Oil, Energy | featured news

Oil and natural gas companies are not exploring, developing or producing on more than 20 million acres of federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico, 40 percent of them owned by the five biggest private oil giants, according to a study by the office of Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

California's average gasoline prices rose 13 cents to $4.26 in the second quarter of 2012, a 3.1 percent increase compared to last year's second quarter average price of $4.13 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Even as oil prices drop to some of its lowest levels at $88 per barrel.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday that Royal Dutch Shell would be allowed to start “certain limited preparatory activities” for oil drilling in the environmentally sensitive waters off Alaska’s northwest coast.

Americans are not happy with the government. But for the first time in a long while, it is not the most hated industry in the country. That honor now belongs to the oil and gas industry.

A fire burned for a third day in two fuel storage tanks at Venezuela's biggest refinery on Monday, putting in doubt plans to quickly restart the facility after one of the worst accidents to hit the global oil industry for decades.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will lay out policies on Thursday aimed at achieving North American energy independence by 2020 by pursuing a sharp increase in production of oil and natural gas on federal lands and off the U.S. coast.

Even as President Barack Obama considers using U.S. oil stockpiles to halt rising gasoline costs in an election year, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday shows economic pain at the pump is not a big concern for voters.

An oil tanker collided with a U.S. Navy destroyer near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday but no one was hurt and shipping traffic in the waterway, through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil exports pass, was not affected, officials said.

A massive fire that shut down Chevron Corp's large Richmond, California, refinery on Monday, was extinguished by the early hours of Tuesday, Chevron said, leaving residents and oil traders seeking answers to the hours-long blaze.

Exxon Mobil Corp, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, posted lower-than-expected quarterly earnings on Thursday as its oil and gas output sagged and its chemicals business struggled.