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Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips are walking away from their multibillion-dollar investments in Venezuela, further evidence that the relationship between Western oil companies and oil-rich countries is more troubled than at any point since the 1970s. The rising tension is forcing companies to choose whether to accept less control of investments and smaller returns in order to remain in countries with ample natural resources. That could have big implications for Western oil companies, which are having trouble tapping new reserves, as well as for global consumers and their growing thirst for oil. The companies feel they won't get adequate value...

HOUSTON, April 16 — Tyson Foods and ConocoPhillips have cooked up a new recipe for your pickup truck. The two companies announced Monday that they were forming an alliance to produce and market diesel fuel made from pork, poultry and beef fat. It was another sign that farmers and agribusinesses, which are now producing corn for ethanol, will be playing an increasingly large part in the country’s energy future. The new brew should be available at the neighborhood filling station by the end of the year. The companies said that the diesel, which will be shipped and distributed through existing...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, June 23 (Reuters) - Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski aims to negotiate a revised contract for a $20 billion natural gas pipeline before a general election in November, a top aide said on Friday. The Republican governor may alter about 15 points in the initial pipeline contract he negotiated with ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research), BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) earlier this year in response to public comment and criticism, said Jim Clark, Murkowski's chief of staff. "(The hope is that) we'll be able to get the various provisions renegotiated and come...

The Talk Shows Sunday, June 18th, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House press secretary Tony Snow; New Democrat Network President Simon Rosenberg; former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister, ConocoPhillips Corp. Chairman James Mulva, Chevron Corp. Chairman David O'Reilly. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Snow; Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. THIS WEEK (ABC): L. Pre-empted for World Cup coverage.LATE EDITION (CNN) : Snow; Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Iraqi...

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for Saturday June 17th and Sunday June 18th, 2006 (not the live thread)The main message is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos) 'This Week' will NOT air on Sunday, June 18, due to ABC's coverage of World Cup soccer. 'This Week' returns on Sunday, June 25ABC This Week comment web page CBS Face The Nation (Bob Schieffer) Meme: Big couple of weeks for Bush in Iraq, so what's wrong with this picture?Tony...

by Mark Finkelstein May 8, 2006 The worst possible 'solution' to the high cost of gasoline would be price controls, since they would simultaneously drive down production and drive up demand. But running a close second and third in the bad-idea sweepstakes would be a windfall-profits tax on oil companies and a cap on the amount oil companies can pay their executives. Two out of three ain't bad, so let's give GMA's Charlie Gibson an A- in his attempt to demagogue the gas-price issue this morning. His guest was the soft-spoken James Mulva, Chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, the nation's...

Excerpt - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is planning a new assault on Big Oil, potentially taking a major step toward nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry that could hurt oil-company profits, reduce production and put further pressure on global oil prices. Venezuela's Congress, made up entirely of Mr. Chávez's allies, is considering sharply raising taxes and royalties on foreign companies' operations in the Orinoco River basin, the country's richest oil deposit. Major oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips of the U.S. and Total SA of France have invested billions of dollars there to turn the basin's characteristically tar-like oil...

NEW YORK, Dec 9 (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Friday said its cash capital budget for 2006 would rise by about 45 percent to $10 billion as the oil company embarks on a multiyear program to upgrade its refining capacity. A ConocoPhillips spokeswoman said that figure did not include investments in Russian oil producer Lukoil, in which Conoco holds 14.8 percent with an option to go to 20 percent. The $10 billion amount compares to a $6.9 billion budget for 2005. Including capitalized and minority interest, the 2006 budget is $10.5 billion as against $7.4 billion for...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska: Alaskan officials agreed to key terms of a contract with one of three oil companies negotiating to build a 2,100-mile (3370-kilometer) natural gas pipeline from Alaska through Canada and into the Midwest U.S. ConocoPhillips agreed to provide Alaska with a fair share of the revenues, access to the gas and job preferences for Alaskans on the pipeline, among other demands, said Gov. Frank Murkowski. "We're now one step closer to making an Alaska natural gas pipeline a reality,'' said Jim Bowles, president of ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. "The journey has just started.'' Terms of the agreement with ConocoPhillips won't...

The story of Hurricane Katrina is first and foremost a tale of the wrath of Mother Nature and the resulting human misery: thousands of deaths, destroyed homes and businesses, family break-ups, psychological demoralization, and other hardships too painful to recount. But Katrina is also an economic story in terms of its impact on U.S. commerce, trade, energy, shipping, and overall growth. Here the doomsayers and pessimists are once again going to be proven wrong. This is not the 1970s. After more than twenty years of deregulation the U.S. economy is flexible and resilient -- even in the face of short-run...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Stop endangering employeesBy John R. Lott Jr. and April L. DabneyPublished August 23, 2005 Banning guns from the workplace seems like the obvious way to prevent workplace violence. At least that is the policy at ConocoPhillips and many other companies. The nation's largest oil refiner bans employees from storing locked guns in their cars while parked in company parking lots. The issue erupted this month when the NRA announced a boycott of Conoco and Phillips 66 gasoline stations and editorial pages across the country attacked the NRA's action as outrageous.     Two-and-a-half years ago, 12 employees at...

