Alaska Governor Sean Parnell’s push to open up ANWR’s area 1002 to exploration – and possibly oil and gas development somewhere down the road – may prove ill-timed, coinciding with an ongoing battle over the Keystone XL Pipeline, as well as escalating production and concerns generated by the shale revolution. Existing estimates suggest that ANWR… Keep reading →
Over two years later, the Gulf Coast is still struggling to recover from the 2010 BP oil spill. Perhaps the only silver lining to this deadly event was the fact that it revealed to the world just how unprepared oil companies are to prevent, contain, and clean up offshore spills. Faced with this ugly truth, scientists and inventors have been working to advance spill clean up technologies, so that the next time a spill occurs (and there will be a next time) we have something better than boom and dispersant to throw at it.
MIT has lead the charge in this quest for new clean up technologies. Just months after the BP oil spill began, they unveiled the Seaswarm–an autonomous robot that can navigate the surface of the ocean to collect surface oil and process it on site. Now, they’ve come up with an even simpler solution: a method for separating oil from water using magnets. Keep reading →
Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR) is evacuating all non-essential personnel from its operations in the Gulf of Mexico as the likelihood of a tropical storm in the region increases, the company said Friday.
The tragic Deepwater Horizon accident and devastating uncontrolled crude oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico deeply affected the oil and gas industry. The disaster prompted oil and gas industry trade group – API – to comprehensively re-evaluate and strengthen its offshore safety standards.
Specifically, API has “established a multi-layer system, with many built-in redundancies to help prevent incidents, to intervene and stop a release that might occur, and to manage and clean up spills,” Group Director of Upstream and Industry Operations Erik Milito told reporters during a recent question and answer session ahead of the two-year anniversary of the accident on April 20. Keep reading →
Shares of Royal Dutch Shell ticked lower on Thursday after the company said it spotted an “oil sheen” in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Netherlands-based oil and gas company notified the National Response Center of a light sheen in the central portion of the Gulf of Mexico between the Mars and Ursa production area. Keep reading →
