consider — and likely pass — a bill this month to expedite construction of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said in a Friday memo.
“In line with our underlying principles for legislation and our goal of helping make life work for American families and businesses, I expect the House to have a full legislative agenda in May. We will push the administration to finally approve the Keystone pipeline delivering much needed jobs and lower energy prices for families,” the memo said.
April 29, 2013
The dark side of energy independence
Just as the world was writing off America as a declining power, the country now finds itself on the cusp of realizing one of its longstanding goals: energy independence.
A wave of new technologies has made it possible to extract oil and gas from shale rock formations, and the results have been astonishing. By some estimates, the United States is on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer as early as 2017, start exporting more oil and gas than it imports by 2025, and achieve full energy self-sufficiency by 2030.
American politicians in both parties have long dreamed of energy independence — not only for its potential economic benefits, but also because it could free the United States from the vicissitudes of the outside world.
April 29, 2013
GOP moves away from entitlements and toward tax reform in budget deal
With another fight over the national debt brewing this summer, congressional Republicans are de-emphasizing their demand for politically painful cuts to retirement programs and focusing on a more popular prize: a thorough rewrite of the U.S. tax code.
Reining in spending on Social Security and Medicare remains an important policy goal for the GOP. But House leaders launched a series of meetings last week aimed at convincing rank-and-file lawmakers that tax reform is both wise policy and good politics and should be their top priority heading into talks with Democrats over the need to raise the federal debt limit.
April 29, 2013
Baucus untethered by politics seeks path to tax rewrite
Max Baucus, declaring himself “unconstrained” by electoral politics for the first time since coming to Congress in 1975, placed a 20-month clock on his efforts to push a tax-code rewrite through the U.S. Senate.
