Free Republic

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn’t own. As he does it, it will be praised as a planet-friendly wind project. The basic story amounts to this: Pickens, thanks to favors from state lawmakers whose campaigns he funded, has created a new government whose only voters are two of his employers; this has empowered Pickens to more cheaply pump water from an aquifer and, by use of eminent domain, seize land across 11 counties in order to pipe the water to Dallas. To win environmentalist approval of this hardly “sustainable”...

The Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, according to a report Wednesday. The Bakken Oil Formation, which covers North Dakota and portions of Montana and South Dakota, is believed to have 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951. In 2007, EOG Resources of Texas drilled a single well in Parshal N.D. that is expected to have yielded 700,000 barrels of oil. Marathon Oil is investing $1.5 billion and drilling 300 new wells. In the next 30 days, the U.S....

The oil industry has known for decades that there was oil in North Dakota's Bakken Formation. But until recently, few thought it was worth chasing. The Bakken, an immense blanket of rock that covers about 200,000 square miles, stretching from Saskatchewan to straddle western North Dakota and eastern Montana, has long frustrated efforts to extract its oil. The oil was two miles down and trapped in tightly packed horizontal layers of shale that were easy to miss with conventional drilling. By 1999, when oil prices were low, the industry had largely given up on North Dakota, recalls Ron Ness, president...

Brazil has announced the discovery of a huge offshore oil field that could contain between 5 to 8 billion barrels of oil, enough to expand the country's proven reserves by 40 to 50 percent. The "ultra-deep" Tupi field was found under 7,060 feet of water, another 10,000 feet of sand and rocks and a further 6,600 feet of salt – a total of 4.48 miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Sergio Gabrielli, the chief executive officer of the state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA told Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Monday that reserves in the pre-salt...

I know this is petty and I shouldn't be waisting freepers time with this, but I couldn't help but notice something on The Drudge Report that caught my eye. Tell me what you think. I'll refrain from commenting until I have my suspicions reinforced. The picture is below.      

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The world's oldest person has died. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden was 116 when her time came today in a Memphis, Tennessee, nursing home. She'd lived there several years, but relatives say she spoke very little after a stroke two years ago.

SINGAPORE - Crude oil prices retreated Monday as traders took profits following recent gains and amid easing worries about Iran's nuclear dispute after the country's top nuclear negotiator expressed optimism that the standoff can be resolved peacefully. Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell 37 cents to $73.72 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The drop came after oil prices had climbed for most of the last two weeks, reaching an intraday record of $75.78 a barrel on Friday before settling back at $74.09. The Brent crude contract for August fell 27 cents to...

SHEPARD SMITH JUST ANNOUNCED: HOUSE APPROVES ANWR DRILLING!!

A mysterious black blob attacked downtown Los Angeles on Monday with a tar-like goo that oozed from manholes, buckled a street and unmoored a Raymond Chandler-era brick building, firefighters said. About 200 residents were forced to flee as a hazardous materials team and dozens of firefighters worked throughout the day to identify what was first deemed "a black tarry substance" and later morphed into a "watery mud." While outside temperatures struggled to break 60, sidewalks in the vicinity steamed at 103 degrees, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers said. "It's worrisome in the fact that it will keep the...

Called my sister shortly before midnight. She said her husband has three guns loaded to shoot off for New Year's Eve. I don't approve of this. I told her to shoot the guns into the ground, not into the air.They followed my advice. When my nephew shot one of the guns into the ground he hit a water pipe. Now water is gushing out of the ground. Just desserts. What can I say?

Norwegian oil company Hydro announced on Monday a promising oil discovery under the oil and natural gas fields already producing at the enormous Troll field in the North Sea. The Oslo-based petroleum and light metals group said prospects for developing the find in the deeper rock structures were promising because the oil is so close to an existing offshore field. Hydro said further tests and drilling will be needed to determine the amount of additional oil that could be produced. Troll is Europe's largest natural gas field currently in operation, and also produces 260,000 barrels of oil per day from...

