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People talk about the fires of Hell. I would offer the example of two men who have been there, done that, and survived to tell the tale. One is Mike Williams, an electronics technician aboard the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded and caught fire. The other is Anthony Gervasio, the chief engineer of the offshore supply vessel Damon B. Bankston, which was alongside as the well began to blow out. The boat begins to go sideways and stops. There is a painter line still attached to the rig, and people are being dumped out of the life raft. The rig's...

California will block the transportation through its state of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs, officials told Reuters on Wednesday, a move meant to hobble the Trump administration’s effort to vastly expand drilling in U.S. federal waters.

News that Morris Dee’s Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) transferred some $5 million offshore in 2014 caught many by surprise. For example, tax expert Amy Sterling Casil, CEO of the nonprofit consulting firm Pacific Human Capital, upon learning of the transactions, said: I’ve never known a U.S.-based nonprofit dealing in human rights or social services to have any foreign bank accounts.… I am stunned to learn of transfers of millions to offshore bank accounts. It is a huge red flag and would [be] completely unacceptable to any wealthy, responsible, experienced board member who was committed to a charitable mission who...

he Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a liberal, Alabama-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization that has gained prominence on the left for its "hate group" designations, pushes millions of dollars to offshore entities as part of its business dealings, records show. Additionally, the nonprofit pays lucrative six-figure salaries to its top directors and key employees while spending little on legal services despite its stated intent of "fighting hate and bigotry" using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy. The Southern Poverty Law Center is perhaps best known for its "hate map," a collection of organizations the nonprofit deems "domestic hate groups"...

Tim Cook, J.P. Morgan, and George and Amal Clooney should realize that some[i] of the millions they are donating to the Southern Poverty Law Center is going to end up in the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy havens. The SPLC is a big business that raises far more than it spends, and is building up assets in places that offer secrecy as a marketing point. We know this thanks to some admirable (and often tedious) digging through publicly available documents filed with the IRS by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Joe Schoffstall of the Free Beacon deserves much credit:...

outhern Poverty Law Center Transfers Millions in Cash to Offshore Entities Left-wing nonprofit pays lucrative six-figure salaries to top management BY: Joe Schoffstall August 31, 2017 5:00 am The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a liberal, Alabama-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization that has gained prominence on the left for its "hate group" designations, pushes millions of dollars to offshore entities as part of its business dealings, records show. Additionally, the nonprofit pays lucrative six-figure salaries to its top directors and key employees while spending little on legal services despite its stated intent of "fighting hate and bigotry" using litigation, education,...

In another move to free up domestic energy supplies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday aimed at lifting the Obama administration’s offshore drilling restrictions.For decades, bad policies have blocked access to America’s abundance of domestic resources, yet America has still managed to be a global energy leader. Trump’s executive order, “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” could unleash further success in the energy sector.The economic potential sitting just off America’s coasts is enormous. The Outer Continental Shelf is awash with natural resources, containing an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.Realizing...

Trump warned companies of “retribution or consequences” for leaving the U.S. Donald Trump warned U.S. companies of “retribution or consequences,” such as a massive tariff, if they leave the country. In a series of early morning tweets Sunday, Trump said companies with offshore factories would face a 35% tax on products they want to sell back in the U.S. “The U.S. is going to substantialy [sic] reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will...

It might not be a great time to start offshore drilling, with oil prices as depressed as they are, but it might just be a great time to buy an offshore drilling rig for a cut-rate price—in fact, you might be able to get one for only one tenth of what they cost in 2011. This is the cost coup recently pulled off by Ocean Rig, a company controlled by shipping billionaire George Economou, who has landed a drillship—the Cerrado—for only US$65 million at auction, which represents less than 10 percent of the estimated price when it was built over...

What would Hermione Granger say? Actress Emma Watson has been named in the so-called "Panama Papers" as having used a company based in a Caribbean tax haven to handle her money, it was revealed Tuesday. The 26-year-old, who is taking a break from acting to work as a United Nations goodwill ambassador and women's rights campaigner, is a shareholder in one of approximately 200,000 offshore corporations whose information was published online Monday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Bernie Sanders loves to denounce the tax dodges of the wealthy (even as he pays 13.4% income tax on a $200K+ income), so it would be interesting to hear what he has to say about John Kerry, the current secretary of state and former Democratic Party nominee for president.  An analysis of public documents by the Daily Caller News Foundation indicates that Kerry and his wife liberally use offshore tax havens.  Richard Pollock writes: … a DCNF investigation has confirmed that the former Massachusetts Democratic senator and his billionaire wife, using an elaborate set of Heinz family trusts, have...

