Slow and steady wins the race, according to Chevron, a company that is actually increasing its US upstream capital budget this year. Chevron started slow in the Permian Basin and watched what other companies were doing while it honed its drilling strategy. Now that oil prices are considerably lower than they were at the beginning… Keep reading →
The Obama administration has released plans to open up the US Atlantic coast to offshore oil drilling for the first time. Drilling in the Atlantic had been banned for decades, but the ban expired in 2008. The Obama administration declined to issue leases in the Atlantic after the ban expired, and clamped down even tighter… Keep reading →
Major steel manufacturer US Steel announced layoffs in excess of 700 employees and said deteriorating market conditions were to blame. “’This action is a result of a decline in tubular market conditions, which is impacting demand for the plant’s products,’ U.S. Steel wrote in a letter addressed to USW President Leo Gerard.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] Excelerate… Keep reading →
For a stark on-the-ground report from Williston, North Dakota – widely considered the hub of Bakken Shale oil & gas development – read this story written by Brooklyn-based freelance journalist Laura Gottesdiener. The piece provides a glimpse inside the North American oil & gas production boom that often gets lost in the maze of production… Keep reading →
Alarmist media reports regarding oil’s foray into bear market territory could easily leave you thinking the oil industry is gasping its last breath. It certainly is not, as companies involved in the global oil complex are accustomed to commodity price volatility and most have experienced similar, if not worse, market corrections. In fact, over the… Keep reading →
As US- and EU-led economic sanctions against Russian energy players crank up, the degree to which Western interests could be collaterally damaged is again being called into question. The EU has shied away from sanctioning Russian gas industry participants because the bloc is so reliant on Russian gas supply, but oil market pressure could also… Keep reading →
US oil-directed drilling rigs reached 1,443 last week, which is the highest level recorded since Baker Hughes separated its oil and gas rig counts in 1987. “One could argue that all of the increase in the oil rig count this week was because of the Permian,” James Williams, president of WTRG Economics in London, Arkansas,… Keep reading →
You can’t un-ring that bell, but Total CEO Christophe de Margerie laments the fact “hydraulic fracturing” became the widely accepted terminology for the controversial well completion technology. De Margerie’s dissatisfaction with the term appears to stem from a belief that it sounds overly complex and scares the general public. The French oil major’s chief made… Keep reading →
As the courts continue to decipher myriad legal issues stemming from pollution that occurred decades ago in an Ecuadorian rainforest region, today Chevron won a decision that stated a previous multibillion dollar judgment had been obtained by fraud. The pollution occurred during oil development activities undertaken by Texaco and national oil company Petroecuador from the… Keep reading →
The Wattenberg field is not a new shale play you are just hearing about, it’s produced 2.8 Tcf of gas since its discovery in 1970 and much of that output was made possible by hydraulic fracturing. This Forbes piece argues fracking is not new or untested, as many opponents claim, and the practice has been… Keep reading →