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, says he will spare no expense or effort to expose energy giant ConocoPhillips for its anti-Second Amendment stance. Look for billboard advertising soon that says as much. An NRA-sponsored national boycott campaign against ConocoPhillips also will begin. The sparks flew after LaPierre spoke at a rally in Idabel, Okla., to support employees fired by the Weyerhaeuser Co. because they kept legally owned firearms stored in their locked vehicles in a company parking lot that was publicly accessible. Since the firings, the Oklahoma Legislature has passed a bill to prevent such...

Fresh from its victory last week, when a timorous Senate voted to protect the gun industry from damage suits, the National Rifle Association is now urging a boycott of a major energy company, ConocoPhillips, that dares to protect its employees from gunplay in the workplace. With a sense of civics worthy of the O.K. Corral, the N.R.A. announced a national campaign, replete with billboards, to urge gun lovers to bypass Conoco and Phillips 66 gasoline stations until the company drops its ban on employees' keeping firearms in company parking lots. ConocoPhillips ran afoul of the N.R.A. when it joined in...

How a misguided defense of gun rights undermines a free society The most commonly heard complaint about the National Rifle Association is that it's run by extremists who are militantly opposed to all forms of gun control and do not represent the views of the average gun owner. The second most common complaint is that the NRA is a namby-pamby, inside-the-Beltway lobby that readily compromises principle for political advantage. There is some truth to both of these seemingly contradictory portraits. The NRA's single-minded determination to defend its own understanding of the right to keep and bear arms can lead it...

NRA Launches National Boycott Against ConocoPhillips Monday, August 01, 2005 LaPierre says NRA will “spare no effort or expense” to defend firearm freedom of employees of anti-gun corporations -- NRA billboard campaign unveiled: “ConocoPhillips is No Friend of the Second Amendment” (IDABEL, OK) – Vowing to “spare no effort or expense,” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre launched an aggressive billboard advertising and national boycott campaign against energy giant ConocoPhillips, in response to the corporation’s anti-gun policy and actions. “Across the country, we’re going to make ConocoPhillips the example of what happens when a corporation takes away your Second Amendment...

CALGARY - The oil companies behind the $7-billion Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline announced Thursday they had stopped most work on the project, saying there hasn't been enough progress in resolving several key issues, including access. The pipeline partners said they remain committed to the project, but said progress has been so slow on bridging some differences that they are unwilling – at least for the time being – to commit more money. Imperial Oil leads four companies in Mackenzie Valley project The oil companies said they would stop project execution work like geotechnical data gathering, the start of...

...The Kyoto idea is 10 years old now, and no better for its age. The U.S. wisely chose to forgo the pact, as the long- term costs add up to hundreds of billions a year across the world economy, not to mention untold lost economic opportunities. The energy industry has heretofore backed this U.S. decision, noting that even Kyoto's defenders have admitted the pact wouldn't slow climate change.... What's changed the industry's tune at the broadest level may be the Bush Administration's Clear Skies program, a smart pollution-reduction proposal that may pass Congress next year. That program, about to be...

Conoco Phillips Co. plans to spend about $700 million in Alaska next year on exploration and production activity, executives with the Houston-based energy firm said Friday. The planned spending is part of a $6.9 billion global capital budget that commits $1.4 billion for exploration and production in the North Sea and West Africa; $900 million for the Asia Pacific region; $900 million for the Lower 48 and Latin America; $700 million for Canada; and $400 million for Russia and the Caspian Sea region. The Alaska money will go toward drilling four North Slope exploratory wells this winter, plus work to...

ConocoPhillips Buys $2 Billion Stake in Lukoil By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND Published: September 29, 2004 MOSCOW, Sept. 28 — ConocoPhillips, the American energy conern, paid nearly $2 billion at auction today for the Russian government's stake in the oil giant Lukoil, a purchase the two companies said sets the stage for potentially huge oil drilling projects in both northern Russia and Iraq. ConocoPhillips, the third-largest oil company in the United States, was widely expected to win the auction. Two other bidders showed up at the perfunctory 90-second auction, but it was unclear whom they represented. Nearly all industry analysts agreed...

TRIPOLI, Libya (Reuters) - The Libyan government has accepted responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (news - web sites) and set up a fund to compensate victims' families, Foreign Minister Mohammed Abderrahmane Chalgam said on Wednesday. The United States has demanded that Tripoli accept the responsibility for the bombing and pay compensation before U.N. and U.S. sanctions can be scrapped, a moment eagerly awaited by at least four U.S. oil companies. A British official said after the announcement Washington and London were discussing the outstanding requirements. "We have taken on the responsibility for this case on the basis of...