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Oil & Gas/Fact & Fiction SeriesStrategy: Wittingly or not, President Obama has contributed to high oil prices by stymieing U.S. production. But if that's the idea, it makes sense to secure energy abroad. He hasn't. In fact, Obama's stated policy, in his March 30, 2011, energy speech has been a crude central planner's diktat of reducing oil imports by a third over the next 10 years and replacing them with increased production of biofuels and other unproven "green" energies yet to be developed. Net result: high oil prices and reduced U.S. access to overseas suppliers. A shrewder strategy would have...

Soaring gas prices pose a major electoral vulnerability to a President so damaged he refused to celebrate the two year anniversary of his marquee domestic accomplishment. That is why, for the past several weeks, President Obama and his administration have been in damage control mode. At stops around the country, he sought to deflect blame for the pain Americans are experiencing at the pump. President Obama’s basic defense goes something like this: presidents cannot control the price of gasoline, but I have increased domestic oil production and decreased our reliance on foreign oil, so really, when you think about...

President Barack Obama is in my home state of Oklahoma today, touting his tired talking points about energy in little Cushing, “the town that fossil fuel built.” For the record, most Oklahomans aren’t happy he’s here. The state administration will give him no official welcome and protesters have already gathered near the location of the president’s speech, which — predictably — was closed to the public. First, listen to this portion of the president’s energy address (h/t Greg Hengler).

President Barack Obama and his green energy confederates are determined to scare the public about a declining supply of "fossil fuels." If we accept the idea that oil is produced by the conversion of organic matter -- from plants to dinosaurs -- under extreme pressure, we must also accept the idea that there is a limited supply of oil and that we've got to do everything we can to find a replacement for fossil fuels before we run out. The evidence is mounting that not only do we have more than a century's worth of recoverable oil in the United...

President Obama says he wants to end subsidies for what he calls "the fuel of the past," but lucky for him oil and gas will be the fuels of the future too. His budget-deficit blowout would be so much worse without Big Oil, because the truth is that this industry is subsidizing the government. Much, much worse, actually. The federal Energy Information Administration reports that the industry paid some $35.7 billion in corporate income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which data are available. That alone is about 10% of non-defense discretionary spending—and it would cover a lot of...

BAGHDAD, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. supermajor Exxon Mobil won't be able to take part in an oil and natural gas licensing auction scheduled for May in Iraq, a spokesman said. Iraq is expected to put around a dozen oil and natural gas blocks up for auction in its fourth licensing round, scheduled for May. Exxon Mobil is prohibited from taking part because it has contracts with the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. "The Iraqi government has decided that Exxon won't be allowed to participate in the next oil- and gas-bidding round," Faisal Abdullah, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry,...

Even the worst of presidents cannot stop the best of times, and it's beginning to look as if an unprecedented energy boom just might save President Barack Obama's re-election, despite his undying efforts to thwart energy development. He's worked hard at it, you know, and few things I've read sum it up better than a Wall Street Journal article by Stephen Moore. He interviewed Harold Hamm, an oil-company CEO who first discovered the Bakken oil fields in Montana and North Dakota, which was a bit like discovering gold in California in the 19th century but more than that. This is...

Dr. Ann Maest is a managing scientist at Straus Consulting, and she’s the go to expert on all things groundwater. In the press release announcing her reappointment to the National Academy of Sciences, they mention that she is focused on the environmental effects of mining and petroleum extraction and production, and, more recently, on the effects of climate change on water quality. Maest is in high demand as an expert for those looking to stop oil and mineral exploration. She’s also heavily used by the federal government, even though after new details about her past work are coming to light...

As we sprint toward the first official vote of the Republican primary season – to decide who will (hopefully) replace President Obama on January 20, 2013 – it is essential that we focus on the real goal. Rather than go after each other, the candidates must continue to confront the policies of the most inept President in modern times. The following is a selection of issues the candidates should emphasize as the rationale for replacing our current President: 1. Gibson Guitar – The Obama Administration entered the headquarters of an internationally-renowned, iconic American company and treated it like it was...

There is a revolution going on in America. But it is not part of the Tea Party or the loud Occupy Wall Street protests. Instead, massive new reserves of gas, oil, and coal are being discovered almost everywhere in the United States, due to revolutionary methods of exploration and exploitation such as fracking and horizontal drilling. Current prices of over $100 a barrel make even complex efforts at recovery enormously profitable. There were always known to be additional untapped reserves of oil and gas in the petroleum-rich Gulf of Mexico, off America’s shores, and in the American West and Alaska....

