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President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered key figures in his administration to put together a plan to get funding to the struggling U.S. oil and gas industries as a historic selloff in crude continued. “I have instructed the Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Treasury to formulate a plan which will make funds available so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, as West Texas Intermediate crude futures for May delivery again traded in negative territory.

On Monday, U.S. oil prices fell below zero for the first time ever, shocking observers and raising doubts about the solvency of oil and gas companies coming out of the coronavirus crisis and the oil selling war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. These negative prices were distressing news for the U.S. economy, threatening livelihoods of oil and gas workers and the availability of the gasoline Americans will need after the crisis ends. Yet Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) saw them as a reason to celebrate. "You absolutely love to see it," AOC tweeted. "This along with record low interest rates means...

Leave it to CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta to look for any opportunity, even a coronavirus-induced oil crash, to get in an amateurish zinger at the president. When the price of oil crashed below $0 to mark the lowest level for a contract on record, Acosta took to Twitter to find an older April 2 Trump tweet to prepare his one-liner. Trump tweeted: “Just spoke to my friend MBS (Crown Prince) of Saudi Arabia, who spoke with President Putin of Russia, & I expect & hope that they will be cutting back approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe...

The NYMEX price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell into negative territory on Monday, the lowest level ever recorded, and the only real question is why was anyone surprised by this turn of events? Think about it: As much as we like to talk about renewables and the Green New Deal and all the other pop-culture things, the global economy still runs by and large on oil and natural gas. Demand for oil is entirely dependent on economic growth. As the U.S., China and well over 150 other countries have gone about closing down vast swaths of their economies to...

President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. is "looking to" add as many as 75 million barrels of oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Trump spoke after an historic day in the oil [cl.1] markets, in which the May WTI crude contract closed at -$37.63 a barrel, a one-day drop of 306%. Trump said he was considering the move "based on the record low price of oil," and that the action would "top it out." Speaking at a White House press briefing, Trump said, "we'd get it for the right price."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted -- then quickly deleted -- a celebration of the news that U.S. equity markets crashed on Monday, with oil prices turning negative for the first time in history. The resulting social media flareup highlighted the unprecedented stakes of the current economic crisis heading into the 2020 presidential election, and underscored Republican complaints that their rivals were looking for ways to use the moment for political gain. "You absolutely love to see it," Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described "democratic socialist," wrote on Twitter. She was responding to a post which stated: "Oil prices now at 'negative values,' meaning...

The coronavirus crisis is cutting a savage swath through the U.S. clean energy industry – some 106,000 jobs in the sector vanished in the month of March alone as demand evaporated amid nationwide stay-at-home orders Moreover, that one-month job loss was greater than what the industry gained in jobs in all of 2019. By June of this year, the clean energy sector may lose up to 500,000 jobs – or 15% of the country’s entire clean energy workforce -- according to a study by clean energy advocacy group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), in cooperation with the American Council on Renewable Energy,...

Following other prominent left-wing lawmakers, Biden had quite the slip of the tongue recently when he told virtual CNN town hall audiences there’s an “opportunity” to exploit the coronavirus pandemic to “fundamentally change the science relating to global warming.” Biden seemed to suggest that the global pandemic presented the perfect opportunity for Democrats and progressives to expand the scope of federal economic and environmental policy. “It’s like the New Deal. Think of every great act, every great change that’s taken place. It’s come out of a crisis. … What we did, we expanded opportunity. And I think we have an...

... Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the volume of Saudi crude en route to the United States is seven times higher than the typical monthly intake of Saudi oil in 2019. The tankers were loaded before OPEC+ struck a new agreement to take 9.7 million bpd off the market in May and June when Saudi Arabia had embarked on an aggressive price war for market share after the previous OPEC+ deal collapsed in early March. ...

Fox morning news is reporting that Oil Prices have dropped to 11 dollars per barrel. What does this mean? Eliminate and/or reduce gas taxes and we may have .33 cents per gallon gas again.

Think I am going to be topping off my gas tank every time I go out. I saw a report the other day where there was a gas station in the Midwest that had 12 cents a gallon. Right now ever gas station is filled. The gas trucks are on hold ,and we even have ships that cannot deliver sitting off the coasts because there are no trucks and port is full. It's a good time to buy the dip. Nevertheless, this economy needs to be turned back on.

