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Energy Policy: The chief economist of the International Energy Agency says the world is running out of oil. We've been told that for the last 150 years. The only thing we're running out of is the will to drill.Ever since the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pa., in 1859, experts have been predicting we would soon run out of oil. The latest is Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency in Paris, whose job it is to assess future energy supplies by OECD countries. In an interview with the Independent, Dr. Birol says that based...

Energy: With Ahab-like determination, environmentalists have once again blocked oil exploration in the American Arctic. They may just have succeeded in putting the American economy on ice.On Friday, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals Court panel in Washington, D.C., struck down the Bush administration's five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing off Alaska's northern coast. The plan was vacated, the panel ruled, because of allegedly insufficient environmental review because its "environmental sensitivity rankings are irrational." What is irrational is that despite a more than three-decade long record of environmental sensitivity at Prudhoe Bay and elsewhere, and despite booming polar...

The recent discovery of a massive oil field in the Gulf of Mexico has crude oil refinery companies projecting its potential output to be well over 15 billion barrels. If these projections are true the impact of this discovery will be much greater than the actual discovery itself and may have encouraged continued crude oil dependency in the midst of a universal push for alternative fuel sources. It would certainly have a significant impact on crude oil consumption in the United States. According to the US Energy department, Americans consumes roughly 5.7 billion barrels of crude oil annually with reserves...

Why I Walked Out of ‘Year One’ Crying by Victoria JacksonI had a date with Judd Apatow. It was around 1991 and I was between husbands: the out-of-work-Jewish-Gypsy-fire-eater-musician, and the high-school-sweetheart-Baptist-helicopter-police-pilot. I needed a date to a premiere. I knew the rules of engagement for a Hollywood career, and I tried to follow them. It’s difficult to do this when you carry the burden of ethics around with you, but I tried to do it and stay within the bounds of morality. 1) Go to the right places. I went to the Playboy Mansion to find an agent, and I...

. Legendary oil man T. Boone Pickens says that if the U.S. doesn’t take major steps to curb its reliance on foreign oil, the consequences will be drastic. “Let’s say in 10 years, you do nothing,” Pickens tells Fortune. “You will be importing 75 percent of your oil (up from 68 percent now), and you’ll be paying $300 a barrel.” .

NEW YORK -- Oil prices rose above $65 per barrel Thursday as OPEC maintained crude production levels as expected and a pair of economic reports suggested an economic rebound may push energy prices higher. Benchmark crude for July delivery added $1.56 to reach $65.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a six-month high. In London, Brent prices gained $1.80 to $64.30 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. Retail gas prices have shadowed oil prices, ticking higher every day this month. Gas prices are not only rising because of crude. Refiners, stung by falling demand for gasoline, have...

Crude rises as U.S. inventories fall unexpectedly By Moming Zhou & Nick Godt, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures were slightly higher Wednesday, with gains capped as investors looked past a surprising decline in last week's U.S. crude inventories and focused instead on weak demand and lower refinery production levels. The decline in crude inventories was not driven by higher demand but by lower imports, Energy Information Administration data showed. Meanwhile, the decline in gasoline inventories was driven by lower production, with refineries reducing their utilization level to the lowest since September. Total petroleum consumption was still markedly lower...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil prices fell Tuesday as investors respond to the expiration of the May futures contract and ongoing economic concerns. Light, sweet crude for May delivery was down $1.06 to $44.85 a barrel in pre-market, electronic trade in New York. The May contract, which expires Tuesday, tumbled nearly 9% in the previous session. Oil for June delivery was down $3.96 to $48.51 a barrel. Trading is often volatile in the days leading up to the expiration of monthly futures contracts as investors not wishing to take delivery of physical oil roll positions into the front-month contract. Meanwhile,...

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. >

President Obama on Saturday struck back aggressively at critics of his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, casting himself as a populist crusader whose "sweeping change" has angered Washington's entrenched special interests, and promised to fight them. "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington," Mr. Obama said in his weekly video and radio address. Mr. Obama's language was combative and confrontational, as he promised to fight for "American families." "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

Barack Hussein Obama will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases in his FY 2010 federal budget to be presented this week.The massive tax increase and power grab was buried at the end on article on Obama's forthcoming budget proposal in The New York Times:On energy policy, Mr. Obama’s budget will show new revenues by 2012 from his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the government for greenhouse gas emissions above a certain cap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the permits would raise up to $300 billion a year by 2020. Since companies would pass their...

VIENNA - Surging crude inventories and investor skepticism over the U.S. stimulus package dragged oil prices below $36 ($35) per barrel Thursday. Investors seemed more wary than relieved after U.S. lawmakers finally agreed overnight to a $790 billion stimulus bill designed to pull the economy out of recession.

It seems like only yesterday that 'Drill, Baby, Drill' was the incantation heard throughout the land. Memorably pushed during the presidential election by Sarah Palin and supported with slightly more nuance by John McCain, opening up new sites for oil exploration, offshore and elsewhere, was said to be utterly essential. Drilling would reduce American dependence on foreign oil and feed the ever-expanding domestic demand. That was when gas was $4 a gallon at the pump. Today, it is selling for less than $2, although that is a rise from the low point it had reached recently. Politicians are no more...

When oil rocketed past $100 on its way to $147 a barrel last summer, analysts frequently commented that prices "were not supported by the fundamentals." Now, with oil trading between $35 and $50 in recent weeks, a few questions keep crossing my mind. Do the current "fundamentals" support $40 oil? What price do the "fundamentals" support? In 2009, with the world a different place after an economic meltdown, just what the heck are the modern "fundamentals" of the energy market? I called John Olson, the co-manager of Houston Energy Partners, for some answers. Olson told me that the fundamentals of...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Oil prices fell below $40 per barrel Friday for the first time this year as the government reported the nation's worst annual job losses since World War II. People are traveling less, manufacturers are slashing production and there are job cuts across almost every sector of the economy, leading to a severe drop-off in energy use.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices slid 12 percent on Wednesday, the largest percentage drop in seven years, after a U.S. government report showed crude inventories rose much more than expected in the world's top energy consumer. Crude oil stocks swelled by 6.7 million barrels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said, more than seven times the 900,000-barrel increase analysts had expected. Gasoline and distillate stocks also rose as refinery utilization climbed and demand remained sluggish. U.S. crude for February delivery settled at $42.63 a barrel, down $5.95 or 12.25 percent, the biggest single-day loss, percentage-wise, since prices plunged 15.25 percent...

NEW DELHI, Dec 24 (Reuters) - India's Reliance Industries (RELI.BO) is set to double its capacity by starting up its new 580,000 barrels per day plant (bpd) this weekend, creating the world's biggest refinery just as global oil demand collapses. The $6 billion project will make the oil complex in Jamnagar in western Gujarat the world's single biggest supplier of fuels to the global market, pumping out 1.24 million bpd of ultra-clean fuels to Europe, Africa and the United States. The project is a triumph for Chief Executive Mukesh Ambani, who helped break India's heavy reliance on imported fuel a...

Crude is down no matter what OPEC does Because no matter what promises each member makes to limit production and reduce production...... You have a situation where where each OPEC member has to pump and sell much much more to pay for their hare brained schemes. Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad come to mind. Pooty is hurting too

Over the next year, the U.S. government will need to borrow somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion, the most ever by far. Estimates go as high as $2 trillion, depending on how quickly the economy cools and how fast tax revenues fall. The simple question most of America has not asked is this: Where is the money going to come from? The federal government already knows the answer to that question, and it has implications Americans are not ready for but will soon be faced with. America is going cap in hand to Middle East oil exporters. What government...