Free Republic

The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write. No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007. Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former...

Currently, Europe's ability to power itself is almost completely dependant on Russian energy supplies. Today, almost half of the EU's natural gas imports come from Russia along with 30 percent of its oil supplies. As such, there is an increasing desire to diversify the continent's energy suppliers -- enter the Nabucco Pipeline. Dubbed the 'Gas bridge between Asia and Europe', the €7.9 billion, 3300km-long pipeline will attempt to break Russian dependency by exploiting the gas reserves in the Caspian and Middle East regions. Snaking through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and into Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, the Nabucco Pipeline...

A detailed look at the largest Oil Companies, how they operate and who the major players in the field are. The Oil Companies take a lot of Flak, but are they as bad as you think? Companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Royal Dutch Shell now produce only 10% of the world's oil and gas and hold a mere 3% of its reserves. Big Oil’s primary “Movers & Shakers” according to “The Financial Times,” are: Aramco of Saudi Arabia, CNPC of China, Gazprom of Russia, NIOC of Iran, PDVSA of Venezuela, , Petrobras of Brazil, as well as Petronas of...

I have made no secret of my distaste for big oil. So, now, I will build a case why it would not only be beneficial for society to break them up, but, under Sherman Anti Trust it is perfectly legal. Here is the relevant portion. The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act,[1] July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. § 1–7) was the first United States Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies. It falls under antitrust law.

2009-Jan 01/05 173.7 01/12 183.5 01/19 189.8 01/26 189.0 2009-Feb 02/02 194.4 02/09 197.8 02/16 201.6 02/23 196.3 2009-Mar 03/02 198.8 03/09 199.3 03/16 196.4 03/23 201.4 2009-Apr 04/06 209.0 04/13 210.4 04/20 211.2 04/27 210.2 2009-May 05/04 212.9 05/11 229.0 05/18 236.0 05/25 248.5 2009-Jun 06/01 257.2 06/08 267.3 sourceYou may notice that the average retail price of gas that President Obama inherited was around $1.89. Five months into the Obama presidency, the price has increased by 41%. The price spikes of 2008 brought calls for nationalization of the oil industry by a handful of Democrats, but at...

Companies: After an all-out war on oil companies from the left in recent years, it bodes well for the future to see Big Oil now recognizing the attack it's under and its duty to fight back. Witness Chevron and Exxon Mobil.Shareholder meetings can be pro forma affairs, but not for major oil companies, which have become a lightning rod for the anti-corporate sentiment gaining traction in U.S. political life since around 2006. Wednesday, Chevron was descended upon by a zoo-full of San Francisco leftists pushing rain forest sentimentalism, Burma, and other pet causes dear to the no-soap crowd. They journeyed...

Less money in the pockets of Americans means fewer highway deaths. As the economy slid deeper into recession and gas prices reached $4 a gallon last year, the number of people killed in auto accidents hit its lowest level in five decades. In addition to fewer miles logged by drivers worried about expenses, experts also cited record-high seat-belt use, tighter enforcement of drunken driving laws and the work of advocacy groups that encourage safer driving habits. Preliminary figures released by the government Monday show that 37,313 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year. That's 9.1 percent lower than...

HOUSTON - Plunging crude prices have begun to play out in favor of Western oil companies in one regard, giving them leverage with oil-rich countries that only months ago had no reason to compromise. > But there are risks involved. >

Last week, as a friend of mine and I were discussing the energy business, an acquaintance of ours came into the room. When told the topic of discussion, she immediately denounced Exxon Mobil. She'd just heard on the radio that the energy giant had had a record $45.2 billion profit in 2008. She was clearly hoping that we would join in her disgust. I asked, "So are you suggesting that Exxon should not make money?" I went on, "Would you prefer that Exxon be like AIG, or Citigroup, or one of the big Wall Street outfits that's now asking for...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez finished nationalizing his country's oil industry in 2007 by transferring the last holdings of foreign firms to the government-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). But with oil prices way down and production falling because the PDVSA's ineptitude — it's a jobs bank for his cronies — Chavez is courting Big Oil again. Incredibly, 19 companies are paying $1 million or more to hop back in the sack with him. Those that win stakes in his new oil ventures will remain junior partners until crude prices rise sufficiently and he kicks them out of the country again....