The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.

(Seattle - Oct. 21, 2011) Today, EPA Region 10 issued a final air permit to Shell Offshore Inc. for oil and gas exploration drilling in the Alaska Arctic. This air permit is one of several federal authorizations Shell needs to explore for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Beaufort Sea starting in July 2012. The permit authorizes air pollutant emissions during Shell’s exploration drilling with the Kulak drill rig and a support fleet of icebreakers, oil spill response vessels, and supply ships for up to 120 days each year…EPA’s final permit significantly reduces the potential air...

Over the past three years, we have seen a dramatic rebound in America’s oil and natural gas production after a hiatus of almost 40 years. This has occurred despite falling output in Alaska, the moratorium on deep-water drilling imposed in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil-rig blowout last year, and extremely low prices for natural gas. New technologies for extracting oil and gas from deep under the ocean floor as well as shale formations have been largely responsible for the country’s fossil fuel renaissance. All this is good news for America’s consumers. Though gasoline and diesel prices have...

What if you paid $38,000 to lease a house and were then told you cannot move in until some studies are done to determine if it is safe, but you do not get your money back? Years go by while the landlord is holding your money. This is exactly what the Obama administration has been doing to the oil and gas industry since May of 2010. The same Obama who is crisscrossing the country touting “fair.” On Friday, a US District Judge, appointed by Obama, decided that the administration wasn’t playing fair. In October 2010, the Western Energy Alliance (WEA),...

Southwestern Energy Co., Houston, said it has accumulated 460,000 net acres prospective for oil in Upper Jurassic Lower Smackover Brown Dense limestone along the Arkansas-Louisiana state line. The unconventional play is the first the company has revealed publicly of several new ventures it has been pursuing the last 1-2 years and in which it holds a combined 835,000 net acres. The formation’s commerciality is still to be determined, Southwestern said. Southwestern plans to spud its first horizontal well in the play, in Columbia County, Ark., just southwest of Atlanta and east of Dorcheat-Macedonia oil field, late in the third quarter...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list the dunes sagebrush lizard, or sand dune lizard, as an endangered species, a move that could restrict oil drilling, grazing and off-road vehicle use in the lizard's habitat in southeastern New Mexico. The Center for Biological Diversity said an endangered species designation would require limits on herbicide spraying used by some ranchers and restrictions on oil and gas drilling, plus additional funding for research and the development of a recovery plan. ... A 60-day public comment period begins with the publication today of the proposal in the Federal Register. Fish...

The British newspaper The Independent reported today that Gulf oil producers were negotiating with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the dollar in pricing oil with a basket of currencies.[1] According to the Wall Street Journal, Arab oil officials have denied the story, but even the possibility of such a talk weakens the dollar and renews fears about its continued viability as an international reserve currency.[2] In fact, today a United Nations official called for a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar and end our “privilege” to run up huge deficits.[3] We can see the effect of...

US Sen Bingaman Outlines Climate Change Energy Legislation WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Influential Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has set the stage for a congressional battle with the Obama Administration over upcoming climate legislation. Bingaman, who heads the Senate Energy committee, outlined Thursday a package that would give a major boost to the renewable energy, efficiency and transmission sectors and reveals that, despite their censure of the oil industry, Democrats acknowledge that crude oil will play a vital role in the nation's energy mix for years to come. Speaking to reporters at a Platts Energy Forum, Bingaman said his energy...

----snip---- Then there is the granddaddy of them all: the oil shale in Green River Formation, which goes through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. According to a RAND Corp. study, there are 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels worth of oil shale in the Green River Formation. That is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. At $95 a barrel, it was not economically viable to develop these resources, but at $130 it definitely is. Furthermore, Shell Oil scientists have already conducted small-scale field tests that if replicated on a large scale would make developing the oil shale...

Sunday, June 10, 2007 Peter J. Robertson had no idea what he was walking into Tuesday morning. The vice chairman of Chevron Corp's board of directors was visiting The Oregonian's editorial board, and I had just filled up at the gas station. Like many Oregonians, I was not a happy. I had just spent $3.29 for a gallon of gas. Admittedly, my TNG Milano 49 only needed a gallon for a week of commuting, but this cheapskate didn't join Scooter Nation to watch Big Oil gobble up my gas savings. I wanted answers, and I wanted them now. More to...