Today, my mother asked me to come see something in their Los Gatos back yard. She took me out to the corner of their large lot (large for Los Gatos, anyway), and she pointed out to me some black, shiny substance seeping out of the ground in patches, and along a line about 10 feet in length. The last heavy rain had made this substance come to the surface. I said "It looks like oil," and she said she thought so, too. I stuck my finger in it, and it was black, slick, and after I'd rubbed it around to...

Nov. 4, 2004, 12:10AM Bin Laden has more to say Terrorist claims Iraq's 'black gold' bedazzled Bush By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD Associated Press CAIRO, EGYPT - Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden claimed in new video footage broadcast Wednesday that President Bush ignored warnings against invading Iraq because he was dazzled by the country's "black gold" and ended up leading the United States into a quagmire. The full video, portions of which were broadcast Friday, was posted on a Web site used by Islamic groups Wednesday. The tape shows the author of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks accusing Bush of acting...

<p>Amid sloping hills dotted with grazing Black Angus cattle in Pickett and Fentress counties, the most valuable money-making venture may be underground.</p> <p>Last month, a Kentucky company hit oil on a farm in Pickett County. The pressure of oil naturally bubbling to the surface has been so great that the producers have been unable to remove the drill for the past 25 days.</p>

LONGVIEW, Texas - A Texas woman has struck oil — or maybe it struck her. Leila LeTourneau returned from work late Monday to find crude oil covering her home’s floors and spilling from the toilets, bathtub and sinks. Experts have told her the oil kind of “burped up.” ...Darned msnbc excerpts!

Longview home’s oil mystery solvedBy JOHN LYNCHIt was oil a mistake. Authorities have discovered the cause of the Monday gusher at a Spring Hill home: a sewer line accidentally patched into a saltwater disposal line. "Obviously, someone wasn't hooking things up right," said Lance Lunsford, spokesman for the Texas Railroad Commission, which had been investigating. "Nobody I've talked to has seen anything like it." Lunsford said when the disposal line backed up Monday, the oil surged up the pipes at Liela LeTourneau's home on Terri Lynn Drive, drenching it in Texas Tea. She found her home had been flooded with...

Crude Oil Bubbles Up Into Woman's Home Officials Find No Cause For Sticky Situation LONGVIEW, Texas -- When visiting the home of an east Texas woman, you can't help but think about the television show "The Beverly Hillbillies." That's because Leila Letourneau's home is literally filling up with so-called "black gold." Oil, that is. According to Letourneau, she returned home Monday to find that an inch of raw crude oil had seeped up from the ground and into her home. Despite the unusual occurrence, Letourneau said hers is the only house in the neighborhood to be affected. "I went to...

TEHRAN, March 6, 2003. /from RIA Novosti correspondent Nikolai Terekhov/. - Iraq has dropped bombs hitting 2,500 oil fields that cover a vast area. According to the IRNA agency, the bombing near Sharjeh resulted in the explosion of an oil refinery near Kirkuk. Some oil-bearing wells were mined with antitank mines. The Iraqi Army units are ditching around near Baghdad and Kirkuk round the clock to resist the US Army.

Larry Klayman, chairman and general council of Judicial Watch, holds a news conference on suit filed against Vice President Dick Cheney in Miami Wednesday, July 10, 2002. The group said it was suing Cheney and Halliburton Co., the oil services company he ran for five years, alleging fraudulent accounting practices at the company. (AP Photo/Hillery Smith Garrison) Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel of Judicial Watch, holds a news conference in Miami to announce that Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday, July 10, 2002. The group said it was suing Cheney and Halliburton...

Suit Claims Fraud by Cheney, Oil Co. Wed Jul 10,10:41 AM ET By TIM REYNOLDS, Associated Press Writer MIAMI (AP) - A watchdog group on Wednesday sued Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites) and Halliburton Co., the oil services company he ran for five years, based on allegations of accounting fraud. Photos Reuters Photo   Washington-based Judicial Watch filed a shareholder lawsuit against Cheney and Halliburton, alleging that the accounting fraud led to shareholder losses. The lawsuit claims Halliburton overstated revenues by $445 million from 1999 through the end of 2001. "Halliburton overstated profits that many American...