Oil | featured news

Oil giant BP is back in the black, announcing profits of $5.3 billion just a year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster left it facing heavy losses.

The U.S. trade deficit surged in May to the highest level in more than two and a half years, driven upward by a big increase in oil imports.

Cleanup along the oil-fouled Yellowstone River could be tested as rising waters make it harder for Exxon to get to areas damaged by the crude spilled from a company pipeline.

A Baltimore County jury has ordered Exxon Mobil to pay more than $1.5 billion in damages involving an underground gasoline leak at a rural Maryland gasoline station.

The International Energy Agency says 28 countries have agreed to release 60 million barrels of crude to the market to offset disruptions prompted by Libya's war.

Oil consumption rose by its fastest rate since 2004 last year, according to the latest statistics from BP. The news came as members of the Opec oil cartel failed to agree on increasing oil production as a way of lowering prices. Analysts had expected the Vienna meeting to raise output. As a result, oil prices jumped again on fears of limited supply. The value of a barrel of Brent crude rose back above $118 a barrel.

Exxon disclosed oil-and-gas discoveries that it said rank among the largest in the Gulf of Mexico in the past decade.

Cuba and China have signed a series of economic accords that include the expansion of an oil refinery in Cienfuegos.

The U.S. economy is on increasingly unsteady footing, hurt by stubbornly high unemployment and volatile oil prices, the head of General Motors Co told reporters on Tuesday.

Congress should take steps to limit speculation in oil markets, which has boosted prices as much as 30 percent, a new report from the Democratic staff of a House of Representatives oversight committee said on Monday.