The party’s over for Big Oil. That may not be immediately evident as the world’s largest publicly traded oil majors reveal their annual 2008 profits in the coming days. But oil’s swift fall in late 2008 paints a starkly different picture for those last three months and possibly well into 2010. “The air has gone out of the tires, the wind’s gone out of the sails,” said John Olson, an analyst with Sanders Morris Harris in Houston.

Apologize and do it now, Barack Obama, John McCain and all you members of Congress who ranted about Big Oil's price-gouging and the way future-markets speculators were abusing the wallets of consumers at the gas pump. Those prices have come down to the lowest level in almost four years, something like $2 a gallon on the average, and you know why — slackening demand caused chiefly by a worldwide economic downturn. [snip] As for speculators, it might help if you political critics read the experts enough to have at least some vague notion of what they do and how they...

HOUSTON, Nov. 7 -- Concerns about a faltering world economy continued to drive down energy prices to a 20-month low for crude Nov. 6 in the New York market. Before the New York market opened Nov. 7, the US Department of Labor reported that the US economy lost 240,000 jobs in October—the 10th consecutive month of cuts. The loss exceeded analysts' expectations of a 200,000-job loss. The unemployment rate jumped to 6.5% from 6.1% in September, surpassing Wall Street expectations of a 6.3% drop. That is the highest unemployment rate since March 1994. So far this year, the US has...

ConocoPhillips' Push for Global Warming Regulations Could Lead to the Next Government Takeover by Tom Borelli Bad decisions by CEOs are at the core of our economic crisis. Throwing caution to the wind, chief executives in the financial industry took enormous risks by placing huge bets on financial instruments based on mortgages. Abandoning common sense and basic economic principles, CEOs failed to execute proper risk management by contemplating the consequences of a downturn in the housing market. The harm caused by incompetent CEOs extends well beyond shareholders – it also threatens the conservative principles of limited government and free...

Falling energy prices are good news for consumers. The trend could also provide surprisingly welcome relief to another constituency: big oil companies. Surging crude oil and gasoline prices powered global energy companies to a string of record profits in the past year. On Wednesday, ConocoPhillips continued the pattern, kicking off the industry's third-quarter earnings season with a 41% jump in profit. But commodities markets have changed direction. The economic slowdown spreading around the world has lowered demand for fossil fuels and sent prices into a tailspin. Since peaking at $145 a barrel in July, the price of crude oil has...

Get Henry Paulson on the phone! Somebody reach Ben Bernanke! Call Congress back into session! Crude oil has plummeted to the $70-a-barrel neighborhood. The price of gasoline has plunged to $2.69 a gallon at my local Costco. It’s time for another bailout . . . for the oil companies! Calm down, I’m only kidding. But how much sillier would it be to “rescue” Big Oil than to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars to big Wall Street investment houses that just a year ago were raking in profits (and paying executive bonuses) at record rates? Or to tee up tens...

Cavuto just handed Oreilly his arse on oil companies and banking.it was kind of funny to watch. Cavuto told Oreilly to quit yelling at him...LOL

It was said to be the year of speculators gone wild. Seemingly everyone in Washington, including Barack Obama and John McCain, decided that oil prices were soaring because profiteers and middlemen were manipulating the futures markets. "Speculators" were spotted everywhere this side of the grassy knoll. The only problem is that there's no evidence to support the conspiracy theories -- and sure enough, federal regulators dismantled this Beltway consensus late last week. In one of the broadest and most authoritative studies to date, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has offered hard statistical data that financial trading hasn't been driving price...

Iraq Cancels Six No-Bid Oil Deals United Press International 9/11/2008 URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=66533 The Iraqi government said it has canceled six oil contracts with foreign companies that were awarded in June in a no-bid arrangement. One-year contracts with Shell, Chevron, Total, BP, ExxonMobil and others, meant to increase Iraqi oil production by a 500,000 barrels a day, were canceled after Democratic U.S. senators complained the deals could interfere with Iraqi efforts to pass an energy policy law and reach a revenue-sharing agreement among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, The New York Times reported Thursday. To go ahead with the no-bid contracts "would...

WASHINGTON — Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday. The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with — and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from — oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general. The investigations reveal a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by...