U.S. crude oil futures turned negative Monday for the first time in history as storage space was filling up, discouraging buyers as weak economic data from Germany and Japan cast doubt on when fuel consumption will recover. Physical demand for crude has dried up, creating a global supply glut as billions of people stay home to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery fell more than 100% to settle at negative $37.63 per barrel. Meanwhile, international benchmark, Brent crude, which has already rolled to the June contract, traded 8.9% lower at $25.58 per...

U.S. crude futures for May delivery, the near-term contract, sank to their lowest level on record ever Monday, falling below $10 a barrel as traders fretted over the capacity of storage facilities both in the U.S. and abroad. At last check, West Texas Intermediate crude fell 74% to $4.72 a barrel. Contacts for June delivery declined 23%. "In my view, the plunge in oil prices speaks to the decline of global growth as demand dries up," said Dan Russo, chief market strategist at Chaikin Analytics, a quantitative investment research firm based in Philadelphia. "This could be a concern for investors...

OPEC, Russia and other oil-producing countries, collectively known as OPEC+, have reached a tentative deal to cut oil output by 9.7 million barrels a day due to the coronavirus pandemic. Talks between the countries had hit a last-minute hurdle last week when Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared reluctant to cut his country's production levels. But Mexico's energy secretary confirmed Sunday that a deal had been reached. President Trump confirmed Sunday that a deal had been reached. The countries’ delegations are set to hold an emergency meeting Sunday evening to finalize talks, Azerbaijan’s energy minister said, telling CNBC the...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - An oil exploration firm has discovered a deposit of potentially 1.8 billion barrels in Alaska's North Slope region south of Prudhoe Bay, the company said. Pantheon Resources PLC said it located the deposit along the Dalton Highway and Trans-Alaska Pipeline System corridor, The Alaska Journal of Commerce reported Wednesday. The London-based company made an updated evaluation of an old exploration well and used information gleaned from recent nearby drilling, officials said. The prospect, called Talitha, could be the latest in a series of big North Slope oil discoveries over the past five years.

New Mexico’s oil and gas industry is teetering on a near-shutdown, slammed by plunging demand for oil and an unprecedented global market glut that’s slashed prices to 20-year lows. New drilling in the Permian Basin in southeastern New Mexico is screeching to a halt, and many producers are starting to shut in existing wells to await better times. That, in turn, foreshadows a double whammy on the state budget, as government revenue tumbles from plummeting oil prices and forthcoming production declines.

A Canadian company said Monday that it’s started construction on the long-stalled Keystone XL oil sands pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, despite calls from tribal leaders and environmentalists to delay the $8 billion project amid the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesman for TC Energy said work began over the weekend at the border crossing in northern Montana, a remote area with sprawling cattle ranches and wheat fields. About 100 workers will be involved in the pipeline’s early stages, but that number is expected to swell into the thousands in coming months as work proceeds, according to the company. The 1,200 mile...

Oil prices spiked on Thursday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump said that he spoke with the Saudi Crown Prince, and hoped and expected that Saudi Arabia and Russia would “cut back approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more,” sending oil prices soaring by 20%.

President Trump on Thursday said that there could be a drop in international oil production of 10 million to 15 million barrels as the U.S. oil industry is hit by plunging prices linked to international disputes. "Just spoke to my friend MBS (Crown Prince) of Saudi Arabia, who spoke with President Putin of Russia, & I expect & hope that they will be cutting back approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more which, if it happens, will be GREAT for the oil & gas industry!" he tweeted, referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. "Could be as high...

Whiting Petroleum Corporation WLL has become the first oil and gas sector casualty of the current slump in crude demand in the wake of the coronavirus or Covid-19 global pandemic, and the price war between producers triggered by Saudi Arabia and Russia. Early on Wednesday (April 1), Denver, Colorado, U.S.–headquartered Whiting announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, prompting a suspension of its shares (NYSE:WLL) on the New York Stock Exchange. In a statement, Whiting said its board had concluded that given a severe downturn in oil and...