The Obama administration unveiled new regulations on offshore drilling on Thursday, rules that were several years in the making. The regulations stem from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a well blowout that resulted in the death of 11 workers and one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. The regulations call for new well-control measures, limits the volume of fluids that can be injected into wells, and requires heightened well monitoring. ExxonMobil and other companies say the rules will impose costs as high as $25 billion over the next decade, pushing many offshore projects...

he prime minister of Iceland resigned on Tuesday, succumbing to political pressure two days after an enormous leak of documents from a secretive Panamanian law firm about offshore shell companies and tax shelters. The resignation of the prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, was the first prominent political fallout from the document leaks known as the Panama Papers, which have shed a harsh light on the private financial activities of many rich and powerful people.

A network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn has laid a trail to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. An unprecedented leak of documents shows how this money has made members of Putin’s close circle fabulously wealthy. Though the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern...The documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend….. The Panama Papers disclose that Kovalchuk and Bank Rossiya achieved the transfer of at least $1bn to a specially created offshore entity called Sandalwood Continental. These funds came...

The massive Leviathan gas field was discovered in Israel’s offshore Levant Basin over six years ago, and while it theoretically puts Israel on the global energy map for the first time and could change the geopolitical dynamics of the entire Middle East, the Israelis themselves seem to be doing everything in their power to keep it from coming online. Its owners—U.S.-based Noble Energy and Israeli partner Delek Group—along with their shareholders are probably wondering if gas is ever going to come out of this giant of giants. At stake is a massive gas field worth $5-$6 billion and believed to...

ConocoPhillips officials say the company will stop searching for oil and gas in deep-water fields by 2017, and it plans to sell the offshore leases it doesn’t intend to drill. Its exit from deep-water exploration would free up roughly $800 million in capital, the amount it has budgeted for exploration next year. Plus, it will save on costs on that side of the business, Matt Fox, ConocoPhillips' executive vice president of exploration and production, told investors on Thursday. “It’s a strategic decision to exit deep-water exploration,” Fox said. It is part of the company’s plan to sell $1 billion to...

Offshore engineering company McDermott International’s stock shot up by more than 30 percent Wednesday after the company said it had landed a $1.5 billion-plus contract with Saudi Aramco. McDermott CEO David Dickson called the contract an important step in a turnaround for the Houston-based company, which as recently as 2013 had been struggling to build offshore platforms and support structures profitably. Investors sent the company’s shares up $1.03 to $4.49 in midday trading Thursday. “We had a tough time through the end of 2013; 2014 was a real turnaround,” Dickson said in an interview with FuelFix. He joined McDermott in...

Activists trying to stop Shell’s offshore oil drilling in the U.S.’s Arctic Ocean region invoke the interests of native Alaskans. “These communities depend on this environment for food and resources and have stewarded it for centuries,” Greenpeace says, as part of its “The People vs. Shell” campaign—what the group describes as possibly “the most important fight in environmental history.” A lot of native Alaskans, including many who live along the state’s North Slope, would prefer that Greenpeace mind its own business.

The developer of the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm installed the first steel foundation for the project off Rhode Island’s coast. The Sunday installation of Deepwater Wind Block Island Wind Farm came just in time for a Monday tour of the site that will include Obama administration officials, lawmakers and Rhode Island’s governor, among others. ADVERTISEMENT “It was a very big moment,” Jeffrey Grybowski, Chief Executive Officer of Deepwater Wind, told the Providence Journal shortly after watching the first foundation’s installation from a boat. The company had hoped to install the foundation on Thursday, but the weather did not...

Ridgewood Energy is not letting $50 oil shift its aim. The energy company focused on the deep-water Gulf of Mexico closed a nearly $2 billion private equity fund that it contends will still prove profitable. Houston- and New Jersey-based Ridgewood said its new $1.94 billion, Ridgewood Energy Oil & Gas Fund III is its biggest yet and exceeded its initial $1.5 billion target. As other companies slow down their expensive deep-water Gulf investments, Ridgewood says it can find and develop oil there for $20 a barrel or less, although the break even is closer to $35 a barrel with other...