Gov Sarah Palin - just another dirty politician  Barbarians for Sarah Palin (front center)!                                               The top 11 things you should know about Sarah Palin:         1) She is presently under investigation http://www.ktva.com/ci_10026165 in Alaska for abuse of power http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/08/mccains_vp_pick_palin_facing_e.html        2) She strongly supports big oil (her husband works for oil company BP)        3) She believes creationism should be taught in public schools        4) She is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape and incest        5) She has no federal or international experience.  Prior to being governor (for less than two years) she was only the mayor of a small Alaskan town...

An excerpt from Rush Limbaugh dot com, paid subscriber's side:Rush speaks: But the interview with Charles Gibson on ABC, and they write this up at the ABC website: "ExxonMobil CEO and chairman Rex Tillerson defended his company's staggering $11.7 billion in profits for the second quarter, saying that the company's earnings reflected the magnitude of its business operation. 'I saw someone characterize our profits the other day in terms of $1,400 in profit per second. Well, they also need to understand we paid $4,000 a second in taxes, and we spent $15,000 a second in cost,' Tillerson told ABC News'...

As we close up a week wherein Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, on the stump and in a TV ad accused rival Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., of being "in the pocket of big oil," and doing the industry's bidding -- not to mention a week during which the Democratic National Committee launched an Exxon-McCain '08 website to drive home this Democratic talking point -- the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics points out that the issue is a bit more complicated than it first would appear. McCain has received three times more money from the oil industry in general -- $1.3 million...

Here's a little perspective on Big Oil's obscene profits. The first excerpt comes from left coast flagship Los Angeles Times, of all places. Their criticism of raising corporate taxes left me slack-jawed. They summed up the conservative position quite nicely:We hate spending $60 on a fill-up as much as the next person, but we don't think Exxon or its outsized profits should be the impetus for bad policy. As we've said before, it's a bad idea to pile more taxes onto oil companies for supposedly excessive profits. Exxon already faces a stiff tax bill -- nearly 50% of its...

The Democratic National Committee may be trying to get some mileage out of recent news about oil industry contributions to Republican Sen. John McCain, launching a web site spoofing the idea of McCain sharing his presidential ticket with Exxon. But they may have found an unwelcome surprise in a just-released analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Turns out, the biggest recipient of contributions from Exxon executives and employees during this campaign is not McCain. It's Obama. The non-partisan center writes: "Through June, Exxon employees have given Obama $42,100 to McCain's $35,166. Chevron favors Obama $35,157 to $28,500, and Obama...

There has been much discussion (and justifiably so) the last few days regarding the energy crisis, namely the efficacy of drilling versus tire inflation.Indeed, over-inflated tires do help with fuel economy (as McCain has noted on numerous occasions), however it is no substitute for an “all of the above,” cumulative energy agenda – one combining sensible off-shore drilling, nuclear power, clean coal, wind, etc.House Democrats, evidently, have even less to offer than Obama’s “tire gauge” approach. While Democrats remain on their five-week, tax-payer funded vacations, their Republican counterparts stayed on the House floor (in the dark, thanks to Madame Speaker)...

Hat tip bigtimer. Joe Scarborough has estimated that 95% of the elite media will pull the lever for Barack Obama. Even so, evidence continues to mount that the MSM is beginning to view the Dem candidate with a more discerning eye. The latest example comes from an unexpected corner, that occupied by NBC correspondent Martin Savidge. As NewsBusters has reported, on everything from climate change to Jesse Helms to the Jena Six, Savidge has consistently toed the liberal media line. But on MSNBC this afternoon, interviewing an Obama supporter, Savidge surprisingly suggested that Obama was "a bit of a liar"...

For the last several months, the price of oil has been at record highs. Over those months, the companies that sell oil have made record profits. Barack Obama sees that as evil. The rest of us see it as cause and effect. If you drill, pump and sell oil, and your overhead has remained fairly constant, and the price of your product has skyrocketed on the world market, you flunk Econ 101 if you’re mystified by the boatloads of money you’re making. But you’re top of the class in Pandering 101 if you point to those profits and ignite and...

Barack Obama has branded John McCain a stooge of profit-soaked US oil giants, as the White House rivals duelled on high gasoline prices and energy policy exactly three months from election day. Celebrating his 47th birthday, the Democrat launched a stinging counter-attack after the Republican McCain had last week cast him as a vacuous celebrity unfit to lead at a time of gathering crisis. Unveiling a new energy plan, Obama promised a 10-year, $US150 billion ($A161.43 billion) drive to cut US "addiction" to oil from global hotspots like the Middle East and Venezuela. "Breaking our oil addiction is one of...

MoveOn.org, the liberal grassroots group, has unveiled a television ad campaign on energy that is an attack on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and his support for offshore drilling. But free-market critics say the ad reflects more about MoveOn’s ignorance of economics than it does politics. The ad features an older “ordinary Joe,” sitting in a chair, facing the camera, talking about how he used to trust McCain. “Our energy crisis is causing Americans real pain,” the ad’s tag line says. “But instead of solutions, John McCain is offering gimmicks. Americans deserve better.” Ira Pariser, executive director of...

This is from Carpe Diem: Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance's blog... CNN's headline: "Exxon posts record $11.68 billion profit." According to CNN, Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter. That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. Buried in the story we also find that "In addition to making hefty profits, Exxon also had a hefty tax bill. Worldwide, the company paid $10.5 billion in income taxes in the second quarter, $9.5 billion in sales...

Just heard Mark Levin mention this point on his show tonight. The item he referred to is from Mark Perry at istockanalyst.com, who commented on CNNMoney.com's coverage of Exxon Mobil's profit report today: According to CNN, Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter.That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. Buried in the story we also find that "In addition to making hefty profits, Exxon also had a hefty tax bill. Worldwide, the company paid $10.5 billion in income...

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.” Details are in this six-page policy paper. The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall. “This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said. “Or, if you live in a state where it gets very cold...

Petróleos Mexicanos will pay $484,000 a day to Noble Corp. for an oil rig that will allow the company to drill in waters up to 7,000 feet deep for the first time. Pemex, as Mexico's state oil company is known, will take delivery of the Noble Max Smith rig in August under a three-year contract, Noble Corp. said in a statement. The rig is being moved to Mexico from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico following upgrades and maintenance

Energy: Big Oil is easy to kick around — just ask any Democrat in Congress. But China's threats to Exxon Mobil are in another league. Its bid to use Exxon Mobil as a wedge against its rival Vietnam is a case in point.What China's doing in the South China Sea these days is not trade, but blackmail to assert regional dominance. On Sunday, the South China Morning Post reported Chinese officials are threatening to exclude Exxon Mobil from doing business in China if it doesn't pull out of an exploration deal with Vietnam's state oil company, PetroVietnam. The region in...

ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska | This place is a Zen thing. The only way to tell you’ve wandered in is the absence of anything saying so. No signs. No road to get here. No advice from government stewards about what to seek out or what to avoid. No entrance fees and no officially licensed T-shirt. This isn’t just wilderness, contend those who want to keep it pristine, but a sanctuary for wildness. It is also oil country. With just the last half of the last year of the petroleum-friendly Bush administration remaining, the window for opening the land to...

NOTWITHSTANDING a shift by big business to become more socially responsible, Big Oil prides itself in being an island of bullheadedness and smugness. In a capitalist system, rewards of success go to shareholders. But Big Oil has virtually ignored an equally important constituency - the citizens of the United States - who have granted Big Oil the right to extract the nation's most strategic natural resources. In return, they expect them to act as responsible fiduciaries. ... Read the rest of this drivel at the link...

Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. As you prepare to cast your crucial ballots this Fall, please think long and hard about the far-reaching, cumulative effects of the US political philosophies,...

Congressional Democrats now have their unified response to increasing calls for oil exploration in Alaska and in the waters off our shores: The energy companies, they say, are already sitting on plenty of oil, refusing to recover it. But is that true? “Energy companies are not producing oil or gas on 68 million acres of federal land under their control,” claims Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat. “The fact of the matter is Congress has already allowed oil companies to drill, but those companies are refusing to drill because they want to lock up as much federal land as...

*** National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President Wednesday June 9 5:00PM Kwik Trip Station, Corner of Civic Center Drive and 11th Ave NW (in Rochester) Sponsored by Moveon.org This Wednesday, we're pushing back with our National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President. We'll be gathering at gas stations around the country to reach out to voters and make sure they know John McCain is Big Oil's candidate and that he won't solve our energy crisis. Can you join the event in Rochester? Host: Lyle A.—fellow MoveOn member Where: Kwik Trip Station, Corner of Civic Center Drive and...

You would think that this story is right out of science fiction. But the facts appear to be that the US Democrat-controlled Congress intends to destroy the Republican middle class with $11 per gallon gasoline. The Democrats’ base -- wealthy white “limousine liberals”, and very poor people -- won’t be harmed, but the families who live in suburbia will be devastated. The multi-millionaires like billionaire Senators John Kerry & Jay Rockefeller, financial speculator George Soros, filmmaker Michael Moore, and actors George Clooney & Meg Ryan can easily pay for their auto and private jet fuel. Poor people are forced to...

"I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it – 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production." Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that? Perhaps because the notion is obviously false – at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works. Predictably, however, Mr. Obama's claim is also the mantra...

To their everlasting horror, the global-warming alarmists have discovered that ExxonMobil advertises with the Washington Nationals. This act of free enterprise cannot go unpunished, so the global-warming alarmists have initiated a campaign to educate the Lerner family and baseball-supporting public in the hope the Nationals will end their relationship with ExxonMobil. It is unclear whether the global-warming alarmists walked to the ballpark from their homes, took mass transportation or drove there in an automobile. That, of course, is often the rub with the global-warming zealots. They talk a good game if it concerns you, your neighbor and the person down...

Didn't you just know this was coming? A consortium of Western oil companies — the very definition of Big Oil — is on the verge of receiving no-bid contracts in Iraq, giving them access to one of the most sought-after prizes in the petroleum industry, according to The New York Times. Can it be mere coincidence that the leading companies in the deal — ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Total — are the very same companies that Saddam Hussein threw out when he nationalized the Iraqi oil industry more than three decades ago? The American public has been reassured, repeatedly, that...

The Texas oil man discusses the oil-futures market investigation, Yahoo, the presidential election and his wind investments.

So, you hate "big oil" and the soaring gasoline prices they are forcing on you? You've bought into the Democrats and Republicrats rhetoric about greed and "unjustified" profits, and you can't wait for someone to be elected president and get even with those evil corporate robber barons that are profiting at your expense. Well before you get all excited about tearing down the energy industry, stop and think for a moment about what makes your comfortable life possible. Your heat and most of your electricity are provided through the burning of oil and natural gas. The thousands of plastic items...

Recent huge spikes in oil prices are "crazy" and unrelated to supply and demand fundamentals as world markets are adequately supplied with crude, the United Arab Emirates energy minister said on Tuesday. Still, the OPEC member would be pleased to join in a meeting with oil-consuming countries to discuss runaway prices because they are hurting economies, Mohammed al-Hamli said. Saudi Arabia will host such a gathering later this month. "There is no shortage of crude oil in the market. Inventory levels are huge," Hamli said after speaking at a conference in Canada. On Friday, US crude jumped $10.75 to a...

If you’re wondering who owns “Big Oil,” chances are good the answer is “you do.” If you have a mutual fund account, and 55 million U.S. households do, there’s a good chance it invests in oil and natural gas stocks. If you have an IRA or personal retirement account, and 45 million U.S households do, there’s a good chance it invests in energy stocks. It’s a common misperception that oil executives are the only benefactors of industry success. Instead, the bulk of ‘Big Oil’ benefactors are hardworking men and women across America who boost their retirement portfolios through oil and...

If didn't know better, I would think the Democrats are really trying to lose this election. First they offered up the cap and trade global warming bill in the Senate that was quickly withdrawn when they realized what a debacle they were creating for themselves. Then this week they planned to use a windfall profits tax to vilify the oil companies and distract the public from their negligence and malfeasance for failing to enact laws and make policies to encourage the production and distribution of the life-blood of the nation- oil. Congress has repeatedly failed to produce legislation to that would lead to more meaningful energy...

Who owns 'Big Oil?' It's not who you think. A recent study finds that ownership of oil and natural gas company shares is made up of a broad cross section of Americans. "This study disproves the popular misconception that 'Big Oil' is owned by a small group of industry insiders. In reality, across the oil and natural gas industry only 1.5 percent of shares of public companies are owned by company executives," said study author Robert J. Shapiro, undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton. "The data show that ownership of industry shares is broadly middle class,...